Importantance of Each Level of Education

[Skill_Caster]

I've been analyzing my past educational now that I'm close to graduation. I know that the standardized tests are based on high school math subjects - Geometry, Algebra I/II, english subjects, and so on. But, is that all?

 

If you were to relearn, or say, "re-teach" yourself your past educational courses, which ones would you choose? My main interest is - would you bother relearning any topics outside of your (current/past) high school education?

 

I've been looking in retrospective, and I can't see anything worth relearning from elementary/middle/pre-secondary schools. I feel like they were just steps to get up to high school courses.

 

What do you think?

[RpgGamer]

It's all generally necessary. While, no you probably won't ever need to know how to calculate the molar value of Hydrogen, it is an important skill to learn about things that you don't care about for your future benefit. high math courses improve critical thinking, along with lit analysis classes.

 

They designed highschool the way they did for a reason.

[tripsis]

I feel like everything I've learned other than writing classes has been useless for me. I understand how some classes are important for people who go on to pursue a career in science/math/history/languages or another subject that requires retaining a lot of knowledge and/or constantly builds upon itself, but that doesn't really apply to me. I'm a digital artist. So all the math, science, etc. I learned is completely irrelevant for me. I didn't even learn digital art in school, that was all self taught in my free time. So I feel like education has really just been one stepping stone leading to the next, all so I can get a piece of paper from a university that will make me "qualified" for decent jobs. Of course there are other things you can consider like social and academic maturity and logic/critical thinking skills, etc. But in terms of the actual information, it has been pretty useless for me. I also feel like I've learned more critical thinking skills from hobbies I've pursued in my spare time than from educational classes.

 

I do feel that writing classes are beneficial for everyone though. Regardless of your career path, writing will come in handy. It is so important to be able to express yourself through writing and be able to communicate clearly. This is useful for many job-related tasks or even just applying for jobs.

[Ginger_Warrior]

I think it's important to remember that education isn't meant to prepare someone for a specific job--that's what training is for--but is meant to provide people with a wide range of skills which they need to succeed through life in general. If you look at surveys asking employers who take on new graduates what they think their new employees are lacking, hardly any of them say literacy skills. They're more likely to suggest a lack of commercial awareness and critical thinking. In other words, graduates can read and write and have 'crammed' well enough to pass exams, but they don't have a clue about the world around them and cannot analyse new information in order to evaluate what it means.

 

With that in mind, perhaps it's time we focused less on reading textbooks in a classroom and actually gave children some more hands-on, or even vocational, experience. Obviously this would only be appropriate for teenagers rather than anything younger. At the very least we could teach them be become more business-savvy, perhaps making business studies a mandatory requirement in high school (US)/college (UK).

[Sy_Accursed]

@Tripsis I'd disagree with that writing classes thing, beyond a certain level in lower school where you learn to write you pick up what you need via English Lang/English lit. Plus most writing classes that aren't a total rip off either cater to creative writing or people who, for whatever reason, really can't write to a basic school level. The later don;t benefit you if you can write, the former only help if you have the natural flare from creative writing. I study creative writing at university and in the first year we had about 20 drop outs who took the course to learn to writing better, but found it was not for them as they couldn't write good stuff to begin with; opposed to myself and other students who could write creatively and gained a lot from the course.

 

@Ginger_Warrior making business studies mandatory is an awful idea. Not everyone really cares how a business works in that much depth and it wouldn't particularly help with "commercial awareness" to a specific industry; besides in the UK at least at college level there's loads of vocational and hands-on courses and apprenticeships. Also the issue of being unable to analysis I'd say is more an argument agaisnt vocational courses earlier on. Sure some subject such as history and science you have to cram 100% certain facts and methods in to you're head; but English literature is all about opinion and any answer is valid as long as you can reasonably back it up from the text and/or literary theories. Anybody who studies English literature well has no issue with critical thinking or with evaluating new information and the same can be applied to many other subjects as well. It's not a flaw of education that people lack these skills; it is a personal flaw that they don't apply them or bother with the world around them.

 

I'd agree with most general sentiments so far, all the lower school system education is about giving you a good grounding in the basics of how the world around you works and also teaching you various life skills. (Critical thinking, analysis, problem solving etc.) then as you progress up the ladder of education you narrow it into a more specific path for you that does have relevant content as well as skills.

[Zierro]

My post would come out almost exactly the same as Tripsis'. And while that specific class Ginger mentioned might not be for everybody, I do agree with his point that classes should be more relevant to today's standard of living.

