Talk:Education/Archive 1

P.A.L.S.

I did an article on a program called pals, and I need someone to expand it. Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P.A.L.S.

Education in the West

The section is very poor. A lot of mentions about Scotland (what's the influence in continental Europe? I think no influence a tall), and no mentions about: 1. Greek education 2. Roman Education 3. The medieval early period of Universities (Bologna, Paris, Oxford...) 4. Education in the italian and european renaiisance I think that these 4 points really established the basis of the West Education...

Intro

The introduction to this article seems to go off on quite a tangent with all the talk of teachers, and almost casually disregarding the wealth of information that has been written on education. Wouldn't all the talk of teachers, while certainly related to the subject, be best suited to an article on teachers? --Impaciente 06:54, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Also, I moved the portal links up to the top of the article, as they seemed to be a bit too out of the way all the way down by the bottom. --Impaciente 06:58, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

I cut a few categories as they seem to better fall as subcategories, e.g. I did not understand why testing was separated from "standardized testing" already at this level. Same with "tax credit" vs. "policy". Nevertheless, I did not cut anything that has already had a link.

Pleaese review. I do not claim this is the ultimate right division. Just a wee more understandable to me.

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I'm not sure what to call the idea of formal catechesis - it must be under 'Formal Education', but what's the name? I thought about: [Religious education|Catechetical and Denominational Education] {I'm using one square bracket intentionally}. This is (a) different from most of those categories of formal education but (b) incredibly important - just think of the number of literacy classes that are purely aimed at Scripture/Koran reading.

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Probably Religious education could fall into a category (it is a matter of content, not a matter of system)? As for Early reading instruction, I though Early instruction is more general and indeed worth separating (esp. that this section is not overpopulated

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Please note that there is an important distinction between informal and non-formal education. The latter can be regarded as half way between formal and informal education and plays an important part in most countries, especially within adult education. Non-formal education is education with no exams or degrees. It often takes place in schools, where the pedagogy is based on participatory and / or experimental learning. Topics and approaches are often decided in dialogue between teachers and learners. The german 'volkshochschulen', the english 'open university' or the nordic 'folkehøjskole' are examples of non-formal education. The Danish philosopher, clergyman, historian, poet and educationalist Grundtvig is one of the most important inspirators of non-formal education. He should indded be on your list of great educationalists. ---

Should we mention that the word comes from the latin e-ducare meaning "leading people away from". There is a fairly strong tradition in education and religion that it isn't all about exposing people to things but also about guiding them away from them (talk)--BozMo 20:03, 10 May 2004 (UTC)

Developing Countries

• The section on education in developing nation appears to need some work. I copied it (the section in italics) to the talk page so we can work on it without cluttering up the main article. Kerowyn 03:35, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

<--The below should be edited by someone with ideas of how to improve education because it does injustice to say that we are the best that we can be - education as we have it now is better than not having any at all. But it leaves much to be desired.-->

In developing countries, the number and seriousness of the problems faced is naturally greater. People are sometimes unaware of the importance of education, and there is economic pressure from those parents who prioritize their children's making money in the short term over any long-term benefits of education. Recent studies on child labor and poverty have suggested, however, that when poor families reach a certain economic threshold where families are able to provide for their basic needs, parents return their children to school. This has been found to be true, once the threshold has been breached, even if the potential economic value of the children's work has increased since their return to school. Teachers are often paid less than other similar professions.

A lack of good universities, and a low acceptance rate for good universities is evident in countries with a relatively high population density. In some countries there are uniform, overstructured, inflexible centralized programs from a central agency that regulates all aspects of education.

   * Due to globalization, increased pressure on students in curricular activities
   * Removal of a certain percentage of students for improvisation of academics (usually practised in schools, after 10th grade)

India however is starting to develop technologies that will skip land based phone and internet lines. Instead, they have launched a special education satellite that can reach more of the country at a greatly reduced cost. There is also an initiative started by AMD and other corporations to develop the $100 dollar computer which should be ready by 2006. This computer will be sold in units of 1 million, and will be assembled in the country where the computer will be used. This apperas to be a different computer to that developed by MIt, with the same price tag, believed to be powered by clockwork and a generator. This will enable poorer countries to give their children a digital education and to close the digital divide across the world.

