# American's Ignorance of history is a national scandal



## Metalkitsune (Jul 11, 2011)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...be683c-352d-11e9-854a-7a14d7fec96a_story.html

The article is right. Because seems many schools and colleges nowadays are preparing people for jobs,but not teaching people about any history. Yet they teach stuff like math,the 3R's and such.

One time i was talking about a history thing about the Celts and a person thought i meant the Copts,i'm like what are they even teaching people in schools in Hawaii?


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

You can put that down to modern education techniques. Ignorance of just about everything apart from IT is a scandal


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

“History is more or less bunk.” Henry Ford, 1916


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

“Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.”

― George Orwell, 1984


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

‘Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.’ (George Santayana-1905).


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## Dorsetmike (Sep 26, 2018)

History is written by the winners


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

we also have some problems with how history is tought in schools. The problem is that the curricula concentrate too much on distant past and almost avoid the 20th century. So the children learn about the Bronze Age, ancient Rome and Greece and the Middle Ages, while it would be far more important to teach them about nazism, communism and the 20th century, so that they can better understand the modern world. The biggest attempts to redraw modern history are currently happening in Russia. Poland (and other eastern european countries) have to constantly battle Kremlin attempts to change history. For example they are denying that Stalin and Hitler were collaborators (Ribbentrop-Molotov pact) and that they started the WW2 together. Much of the national mythos of Russia is constructed around WW2 and their great victory in the Great Patriotic War.


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

History is the study of human behaviour, and humans are living organisms. It is therefore a branch of Biology.


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

I 100% agree that knowing history is vitally important. But the article has a bit of a "kids these days!" vibe to it. The author cites declining numbers of history majors at US universities, but that was always a tiny percentage of the population anyway (who take such a special, academic interest in history). I would be curious to know whether the general public's sense of history has changed over the past few generations. I don't know for sure, but I suspect that we are as ignorant as we always were.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

"History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it." Winston Churchill

This line is attributed to Winston Churchill, but, uh, he didn't actually say it. The gist is the same, though. Here's what he actually said: "For my part, I consider that it will be found much better by all Parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history". (Reference is to future history of WWII)

On the teaching of history, creating an interest in history that students will retain into adult life may be more important than the specifics of what is taught. And here we come to the issue of the inspirational, transformative teacher. If the teacher selects an area that truly excites him or herself, and transmits that energy to the students, there is a chance that a seed will be planted and will mature into a lifelong and growing interest in history. I know from my own experience that interest in one particular era or country's past triggers an ever-widening circle of interest.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Strange Magic said:


> "History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it." Winston Churchill
> 
> This line is attributed to Winston Churchill, but, uh, he didn't actually say it. The gist is the same, though. Here's what he actually said: "For my part, I consider that it will be found much better by all Parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history". (Reference is to future history of WWII)


yes, I am sure he left some details out
https://newspunch.com/churchill-russians-death-camps-ww2/
I actually read about this in the Gulag Archipelago


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## senza sordino (Oct 20, 2013)

I am an educator of teenagers, though I am not going to take the blame for this. I am not a history teacher. 

I am often surprised by the lack of history knowledge of some adults. And Geography. And Science. And Mathematics. And English Literature. Etc. 

There are lots of problems with our education system to account for this appalling lack of knowledge even after graduating high school and university. The reasons are complex and deserve an entire thread to themselves. However, grades students receive have never been higher. SAT scores have been on a steady decline yet grades in high school are up. (This stat I read a few years ago, I can't say what is happening now in 2020). I've been teaching 26 years. Students who receive an 'A' today would be lucky to get a 'B' a generation ago. We're lowering standards to accommodate and graduate more and more people.

Though it's not all bad. We do graduate some truly remarkable students. Everyone now graduates, no one drops out, no one fails. How does this happen? We lower our standards. And there is some truly remarkable teaching going on too, there has to be to be able to accommodate everyone, and I mean everyone. 

