How to improve public education?

[trenton]

I see that education could have a massive impact on the future of mankind.  I have many ideas for courses in mind, but I am not sure how to implement them.  I may have to build schools in order to make these ideas real.  Here are a few ideas for courses in schools and colleges.

emotional mastery and meditation

Developmental psychology

How to distinguish between real news and fake news. (Already starting and we need more of this.). Other courses focused on the philosophy of logic and epistemology can be included.

Religious philosophy.  This is interesting and useful for understanding many worldviews, but controversial because some religions want only one religion to be taught, but Satanists argue that all religions should be taught.  I agree with the Satanist because it helps people learn critical thinking by comparing different belief systems.  This unlikely to happen in today's society because of close mindedness toward Satanism.

The history of white washing history. This includes slavery, holocaust denial, and one day it will include January 6th.  It studies the way in which historical narratives are cherry picked or completely ignored in order to help people gain political power or to avoid accountability.  White washing history can lead to future genocides of the previous genocide is denied or blamed on the same group.

How to learn.  This would be a game changer for education.

One of the goals of these kinds of courses is to address our overly secularized society in which emotional mastery and spirituality are underestimated.  This backfires on mankind in many ways including suicide rates which could be reduced through meditation and emotional mastery.

Other ideas for reforming education include improving access to online education in rural areas of developed country and introducing this technology to under developed countries.  This can be combined with reduced classroom sizes to improve the quality of education.

How else should education be changed?  What courses should be included?  How do we make these ideas reality?  Do we have to build our own schools in order to make this possible?

[vizual]

I definitely think philosophy should be mandatory in the high school curriculum. The high school i went to didn’t even have philosophy as an optional course.

 It’s so important to teach kids how to think critically. To question things. To think about their assumptions of right and wrong. Epistemology. The philosophy of science.

 

[trenton]

@vizual given the amount of people who fall for conspiracy theories that kill them, I can see the significance of learning about epistemology.  Philosophy can teach us the importance of self reflection as we question everything we believe, making us more open minded in the process.  I find it disappointing that philosophy is not even an optional course when it could be a special AP course, encouraging students to get college credits as well, saving money in the process.

Maybe schools are afraid of making philosophy courses required because some people feel deeply threatened when questioning their relationship to reality.  It could cause an existential crisis for students being exposed to the truth of no self for the first time.  I can still see amazing benefits in helping students to tolerate difficult questions and not knowing.  This could translate into tolerance for radically different world views, reducing political violence as people think carefully about what they believe.

[Sucuk Ekmek]

6 hours ago, vizual said:

I definitely think philosophy should be mandatory in the high school curriculum. The high school i went to didn’t even have philosophy as an optional course.

 It’s so important to teach kids how to think critically. To question things. To think about their assumptions of right and wrong. Epistemology. The philosophy of science.

 

I went to vocational high School in Turkey. We had philosophy class. It was compulsory course. Our philosophy was as long as you don't swear at somebodys mom or sister you will be good. We all knew what Herakleitos said: You cant step the same river twice!  

Edited September 24, 2021 by Sucuk Ekmek

[Sucuk Ekmek]

4 minutes ago, Sucuk Ekmek said:

I went to vocational high School in Turkey. We had philosophy class. It was compulsory course. Our philosophy was as long as you don't swear at somebodys mom or sister you will be good. We all knew what Herakleitos said: You cant step the same river twice!  

If the exam reader knows the answer already why we bother with philosophy at all? 

[JosephKnecht]

Quote

How to improve public education?

Easy. Make it private. 

Then the problem becomes how to improve private education, but that is an easier problem to solve.  

[trenton]

4 hours ago, Sucuk Ekmek said:

I went to vocational high School in Turkey. We had philosophy class. It was compulsory course. Our philosophy was as long as you don't swear at somebodys mom or sister you will be good. We all knew what Herakleitos said: You cant step the same river twice!  