In Africa, NEPAD has launched an "e-school programme" to provide all 600,000 primary and high schools with computer equipment, learning materials and internet access within 10 years.

Prominent educationalists

Is the list of Prominent educationalists really pertinent to this article AnyFile 13:54, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Formal education internationalization

The Formal education section show the US and similar way and name scheme. Other nation use different scheme (but in my opinion is hard to give an complete list of all the possibilities) AnyFile 13:57, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The article is little more than a list of links anyway, so anything you can add would help! But these titles (primary, secondary, tertiary education) fit with other systems too, they are used by UNESCO's International Standard Classification of Education [1] - or were you thinking of something else? Saintswithin 16:17, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

list of education topics

That article is conspicuously missing from Wikipedia. Michael Hardy 03:41, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Challenges in education section

The section "Challenges in education" is rather unencyclopedic in parts. It has an essay-like style -- "Should some knowledge be forgotten? What should be taught, are we better off knowing how to build nuclear bombs, or is it best to let such knowledge be forgotten?" -- and is rather long for its content. Also, some statements are POV, despite not being extremely controversial, for example:

• "The grades usually come in the form of either a letter grade or a percentage, which ideally represents the amount of all material presented in class that the student understood. These grades do not reveal the strengths and weaknesses of a student."
• "Education should be engaging, children should learn by themselves with guidance and direction being given by teachers, instead of prodding and forcing students to complete assignments. Education should be changed so that there is no 'pass' or 'fail', but specific ability and knowledge tests that will build into a student knowledge that he can use in the future, rather than just testing aptitude of a student. Education is the imparting of knowledge, not the continous testing of knowledge, it should be about skills that students can recreate for the rest of their life, rather than a mark they can show."

It also ends with a comment on the article text itself:

• "The below should be edited by someone with ideas of how to improve education because it does injustice to say that we are the best that we can be - education as we have it now is better than not having any at all. But it leaves much to be desired."

I've listed the article on WP:Cleanup with a note on this, and I considered just brutally cutting most of it, but before doing that, I'd like to give someone with better knowledge of the subject a chance to salvage anything that could be useful. / Alarm 23:38, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

Yeah I agree with most of what you said. I cleaned up one or two of the paragraphs in this section, but it needs a lot more work. I don't think anything needs to be cut right now, as many of the points made are fine, so I think we should give it a little time.

• "The grades usually come in the form of either a letter grade or a percentage, which ideally represents the amount of all material presented in class that the student understood. These grades do not reveal the strengths and weaknesses of a student."

I wrote these sentences and I stand by it. The word "ideally" ensures that the first sentence remains objective, and the second is simply a hard truth.

--Tubby 02:57, 28 May 2005 (UTC)

I don't agree with the opinion that nothing needs to be cut. Meta-comments like "The below should be edited" do not belong in the articles but on talk pages. And the part about what education should be is definitely more of a POV manifesto than an encyclopedia article. I have now hidden the these paragraphs in the article text by using comments tags (<!-- -->) in case someone sees the possibility of salvaging it and put it to use in any way. The sentences you wrote are still there, though. They're certainly not a big problem, but I can imagine people finding them slightly POV. Perhaps a slightly more cautious wording could be found. / Alarm 08:35, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

To me the word "ideally" screams POV so I changed it to "intended to" LA RoeDoe 14:38, 29 July 2005 (UTC)

"Bullying, called mobbing in the US is a big problem in all schools." Where in the US do they call bullying mobbing? I've lived here all my life and never came across that usage.

Please refer to the page on Einstein - it is a myth that he did poorly in school.

This is what I think of this particular article, excuse me if I have gramatical errors.

