Even if you are correct, this still points to a massive failing.
Lets say 95% of students feel as you feel. My feelings on primary and secondary school are more upset and angry than Zvi has expressed here, and had about twenty people in my graduating class; perhaps every other student in my class loved it. In that case, it’s still a system where one in twenty children are bored, stifled, and hurt. A system that was exactly like the current system but where those children like me and Zvi who would take “sick days” to get out could freely get out feels like it would be a much better system.
But that’s not the claim being made, is it? The claim is that the system is just terrible, for basically everyone, and that it would be best to just burn it down wholesale.
And that’s silly.
Let me be clear about something. The high school that I went to (which, again, I am 99% certain is the same one that Zvi went to) was, and is, very selective. What’s more, it was selective purely on the basis of performance on a single entrance exam. Admission criteria did not take into account “extracurriculars”, recommendations, attendance in middle school, grades in middle school, “character references”, personal essays, or any other such nonsense. The result was that only “smart kids” get in.
This makes a huge difference in the learning environment. There’s basically no bullying, there are no “jocks” to speak of, and the concept of being made fun of for being smart, or for being a “nerd”, or for being focused on schoolwork, is absurd even to contemplate. If anything, the school might encourage too great a focus on academics, studying, schoolwork, etc. (such criticisms have been made, at any rate, though I’m not sure I agree with them). In any case, it was, truly, a learning environment.
My point, in explaining all of this, is this:
Most schools are not like the one I went to. I am entirely willing to believe, therefore, that most schools are terrible. What I find to be an absurd claim, however, is that all schools are terrible, and, even more so, the claim that all schools are necessarily terrible. That is simply false as a matter of empirical fact.
So, by all means, destroy most of the system, and tile it with copies of my high school (and then do something else for kids who aren’t smart enough to get into such a place; I don’t know what, but I also don’t really care). And, by all means, allow some particularly smart, particularly independent-minded or whatever, kids (like, perhaps, Zvi) to excuse themselves. But the idea that there’s a fundamental “case against education” to be made, that includes my high school among its targets, is unsupportable.
There’s basically no bullying, there are no “jocks” to speak of, and the concept of being made fun of for being smart, or for being a “nerd”, or for being focused on schoolwork, is absurd even to contemplate.
I didn’t see any mention of bullying or the like in the OP? (Leaving aside the fact that putting forward “just select the smartest kids w/ a high-stakes entrance exam” as a solution to bullying is preposterous.) OP’s complaints have to do with ineffective teachers and institutional red tape, and if top-class high schools are so bad, I struggle to think what the average school must be like!
I didn’t see any mention of bullying or the like in the OP?
I didn’t say otherwise. The purpose of my description was to paint a picture of the environment, not necessarily to respond to specific things in the OP.
(Leaving aside the fact that putting forward “just select the smartest kids w/ a high-stakes entrance exam” as a solution to bullying is preposterous.)
Why leave this aside? In my experience (at no less than three schools of this sort, across two very different countries!), this is precisely the solution, and it works outstandingly well. (Or, rather, it’s part of the solution; and to be even more precise, it’s the necessary first step toward the solution, the entirety of which is of course not quite so easy, but mostly has to do with selectivity plus sufficiently engaging academics.)
That aside… to be honest, I have to ask whether you read the part of my comment where I explicitly state my purpose in describing my high school experience.
OP’s complaints have to do with ineffective teachers and institutional red tape, and if top-class high schools are so bad, I struggle to think what the average school must be like!
I am saying that top-class high schools (or, at least, one top-class high school) are not, in fact, “so bad”. The claim that the average school is terrible is one which I also explicitly mentioned, and readily assented to.
All in all, I get the impression that you’re responding to the comment you imagine I wrote, not the comment I actually wrote.
I am saying that top-class high schools (or, at least, one top-class high school) are not, in fact, “so bad”.