It's complicated, I can only do the best I can do with what resources I am given. There are many reasons for this phenomenon.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

senza sordino said:


> Everyone now graduates, no one drops out, no one fails. How does this happen? We lower our standards. And there is some truly remarkable teaching going on too, there has to be to be able to accommodate everyone, and I mean everyone.


The IQ, the Bell curve, does not change. People with IQ>120 have a decent chance to do well in a university, people with IQ>140 will have excellent results. A couple of decades ago, we had some 15% of people going to university, the rest went to secondery school (there are different specialized secondary schools), a many just did an appprenticeship (for an electrician, plumber, butcher etc). Since we entered the EU, there has been a constant push to educate more people, so we now have like 50% of people going to a college, but the IQ Bell curve has not changed. Senseless overeducation of people without much potential. And that is why the educators constantly complain about the droping quality of contemporary students and the need to lower expectations on the performance. An example: nurses. A couple of decades ago, a secondery school (a 4 years special school for nurses) was enough. Now they require all nurses to have a college (8 or more years of education). 
PS: colleges and universities are free here, so everybody tries to get some kind of degree nowadays.


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## adriesba (Dec 30, 2019)

I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed this. I think ignorance of history is part of why modern American politics are so polarized, maybe not the biggest cause, but it surely is not helping. I can't say anything about other countries since I don't live in their cultures.

I've noticed an anti-education sentiment on YouTube, adults complaining that school is boring. Education is more than learning a career, but people today want to learn minimal. I just wish these people would see how ignorant they are, lacking knowledge I learned in middle school. I know YouTube isn't a proper overall view of a society, but people like these carry much influence.

I'm a college student, and I've found out that many people can only start in high school level courses. Some people don't even take high school chemistry which I assumed everyone took here.

I hate to say that I sometimes do have a "kids these days" attitude about this even though I'm only old enough to be one of the "kids".

Funny this thread just started since this has been on my mind more than normal recently. I'm not sure how to fix the problem since it seems to be related to American's cultural tendencies from what I can tell. Lowering education requirements is not the answer though.

Boy I've really been ranting about this recently :lol:!
I'm glad there are people who notice these things though.


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## TxllxT (Mar 2, 2011)




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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

senza sordino said:


> SAT scores have been on a steady decline yet grades in high school are up. (This stat I read a few years ago, I can't say what is happening now in 2020).











this is a correlation between an IQ test and SAT scores.

and this is the increase in % of people with various degrees









the Bell curve does not change, which means, that the SAT scores must decline. But that does not mean, that the brightest students today are somehow dumber thant the brightest students 50 years ago. Just the average IQ of students has declined.


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## senza sordino (Oct 20, 2013)

I had to look up what a Ravens gf score was. At the top of the Google Search were stories about the Baltimore Ravens. That I didn't know what a Ravens gf score was tells me my IQ isn't very high. But now I know what it is. 

What Bell curve?

I don't think we are disagreeing because I didn't say that our best students today are dumber than the best students of yesteryear. I can only say, mostly anecdotally through experience, that grades are higher than they used to be. I give far more 'A's than I used to.


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## senza sordino (Oct 20, 2013)

TxllxT said:


>


I am not sure where these stats came from that placed the USA ahead of Canada, Germany and Finland on a school ranking. This image is from a book, but I don't have the book to check their source. Maybe it's a university ranking? I have trouble believing it's a primary or secondary ranking. Tertiary schools are where the USA stand out, MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley etc, not high school or elementary school.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

the test is Raven's Progressive Matrices
and by Bell curve I meant the IQ distribution in a population







50 years ago, were were educating just the top 15%, which meant that their average IQ might have been 125. Now we are education the top 50%, which means that the average IQ is 115. So the current students have lower quality on average than students from 50 years ago, which also means that the quality of the education is going down (because of the need to go slower)

and it is true, that current students are far more coddled with A's given even for an average performance. The culture in education has changed. Students are praised too much.


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## Room2201974 (Jan 23, 2018)

I have a relatively simple and quite inexpensive solution to the lack of history studies in the Untied States*: Give generous stipends to Ron Chernow and Lin Manuel Miranda with the stipulation that a percentage of the profits from future musical collaborations goes to fund history education projects in the areas where their next _Hamilton_ plays.**

* I was going to change this spelling error, but thought it more descriptive of our present history.