The section "Challenges in education" is rather unencyclopedic in parts. It has an essay-like style -- "Should some knowledge be forgotten? What should be taught, are we better off knowing how to build nuclear bombs, or is it best to let such knowledge be forgotten?" -- and is rather long for its content. Also, some statements are POV, despite not being extremely controversial, for example:

• "The grades usually come in the form of either a letter grade or a percentage, which ideally represents the amount of all material presented in class that the student understood. These grades do not reveal the strengths and weaknesses of a student."
• "Education should be engaging, children should learn by themselves with guidance and direction being given by teachers, instead of prodding and forcing students to complete assignments. Education should be changed so that there is no 'pass' or 'fail', but specific ability and knowledge tests that will build into a student knowledge that he can use in the future, rather than just testing aptitude of a student. Education is the imparting of knowledge, not the continous testing of knowledge, it should be about skills that students can recreate for the rest of their life, rather than a mark they can show."

It also ends with a comment on the article text itself:

• "The below should be edited by someone with ideas of how to improve education because it does injustice to say that we are the best that we can be - education as we have it now is better than not having any at all. But it leaves much to be desired."

I've listed the article on WP:Cleanup with a note on this, and I considered just brutally cutting most of it, but before doing that, I'd like to give someone with better knowledge of the subject a chance to salvage anything that could be useful. / Alarm 23:38, 27 May 2005 (UTC) I am a current student in highschool, I am 16 and I am a sophmore (10th grade). Education is the process of information being taught and learning the information for further guidance. What the problem with school in our modern day society is that we lack the real basis for why we teach our future leaders. We do nt teach them just because they are the future leaders but because they are entitled to the information that we already know. We should show them the world and what they have to offer instead of sheltering them from information that we believe that they should not know. I go to school in geogia and we have no standardized testing and we only have our gradation test that we take in our junior year that no one is prepared to take. The government should pass a bill to have standardized testing throught america. If they did kids would be more prepared to take the graduation tests, the SAT's, the ACT's and so one and so fourth. Only a 1/4(estimated) of each grade take the SAT/ACT. Another problem with our education process is that no one ever understands why we are learning math. When we teach a student something they should understand it. Of course we know someone in the first second grade will not understand but when they are approaching or are attending middle school that is when they neglect the studies because they dont know why they have to learn it. The third problem from my point of view is why do we have to read boring literature?? I read frequently and read on an average or just above average for my age group but when it comes to literature in school i completely neglect reading the books because they are frivelous pieces of nothing. I just type in me internet search engine "clikk notes on The Scarlet Letter" and boom there is it everything I need to know the book, character analysis, a summary on each chapter, signifigant quotes, ect. It was a great help but when i took the test I made a B! Grading is not a problem, you should be graded on your skills when you are in the grades between Kindergarden-second grade. I understand completely where I am in my studies. But it would be nice to know where i stand on what skills i posess because it would help me better when studying. The other thing wrong in georgia's grading system is there honors/advanced placement classes. These classes are for students who succeed the expectations of a teachers who teaches an average class. The you have an honors class which is tought very differently normally with different tests than the ones taken by the average classes, you get 3 points added to you final average. When you take an AP (advanced placement) class which is the same as honors but usually all year and if you pass a college ruled test then it counts toward college credits, at the end you get 5 points on added to your final average. No I took average english in my freshmen year and ended the semester with a 97. No points added or anything. So my teacher suggested I move to a higher class for next year I did. So the following year (this year) I took American Literature Honors (the class with the additional 3 points added at the end. I made out with an 83 (with the three points). Here is the catch (the point) when a college looks at my grades throughout highschool they will look at my 83 in my honors class and subtract the 3 points and say i got an 80! Does that make sense, is that fair no cause an honors has a much bigger difference than just 3 points! lets compare the 97 to an 80. That is a pretty big difference. So now I got screwed over when i could have took an average class and got a high 90 but no i got the 80, that is a big difference on my GPA! I though i would give a chance to let people see from the student's perspective on how they are taught!! Many people out there have no idea just how school is graded on today!!! everyone is worried what we are learning when really its just how we are tested, how they teach us, and what tools they are using to teach us. And if think those are the least of problems your are far from being right!!! 76.17.91.128 07:28, 20 February 2007 (UTC)stephanie B.