[sees_all1]

I would re-learn recess, lunch, and nap time.

 

I learned a bunch of stuff in high school that I don't have to "re-learn" because I still remember it, and because its required. I wouldn't do anything from K-8 though, as their teaching generally sucked.

[The Observer]

High School offers content so that you are able to explore the possibilities of what you want to do. That's why you learn such a vast amount of subjects. It helps you choose where you want to go. Yes, most of it is useless considering if you are becoming a Pharmacist, you will probably need your Biology and Chemistry, but you won't really need Physics or World History. As you move higher up past high school, you tend to specialize more into a specific career field. Even if you become a doctor, there's many different sub-categories within that. eg. Oncologist, general practitioner, medical researcher, nurse, trauma surgeon, etc. This makes a lot of the subjects even more useless.

[Range_This11]

I would not re-learn anything, but I wish my high school would have prepared me better for a four year university. The only class that I have used is my advanced English class senior year. The teachers were too busy teaching to a standardized test to teach us anything useful.

[dusky]

Elementary: Society's way of getting you to learn to hate your life.

Middle School: A test to survive severe limits of social cruelty.

High School: A trial of endless and awkward attempts to get laid.

College: To give 50-100 grand so you can find a job that pays 40 grand a year.

[Lenin64]

I'd relearn almost everything but chemistry, because [bleep] chemistry, physics is where it's at. And english. I can write well, but I don't enjoy it, and I like to read, but they like to try and find analysis where there is none and those classes gave me nothing. Even though history has little bearing in the engineering world, I'd still retake it because that's just real cool to know. At least, military and European history.

[Kimberly]

If I could go back, I would grasp my younger self by the shoulders and shake them violently. I would tell them to never abandon their hope, because they are ten times smarter than they truly realize, with ten times more determination and will than most kids. I would tell them to push themselves as far as they could go and take full advantage of highschool, in AP courses, SAT prepping, getting scholarships. And then I would tell them to stay the [bleep] away from computer programming, because although they're good, they're going to hate it.

 

And then my younger self would probably slap me across the face and run away, doing everything as it already had been done.

 

I simply didn't have the maturity or experience at the time to know what opportunities were passing my way, and nothing would've changed that. I needed to make the mistakes I made to get where I am--and that includes my scholastic escapades. There is no single subject that would've helped me out more than the other, nothing that I 'wished I had learned' that I can't learn now.

[All_Is_Great]

Man I slept through alot of chem classes.... and math :mellow:

 

I would relearn calculus, but im planning on doing that in uni.

[Lose No Hope]

I'd retake my middle school English classes with better teachers. My teachers never taught me well in English, and I was a pretty horrible writer for a few years. The worst part was the fact that I got A's easily in those classes. They never graded quality as well as they should have.

 

I'm extremely happy that my writing abilities have experienced drastic improvements in high school.

 

Oh and a class that I'd never want to retake would be the mandatory "Computer Literacy" class that freshman have to take. It's a semester of going over programs that I learned to use when I was 10...

[Giordano]

If I could go back, I would grasp my younger self by the shoulders and shake them violently. I would tell them to never abandon their hope, because they are ten times smarter than they truly realize, with ten times more determination and will than most kids. I would tell them to push themselves as far as they could go and take full advantage of highschool, in AP courses, SAT prepping, getting scholarships. And then I would tell them to stay the [bleep] away from computer programming, because although they're good, they're going to hate it.

 

give him this:

[hide][/hide]

 

Fixed it for ya. :mrgreen: It's the wisest investment as any!

 

 

Now, for on-topic, I feel High School should really be revamped into the 21st century. Cramming more books and hours isn't going to improve our education. We need interactive teaching, varied courses, and most importantly, relativity. Also, TECHNOLOGY SHOULD BE EMBRACED not expelled. I hated my school for that.

[Lose No Hope]

If I could go back, I would grasp my younger self by the shoulders and shake them violently. I would tell them to never abandon their hope, because they are ten times smarter than they truly realize, with ten times more determination and will than most kids. I would tell them to push themselves as far as they could go and take full advantage of highschool, in AP courses, SAT prepping, getting scholarships. And then I would tell them to stay the [bleep] away from computer programming, because although they're good, they're going to hate it.

 

give him this:

[hide][/hide]

 

Fixed it for ya. :mrgreen: It's the wisest investment as any!

