Member
Failure in our Education System?
I remember in grade school through high school (80s - early 90s) undergoing physical assessments. Pull-ups, pushups, seated hamstring stretches, vertical jump and body fat analysis. I was always terrible at this (except body fat because I was super skinny). At the time I got the impression that these physical traits were things you either had or you didn't. I did well in school mentally with math, science, reading and writing, but I failed miserably in physical education. I was taught math, how to read, science and was tested to assess what I learned. In physical education it was all testing with no teaching. "Oh you can't do any pull-ups that is too bad for you guess you won't be playing on any of the sports teams", as opposed to "you lack strength to perform pull-ups here is how we improve that". If you sucked at math or reading you got put in remedial math or reading, if you sucked at pull-ups or pushups well bummer guess you'll be weak the rest of your life.
25 years later I have finally realized that size, strength, and to some extent athleticism is not something you either have or don't have but is something your body can "learn". It is not something I was taught in school and I feel shortchanged at this point in my life because of it, like not knowing how to speak Spanish and Canadian due to some sort of xenophobic arrogance.
Do you think the education system has some responsibility to teach young people how to improve physical traits along with mental traits?
TMPHBITEU
The "education system" -- and by this I assume you mean the government schools -- have very few responsibilities they actually fulfill. Can you think of any? I can't. So ceding them the responsibility to teach even one more thing their personnel are incapable of even understanding is probably more your fault than theirs.
Member
It is a fairly well documented problem: Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling
Elon Musk on Education - Ad Astra School & How He's Unschooling His Kids
Piaget, Montessori, or Mindstorms by Seymour Papert may be interesting.
PS: Piaget viewed children as "white sheets"... it's wrong. We desperately need to measure an take into account our very different and widely distributed cognitives abilities...
Member
Since the majority of students fall under public education this would be a valid assumption, however I would not limit the discussion but also include private and home schooling.The "education system" -- and by this I assume you mean the government schools
Does private and home schooling curriculum, in addition to the standard reading writing and arithmetic also include development of physical strength?
Maybe a better way to look at it would be from the perspective of educational values. We consider the ability to read a basic ability but not a body weight squat. Is strength just not a value? Should the development of physical strength be an educational value as basic as reading and writing? Do we have some human responsibility to educate the weak just as we make it a priority to educate the illiterate?
Pretty much everyone I went to school with even the ones who eventually dropped out and/or became "losers" all know how to read write and do basic math. Maybe they learned these skills somewhere besides school?Can you think of any? I can't.
When considering the "system" as a whole I would tend to agree however on a personal level this is an overly harsh and general criticism considering there are many intelligent individuals involved in public education who are perfectly capable of understanding why physical strength is important and how to acquire it. What is it in the "system" that prevents their intelligence from permeating the bureaucratic bullshit? Oh wait I think I just answered my own question...their personnel are incapable of even understanding
Well I was a ward of my parents and had no say (nor understanding of why I should go somewhere else) in where I went to school so again an overly harsh and general criticism...probably more your fault than theirs
TMPHBITEU
I'd say that in these cases, parents get to choose the curriculum. If they want their kids taught about strength training, they can decide accordingly.Originally Posted by wiigelec
I obviously think strength needs to be taught as a key component of health and longevity. But requiring it to be taught in the government schools is another matter, especially when most of the government schools can't teach them how to read and add effectively. Bigger fish, etc.Maybe a better way to look at it would be from the perspective of educational values. We consider the ability to read a basic ability but not a body weight squat. Is strength just not a value? Should the development of physical strength be an educational value as basic as reading and writing? Do we have some human responsibility to educate the weak just as we make it a priority to educate the illiterate?
Maybe they did.Pretty much everyone I went to school with even the ones who eventually dropped out and/or became "losers" all know how to read write and do basic math. Maybe they learned these skills somewhere besides school?
Unless you are suggesting that strength be taught in health class, you are going to see such a requirement satisfied by the gym teachers. Think about that just a second.When considering the "system" as a whole I would tend to agree however on a personal level this is an overly harsh and general criticism considering there are many intelligent individuals involved in public education who are perfectly capable of understanding why physical strength is important and how to acquire it. What is it in the "system" that prevents their intelligence from permeating the bureaucratic bullshit? Oh wait I think I just answered my own question...
I was too. They didn't know any better, and a lot of time was wasted as a result.Well I was a ward of my parents and had no say (nor understanding of why I should go somewhere else) in where I went to school so again an overly harsh and general criticism...