** I.............wanna be in the room where it happens, the room where it happens, the room where it happens


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

In the current ‘The Bachelor’, one of the women talks about the ‘finasco’ going on. Another woman then pronounces ‘lingerie’ phonetically.


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## Totenfeier (Mar 11, 2016)

In American schools now:

A = Doing good work; you'll pass

B = Doing acceptable work; you'll pass

C = Working well below your capability; you'll pass anyway, so why bother?

D = You don't give a good goldarn, but we'll pass you anyway because low dropout rates/high graduation rates are all that matters

F = Spend three weeks in online credit recovery; you'll pass!

Cyril Kornbluth's "The Marching Morons"? "Idiocracy," anyone?


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

I am an American citizen. I got an excellent education. I grew up in Canada. 

On the other hand, American kids do get a good education in some schools. My daughter teaches a 5th grade class at an excellent public elementary school. Years ago, my wife taught at the same school. From everything I’ve seen, the education there is excellent. Anecdotal I know.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

It's nothing new. Read Orwell's short essay, Propaganda and Demotic Speech published in 1944. People choose not to read and educate themselves. And it's obvious many kids never paid attention to anything that was taught in school. And these folks are incapable of entertaining the idea that history is a version of what happened in the past or last week and there are differing points of view.

About 30 years ago a friend of mine rented a room in my house for a year and a half. We grew up within five miles of each other and went to public school. But after a number of conversations it was very apparent that he knew nothing about basic history or geography. How does this happen? And why can't people spell? It's got nothing to do with intelligence. It's a basic skill that one must learn. I have a very smart and thoughtful musician friend whom I've had many stimulating conversations with over the years. But when he sends me a text I'm appalled that he can't spell very ordinary, everyday words everyone uses.


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## senza sordino (Oct 20, 2013)

Jacck said:


> ... that current students are far more coddled with A's given even for an average performance. The culture in education has changed. Students are praised too much.


Yes, there is far more coddling today that yesteryear. I can't speak for all of my colleagues, but I don't give zeroes anymore. Sometime ago, we were asked by our overlords not to conflate behaviour and achievement. If a student doesn't do an assignment they used to get a zero, it's a behaviour. A zero doesn't mean they can't do it, it means they didn't do it. So now I assess students based on what they have done. I will report that their work habits need improvement, and report separately what they can achieve. It is now possible to get an 'A' with lousy work habits. But most students hand in most of their homework, so this doesn't happen very often.

But the coddling and lowering of standards has probably resulted in a higher attendance and graduation rates. We just don't have teenagers dropping out of school anymore. I can only speak of my own jurisdiction and this stat I know: 50 years ago just over 80% of students between the ages of 16 and 18 went to school, now that rate is just shy of 100%. (Here you must attend school up to the age of 16, once 16 you can drop out. Now no one does anymore.)

Among some students there does seem to be little retention of knowledge from one year to the next. They have various coping mechanisms, they cram for tests, they cheat etc. Once they become adults it's not surprising they can't spell, they can't name four US presidents, they can't name the combatants of WWII, they can't find their own country on a world map, they can't work with fractions and they can't make a scientific conclusion.


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## Guest (Jan 24, 2020)

The complaint that the current generation is coddled vis-a-vis some previous "much better" generation is perennial. We always think it. 

There are many very good schools in this nation where children will get a very good education, and the average is brought down by the numerous really poor schools where the educational output is generally poor - typically in the more dense urban school districts. Case in point - here in Birmingham, AL, my children are getting an excellent education in the suburb in which I live, while the kids doomed to be educated in the Birmingham City School district are in a district that has actually had to be taken over by the state, due to the really poor management.

Ultimately, a lot comes down to what we think education should do. Elementary and high school should absolutely teach a certain core of things - reading, writing, mathematics (preferably through algebra, with higher options available), basic science, etc. - that give a good all around education, and offer more advanced things for those with greater aptitude. But the more important thing to teach is how to learn and where to find what you need to know.