forgetting their maths

I removed this sentence: "Some critics charge that time is often spent in mathematics classes reteaching students the basic concepts they should recall from the year before, because students have forgotten most of it. " - which education system is this referring to (which country?) and is there a nameable, quotable source? (See WP:AWT) Saintswithin 06:47, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I had previously edited this sentence to try to be a tad less POV, but you did the right thing. It's unsupportable as stated so let's leave it out until it can be cleaned up and made usable. (If that's even possible.) ROYGBIV

Improvement drive

Public education is currently nominated to be improved on WP:IDRIVE. You can support the article by voting for it there.--Fenice 20:47, 5 August 2005 (UTC)

+ + In America, teacher unions are hugely influential on every level of government. As a result, the vast majority of American teachers receieve pay and benefits that far exceeds the "market rate" of their services.

	+	+
	+	+ Despite regularly increasing funding levels, many American schools are constantly running out of funds for basic needs such as textbooks because teacher unions exert so much control over school budgets that most funding increases are used to increase teacher compensation.
	+	+
	+	+ There is little evidence that the teacher certification process in America has value. In many cases, teacher preperation programs actually teach philosophies of education that are directly opposed to the scientific method.
	+	+
	+	+ Poor children in America are trapped in a government run education monopoly that is defended and heavily influenced by teacher unions.
	+	+
	+	+ Excuses are often presented for the low scores of poor children on standardized tests, but academic research projects going back over forty years (such as Project Followthrough) have established that poor children would possess much better basic skills if schools used proven instructional methods.
	+	+
	+	+ The private sector of the American economy has been widely recognized for its innovation and productivity. Some Americans support a "free enterprise" approach to improving the educational system.

The above additions have been added and cut out twice now.

Let's see if we can get some kind of consensus on these points. How can you understand challenges facing education without knowing the above?

For example, it is FACT that teacher unions are highly influential on the operation of many school districts. People asks why schools don't have money for textbooks. One reason is that almost all funding increases tend to get absorbed into teaching salaries. These salary increases are not necessary to find quality teachers, as excellent private schools and charter schools which serve the same population as public schools have proven.

Anyhow, I am happy to discuss these points on the discussion page, but if there is no discussion I am putting them back in. Readers if Wiki deserve to understand the forces that affect education.

Tell you what, you re-format it so it is readable, and then we can talk about it. Banno 07:49, August 9, 2005 (UTC)

A question studied by educational sociologists is that of the "hidden curriculum" which enforces societal status quo by providing different educations to children of different social classes.

In America, teacher unions are hugely influential on every level of government. As a result, the vast majority of American teachers receieve pay and benefits that far exceeds the "market rate" of their services.

Despite regularly increasing funding levels, many American schools are constantly running out of funds for basic needs such as textbooks because teacher unions exert so much control over school budgets that most funding increases are used to increase teacher compensation.

There is little evidence that the teacher certification process in America has value. In many cases, teacher preperation programs actually teach philosophies of education that are directly opposed to the scientific method.

Poor children in America are trapped in a government run education monopoly that is defended and heavily influenced by teacher unions.

Excuses are often presented for the low scores of poor children on standardized tests, but academic research projects going back over forty years (such as Project Followthrough) have established that poor children would possess much better basic skills if schools used proven instructional methods.

The private sector of the American economy has been widely recognized for its innovation and productivity. Some Americans support a "free enterprise" approach to improving the educational system.

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Ok above is a more readable version of the comments.

Now how do we make this "neutral" in terms of point of view (I'm not sure there really is such a thing but I'd be interested in trying)

For example, wiki might say the earth is over 1 billion years old and a creationist would argue this is a "pro science" view of the universe... In the same way, the statement that "there is little evidence that teacher certification has value" is only "neutral" if you accept a scientific approach to assessing teacher certification programs.

Hopefully people will engage in a discussion here... it could be very useful...

Reply

You hit the nail on the head - the difficulty is going to be in making what you say NPOV. I see three main issues: Systemic bias towards the US, Lack of NPOV phrasing, and factual accuracy.

Take just the first two sentences:

In America, teacher unions are hugely influential on every level of government. As a result, the vast majority of American teachers receive pay and benefits that far exceeds the "market rate" of their services.