But OP is saying that they are, and you don’t really address any of his claims. Seriously, if you can be spending most of your time correcting your own lecturers when they get things wrong, and being otherwise bored to death—or being denied access to electives because of your scores in unrelated subjects—that’s terrible enough. We wouldn’t accept this in any institution which was attempting to provide even minimally-”engaging” academics.
if you can be spending most of your time correcting your own lecturers when they get things wrong
If you’re sufficiently smart and academically inclined, you can find yourself correcting some of your teachers without the school, or even those teachers, being bad. Finding very skilled teachers is not easy. Finding teachers who are so skilled that they are never caught in a mistake by a roomful of students selected for intelligence and academic inclination from a city of eight million is even harder. The question is: how prevalent is this?
In my experience at the high school in question, such things (correcting the teachers) tended to be relatively common in subjects like history and so on, and fairly rare in STEM-type classes. This was, of course, because the school had math, science, and technology as its focus.
Likewise, if you’re sufficiently smart and academically inclined, and also insufficiently loaded down with schoolwork, you may find yourself bored to death. In my four years of high school, I did occasionally find myself in a state that could be described as “bored”, but would be more accurately described as “falling asleep due to having so much difficult and time-consuming schoolwork, what with taking college-level science classes, participating in mathematics competitions, and taking extra programming classes on weekends”. Naturally, in the interesting classes (read: science, math, and tech), I was engaged enough to counteract this drowsiness; in the useless classes (read: literature, art, music, foreign language), I was not.
Now, you can blame the school for this, and you might well be right. Let us be clear, however, that the accusation to make would be “this school falls short of Platonic perfection”, and not “this school is terrible”.
being denied access to electives because of your scores in unrelated subjects
I can comment only generally, as I do not know the details of Zvi’s academic situation and I don’t recall what the rules were—it has been some years since I graduated. So, if you like, this may have been a boneheaded policy. There were enough of those, certainly.
That said—just what exactly is wrong with this policy? If everyone wants to get into an elective, but there aren’t enough seats in the class, then why not give them preferentially to the highest-performing students? I struggle to discern any fundamental unfairness in this approach.
We wouldn’t accept this in any institution which was attempting to provide even minimally-“engaging” academics.
Ridiculous. Let’s please avoid the hyperbole. Again: if the claim is “Zvi’s/Said’s high school failed to live up to the Platonic ideal of the perfect educational environment”, then, yes: guilty as charged. But if the claim is “this is clearly terrible”, then I’m afraid that is simply absurd.
Naturally, in the interesting classes (read: science, math, and tech), I was engaged enough to counteract this drowsiness; in the useless classes (read: literature, art, music, foreign language), I was not.
Understood. But even allowing that this school did feature quite a few engaging classes (and again, it’s not like OP denies this), is it really fair to praise a school as ‘top-class’ or ‘the best school in city X’ when its narrow STEM focus leads it to provide markedly-substandard education in such subjects as literature, art, history and foreign languages? Note that this is not at all an unrealistic or “Platonic” standard, since there are plenty of schools that obviously succeed in engaging their students academically wrt. these subjects (in a relative sense, obviously)! So what exactly is “ridiculous” or hyperbole about such a claim?
is it really fair to praise a school as ‘top-class’ or ’the best school in city X’
Of course it’s fair. That this school is top-class cannot be seriously disputed. (I will leave it to others to substantiate this claim, if desired; it would be unseemly to focus overlong on the objective merits of a school from which I myself graduated. The information required to do so is available from public sources.)
As for “the best school in [the] city”, please display for me where I said that. Your use of quotation marks indicates that you’re quoting my words, when in fact that is not so. I never said anything about it being the best. (Neither, for that matter, did Zvi.)
narrow STEM focus
A focus on science, technology, and mathematics is not “narrow”. Those subjects constitute, in fact, most of what it is actually important to teach in a formal academic setting, especially to high-schoolers.
markedly-substandard education in such subjects as literature, art, history and foreign languages
Where are you getting “markedly-substandard”? Please do not put words in my mouth. The education we received in literature and history was, in fact, quite a bit above standard (as evidenced by my, and my classmates’, stellar scores on standardized tests in said subjects, as well as everything I have seen since then concerning the average level of knowledge of these subjects in the general population).