As I earned my Ph.D., my advisor told me the most important thing for me to learn was not necessarily the specific topic I was researching (although I certainly needed to become an expert in that), but rather how to do science. In science, I may change my topic of study many times, but knowing how to be a scientist would always stay the same.

We can't teach children every single topic every single one of us feels to be the most important for them to learn. But they need to develop a love of learning and the knowledge of how to fill in the gaps as they discover them. My bookshelves (and my Kindle) are filled with books that I sought out as I sought to learn about new things that were never mentioned in my education. We need to stop emphasizing the minutiae of what kids should know, and instead teach them the tools to oversee their own education, which should be a lifelong endeavor.


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

I am also concerned with the loss of practical, can-do, "home economics / shop class" type of knowledge that comes from the unbalanced lifestyles of those who are educated and employed but lack self-reliance in favor of "we can pay an immigrant to fix that" or "we can talk to an advisor about our investments" or "we can hire an expert to decorate the living room", etc...

And too many people do not understand statistics, even many who think they do. Conditional probability is where the action is, few people know what it is, and given that we are constantly bombarded with statistical "information" we ought to be more discriminating about it. This even applies to historical analysis.

So get on your high horse about gamblers but vote for people who would throw tax money at loser projects the minute they walk into an action committee.


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

The thing about history is that it takes no special skill to learn it aside from the ability to read and think - the latter being the tricky part. Much of history taught in schools is state propaganda anyway. So I'm not going to scream that our institutions should dedicate more resources to history, and I'll be d***ed if I will scream for more watering down of the analytical skills that elevate students to be individual thinkers.

There is nothing more IMO that will preserve our collective ability to understand history than the freedom of speech guaranteed by the US Constitution. Gulags are not the answer. Without free speech it doesn't matter what the history books say.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

philoctetes said:


> The thing about history is that it takes no special skill to learn it aside from the ability to read and think - the latter being the tricky part. Much of history taught in schools is state propaganda anyway. So I'm not going to scream that our institutions should dedicate more resources to history, and I'll be d***ed if I will scream for more watering down of the analytical skills that elevate students to be individual thinkers.


it is most important to teach the children not what to think, but how to think critically, and also to awaken their own curiosity. The Czech system is traditionally based on learning many facts, often times disconnected from practical life. For example in history, you are required to learn many dates of various events, wars etc. That is not fun at all. I would personally reduce stuff like Czech literature, and instaed teach some basics of finance management, law or basic medicine.


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## TxllxT (Mar 2, 2011)

When I was studying as a Flying Dutchman at the Charles' University of Prague during the early nineties it happened that the most intricate details of the life of Jan Hus (1369-1415) were elaborated on during History lectures, while at the same time someone as world famous as Franz Kafka was dismissed in one stroke of disinterest as 'a certain German writer'. Talking with one of the professors about the Prague Jewish quarter across the Pařížská street he confessed, that he just didn't know anything about the Jews and their way of life. So practically the Czech, the Germans and the Jews lived in their own language / religion / culture with few of them being able to cross over (Franz Kafka knew Czech fluently).

Even in a very historically conscious country in 'the heart of Europe' like the Czech Republic history was taught on purpose *not* to broaden Czech people's consciousness for the German culture and Jewish life that existed right in their midst until 1946. No, instead they were taught to be proud of having won five crusades that the Holy Roman Empire was unleashing against the Hussites. On the one hand I admired this detailed knowledge about the 15th century knights and scholars (when Holland hardly existed yet), but on the other hand I noticed huge blind spots that on purpose had been created & cultivated.

