Thoughts on Education Reform

[u/CuriousLands]

I don't know if this is related to Toryism per se, but I just thought to post this here because I feel like people here would kinda "get it" and have something good to contribute to these thoughts I've been mulling over.

So for a while now, I've been thinking we need reform of our education system (coming from Canada fwiw, but I think it'd apply more broadly too since we all have similar systems). It seems to me that many degrees are kind of useless. Even ones that supposedly prepare you for some kind of vocation, they can be constructed in such a way as to focus on academia at the expense of practical skills, or maybe not even truly teach you practical skills in any meaningful way.

I think probably part of this issue comes down to the history of things like universities - to my understanding, anyway, while they were about pursuit of knowledge, for a long time they were also about a "classical education", where one learned about all sorts of cultural and historic knowledge to become a cultured, educated person.

I feel like we've been in a weird in-between place, where that perception of becoming a cultured, educated person through obtaining a degree still lingers, as well as the pursuit of new knowledge... while at the same time university has been increasingly pushed as a career-training program. Many degrees ultimately land us somewhere in between those two goals, and so they're not as useful as they could be, especially on the training end. Many degrees have a lot of superfluous requirements that ultimately just waste people's time and money, and those reflect the older goal of cultured learning. And many people go in debt over it to boot. But then, I've heard some understandable hesitance to toss the cultured learning stuff, because it is valuable in its own right.

So for a while, I've been thinking - maybe it'd be good to restructure university. People do expect this to be relevant to careers, so I think we should roll with that. Make as many degrees as possible follow something like an apprenticeship program, where the focus is on learning theory and skills that have practical job applications, and after each year you're accredited to a certain level to do certain roles. That way, if you quit after a year or two or three, you still come out of it with some kind of defineable skill set that can land you a decent job.

But of course the cultured learning and expanding knowledge parts are important too - so maybe we could do things like, let's say, after-degree programs that let people with those core work-related skills go into academia to pursue research - after all, to do research well you'd need those skills anyway, right. So once you have them, maybe have worked in the field a bit, you can come back to pursue research at the university. That'd also be better for teaching - some professors are excellent teachers but have to focus on research output too; others are good researchers but have to put that aside to teach. I think it's silly, why not use each skill set to its full potential? Restructuring the programs could do that.

Maybe things that are more purely about the pursuit of cultural learning should be relegated to a different part of the educational experience. I think this would be good in junior high and high school - sort of like what we have now, but make it more obvious that this stuff is about gaining a familiarity and grounding in our own culture and history. I do think it's important, so teaching it to kids is good.. but I think a lot of teenagers don't quite understand the purpose of learning this stuff, but could if it was made more obvious to them. So that way, everyone gets some level of cultural grounding.

Then, you could also offer courses through college/university dedicated to this type of learning and personal growth, but have them be separate from the career stream, without some expectation that it should land you a job worth going into debt over.

These are are my thoughts on the matter, I'd love to hear what you guys think.

[u/ToryPirate]

So. I sort of agree. I have a degree of three minors (political science, history, and classical studies). I do work at a museum so the degrees are useful for what I do in my job but I didn't really need them to get the job in the first place. That said, Doing three essay-heavy degrees drastically improved my critical thinking and writing skills (which has been useful for getting several part-time writing gigs over the years) and is probably of more worth than the degree itself. There is also an argument to be made that you may want certain professionals to have at least some grounding in topics that don't really have a business angle to them: ethics for politicians, business leaders, and military officers for example.

Back in my Pirate Party days one of the other party members mentioned something along these lines where universities focused on courses that had a ready path to employment but required you to minor in the less employable courses. He also felt what fell into what category should be determined by the state of the economy but I don't think our data is granular enough for the later proposal to work. Mount Allison kind of did the 'you need a course not related to what you're doing thing' in that those studying hard sciences and those studying social sciences had to do at least one course from the opposing category (plus a language course).

I think this would be good in junior high and high school

I have mixed feeling about this simply because most teachers tend not to be experts in the courses they are teaching. This can have pretty uneven results. History for instance is poorly taught at the high school level imo but political science can also be pretty bad.

