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[oahda]

Another problem in Sweden might be that classes are way too short. You barely have time to get started if the teacher does manage to engage you in something and make you interested and that breaks the flow. And something engaging might take some time. Showing an inspiring documentary at the beginning of a science class would probably spark the imagination of many students but then they have no time to actually get to work and the spark is lost.

With all the years of a regular education, surely there must be some way to reschedule in such a way that there are maybe two or three long classes (with breaks, of course) from day to day instead of five or six 40-minute classes where nothing gets done. And to get more done in school according to a predefined schedule instead of putting out a lot of homework that the students have to be trusted to coördinate themselves and might get stressed up about if there's too much at the same time.

According to my experience of Swedish schedules at least that shouldn't be too hard, really, because often you have the same subject like three times a week divided across multiple days. Squeeze those into one day instead and focus hard on that subject for most of, if not all of, that day.

And remove P.E.. It's one of the most unsafe grounds for the bullied and causes problems to a lot of kids and they get absence for something they avoid because they can't take it. Keeping children active, taking them out and signing them up for football teams and whatnot should be taken care of by parents IMO. The kids who do enjoy P.E. have all the opportunities in the world to do it outside of school and those who feel unsafe in changing rooms can do physical activities in other ways on their own.

[Glyph]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block_scheduling

[Torchkas]

education is overrated
it's mostly a social experiment

[oahda]

education is overrated
it's mostly a social experiment

street smart is the new black

[J-Snake]

But it's also society in general, where parents care more about "proper behaviour" and keeping their garden beautiful and their rugs clean than to let their children run around and explore and have fun with their genuine curiosity.

It's funny how I have to witness it during my daily training in the park. Parents try to keep their children away from getting dirty while I do my exercises in dirt next to them.

[oahda]

Another problem is that a lot of courses/subjects only stimulate one type of kid. Some kids prefer practical applications and others to scan through literature. Schools mostly fail to engage both types and one is left behind if they can't work with the method preselected and forced upon them. There needs to be more flexibility. More focus on the individual. Which seems so obvious and everyone says it, but... that's not what I've seen.

But it's also society in general, where parents care more about "proper behaviour" and keeping their garden beautiful and their rugs clean than to let their children run around and explore and have fun with their genuine curiosity.

It's funny how I have to witness it during my daily training in the park. Parents try to keep their children away from getting dirty while I do my exercises in dirt next to them.

Me too.

[Schoq]

And remove P.E.. It's one of the most unsafe grounds for the bullied and causes problems to a lot of kids and they get absence for something they avoid because they can't take it. Keeping children active, taking them out and signing them up for football teams and whatnot should be taken care of by parents IMO. The kids who do enjoy P.E. have all the opportunities in the world to do it outside of school and those who feel unsafe in changing rooms can do physical activities in other ways on their own.

this is awful. more hours of phys ed has been shown to increase results in unrelated subjects and it's really important for health and mental wellbeing.
No not everyone has parents willing and able to sign them up and drive them places after school. It's a blessing really for some to be exposed to a wide variety of physical activity otherwise out of reach.

[oahda]

It's a blessing really for some to be exposed to a wide variety of physical activity otherwise out of reach.

I know. But it's also hell to many, so what should we do?

Even disregarding P.E., nothing is really being successively done about bullying in schools and this is one of its worst arenas. I guess P.E. often has the same problem that I just mentioned above. There is often a catering to those who are already good at or enjoy it, and those who don't are forced into doing things (often to their embarrassment and humiliation from other students) and no real effort is being put into individually coaching these children into doing this at a pace or in a way they can handle. And in the dressing room they're all on their own, exposed to the awful things bullies can do to them both mentally and physically.

P.E. the way it is today cannot work. It just can't. Something needs to happen. In Sweden apparently they recently thought the solution was to double classes instead of actually looking at the problems and trying to solve them. I'm just stunned at the idiocy of that.

Either way, it's not a subject that I think should influence your grade. Unless you actually want to become a football player or something it's bizarre that your score is in part made up of something so 100% irrelevant to almost all other pursuits that most children will go for later in their lives. It should be more like an activity between or after classes. Not an actual class. Like how you go on excourses or hikes or museums or whatever.

[s0]

honestly i don't think bullying is something that u can fix just by reforming (or even radically changing) the education system.

also fyi sweden is (along with finland) p much considered the education mecca of europe, so u peeps are still relatively well off.

[J-Snake]

One important aspect for sure are parents. If they don't engage together with their kids in activities, physical and intellectual ones, then there is possibly some undeveloped potential wasted. When I remember back when I was little, I always wished my father would spend more time with me. I enjoyed doing things with him so much, but he rarely had time for me.