In Holland few people are aware of Dutch history. The best historian is Jonathan Israel. Few people are able to digress on Rembrandt, Van Gogh, or Mondriaan. In Amsterdam the left-leaning mayor is living in a beautiful canalhouse that was built by a slavetrader. Don't worry, be happy.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

TxllxT said:


> When I was studying as a Flying Dutchman at the Charles' University of Prague during the early nineties it happened that the most intricate details of the life of Jan Hus (1369-1415) were elaborated on during History lectures, while at the same time someone as world famous as Franz Kafka was dismissed in one stroke of disinterest as 'a certain German writer'. Talking with one of the professors about the Prague Jewish quarter across the Pařížská street he confessed, that he just didn't know anything about the Jews and their way of life. So practically the Czech, the Germans and the Jews lived in their own language / religion / culture with few of them being able to cross over (Franz Kafka knew Czech fluently).
> 
> Even in a very historically conscious country in 'the heart of Europe' like the Czech Republic history was taught on purpose *not* to broaden Czech people's consciousness for the German culture and Jewish life that existed right in their midst until 1946. No, instead they were taught to be proud of having won five crusades that the Holy Roman Empire was unleashing against the Hussites. On the one hand I admired this detailed knowledge about the 15th century knights and scholars (when Holland hardly existed yet), but on the other hand I noticed huge blind spots that on purpose had been created & cultivated.


that is the result of WW2 and 40 years of communism. The Germans killed all the Jews in the country, and the Czechs expelled all Germans from the country after WW2, so we became an enthnically very homogenous nation, and the history teaching during communism was very ideological. At the beginning of the 1990's we were still very post-communist with communist professors and communist curricula (where do you want to hire new professors?). The communists idolized the Hussite movement (they saw it like a precursor to the red october revolution), so these communist history teachers likely knew much more about them, than about other aspects.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

One problem appears to be these days is that anything that requires application is dismissed as ‘boring’. In order to grasp any subject you have to know a certain amount of facts yet here we have curriculum which are light in facts. In order to get a critical assessment you have to know the facts in a certain depth an£ that requires a certain amount of somewhat boring application. It is the same in any subject. If one wants to be a scientist there are certain facts you have to grind through which aren’t particularly inspiring but they are necessary in order to understand the subject. In order to be a pianist you have to learn scales and arpeggios which aren’t very inspiring but are essential to a good technique. Similarly the historian has to know a certain number of facts.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Totenfeier said:


> In American schools now:
> 
> A = Doing good work; you'll pass
> 
> ...


It's a different story when it comes to the football or basketball program. If you don't excel you get cut from the team. So we know the order of priorities when it comes to sports and academics.


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## Guest (Jan 24, 2020)

DavidA said:


> One problem appears to be these days is that anything that requires application is dismissed as 'boring'. In order to grasp any subject you have to know a certain amount of facts yet *here we have curriculum which are* light in facts. In order to get a critical assessment you have to know the facts in a certain depth *an£* that requires a certain amount of somewhat boring application. It is the same in any subject. If one wants to be a scientist there are certain facts you have to grind through which aren't particularly inspiring but they are necessary in order to understand the subject. In order to be a pianist you have to learn scales and arpeggios which aren't very inspiring but are essential to a good technique. Similarly the historian has to know a certain number of facts.


Well, I'm sure you're right. That said, if you could give more attention to your spelling and grammar (there are often grammatical _infelicities_ in your posts, if I may say so) I'm sure I would understand better what you often struggle to express.


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## senza sordino (Oct 20, 2013)

DrMike said:


> The complaint that the current generation is coddled vis-a-vis some previous "much better" generation is perennial. We always think it.


Socrates has been quoted as saying:


> "The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."


It's easy to characterize all teenagers in the same manner, when in fact many do outstanding work. Many of my AP students are exemplars for the school and town.



starthrower said:


> It's a different story when it comes to the football or basketball program. If you don't excel you get cut from the team. So we know the order of priorities when it comes to sports and academics.


Primary and secondary school is now not competitive, whereas there used to be some. That's not such a bad thing, removing the competitiveness from education. However, it's highly competitive to get into university now. That's a major contributor to 'grade creep'. All grades have increased without much increase in ability simply to give university bound students a competitive edge. I know intellectually that's not such a great thing because it sets students up for failure later in life, or they can't handle failure when it inevitably arises. But in my heart I want to help my students, like any guardian of young people wants to do.


