Thinking about education and specialization. In particular whether/how specialization should begin. It seems a lot of the lessons of general education are wasted and useless for most people, and it would be better to start specialization early with it being flexible through high school.

What I mean is that everyone IMO only needs the three R's - reading writing and arithmetic. A child then can use those basics to pursue their own interests and specialize their education process. Naturally interests change and exposure is important but fundamentally it's the specialized path that's going to guide their life in the future not the so called requirements.

Am I way off base with this? I think my weakest point is providing the exposure on a broad scale, which piggybacks on access. But assuming (or discussing below how) that is accounted for, kids could begin specialized education before junior high.


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Big PEMFin H & z's
"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am 1 thing, a musician." � Miles

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

>Thinking about education and specialization. In particular
>whether/how specialization should begin. It seems a lot of the
>lessons of general education are wasted and useless for most
>people, and it would be better to start specialization early
>with it being flexible through high school.

naw.

part of the point of general education is to give us all a broad base of knowledge on which to operate. in part b/c as teens most of us don't really know what where we want our lives to go. we may have some ideas but they're not concrete. so it's best for us to be prepared to go off in any of several different directions. a broader more general education can help w/that.

plus having a broader base of knowledge about the world around us makes us 'better' ppl or at least more interesting and more interested ppl. like if i'd known as a teen that i wanted to be a lawyer and had focused all of my education on issues related to the legal profession i wouldn't know much of anything about literature b/c i wouldn't have thought literature has anything to do w/being a lawyer. of course, as a trial lawyer i use literary references all the time when i'm talking to jurors...but that's a side issue. i would've missed out on reading many of my favorite books b/c i was introduced to most of them in school during general education classes. i was just at a dinner party on Saturday night where i had to reach back to Macbeth (which i read during high school) b/c one of the guests referenced it. i caught a documentary about the Roman Empire over the weekend on the History Channel that reminded me of info i'd learned in high school. same thing w/a documentary about the Napoleonic wars. that stuff comes back on me pretty often.

>part of the point of general education is to give us all a
>broad base of knowledge on which to operate.

This would be cultural though not necessarily educational?

>in part b/c as
>teens most of us don't really know what where we want our
>lives to go. we may have some ideas but they're not concrete.
> so it's best for us to be prepared to go off in any of
>several different directions. a broader more general
>education can help w/that.

This is more what I mean by exposure. You want to have a broad exposure to ideas and possibilities.

>
>plus having a broader base of knowledge about the world around
>us makes us 'better' ppl or at least more interesting and more
>interested ppl. like if i'd known as a teen that i wanted to
>be a lawyer and had focused all of my education on issues
>related to the legal profession i wouldn't know much of
>anything about literature b/c i wouldn't have thought
>literature has anything to do w/being a lawyer. of course, as
>a trial lawyer i use literary references all the time when i'm
>talking to jurors...but that's a side issue. i would've
>missed out on reading many of my favorite books b/c i was
>introduced to most of them in school during general education
>classes. i was just at a dinner party on Saturday night where
>i had to reach back to Macbeth (which i read during high
>school) b/c one of the guests referenced it. i caught a
>documentary about the Roman Empire over the weekend on the
>History Channel that reminded me of info i'd learned in high
>school. same thing w/a documentary about the Napoleonic wars.
> that stuff comes back on me pretty often.

I still think exposure can cover that though the how is hard. How often do you deal with buson burners though?


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Big PEMFin H & z's
"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am 1 thing, a musician." � Miles

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

>>part of the point of general education is to give us all a
>>broad base of knowledge on which to operate.
>
>This would be cultural though not necessarily educational?

it needs to be educational b/c plenty of us wouldn't get that exposure if we leave it to culture.

>I still think exposure can cover that though the how is hard.
>How often do you deal with buson burners though?

i wouldn't have known if i wanted to deal w/Bunsen burners if i hadn't been forced to study chemistry (and biology and physics) as a teen. b/c my parents and my family and my neighbors don't have Bunsen burners or any other actual laboratory equipment (let alone science experiments, et al) for me to play with.

>>>part of the point of general education is to give us all a
>>>broad base of knowledge on which to operate.
>>
>>This would be cultural though not necessarily educational?
>
>it needs to be educational b/c plenty of us wouldn't get that
>exposure if we leave it to culture.

I was saying that such education is culturally focused not critical thinking educational. Even your literary examples are culturally based. And sure this is the dominant culture so it's hard to separate that from general knowledge but it isn't necessary. Take it out of the western context, is a working knowledge of shakespeare necessary? How about a working knowledge of the koran inside of a western context? These are cultural things, not measures of intelligence.

>>I still think exposure can cover that though the how is
>hard.
>>How often do you deal with buson burners though?
>
>i wouldn't have known if i wanted to deal w/Bunsen burners if
>i hadn't been forced to study chemistry (and biology and
>physics) as a teen. b/c my parents and my family and my
>neighbors don't have Bunsen burners or any other actual
>laboratory equipment (let alone science experiments, et al)
>for me to play with.