Member
As a homeschooled kid, my philosophy is that parents are ultimately responsible for their child's education and not the state. Whether the parents trust the state, the private sector, or themselves to accomplish the task of teaching children how to live life, is up to them. That being said, saying to schools, "you must teach this and you must teach that and you must do so only one way" is part of what is currently kiling our education system. Free enterprise would benifit education greatly by allowing parents to choose schools based on curriculum. In the context of P.E., this would mean that schools that choose strength as a focal point would get a greater response from the market of parents who want strength taught. The problem with requiring strength to be taught is that now the parents who don't believe in it would get pissed. I do believe that in a correctly taught curriculum that strength would be as fundamental as addition or learning the alphabet. Yes you may have some schools that teach things completely wrong and make the human race worse, but that happens now anyway.
Member
And yet here we all are getting knowledge of strength training despite not receiving an education that included it. This proves that it is not necessary to teach children every subject matter under the Sun, but to educate them on how they can best educate themselves. The mind is a tool, and like any form of tool, the mind has to be used or it falls into disrepair; likewise the body. Some people are going to have the motivation to put in the effort to obtain useful knowledge and some people just aren't. There is little point wasting time on the unwilling, they will either find a way or they won't, either way it's no ones responsibility but their own.
Member
If the goal of the education system was to breed scientific thinking and intellectual freedom then it would already be dead, not just dying.
If the goal of the education system was to breed order followers and a few masters then it would alive and well.
And allowing flat earthers to transmit their ideas to their children is not exactly wise... how could it end well?
Why in the world is it not considered as child neglect?
The widely disparate state of education systems is old news.
This is exactly what is already happening and only a few people can afford to offer "proper" education to their children.
In antiquity, one would have to be accepted (what was the price?) to follow some philosopher. Extreme case: Seneca and Nero.
Today, a lucky few have and are being trained by Pr. Rip.
How many Pr. Flat Earth do you have for one Pr. Rip?
Having an extremely disparate set of education curricula is already the case and always have been.
What's new is that anyone can access Pr. Rip's books now (and almost everything else), provided they have the basics of scientific thinking.
In other words, now that knowledge is widely available, the bottleneck is to learn how to learn, not what to learn.
The signal/noise ratio has changed: before almost everything that was written had some kind of importance because it was so expensive to acquire books.
Today, the signal/ratio is almost zero if you are not careful and incredibly high if your are: we see the world as we are!
In this regards, scientific thinking should be taught everywhere and applied to itself.
I do not want less freedom as far as I'm concerned and specially living among flat earthers or anything that come close.
And flat earthers are everywhere. Each time you see someone playing the lottery, approving CNN, believing Hillary,
giving Mars, chips and coke for lunch to their kids or financing their "sex change" at 13 (i.e. mutilating their genitals) then...
they may as well where tin foil hats, reject the "globe theory" and running around in the streets burning things they don't like.
Member
Some of us survive the trauma of state schooling, we know who we are, we never felt we fitted in, mostly we hated it. Then there are those who loved the process, they enjoyed taking orders to do illogical actions whilst having an ordered existence which discouraged critical thinking. Thinking for some, is just too difficult; repetition from memory and thhe unquestioning obedience to a group of adults claiming authority was the easiest path. Schools do not readily permit questioning, they breed conformity. Excellence is judged by the degree of conformity displayed within a closed system; one which denies intellectual exploration.
Do we really need hoards of mini-mees mimicking identical barbell exercises ? Isn't that simply the beginning of the socialist ideology of collectivism ? Isn't it better that the weak and useless perish and those who aquire greater knowledge and strength survive ? Hard effort, be it mind or body, is not created through the conformity of state education, it is the result of an oft unknown principled drive to be a man, to have pride and confidence in ones competence to face reality head on.
Member
If this is true to you then you should thrive to become a worthy cockroach or tardigrade.
Hardest creatures to kill, hoarder of knowledge through survival in the worst conditions, written in their DNA.
Useful to spread life, even through space. You even may have tardigrade "living" on comets.
"Weak", "useful", "strength", "survival" here may take widely ≠ meanings.
Even in the most concrete interpretation, it's quite a cruel statement.
Be you, a child, being bullied: at this point you may survive or not depending on someone else giving you a hand.
W/o this "deus ex machina" you would perish as a useless fuckhead not strong enough to defend yourself for some reasons.
W this "deus ex machina" you would survive long enough and maybe acquire strength, and find some meaning and usefulness.
It's not clear by any mean, a priori AND a posteriori, if someone is or is not useless or weak and if it's "better" for the others for him to perish in most cases.
For these reasons, I always choose to help when in doubt and reasonably sure that my intervention would not make things worse.
Watching children drawing in water or stupidity is above my strength.
Whenever possible, give a hand instead of watching and saying "muh, if he dies he's weak, if he survives he's strong".
This drive does not come from nowhere: it can be transmitted.
It can be lit up or extinguished.
It can be perverted or corrected.
It can be weakened or strengthened.
"Think for yourselves or someone else will do it for you": when possible give a hand, it will probably be given back to you a hundred times because of network effect.
Posting Permissions