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## Open Book (Aug 14, 2018)

Jacck said:


> The IQ, the Bell curve, does not change. People with IQ>120 have a decent chance to do well in a university, people with IQ>140 will have excellent results. A couple of decades ago, we had some 15% of people going to university, the rest went to secondery school (there are different specialized secondary schools), a many just did an appprenticeship (for an electrician, plumber, butcher etc). Since we entered the EU, there has been a constant push to educate more people, so we now have like 50% of people going to a college, but the IQ Bell curve has not changed. Senseless overeducation of people without much potential. And that is why the educators constantly complain about the droping quality of contemporary students and the need to lower expectations on the performance. An example: nurses. A couple of decades ago, a secondery school (a 4 years special school for nurses) was enough. Now they require all nurses to have a college (8 or more years of education).
> PS: colleges and universities are free here, so everybody tries to get some kind of degree nowadays.


College is not free in the U.S. but for the first time major political candidates are seriously discussing it and it could happen in the next few years.

How is that working out? Are there any restrictions on how much college education a student can get for free? I see the potential for tremendous waste of the taxpayers' money. Some students don't graduate on time because they fail and have to redo some courses. Some change their major and have to restart. Some remain professional students for much of their lives, never finishing. With college paid for by the public, isn't there even less incentive to graduate on time with a degree?


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Open Book said:


> College is not free in the U.S. but for the first time major political candidates are seriously discussing it and it could happen in the next few years. How is that working out? Are there any restrictions on how much college education a student can get for free? I see the potential for tremendous waste of the taxpayers' money. Some students don't graduate on time because they fail and have to redo some courses. Some change their major and have to restart. Some remain professional students for much of their lives, never finishing. With college paid for by the public, isn't there even less incentive to graduate on time with a degree?


First you need to get into the school, ie succeed at some admission tests (similar to SAT, but administered by each school individually) and then you can study. The standard time for a typical college is 5 years (that is free), but if you exceed this time by more than 2 semesters, you need to pay tuition for each subsequent semester. And different schools are organized differently. For example in a medical school, the curriculum is fixed and you need to do all the required courses for each semester in a fixed order, and you drop out if you fail to do even one of these courses (we have maybe 30% dropout at med schools). Other schools (like economics) are more loose and are based on a credit system. The completion of each course is evaluated with some amount of credits, and you can enroll in various courses as you please (some have prerequisites in other courses), but you need to gather some minimum amount of credits per semester, otherwise you drop out. We have also limits on Ph.D., you are required to complete it in 6 years, otherwise you drop out.

So these "eternal" students are constrained by a time limit and if they exceed it, they are going to pay tuition. And also, even if the school is free, the studying is not really cheap. You need to move to a big city, pay rent, pay for textbooks, pay for food etc. and students are usually poor (or are sponsored by parents). So they are motivated to finish the school, and start earning some money. I actually think the system is kind of efficient and also just, because it offers equal chance to everybody, not just the rich.


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## Open Book (Aug 14, 2018)

Jacck said:


> First you need to get into the school, ie succeed at some admission tests (similar to SAT, but administered by each school individually) and then you can study. The standard time for a typical college is 5 years (that is free), but if you exceed this time by more than 2 semesters, you need to pay tuition for each subsequent semester. And different schools are organized differently. For example in a medical school, the curriculum is fixed and you need to do all the required courses for each semester in a fixed order, and you drop out if you fail to do even one of these courses (we have maybe 30% dropout at med schools). Other schools (like economics) are more loose and are based on a credit system. The completion of each course is evaluated with some amount of credits, and you can enroll in various courses as you please (some have prerequisites in other courses), but you need to gather some minimum amount of credits per semester, otherwise you drop out. We have also limits on Ph.D., you are required to complete it in 6 years, otherwise you drop out.
> 
> So these "eternal" students are constrained by a time limit and if they exceed it, they are going to pay tuition. And also, even if the school is free, the studying is not really cheap. You need to move to a big city, pay rent, pay for textbooks, pay for food etc. and students are usually poor (or are sponsored by parents). So they are motivated to finish the school, and start earning some money. I actually think the system is kind of efficient and also just, because it offers equal chance to everybody, not just the rich.