(The “art appreciation” class was, of course, mostly worthless—an “easy A”, so to speak—as well it should have been; it would’ve been better for there not to have been such a thing, of course, but, as I said—the place wasn’t perfect. As for foreign language classes, indeed those were exactly as awful as you’d expect from non-immersion-based non-intensive language instruction. But in both of these cases, I would be shocked to find that the quality of instruction we received was actually substandard!)
Even if you are correct, this still points to a massive failing.
Lets say 95% of students feel as you feel. My feelings on primary and secondary school are more upset and angry than Zvi has expressed here, and had about twenty people in my graduating class; perhaps every other student in my class loved it. In that case, it’s still a system where one in twenty children are bored, stifled, and hurt. A system that was exactly like the current system but where those children like me and Zvi who would take “sick days” to get out could freely get out feels like it would be a much better system.
Sure.
But that’s not the claim being made, is it? The claim is that the system is just terrible, for basically everyone, and that it would be best to just burn it down wholesale.
And that’s silly.
Let me be clear about something. The high school that I went to (which, again, I am 99% certain is the same one that Zvi went to) was, and is, very selective. What’s more, it was selective purely on the basis of performance on a single entrance exam. Admission criteria did not take into account “extracurriculars”, recommendations, attendance in middle school, grades in middle school, “character references”, personal essays, or any other such nonsense. The result was that only “smart kids” get in.
This makes a huge difference in the learning environment. There’s basically no bullying, there are no “jocks” to speak of, and the concept of being made fun of for being smart, or for being a “nerd”, or for being focused on schoolwork, is absurd even to contemplate. If anything, the school might encourage too great a focus on academics, studying, schoolwork, etc. (such criticisms have been made, at any rate, though I’m not sure I agree with them). In any case, it was, truly, a learning environment.
My point, in explaining all of this, is this:
Most schools are not like the one I went to. I am entirely willing to believe, therefore, that most schools are terrible. What I find to be an absurd claim, however, is that all schools are terrible, and, even more so, the claim that all schools are necessarily terrible. That is simply false as a matter of empirical fact.
So, by all means, destroy most of the system, and tile it with copies of my high school (and then do something else for kids who aren’t smart enough to get into such a place; I don’t know what, but I also don’t really care). And, by all means, allow some particularly smart, particularly independent-minded or whatever, kids (like, perhaps, Zvi) to excuse themselves. But the idea that there’s a fundamental “case against education” to be made, that includes my high school among its targets, is unsupportable.
I didn’t see any mention of bullying or the like in the OP? (Leaving aside the fact that putting forward “just select the smartest kids w/ a high-stakes entrance exam” as a solution to bullying is preposterous.) OP’s complaints have to do with ineffective teachers and institutional red tape, and if top-class high schools are so bad, I struggle to think what the average school must be like!
I didn’t say otherwise. The purpose of my description was to paint a picture of the environment, not necessarily to respond to specific things in the OP.
Why leave this aside? In my experience (at no less than three schools of this sort, across two very different countries!), this is precisely the solution, and it works outstandingly well. (Or, rather, it’s part of the solution; and to be even more precise, it’s the necessary first step toward the solution, the entirety of which is of course not quite so easy, but mostly has to do with selectivity plus sufficiently engaging academics.)
That aside… to be honest, I have to ask whether you read the part of my comment where I explicitly state my purpose in describing my high school experience.
I am saying that top-class high schools (or, at least, one top-class high school) are not, in fact, “so bad”. The claim that the average school is terrible is one which I also explicitly mentioned, and readily assented to.
All in all, I get the impression that you’re responding to the comment you imagine I wrote, not the comment I actually wrote.