A common complaint about how philosophy is taught is that people are not taught how to think.  The main goal of teaching philosophy should be to help people use their minds as effectively as possible.  Instead of this, philosophy becomes studying the history of delusional men.  Studying mankind's mistakes can be useful if you learn from them and grow as a result.  This does not help as much if students merely debate what a text from centuries ago meant.  students can't really know for sure unless they ask the old men.

In compulsory philosophy courses students should contemplate questions like "what is the mind and how should it be used.". These individual answers can then be improved upon through teaching logical fallacies that philosophers made in the past.  Rather than giving students a philosophy on how to behave, it would be more interesting to let students be their own philosophers and then use history to supplement and improve their thinking.

[Sucuk Ekmek]

3 hours ago, trenton said:

A common complaint about how philosophy is taught is that people are not taught how to think.  The main goal of teaching philosophy should be to help people use their minds as effectively as possible.  Instead of this, philosophy becomes studying the history of delusional men.  Studying mankind's mistakes can be useful if you learn from them and grow as a result.  This does not help as much if students merely debate what a text from centuries ago meant.  students can't really know for sure unless they ask the old men.

In compulsory philosophy courses students should contemplate questions like "what is the mind and how should it be used.". These individual answers can then be improved upon through teaching logical fallacies that philosophers made in the past.  Rather than giving students a philosophy on how to behave, it would be more interesting to let students be their own philosophers and then use history to supplement and improve their thinking.

Our whole national education system is a horse breeding program. It involves only one question from elementary to academia. Are you thinking the same way as we do? I think this system needs to be decentralized.  Yeah, philosophy is great but it's not for everyone. There shouldnt be one common education for all. 

[trenton]

8 hours ago, Sucuk Ekmek said:

Our whole national education system is a horse breeding program. It involves only one question from elementary to academia. Are you thinking the same way as we do? I think this system needs to be decentralized.  Yeah, philosophy is great but it's not for everyone. There shouldnt be one common education for all. 

That makes a lot sense.  Why should we assume that one education is the best for everybody?  The world needs engineers so our philosophers have air conditioning and proper plumbing.

Normally students are not given freedom to choose their education until college because most of the courses I took in high school were required.  I still think math, english, history, and health should be required.  It is the advanced courses like calculus that make no sense to require just like studying Shakespeare's plays.  Some of the required courses are superfluous and not everybody needs to take them.  Maybe required math should stop around algebra and geometry.

How much freedom do you think students should have in high school?  How far should required courses go on various subjects?

[Sucuk Ekmek]

3 hours ago, trenton said:

Normally students are not given freedom to choose their education until college because most of the courses I took in high school were required. 

Yes true, students are not given freedom to choose. But once it given they cherry pick  easiest classes. For most of them main goal is getting the  bachelor's  degree. How you get it doesn't matter at all. But keep in mind most colleges are free in Turkey. 

 

4 hours ago, trenton said:

I still think math, english, history, and health should be required. 

Yeah I think so, if we want a healthy nation state experience these lessons are required.

 

 

3 hours ago, trenton said:

It is the advanced courses like calculus that make no sense to require just like studying Shakespeare's plays.

Depends on situation, if it's my class then we are reading Shakespeare. Fuck calculus.

 

4 hours ago, trenton said:

Some of the required courses are superfluous and not everybody needs to take them.  Maybe required math should stop around algebra and geometry.

Of course we are not everybody. For example look at gun laws in Massachusetts and Texas. Perhaps they feel comfortable that way.

 

 

4 hours ago, trenton said:

How much freedom do you think students should have in high school?  How far should required courses go on various subjects?

Again this would be one freedom for all high school students in various school types. I am up for diverse school types be it technical, scientific, religous, private or elite whatever... Intriguing but do all students really need the same freedom? Isn't that a dictate too? I think instead of raw far subjects first we need a cultivation of wonder.

  I will go a bit off topic here

Thereupon, one of the priests, who was of very great age, said,
‘O Solon, Solon, you Hellenes are but children, and there is
never an old man who is an Hellene.’
Solon, hearing this, said, ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean to say,’ he replied, ‘that in mind you are all young;
there is no old opinion handed down among you by ancient
tradition, nor any science which is hoary with age. And I will
tell you the reason of this: there have been, and there will be
again, many destructions of mankind arising out of many
causes.

