School = Brainwash?

It's only brainwash when they teach you things in religious ways and leave out the facts. Only very few schools do that.

I worked the pomegranate out of that system and still hated it. In at least some cases and in some ways, it goes a bit deeper. For example, one of the things I hate the worst about us public schooling is the way history, particularily U.S. history is taught. One specific I'll take from world war II. The holocaust was atrocious ending it was right. Gloss over america pussyfooting about entering the war. Heaveir gloss on the conclusion of the war. The atomic bomb put the world on a far more dangerous teetering brink than Hitler ever did. And using it a second time may have been one of the most awful decisions any man has ever made. Yet, the main thing students take away from learning about the cold war era is how corrupted communism became. Not the harsh realities of a post-fission bomb conflict. M.A.D. is toted as what keeps us from all out nuclear conflict. It's like living in a leaky house made of pomegranate because it's better than getting rained on if the rain were also pomegranate. Glossing over the negatives in your own history spoils the point of studying history entirely.

See this is where I think the regional thing might come in... I think I was taught U.S. History very well with regard to the things you mentioned, and that could be either I actually had a good education (<3 my junior APUSH teacher) or that I simply have a higher tolerance for bias because I simply don't care enough.

Disagree with this one. Homework is meant to build good habits for the future. Sure, most low paying jobs won't ever require you to work from home or stay late in the office but if you even aspire to have a half decent job then being willing to put in overtime is extremely important in your success.

Just realised that I didn't really clarify my point. Homework measures how willing you are to work hard to be successful.

This should be revised to say, "homework measures how willing you are to work." Working hard must be dropped, because i am assuming you are referring to the difficulty of the actual assignment, which is seldom the case, more often than not its just lengthy. As for the successful part, working hard doesn't make you successful... working smart, maybe. Nothing is more pointless than getting 30 problems in math, only to repeat the same concepts you already know and are rather easy to arrive it through reasoning (this changes with the higher level math courses in college i admit, but that is when math drifts closer to a subject of art).

This was already addressed, but homework and good grades is not and never has been a measure of intelligence. Tests have become a measure of knowledge, or how much was retained of the lectures. Homework is a measure of willingness to work, no matter how trivial it may be. Grades are a measure of participation. Though, tests such as the SAT/ACT taken in high school do measure intelligence, if the variables of participation are taken into account. But then again, what importance is intelligence, creative thought is just as necessary to some of the most successful people in the world.

@ The OP...

While I wouldn't say brainwashing is accurate, there are certain social aspects they try to enforce and stigmatize at times.

However, I do agree with what they are saying about education. More or less due to "no child left behind" most if not all school devote more time now to getting kids ready for tests than they do for actual book studying. I actually attended a private school that avoided this method of teaching and stuck to actual coursework and knowledge retention rather than pass the test and move on. I've seen in college many people now suffering from this having in public schools to do a lot more remedial work to catch up to students who had alternate education methods from private or even home schools like I had.

The problem also in my opinion has been teachers who care less about the education of children and more about their paycheck as well. I've been a firsthand witness to this where I had a teacher who never offered or would tutor students and once he left the classroom, forget even asking him about anything at all.

And the educational system wonders why so many kids drop out or seek alternate education sources, have low test scores, and fail to learn and retain knowledge even after graduation.

When I was in college we had kids who had no concept of American History, didn't even know basic knowledge of our country and government structure, had barely enough skills with math, and even fewer who knew how to write a term paper, essays, etc. It's shameful what the educational system has de-evolved into here in America.

Society in general brainwashes you. It all just depends on your will to actually think for yourself and not completely assimilate into what everyone else wants you to be.

Then again, brainwash may be too strong of a word.

Having an education is an awesome experience. Problem is, even at the university level, there is still bullsh!t you must filter out, lest you become brainwashed. Translating what you've learned into the real world and making it applicable is another issue you must resolve on your own. It's a tough gig. Few will ever understand the difficulty of being a successful student. Keep in mind only a third of Americans have a college degree and/or higher (from BA). And the US has the 2nd highest number of universities in the world... so if you do the math, the world is heavily uneducated. Lots of bullsh!tters out there. :p

Having an education is an awesome experience. Problem is, even at the university level, there is still bullsh!t you must filter out, lest you become brainwashed. Translating what you've learned into the real world and making it applicable is another issue you must resolve on your own. It's a tough gig.