Right but if you were exposed to an experiment and it held an interest for you, school should provide you the opportunity to pursue that interest. I'm not sayinf remove these things from school, but rather lose the required nature of them so that you are ree to pursue what really holds you.

and I think its about 50/50 on people that know early on what they're going to be about and those who float around a bit. A lot of overachievers are the way they are because of a specialized focus that allowed them to truly pursue those things.



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Big PEMFin H & z's
"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am 1 thing, a musician." � Miles

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

unless you become an artist or something i don't see how you manage without a HS degree

I'm saying HS is more specialized.

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Big PEMFin H & z's
"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am 1 thing, a musician." � Miles

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

you can be a truck driver, laborer/low end construction worker, stock shelves, be a factory worker in many cases, or do a lot of things.

but not an artist like a fashion designer, fine artist shown in galleries, graphic designer, toy designer, product designer etc. 99% of the people who are working artists. if you mean musician or actor or some other kind of artist maybe. but most working musicians and actors went to high school and college.

for most people, maybe 50%... maybe less.

people should gradaute high school with the skills needed to support themselves

if you want to go to college that's MORE expensive than just supporting yourself because you have college tuition and expenses on top of normal living expenses.

so the college bound kids need trades more than anyone ASSUMING hs is all the education we've decided society owes you for free.

People really should have the basics on specific fields of sciences, social studies, maths etc. Even though we forget a bunch of that stuff by the mid 20s everyone retains a bit of something that they learned from high school.

Also to give exposure to give kids of taste of stuff that they might lean towards.

Don't most high schools have majors in the junior/senior year at that point. My school had majors starting at sophmore year. that's specialization right there.

bio physics and chemistry?

science illiteracy is why we have things like 'intelligent design' or questions about the legitimacy of the theory of evolution

history also necessary to prevent things like holocaust denial.

in my experience science grabs kids though. they have an inherent interest in it and explore with proper exposure. and exploration ends up being more valuable than memorization.

the three r's get you to the place where you can explore science.

hmmmm...

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Big PEMFin H & z's
"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am 1 thing, a musician." � Miles

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

its necessary to learn the basics and get good enough to do something with.
most kids wont do this unless they have to
all kids need to learn science- wether or not it 'grabs' them
everyone should know the rudimentary basics of how this world works

or else we get climate change deniers

>its necessary to learn the basics and get good enough to do
>something with.
>most kids wont do this unless they have to

I'm not sure.
I think an understanding of the laws and fundamentals is required, but I question where to draw the line.

Physics wasn't required in my hs. I took it and loved it but it wasn't required.

Again exploration is a great avenue into science, that's how you get through the repetition because of the curiosity to explore. The memorization is lost and easily replaced with non-scientific ideas.


>all kids need to learn science- wether or not it 'grabs' them
>everyone should know the rudimentary basics of how this world
>works
>
>or else we get climate change deniers

Yeah. But again we can assume these people didn't learn these things as well.


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Big PEMFin H & z's
"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am 1 thing, a musician." � Miles

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

they all know about the holocaust.

we were taught about evolution and the holocaust before high school even.

so that argument makes no sense whatsoever.

and they're welcoming immigrants with open arms.

anyone who denies these things has a pro-religion, pro-bible agenda.

education IMHOP.



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"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

Because that seems to be a statement about the education they received not working, not about what I'm proposing.

Specialization is great at keeping you aware of what you don't know.

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Big PEMFin H & z's
"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am 1 thing, a musician." � Miles

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

What's required? What's not? Foreign Languages?

I'm less worried about what's unnecessary at the HS level, and what's been cut from the pre-K - elementary level.

>I'm less worried about what's unnecessary at the HS level, and
>what's been cut from the pre-K - elementary level.

I think a lot of models look at memorization training at that age and go for critical thinking later on. IMO the critical thinking can be taught and absorbed much sooner and then applied by interest to truly enrich individual educational experiences.

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Big PEMFin H & z's
"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am 1 thing, a musician." � Miles

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

based primarily on personal experience getting educated and not knowing what I wanted to study, or how I wanted to/could use what I studied, until much later in life (well well after college). And in the end I think a broad liberal arts education served me fairly well for many aspects of my life, not just professional.

Maybe despite being a good student I just wasn't a candidate for specialization. I don't know. I definitely have friends for whom it probably could have worked out well. So maybe a situation where specilization is an option early on but not a mandate would be a good mix.


Also I saw specialization in action a bit working in the Japanese education system back in the '90s. My reaction a the time was that it made for less well-rounded kids, which made for less well-rounded adults. I also think it's just as easy - maybe easier - for kids to be left behind in a situation like that than it is in a generalist educational process.

I think the 3 Rs are important of course, but I think science, social studies, etc. are equally important.

The way a lot of schools are going now they have basically eliminated those subjects and then they try to provide the knowledge as part of the 3 Rs. So there's no dedicated social studies text, but you read about it in Reading class. While I think a social studies or science class are an excellent way to improve reading skills, I definitely think they should be their own entities. I feel like everyone should be exposed to as much as possible before they start trying to specialize. Hell I think you should have to work for a few years before you even start thinking about college or a career. If you had asked me to pick a track in 6th or 7th grade I'd probably be so miserable right now...

i would say 100%. it gives you options for college. if u want to continue in biology it works, if u want to continue as an engineer, then calculus actually was worth it. it depends on what u end up doing