‘There is a story which even you have preserved, that once
upon a time Phaethon, the son of Helios, having yoked the
steeds in his father’s chariot, because he was not able to drive
them in the path of his father, burnt up all that was upon the
earth, and was himself destroyed by a thunderbolt. Now, this
has the form of a myth, but really signifies a declination of the
bodies moving around the earth and in the heavens, and a great
conflagration of things upon the earth recurring at long
intervals of time: when this happens, those who live upon the
mountains and in dry and lofty places are more liable to
destruction than those who dwell by rivers or on the seashore;
and from this calamity the Nile, who is our never-failing
saviour, saves and delivers us.

‘When, on the other hand, the gods purge the earth with a
deluge of water, among you herdsmen and shepherds on the
mountains are the survivors, whereas those of you who live in
cities are carried by the rivers into the sea; but in this country
neither at that time nor at any other does the water come from
above on the fields, having always a tendency to come up from
below, for which reason the things preserved here are said to
be the oldest.

‘The fact is, that wherever the extremity of winter frost or of
summer sun does not prevent, the human race is always
increasing at times, and at other times diminishing in numbers.
And whatever happened either in your country or in ours, or in
any other region of which we are informed – if any action
which is noble or great, or in any other way remarkable has
taken place, all that has been written down of old, and is
preserved in our temples; whereas you and other nations are
just being provided with letters and the other things which
States require; and then, at the usual period, the stream from
heaven descends like a pestilence, and leaves only those of you
who are destitute of letters and education; and thus you have to
begin all over again as children, and know nothing of what
happened in ancient times, either among us or among
yourselves.’

Excerpt from Timaeus by Plato

 

[NorthRise]

I agree that topics like philosophy, meditation, money management should all be taught this isn't going to make a big difference in a lot of areas. 

I have a friend who teaches at a school in Florida that is made up of a lot of kids who live in section 8 housing. Teaching these stage green topics to these kids isn't going to significantly change the outcome of their lives in my opinion, because there are too many other factors dragging them down. 

Most of these kids have horrible home lives and live in awful areas. So while improving topics taught at public schools is a good idea it is going to help middle and upper-class children much more than lower-class kids. To help these kids, you need a societal shift in these communities along with a change in the schooling. 

[Kollin1]

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Edited September 29, 2021 by Kollin1

[PepperBlossoms]

School sports promotes tribalism of us against them and people cheering for their own team with no consideration that the other team are people too.

You then have the cheerleaders, the band, and the crowd cheering for your own team - with no empathy for the other team.

We almost need to get rid of the way the school sports work.

History and language teachers need to teach spiral dynamics, ego development, multiple perspectives, levels of consciousness, etc. and how that relates to past and present.

Students are graduating from high school or college and going into military roles seeing it as a way to earn money but not seeing it as a way that is bombing/hurting others - their consciousness is too low and the military is able to keep on recruiting this way - if we raised people's consciousness while they were still in school, it may change.  Same goes with oil and gas - people from school go into those careers seeing it as lucrative and not conscious enough to see it as climate change destructive.

The school system is a failure in terms of developing people's consciousness - but also those who are teaching it are not conscious themselves that their failure to integrate consciousness in their teachings is creating low conscious students and hence low conscious society.

[PepperBlossoms]

It would be preferable to teach students to look at a situation and say from A's perspective, what was loving, what was cruel?  What about from B's?  What influenced A and B's perspective?

Explain from your perspective religion/law/event is stage red, stage blue, stage orange, stage green, stage yellow, stage turquoise and see how it could have some of all and may dominate a certain stage.

Name things that are promoting various spiral stages.

Name how the spiral stages of the people are impacting the laws, thinking, events, etc.

Get people to look at selfishness and meaning making and show them other ways to think about reality.

Edited September 28, 2021 by PepperBlossoms

[liklikl]

thanks!