Universities/Colleges are out to get your money. A lot of the required courses won't even help you in your field of study, but you're forced to take them and forced to dish out cash in classes that will never be of use to you. If you ever ask why the system is like this, you'll most likely get some lecture about how important it is to be a well rounded individual. That's fine and dandy, but that's what you spent 12 years of your life in school prior to university, to get an all around education in all fields before moving on to something you really want to focus on. Those with degrees get higher paying jobs, but end up having to pay off their school loans for the next 10 years anyway.

But that's digressing into an entirely different subject, I'd rather not hijack the thread for a discussion about this.

I'll have to agree with this person.

Basically, school is a factory for creating robots that are good at doing things in a certain way, to a certain degree, and at a certain time. Just take a look at the idea of "batches" of students, and you can already see the production-line mindset. In this year, you learn this. In the next, you learn a more complicated form of this. The next, some idea that revolutionizes the way you have done it the previous years. And students are forced, at least until college, to be at a certain level at the certain age, regardless whether they're ready or not. Even what I'm writing right now is defined by school standards. Grammar and punctuation are just parts of what we, in a sense, have been brainwashed to require.

What does that get you in the end? A nice, shiny degree that says "I was the best conformist to the system." Will that land you a job? Who knows? Are there people who don't bother going through the school system and end up richer than you? Hell yeah. The worst part is, after all those years slaving through curriculum after curriculum, you end up getting a whole load of stuff that won't be useful to you in real life, ever. Neurologists don't need a second language. Entrepreneurs don't need calculus, or even a lot of high school math. The long, laborious could have been shortened by actually getting to the stuff you need. Then you could spend the freed time on something fun or useful.

I'd say there's at least one good byproduct of the school system, and Loose said it. The people you meet in school are some of the best and worst you could meet. I love the social aspect of school. The dullness of school is numbed down by talking during class, making jokes, etc. Unfortunately, this does not help those who are antisocial and who(m?) would rather get through school and get on to their career. Again, the school system benefits only a certain group of people. And the benefit is really just coming in the form of a distraction from how boring school is.

All in all, the school system has a long way to go. The factory of schooling needs to reform, and soon. School needs to work for students, instead of the other way around.

I'll have to agree with this person.

Basically, school is a factory for creating robots that are good at doing things in a certain way, to a certain degree, and at a certain time. Just take a look at the idea of "batches" of students, and you can already see the production-line mindset. In this year, you learn this. In the next, you learn a more complicated form of this. The next, some idea that revolutionizes the way you have done it the previous years. And students are forced, at least until college, to be at a certain level at the certain age, regardless whether they're ready or not. Even what I'm writing right now is defined by school standards. Grammar and punctuation are just parts of what we, in a sense, have been brainwashed to require.

What does that get you in the end? A nice, shiny degree that says "I was the best conformist to the system." Will that land you a job? Who knows? Are there people who don't bother going through the school system and end up richer than you? Hell yeah. The worst part is, after all those years slaving through curriculum after curriculum, you end up getting a whole load of stuff that won't be useful to you in real life, ever. Neurologists don't need a second language. Entrepreneurs don't need calculus, or even a lot of high school math. The long, laborious could have been shortened by actually getting to the stuff you need. Then you could spend the freed time on something fun or useful.

I'd say there's at least one good byproduct of the school system, and Loose said it. The people you meet in school are some of the best and worst you could meet. I love the social aspect of school. The dullness of school is numbed down by talking during class, making jokes, etc. Unfortunately, this does not help those who are antisocial and who(m?) would rather get through school and get on to their career. Again, the school system benefits only a certain group of people. And the benefit is really just coming in the form of a distraction from how boring school is.

All in all, the school system has a long way to go. The factory of schooling needs to reform, and soon. School needs to work for students, instead of the other way around.