Lol'd irl

[Furah]

I wish to go back and pay attention for English, Chem, Physics and Maths. Then go and learn them at levels beyond what I reached (I left after 4th form.)

[The Dark Lord]

If I could go back, I would grasp my younger self by the shoulders and shake them violently. I would tell them to never abandon their hope, because they are ten times smarter than they truly realize, with ten times more determination and will than most kids. I would tell them to push themselves as far as they could go and take full advantage of highschool, in AP courses, SAT prepping, getting scholarships. And then I would tell them to stay the [bleep] away from computer programming, because although they're good, they're going to hate it.

 

And then my younger self would probably slap me across the face and run away, doing everything as it already had been done.

 

I simply didn't have the maturity or experience at the time to know what opportunities were passing my way, and nothing would've changed that. I needed to make the mistakes I made to get where I am--and that includes my scholastic escapades. There is no single subject that would've helped me out more than the other, nothing that I 'wished I had learned' that I can't learn now.

 

I think I'd pretty much do the same if I could go back in time and speak to my past self during my high school years. I could have definitely put a lot more work into my studies, and I could have graduated with much higher than 3.5 cumulative GPA...

 

In college I work a lot harder and have about a 3.8 GPA, and the only reason it isn't 4.0 is because I was used to being lazy (like I was in high school) when I first came to college... And looking back at the classes I was taking in high school and the relative difficulty when compared to college courses, it would have been a no-brainer to graduate high school with a 3.9-4.0 GPA. I should have taken more AP classes in order to earn college credit - AP English, AP Biology, and AP Chemistry in particular.

 

I know I had some difficulty with math in high school, but that was only due to having [cabbage]ty teachers. I just finished taking my second semester of remedial algebra, and now I feel like I have a better grasp on the subject than I did in high school.

 

-----

 

Kind of off-subject, but I definitely feel that the American school system needs drastic improvements. After going to college, it was pretty overwhelming when I realized just how useless ~50+% of my highschool teachers were. Some of my teachers literally did NOT teach us. And by this I mean they [bleep]ed off to a corner of the room and had us read from the text and work by ourselves. [bleep] those kind of people. This would accurately describe my Biology, French III, and 9th grade earth science teachers, and those are the only ones that I can recall off the top of my head.

[Furah]

Trust me, many western school systems need reformation. Not to mention a purging of the teachers and an increased budget. Why spend all that money on defence when you take funding away that would have allowed you to make even bigger advancements and smart enough soldiers to use the weaponry?

[Resistance]

Primary school

Your SATs results in primary school usually determine what sets you are in in secondary schools, in the UK the results of your SATs would depend whether you went to a grammar school or not however this doesn't happen anymore. If you want to get into a grammar school then the Primary School will play an important part in any tests you do.

 

Secondary School

Secondary school is where you can get your GCSEs, if you get A*-C or A*-B grades they can make a huge impact on what courses you are allowed to do and what sixth form you can go to. Secondary school is the second most important as it is what decides what you will specialise in.

 

Sixth Form/College

This is the most important, many people choose to get a job after this. If you fail at this you won't get into university or be able to do important further courses. This is sort of like a weak-spot in a building.

 

University

This will reap the most rewards but it will have a lower risk then sixth form/college.

[das1330]

 

Fixed it for ya. :mrgreen: It's the wisest investment as any!

 

 

Now, for on-topic, I feel High School should really be revamped into the 21st century. Cramming more books and hours isn't going to improve our education. We need interactive teaching, varied courses, and most importantly, relativity. Also, TECHNOLOGY SHOULD BE EMBRACED not expelled. I hated my school for that.

 

 

Relativity is already taught in most physics classes - the only reason that it's not explored in detail in high school is the complicated math involved.

[Riku3220]

Also, TECHNOLOGY SHOULD BE EMBRACED not expelled. I hated my school for that.

What kind of technology are you talking about? Smartboards and laptops? Sure. Cell phones and iPods? lol no.

[Kaphias]

In order of importance, from most to least:

1. Elementary School - sets a base for a student's future. A good teacher here will instill a love for learning into all of their students.
   
2. High School - when students are most at risk for dropping out and not continuing their education. Getting students to graduate is a huge challenge but absolutely necessary for their future.
   
3. Middle School - bridges the gap between elementary and high school. Keep students self-confidence up and wanting to learn while they move through their early teens.
   
4. College/University - although a post-secondary education is becoming more important, it is not nearly as needed as a high school diploma.