[oahda]

I for some reason did not tag along with my father to do a bunch of stuff when I was little, but I can't remember me really ever being opposed to it and I know that he did a lot of cool activities like canoeing and hiking, but I only ever hiked with him (and the rest of the family and a friend family) once.

He passed away when I was 15 and I feel like my memory has been blurry and blocked of him in many ways since then, so I really don't know why it never really happened. But it wasn't because he wouldn't take me, but more possibly because I was lazy and didn't want to, but I can't understand that from my current self. I feel so extremely disconnected from who I was then and I literally have holes in my memory and it feels like an entirely different person. The me of today would bug him to go do cool stuff all the time (and I have on my own in later years done a lot of that stuff) so it's really weird not to know or remember why that was.

But my parents always did let me be myself and run around to the point where I got lost a few times and other grown-ups would complain about me being all over the place instead, and I can't value that enough. There weren't huge pushes to make me study obsessively either, where some might have found them a bit too easy on me, but I probably would've gone on to do a lot of it happily if my father hadn't died and completely broken me and my strength to even attend school half the time and broken my mother as well so that she obviously didn't want to push me to do anything when we were both (and my sister and everyone else) going through that.

But once I stabilised more I have since dug into so many subjects by my own sheer will which never went away, but was temporarily subdued, and gotten quite knowledgeable about a fair amount of stuff. And I think I can owe that to the great attitude they had towards me when I was growing up, before he died.

--


… Actually, tho, now, thinking of it, heck, the whole family went and did a lot of other stuff anyway. Bathing a lot every year, going abroad sometimes. Building stuff. We definitely did stuff. Just not the wildlife stuff my father enjoyed. So I guess that count as very important.

See what I mean with a blurry memory? It takes some time for me to invoke childhood memories. Had to write this all up just to realise that. <_> It's really scary.

[Schoq]

hugs

[oahda]

shrugs

[J-Snake]

… Actually, tho, now, thinking of it, heck, the whole family went and did a lot of other stuff anyway. Bathing a lot every year, going abroad sometimes. Building stuff. We definitely did stuff. Just not the wildlife stuff my father enjoyed. So I guess that count as very important.

I think it counts much.

See what I mean with a blurry memory? It takes some time for me to invoke childhood memories. Had to write this all up just to realise that. <_> It's really scary.

On the other hand it is a good thing that people can change. I am also now different from my little self. Insights and new interests you gain in life can change yourself. But it is also good to remember previous self so if you go back in memory you can better understand the mind set of a kid, at least the one of yourself.

[JWK5]

Until you're an adult schooling pretty much is "do it because you have to" not "do it because you want to", and even as an adult it may just be more of a means to an end than an actual desire to learn. There is too much focus on cold hard facts and not enough focus on why an individual should even bother learning them, let alone want to. It's all stick, no carrot.

[Pfotegeist]

I have a theory about learning, it's mostly based on time spent without a break.

10 minutes primes your brain.  You won't learn anything new, but you'll be more interested later as your brain seeks out a pattern.
30 minutes pushes your body and mind to the point of exhaustion.  You can learn a lot, and it's usually the limits of intense concentration.
1 hour, you're addicted, you start to make mistakes and cut corners.  Even when you do stop the activity you won't stop thinking about it, your brain is recoding old knowledge as your mind wanders and it will take longer to recover.

It's pretty much a definite for me when playing video games. It's recommended to stop every 20 - 30 minutes simply to rest your eyes, but some games aren't set up to allow this.  I pretty much have to accept I'll be miserable after playing them.

Chances are someone isn't going to study a subject for 2 hours, and it's near impossible to listen for 30 minutes or drive a car that long without zoning out.

When you go longer than 1 hour without breaks then you're going to run a risk of forming bad habits involving a gap in knowledge.  These will not be unlearned any time soon.

Of course, this challenges the idea that college professors exist.  Stand in front of a class for 4 hours straight sermonizing about an obsession, everyone fails to comprehend it who isn't already obsessed.

[gimymblert]

what's education without purpose?

[s0]

the purpose of current education is to create good office drones.

btw i have certain reservations about humanism but i still think humanist style education, i.e. one that is actually about becoming a more well rounded person and learning to think for yourself, is the best. but oh well.

[s0]

@prinsessa: aw that's sad

i feel for you. my father isn't dead but im estranged from him. i literally havent seen him in more than 10 years.

[J-Snake]

I think she is over it already. My father died in an accident when I was 12.