I don't completely agree with this, but I certainly don't absolutely disagree with it either. Education does help children build the foundation of logic and intellect. True, it is a factory attempting to raise children to be workers, but the bigger picture behind it is because unless they're made to be workers they won't fit in to society. Which is what I stated before: the bigger picture in all of this is that society as a whole molds us into shapes. Schools try to bring us up to that standard. Of course, how could a world like what we live in today exist without working? Schools are like factories, because if they weren't then there would be no workers, what society needs. Employers like seeing that shiny badge, even if you're less qualified for the job than the person without it. They have more proof that you are even if you aren't. They have more proof that you'd work, because you've already slaved away the years of your life working your way up the educational ladder.

You say it needs reform, but how do you suppose they reform it? Give some examples as to what would make the educational system better.

The worst part is, after all those years slaving through curriculum after curriculum, you end up getting a whole load of stuff that won't be useful to you in real life, ever. Neurologists don't need a second language. Entrepreneurs don't need calculus, or even a lot of high school math. The long, laborious could have been shortened by actually getting to the stuff you need. Then you could spend the freed time on something fun or useful.

I hear a lot of this "school isn't useful" stuff.

Thing is, unless you're part of the small segment of the population that knew for absolute certain they wanted to be doctors since age five, you just don't know what you need. And sometimes you might think you know, but you really don't. School is about exposing you to the world. You have to wonder how much of your aspirations comes from what you've been exposed to.

I hear a lot of this "school isn't useful" stuff.

Thing is, unless you're part of the small segment of the population that knew for absolute certain they wanted to be doctors since age five, you just don't know what you need. And sometimes you might think you know, but you really don't. School is about exposing you to the world. You have to wonder how much of your aspirations comes from what you've been exposed to.

They know what they want to be because their parents told them they wanted their child to become a doctor.

Joking aside (or not, depending on the family), yeah that's kind of a point I wanted to touch on in my above post. Fits in with the part about education being needed for developing logic and intellect in children.

Universities/Colleges are out to get your money. A lot of the required courses won't even help you in your field of study, but you're forced to take them and forced to dish out cash in classes that will never be of use to you. If you ever ask why the system is like this, you'll most likely get some lecture about how important it is to be a well rounded individual. That's fine and dandy, but that's what you spent 12 years of your life in school prior to university, to get an all around education in all fields before moving on to something you really want to focus on. Those with degrees get higher paying jobs, but end up having to pay off their school loans for the next 10 years anyway.

But that's digressing into an entirely different subject, I'd rather not hijack the thread for a discussion about this.

I suppose it depends entirely on what exactly is your field of study. I just looked at all the classes I took and would honestly be hard pressed to find one that I can say with absolute certainty won't be useful to me. You will find the occassional old theory that doesn't really apply anymore, but for econ purposes it's important for me to understand why that is. I don't know if that applies to other fields of study.

No offense, some of you are starting to sound pretty jaded about the education system in general. Of course colleges are out to get our money. In exchange I get information/knowledge/training/resources that are not readily available. You get insight from professionals, and get as much out of it as you can. Some people don't want to be a Google-for-brains. That is the true way to become a robot. Robots follow a specified and given way of doing things. How often do you do something that you simply accepted as true without giving it much thought? How often do you google something you don't understand? How often do you use a system or methodology you didn't create? When you begin to answer these questions, more and more is 'schooling' out of the picture. Realize you were more like a robot long before school even entered the picture. Some people want to rely on their own minds. At university, I was fed info like a robot, yes, but I figured out whether I was going to accept it or not, by doing my own research and critical thinking.

The average person uses systems as opposed to making them, tweaking them, etc. That is the true conformist. Of course, you will get college students who eat everything they are fed and don't question it. But the general uneducated populace is far worse in this regard. Higher education is simply the opportunity to cut the riffraff in an efficient way.

School's only necessary if you want to have a better chance of getting into a better career. I'm going to college because I want a better chance of getting into a decent job that pays more. That is it. Truthfully, I think that some classes are necessary for your career, while some aren't. I still don't understand why my university is forcing me to take "Arts & Humanities", as well as "United States history" in order to graduate even though I am an IT major. I would understand taking Mythology classes, because of the usages of symbols. I would understand why Math is an absolute must, I can even understand why taking Speech & English courses would be beneficial, but not classes that aren't even correlated to your career.