But OP is saying that they are, and you don’t really address any of his claims. Seriously, if you can be spending most of your time correcting your own lecturers when they get things wrong, and being otherwise bored to death—or being denied access to electives because of your scores in unrelated subjects—that’s terrible enough. We wouldn’t accept this in any institution which was attempting to provide even minimally-”engaging” academics.
If you’re sufficiently smart and academically inclined, you can find yourself correcting some of your teachers without the school, or even those teachers, being bad. Finding very skilled teachers is not easy. Finding teachers who are so skilled that they are never caught in a mistake by a roomful of students selected for intelligence and academic inclination from a city of eight million is even harder. The question is: how prevalent is this?
In my experience at the high school in question, such things (correcting the teachers) tended to be relatively common in subjects like history and so on, and fairly rare in STEM-type classes. This was, of course, because the school had math, science, and technology as its focus.
Likewise, if you’re sufficiently smart and academically inclined, and also insufficiently loaded down with schoolwork, you may find yourself bored to death. In my four years of high school, I did occasionally find myself in a state that could be described as “bored”, but would be more accurately described as “falling asleep due to having so much difficult and time-consuming schoolwork, what with taking college-level science classes, participating in mathematics competitions, and taking extra programming classes on weekends”. Naturally, in the interesting classes (read: science, math, and tech), I was engaged enough to counteract this drowsiness; in the useless classes (read: literature, art, music, foreign language), I was not.
Now, you can blame the school for this, and you might well be right. Let us be clear, however, that the accusation to make would be “this school falls short of Platonic perfection”, and not “this school is terrible”.
I can comment only generally, as I do not know the details of Zvi’s academic situation and I don’t recall what the rules were—it has been some years since I graduated. So, if you like, this may have been a boneheaded policy. There were enough of those, certainly.
That said—just what exactly is wrong with this policy? If everyone wants to get into an elective, but there aren’t enough seats in the class, then why not give them preferentially to the highest-performing students? I struggle to discern any fundamental unfairness in this approach.
Ridiculous. Let’s please avoid the hyperbole. Again: if the claim is “Zvi’s/Said’s high school failed to live up to the Platonic ideal of the perfect educational environment”, then, yes: guilty as charged. But if the claim is “this is clearly terrible”, then I’m afraid that is simply absurd.
Understood. But even allowing that this school did feature quite a few engaging classes (and again, it’s not like OP denies this), is it really fair to praise a school as ‘top-class’ or ‘the best school in city X’ when its narrow STEM focus leads it to provide markedly-substandard education in such subjects as literature, art, history and foreign languages? Note that this is not at all an unrealistic or “Platonic” standard, since there are plenty of schools that obviously succeed in engaging their students academically wrt. these subjects (in a relative sense, obviously)! So what exactly is “ridiculous” or hyperbole about such a claim?
Of course it’s fair. That this school is top-class cannot be seriously disputed. (I will leave it to others to substantiate this claim, if desired; it would be unseemly to focus overlong on the objective merits of a school from which I myself graduated. The information required to do so is available from public sources.)
As for “the best school in [the] city”, please display for me where I said that. Your use of quotation marks indicates that you’re quoting my words, when in fact that is not so. I never said anything about it being the best. (Neither, for that matter, did Zvi.)
A focus on science, technology, and mathematics is not “narrow”. Those subjects constitute, in fact, most of what it is actually important to teach in a formal academic setting, especially to high-schoolers.
Where are you getting “markedly-substandard”? Please do not put words in my mouth. The education we received in literature and history was, in fact, quite a bit above standard (as evidenced by my, and my classmates’, stellar scores on standardized tests in said subjects, as well as everything I have seen since then concerning the average level of knowledge of these subjects in the general population).
(The “art appreciation” class was, of course, mostly worthless—an “easy A”, so to speak—as well it should have been; it would’ve been better for there not to have been such a thing, of course, but, as I said—the place wasn’t perfect. As for foreign language classes, indeed those were exactly as awful as you’d expect from non-immersion-based non-intensive language instruction. But in both of these cases, I would be shocked to find that the quality of instruction we received was actually substandard!)