The wrong education

[Skybird]

http://www.achgut.com/dadgdx/index.p..._of_education/

That is because today’s graduates are brought up and educated to believe that their imagined intellectual brilliance and personal exceptionality will make up for everything else they are lacking. It’s the result of an education system that confers degrees and qualifications on young people without teaching them anything that would actually make them employable: knowledge, work ethics and some basic business skills.

To be clear, this is not a New Zealand problem. When I recruited for policy researchers in my previous jobs at think tanks in the UK and Australia, I encountered the same issues. Colleagues in Germany tell me they are experiencing the same problems.
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What is even more disturbing about these candidates is that their marks are usually very good. I have even interviewed economics PhDs who couldn’t name a single famous economist and who were blissfully unaware of any economic policy discussions.

lt is equally troubling that candidates’ lack of knowledge inversely correlates with their self-confidence. Cover letters, sometimes stretching over several pages, boast about the candidates’ “very unique [sic]” attributes, and their ability “to think outside the box.” To be blunt, I sometimes wish they could at least think within the box before trying to venture anywhere else. Apart from that, proper grammar and orthography would be a plus but seem to be optional.
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Having to constantly endure these theoretically intelligent and well qualified, but unknowledgeable and underwhelming interviewees, it makes me wonder what has happened in education – primary, secondary, and tertiary – to produce this calibre of candidates.

It seems to have become fashionable to cotton-wool students at school and university. Teaching is no longer primarily about conveying knowledge but encouraging students to develop it themselves. The role of the teacher is no longer as an instructor but rather as a moderator or facilitator.
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At the same time that basic standards in core competencies such as reading, writing and maths decline, grades have bizarrely improved. Again, this is a phenomenon in many developed countries. As a result, one German university now only accepts students for medicine with the best possible school leaving qualification. More and more students achieve what was previously regarded as outstanding and exceptional marks.

Despite this grade inflation across the developed world, Western students are now outclassed by a large margin in the OECD’s PISA assessment by students from China, Singapore and Hong Kong. In maths, sciences, and reading these students leave their Western contemporaries far behind. Perhaps this is because of a greater emphasis in their cultures on hard work, precision and preparation that the West has lost?

[Takeda Shingen]

Another pundit that thinks the answer to education is just work harder. If it was that easy we would have solved things long ago.

Oh and yes, the proper role of the educator at any level is that of facilitator. The sage on the stage who enters the hall at 10, walks to the lectern, opens his notebook, begins reading aloud until 1, closes his notebook and walks out of the hall is an example of the very worst type of educator you can have. A real teacher facilitates learning; he does not dictate it.

[Skybird]

That simple he said things not. But you sound as if he has hit the right nerve.

Over here, there is an inflation of good grades for sure. Better notes for same performance, or same notes for lower performance - that was Germany's reaction to early PISA tests. But more and more students entering university do not meet the minimum needs in maths. Same is true for lower schools, releasing kids that cannot be employed in companies for craftsman jobs without even giving them basic training in correct writing, and elementary math. Heck, that at least is the minimum what they should bring from school, the absolute minimum!

Instead we have had an invasion of "feel good" pedagogues since the lat 60s and early 70s, and the dogma of what in Germany is called "Reformpädagogik", oh I love it so very very much. No longer are standards used to assess the performance of students, but their own judgement has become the standard, their own action experience of how they perceived the process of learning (or not learning) was for them. And when no longer general standards are used to assess performance and skill, but just the subjective self-perception of the performer, the result of such learning successes all too often is called by the name "dilettantism". Not his real skills and abilities, but just what he wants to be in his dreams becomes the standard by which he assesses himself. And that is the prototype of the ideal person for the modern funf-fun-fun society. The dilettant is the hero of the modern present. Politics, banking, economics, opinion-formers, TV talkshow masters - they all have nothing to say and are highly successful by that, or they even do plenty of damage, that like in a fairy tale does not hinder them to boast with it, because external standards are not to which they compare themselves to, but just their own subjective feeling of how they imagine they are. You must not be a skilled, qualified master of your profession anymore: just to imagine that yoiu already are, today is good enough and makes you boasting with how great you are.

No Takeda, your acid reply means little here, the man has it just right. Experiencing oneself and the flow and that grades should not be evertyhing, all that is nice and well, but one thing nobody at schools today likes to get reminded of: the need for discipline. And discipline shows not when the kids learn things that they take interest in anyway, because never had a kid to be told to do what it likes to do anyway. Discipline shows when it sticks to the effort of learning something even when it is not interesting, and is not easy, a problem that does not just collapse under the first eruption of esprit and problem-solving, but takes more time to master. But if this is being talked of, one immediately gets called an "authoritative" backward-oriented drill instructor who damages tender soft children-souls and damages unfolding intellects by overloading them too carelessly. Hahaha. I wonder where the growing number of students who cannot master the four basic calculations in maths and cannot read fluid and cannot write without revealing a discouraging incompetence in grammar, expression and orthography, are coming from, if the new teaching models are so nice and well!? For the German industry, it is a problem, and it costs it money: real, solid money, and much of it. At the same time, really talented, intelligent children get pushed under the wheels and get rolled over as well, for the low standards do not lead them to ever needing to show real endavour and skill, since doing less already is enough to solve excercises and problems and get plenty of appreciations and compliments, and so they get used to problems disappearing before them without them needing to really fight for that. They never learn how to learn. The result is showing a bit later: an extremely low frustration tolerance, followed by a lowering of intrinsic standards to adapt them to the new lower performance level of theirs, and voila: they claim to be fantastic again, because they cope with their frustration by lowering their standards by which they judge themselves. And so, step by step, the self-perception sooner or later hits the ceiling and the boasting knows no limits - while the real skill levels knock at the door to the basement. That is dilettantism in its purest form: when not the real competence and skill and performance counts for a grade or an assessment, but just the imagination of onself that one is great. I must not be competent, it is enough if I just imagine that I am competent. Greetings from Deutschland sucht den Superstar (DSDS), and American Idol - easy-peasy fame for free! The dilettant of today not only knows no shame, but he is a real exhibitionist for sure and even founds a career on his inability. And the others make him a hero for a day.

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by Skybird

That simple he said things not. But you sound as if he has hit the right nerve.

Over here, there is an inflation of good grades for sure. Better notes for same performance, or same notes for lower performance - that was Germany's reaction to early PISA tests. But more and more students entering university do not meet the minimum needs in maths. Same is true for lower schools, releasing kids that cannot be employed in companies for craftsman jobs without even giving them basic training in correct writing, and elementary math. Heck, that at least is the minimum what they should bring from school, the absolute minimum!

Why are all these students entering these universities? Why are they being retained when they are not passing muster? When you can answer those questions, dear Skybird, you may begin to understand what the problem is. I see the problem first hand every day, dear sweet Skybird. It is not a blog post to me, precious Skybird. It is not an angry rant on an internet forum, beloved Skybird. It is what I deal with every day.

I would suggest some reflection on the subject rather than your typical knee-jerk ranting. Until then, you continue to spit in the wrong direction while congratulating yourself for your brilliance; much like this blogger and countless politicans across the globe. And all the while the system continues to fail.

[Skybird]

My brilliance fades beside yours, dear Takeda.

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by Skybird

My brilliance fades beside yours, dear Takeda.

It does, but do you have answers to the questions I posted? I know what the answer are, but I want to see if you do, or if you are just spewing hot air on this matter.