Also, similar to how a piece of paper never really meant anything. We gave it a symbolic meaning and representation. Dollar bills = a form of currency. We give it a value, and that's why we treat it with utmost importance. I would like to say that "school" is the same (note that I didn't say "Education"). Gaining knowledge is great, ...only if you're making use of it. What's the point of gaining knowledge that you think you'll never be able to use?

Of course, I attend college like a lot of people. It doesn't mean I have to like it, nor should I expect myself to change my views near the future.

absolutely agree with khoi. school is here just so you dont fck up your future.

I don't think it's underscored enough that 'school' is what you make of it. You don't have to go to high school or university to be well-educated (it is certainly more efficient no matter how you cut it though). That is the underbelly of the semantics of what it means to go to school. What I'm saying is that you can be brainwashed and part of the 'sheeple' by half-assing your education, which would be the same as if you never even went to class.

but now that I remember..... I was considered a problem student, because I questioned things (and with good reason).

I made myself watch this particular video before going to university, to remind myself of what I could expect, and to mentally alert myself to filter the BS:

[video=youtube;Xq6lFOhLJ0c]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xq6lFOhLJ0c[/video]

Being the best at anything won't land you a job, work, or career. What they teach now in schools will actually make your process of getting a job actually worse.

If you go to college or a university and take the courses they have versus what you took in high school, the subjects are vastly different. As I said, I've seen students in college struggling to catch up to material they should already know but don't. Jobs now require you know a trade, skill set, or have some advancement in education or thinking to acquire it. These kids going out into the work force now from the public education system are actually being set up to fail at life.

The No Child Left Behind act literally decimated our educational system and set it back nearly 100 years by some estimates I've read on websites that have evaluated our system. Schools all over the world unlike us actually focus on what the kids are interested in, not just what they think they should know to succeed. You see in America less and less specialized educational classes anymore. Home economics taught kids how to manage a home, cook, etc. Skills that were a life's necessity. Metal and Wood shop taught carpentry and welding skills for the industrial trades. Music and Athletics and others all gave kids some doorway to something they were interested in. Now go to many high schools and how many of these specialty classes do you see? Few if any.

There are some schools were kids aren't even treated like kids at all and more like prisoners forced to attend classes with criminal youth offenders on parolees, probation, and gangs. I have seen this first hand from my jobs doing IT work. I've been through the metal detectors, bomb detectors, etc. been patted down, searched, etc. just for an inner-city high school and even escorted around campus.

What we call schools here in America really are not schools anymore. They haven't been since No Child Left Behind was passed into law, and won't be until this sham and scam of a law is repealed and overturned.

School is a waste of youth.
I hate it.

Being the best at anything won't land you a job, work, or career. What they teach now in schools will actually make your process of getting a job actually worse.

If you go to college or a university and take the courses they have versus what you took in high school, the subjects are vastly different. As I said, I've seen students in college struggling to catch up to material they should already know but don't. Jobs now require you know a trade, skill set, or have some advancement in education or thinking to acquire it. These kids going out into the work force now from the public education system are actually being set up to fail at life.

The No Child Left Behind act literally decimated our educational system and set it back nearly 100 years by some estimates I've read on websites that have evaluated our system. Schools all over the world unlike us actually focus on what the kids are interested in, not just what they think they should know to succeed. You see in America less and less specialized educational classes anymore. Home economics taught kids how to manage a home, cook, etc. Skills that were a life's necessity. Metal and Wood shop taught carpentry and welding skills for the industrial trades. Music and Athletics and others all gave kids some doorway to something they were interested in. Now go to many high schools and how many of these specialty classes do you see? Few if any.

There are some schools were kids aren't even treated like kids at all and more like prisoners forced to attend classes with criminal youth offenders on parolees, probation, and gangs. I have seen this first hand from my jobs doing IT work. I've been through the metal detectors, bomb detectors, etc. been patted down, searched, etc. just for an inner-city high school and even escorted around campus.

What we call schools here in America really are not schools anymore. They haven't been since No Child Left Behind was passed into law, and won't be until this sham and scam of a law is repealed and overturned.