It does sound efficient, actually. Are there no second chances in medical school regardless of who pays for it -- if you flunk a required course, you're out? I wonder if that is true with medicals schools here in the U.S.

Are there online courses offered in Europe? Courses where the teacher never even sees the students unless they choose to come in for a private conference?


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Open Book said:


> It does sound efficient, actually. Are there no second chances in medical school regardless of who pays for it -- if you flunk a required course, you're out? I wonder if that is true with medicals schools here in the U.S. Are there online courses offered in Europe? Courses where the teacher never even sees the students unless they choose to come in for a private conference?


each course in a med school is completed by an exam. You have 3 attempts at the exam, and if you fail 3 times, you must do the whole year again (including the courses that you already passed). And you can repeat a year just once during the first 3 years, and once during the next 3 years, which means you must finish the med school after 8 years at the latest. 
I do not think we have online course. The state regulates the schools and prescribes requirements which the schools must fullfill to be able to award a degree. It is certainly not possible to study a med school online or even in a distance studium, though some other specialties offer distance studium (that you do not need to be present at the courses, but you need to pass the exams)


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## Open Book (Aug 14, 2018)

Jacck said:


> each course in a med school is completed by an exam. You have 3 attempts at the exam, and if you fail 3 times, you must do the whole year again (including the courses that you already passed). And you can repeat a year just once during the first 3 years, and once during the next 3 years, which means you must finish the med school after 8 years at the latest.
> I do not think we have online course. The state regulates the schools and prescribes requirements which the schools must fullfill to be able to award a degree. It is certainly not possible to study a med school online or even in a distance studium, though some other specialties offer distance studium (that you do not need to be present at the courses, but you need to pass the exams)


Online courses are really weird. I took one and while it's nice to study and do course work whenever you please, it felt all wrong. They had a chat room for the students so they could discuss things publicly as if they were in a classroom but it's not really a classroom, it's unsatisfying not to see and hear real people. You have to be a tireless reader because there were endless written directions and that's ponderous. Sometimes you need to talk to someone face to face and say "What did you mean by that?" and let other people hear it out loud as well. There was no liveliness as in a real classroom.

Also, I don't know how the university can tell that the student isn't cheating and getting someone else to take an online course for them. No way should medical school courses be online.

"The state regulates the schools and prescribes requirements which the schools must fullfill to be able to award a degree."

Hmmm. I can't picture this happening in the U.S.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Open Book said:


> ...Also, I don't know how the university can tell that the student isn't cheating and getting someone else to take an online course for them...


Just happened near here in *Newport Beach*. "A California woman pleaded guilty to a federal fraud charge Wednesday after authorities said she paid a company $9,000 to take online classes for her son at Georgetown University and then demanded a discount when he received a C."


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

Posters in here are impressive, but to me this concern seems very real. The amount of time it took for older people to learn things that turned out to be mostly useless, but actually, is a part of their overall educated outlook. It's subtle. With all the distractions today, when will the younger generations have time to "learn" and not just get by?

Of course not everyone coming up is so scattered. I know some very impressive young people in science. What are their deficits?, I don't know. There's only 24 hours in a day.

In the future, do you think there will be much less need to learn correct spellings - as computers become extremely capable?

After all, correct spellings today are just the result of convention over many years.

What other subjects are like this? and what will be the ramifications and the unintended consequences? There's been more than a few sci-fi stories about this. 

I think we'll be seeing it happen as the years go by. AND I think the story writers thought it would take a lot more time..

Everything seems to be accelerating..