The first issue is that the paragraph talks only about the USA ("America"), but the section in which you wish to include it is about challenges in education in alldeveloped countries. The section should also discuss the situation with teacher Unionism in Europe, Canada, Australia and other developed countries. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias for more about this issue, which I think is the key problem.

Secondly, the sentence teacher unions are hugely influential on every level of government is a point of view. This can be made NPOV by attributing it to someone - who is it that makes this claim? What evidence do they have? The same goes for the vast majority of American teachers receive pay and benefits that far exceeds the "market rate" of their services - who makes this claim, what evidence do they use?

The final point is factual. In my experience, private schools pay more for their teaching staff than state schools Yet union penetration is far less in private schools than in state schools. This is certainly the case in Australia (I can provide the stats, if needed), and I would be surprised if it were not the case in the States. This would seem to me to indicate that the statement the vast majority of American teachers receive pay and benefits that far exceeds the "market rate" of their services is simply wrong, since when exposed to market forces, teachers incomes increase.

The same problems recur in the remainder of what you have written. You might start by finding citations for those who support your view. But to maintain NPOV, you should also look to see what the other side says. I'm sure that the teacher unions, for example, do not tell the same story that you do, yet their opinion should be included in the article. see Wikipedia:Writing for the enemy. Best wishes. Banno 22:37, August 13, 2005 (UTC)

Wow, this is a really worthwhile discussion. I think we need to go point by point.

Yes, please do. I made three points.

First, in the USA, teacher unions are allowed to be active in political campaigns at every level of government. They are allowed to raise large amounts of money from teacher dues that they can use for political purposes. Most of these funds go towards influencing school board races, which tend not to be partisan, and towards helping Democrats at the state and national level. They are widely accepted as one of the most powerful interest groups in the Democratic party. And in many school districts they have endorsed a majority of elected school board members. So when they negotiate contracts they are bargaining with officials they helped elect.

So? Why is this relevant to this particular article? Banno

Does wiki's protocal normally require specific citations to support widely held facts such as the above?

Yep. See WP:NPOV Banno

When comparing private school or "free market" compensation with that of unionized teachers, it important to note differences in work requirements. Public school teachers in the US have union contracts that require a much shorter work day and much shorter number of work days per year than most occupations. So it is important to look at hourly rather than annual compensation when making comparisions. In the USA, the gap between the "free market" rate paid to teachers in private schools and the much higher rate paid to union teachers that work for government schools is huge and obvious.

I'd love to see some evidence of this - since it is the opposite of what is found in Australia. Banno

Again, while this could be referenced, it is such an obvious and widely held fact among informed Americans, why do we need to put a citation?

I'm not an American; I am not privy to such "widely held facts". Give me the citations. Banno

I agree that the USA should have its own section.

I have not suggested that the US have its own section; doing so would simply compound the error of systemic bias. By all means, have this discussion somewhere in the "Education in the United States" category, but this article should be far more general. Banno 00:01, August 21, 2005 (UTC)

VOTE!! - HDI in country infobox/template?

The Human Development Index (HDI) is a standard UN measure/rank of how developed a country is or is not. It is a composite index based on GDP per capita (PPP), literacy, life expectancy, and school enrollment. However, as it is a composite index/rank, some may challenge its usefulness or applicability as information.

Thus, the following question is put to a vote:

Should any, some, or all of the following be included in the Wikipedia country infobox/template:

(1) Human Development Index (HDI) for applicable countries, with year;

(2) Rank of country’s HDI;

(3) Category of country’s HDI (high, medium, or low)?

YES / NO / UNDECIDED/ABSTAIN - vote here

Thanks!

E Pluribus Anthony 01:52, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Education systems are Weapons of Mass Instruction

'Nuff said. :) 204.52.215.107 04:58, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

in the war agains error --138.217.248.20 09:07, 21 September 2006 (UTC) User:oxinabox1

publication

would you like to publish this article? -- Zondor 22:25, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Education/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

Core Topic

Last edited at 15:30, 29 August 2006 (UTC). Substituted at 20:31, 2 May 2016 (UTC)