Being the best at anything won't land you a job, work, or career. What they teach now in schools will actually make your process of getting a job actually worse.

If you go to college or a university and take the courses they have versus what you took in high school, the subjects are vastly different. As I said, I've seen students in college struggling to catch up to material they should already know but don't. Jobs now require you know a trade, skill set, or have some advancement in education or thinking to acquire it. These kids going out into the work force now from the public education system are actually being set up to fail at life.

The No Child Left Behind act literally decimated our educational system and set it back nearly 100 years by some estimates I've read on websites that have evaluated our system. Schools all over the world unlike us actually focus on what the kids are interested in, not just what they think they should know to succeed. You see in America less and less specialized educational classes anymore. Home economics taught kids how to manage a home, cook, etc. Skills that were a life's necessity. Metal and Wood shop taught carpentry and welding skills for the industrial trades. Music and Athletics and others all gave kids some doorway to something they were interested in. Now go to many high schools and how many of these specialty classes do you see? Few if any.

There are some schools were kids aren't even treated like kids at all and more like prisoners forced to attend classes with criminal youth offenders on parolees, probation, and gangs. I have seen this first hand from my jobs doing IT work. I've been through the metal detectors, bomb detectors, etc. been patted down, searched, etc. just for an inner-city high school and even escorted around campus.

What we call schools here in America really are not schools anymore. They haven't been since No Child Left Behind was passed into law, and won't be until this sham and scam of a law is repealed and overturned.

off topic: I'm saving this post.
on topic: Remember it was G. W. Bush that pushed this act through and was administered during his administration. This is the same guy that almost choked on a pretzel, ran an oil company to bankruptcy (despite being a Texan blue-blood), gave the infamous speech onboard a USN aircraft carrier with the "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED" banner draped in the background, and a laundry list of other acts of idiocy.

Being the best at anything won't land you a job, work, or career. What they teach now in schools will actually make your process of getting a job actually worse.

If you go to college or a university and take the courses they have versus what you took in high school, the subjects are vastly different. As I said, I've seen students in college struggling to catch up to material they should already know but don't. Jobs now require you know a trade, skill set, or have some advancement in education or thinking to acquire it. These kids going out into the work force now from the public education system are actually being set up to fail at life.

The No Child Left Behind act literally decimated our educational system and set it back nearly 100 years by some estimates I've read on websites that have evaluated our system. Schools all over the world unlike us actually focus on what the kids are interested in, not just what they think they should know to succeed. You see in America less and less specialized educational classes anymore. Home economics taught kids how to manage a home, cook, etc. Skills that were a life's necessity. Metal and Wood shop taught carpentry and welding skills for the industrial trades. Music and Athletics and others all gave kids some doorway to something they were interested in. Now go to many high schools and how many of these specialty classes do you see? Few if any.

There are some schools were kids aren't even treated like kids at all and more like prisoners forced to attend classes with criminal youth offenders on parolees, probation, and gangs. I have seen this first hand from my jobs doing IT work. I've been through the metal detectors, bomb detectors, etc. been patted down, searched, etc. just for an inner-city high school and even escorted around campus.

What we call schools here in America really are not schools anymore. They haven't been since No Child Left Behind was passed into law, and won't be until this sham and scam of a law is repealed and overturned.

A key issue with the No Child Left Behind act is that instead of encouraging the kids that fall behind to catch up or just drop out (which i'd prefer see happen to be honest, and go into a labor job) they make the curriculum less intensive taking away from the more advanced kids in the class. This is completely the wrong way to go about it, what i'd like to see happen is high school made optional with the other option being learning a skilled labor. That way the true intellectuals can rise above, and the others can start making money. (For simplistic purposes i left out the creative minority that will go on to pursue a form of art)

Also, elementary and middle school progresses much too slowly, the learning curve needs to be more fast-paced. And the competition to go to college needs to be heightened, I'm annoyed at the number of students that get into college after doing nothing at all in high school. wtp is the point in going to college if they didn't give a damn in high school, they're not going to give a damn in college either, and if they do care they can't keep up with the classes. College has become just another corporation in this respect, essentially everyone can purchase a degree.