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## Open Book (Aug 14, 2018)

Jacck said:


> we also have some problems with how history is tought in schools. The problem is that the curricula concentrate too much on distant past and almost avoid the 20th century. So the children learn about the Bronze Age, ancient Rome and Greece and the Middle Ages, while it would be far more important to teach them about nazism, communism and the 20th century, so that they can better understand the modern world. The biggest attempts to redraw modern history are currently happening in Russia. Poland (and other eastern european countries) have to constantly battle Kremlin attempts to change history. For example they are denying that Stalin and Hitler were collaborators (Ribbentrop-Molotov pact) and that they started the WW2 together. Much of the national mythos of Russia is constructed around WW2 and their great victory in the Great Patriotic War.


I agree with this. Even in U.S. History junior high school classes I remember spending tons of time on the early colonial period and less and less time thereafter. The 20th century was barely even covered. I think there were good intentions but the students themselves slowed things down by aggravating the teachers and taking time away from the lessons. Whenever I hear about school systems that are failures I think it's not so much bad teachers as ill-behaved students who are very successful at disrupting classes.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Open Book said:


> I agree with this. Even in U.S. History junior high school classes I remember spending tons of time on the early colonial period and less and less time thereafter. The 20th century was barely even covered. I think there were good intentions but the students themselves slowed things down by aggravating the teachers and taking time away from the lessons. Whenever I hear about school systems that are failures I think it's not so much bad teachers as ill-behaved students who are very successful at disrupting classes.


I do not know how it looks like at an American high-school, but if the Hollywood movies are to be believed, the schools are full of violent gangs, bullies and drama queens that disrupt the classes for the nerds, who actually want to study . We do not have high schools, but instead we specialize/segregate the children after the primary schools. The high schools for the most gifted who are expected to continue to a university is called gymnasium, you have to do admission tests after the primary school to get accepted. This kind of reduces the disruptive behavior of those students, who do not want to learn.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

There's an element of truth in the movie depictions. I believe kids are a product of the attitudes of their parents. When I was in school there were conscientious students who worked hard and excelled as a result. And there were the slackers who did just enough to graduate. I grew up in the suburbs of upstate New York so there wasn't any gang activity. But there were some serious problems with wayward kids. When I was in the 8th grade the school was closed for a couple days due to wide spread vandalism carried out by a couple of students who got drunk and broke into the school in the middle of the night. They proceeded to break dozens of windows and destroyed the PA system among other things. They were caught the following morning hanging out at a local game room. The paint on their clothes from the art classroom they vandalized was a dead giveaway.


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## Open Book (Aug 14, 2018)

Jacck said:


> I do not know how it looks like at an American high-school, but if the Hollywood movies are to be believed, the schools are full of violent gangs, bullies and drama queens that disrupt the classes for the nerds, who actually want to study . We do not have high schools, but instead we specialize/segregate the children after the primary schools. The high schools for the most gifted who are expected to continue to a university is called gymnasium, you have to do admission tests after the primary school to get accepted. This kind of reduces the disruptive behavior of those students, who do not want to learn.


American schools separate kids into different classrooms according to their ability, too. But intelligent kids can be equally disruptive. Disruptive kids should be separated from everyone else but for some reason they are not, or weren't in my school system. A separate class would require more resources. Expelling them would leave them uneducated, which everyone fears, I guess.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Jacck said:


> I do not know how it looks like at an American high-school, but if the Hollywood movies are to be believed, the schools are full of violent gangs, bullies and drama queens that disrupt the classes for the nerds, who actually want to study . We do not have high schools, but instead we specialize/segregate the children after the primary schools. The high schools for the most gifted who are expected to continue to a university is called gymnasium, you have to do admission tests after the primary school to get accepted. This kind of reduces the disruptive behavior of those students, who do not want to learn.


When I was in high school, most of the college-bound students were on an advanced scholastic track and there were no disruptions in class. One could earn nearly a year of college credit by taking advanced classes. Among the other 2,000 students there was intermittent chaos, with various racial and ethnic factions going at it with chains and knives in the school yard and an impressive pharmacopia on sale within ten feet of the doors. One day fourteen students had to be removed in ambulances due to some dosage confusion with downers. I paid for my first two and a half years of college with money earned by delivering newspapers from the age of eleven. This was at a time when state schools were generously funded.


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