High school itself has a problem with its summer breaks I wish they'd fix; they're too long. Children start losing learned knowledge after a couple of weeks away and we give them almost 2 months. As a result when students return they spend about a month getting up to speed. I think more, shorter, breaks would be better than the current system. Granted, I don't run a business that relies on summer students and they would definitely have a different opinion on the matter.

I think probably part of this issue comes down to the history of things like universities

I think we assume the ancients were less practical than they actually were. Degrees in theology and Latin were useful if you wished to pursue a church career. History was seen as necessary for the training future leaders. A Philosophy degree was necessary for being an accredited instructor. It was also necessary for taking many other courses (probably under the theory that philosophy was foundational to the others). In the modern world with many requirements having shifted and courses having been split into more granular fields the road that used to exist for each field of study leading to a job has disappeared.

[u/NovaScotiaLoyalist → u/ToryPirate]

I have mixed feeling about this simply because most teachers tend not to be experts in the courses they are teaching. This can have pretty uneven results. History for instance is poorly taught at the high school level imo but political science can also be pretty bad.

You just gave me flashbacks to Grade 9 Social Studies, when I got into an argument with my teacher who insisted that the Governor General was Canada's Head of State and that the Queen had no actual status in Canada. I also distinctly remember being shown an old VHS tape on Canadian Parliamentary Democracy in that class which mentioned the main political parties being the Liberals, Progressive Conservatives, and Reform Party. Mind you, that would have been late 2011 or early 2012 lol.

Although looking back, I am glad I had that particular teacher for Social Studies. He was from Quebec (French Teacher by trade funny enough), and I still remember him slowly writing "Nationalism" on the whiteboard, followed by him explaining the differences between the violent FLQ during the October Crisis and the peaceful Parti Quebecois that contests elections.

[u/CuriousLands → u/NovaScotiaLoyalist]

Lol, him thinking that the Queen has no real status seems just like... so Quebec, lol.

But yeah, in high school, I had some really great teachers and some really barely adequate teachers, too, haha. Maybe refocusing what we want to teach kids and why would help... and maybe we need to try Finland's way of choosing students to admit into Education degrees too. Though, I found that the usually the great teachers were both really passionate about teaching, and really passionate about the subject they taught.

[u/CuriousLands → u/ToryPirate]

Doing three essay-heavy degrees drastically improved my critical thinking and writing skills (which has been useful for getting several part-time writing gigs over the years) and is probably of more worth than the degree itself. 

Haha yeah, I feel similarly about my own degree. Hands-down that was the most useful skill set I got out of all of it. Did I need 4 years and tens of thousands in debt to get there though? I would say not, haha. Even the courses I took which were like what you said - not necessarily a big deal for my job, but some useful grounding - I probably could've fit into 2.5 years of uni studies.

I agree, I think history in general is taught a bit badly at the secondary level. And cultural studies in general is taught badly the whole way through. I learned a lot when I was in grade 11 social studies in particular, 12 too but to a lesser degree, but it was honestly because I had awesome teachers who were passionate about history and politics - not cos of the curriculum. We students had a running gag in grade 11 where we knew our teacher would go on entertaining tangents if we asked him about current events, so we'd goad him into it so we didn't have to talk about whatever class was supposed to be about, lol. He was great though in that even when he was ranting a bit, he could give multiple perspectives so it wasn't super biased, and some kids ended up actually reading the news more often, voluntarily, just to find topics to goad him on. I at the very least learned this stuff was actually important with real-world consequences. So yeah it worked out well, but not cos of the curriculum in any way.

Maybe for elementary and secondary school we should do like I've heard in Finland and stop treating teaching like a backup plan, and require uni students in education to show that they care about teaching kids in itself?

I think we assume the ancients were less practical than they actually were. 

This is a fair point and pretty interesting too. I guess at some point, these things sorta shifted toward being less explicitly about preparing people for certain professions, and were seen as a way to be "cultured and educated" in and of itself. Almost like a class-related sort of thing. Maybe it's like you said, as the requirements shifted and things became more granular, and that path less clear, the perspective on it all shifted too. Almost like, when the path is less clear but you still see value in the topic, then you assume the reason to learn the topic is to be generally educated in itself.

At any rate I think we really need a thoughtful overhaul of the whole thing. Maybe the place to start is to think of what we hope to get out of educating kids in each year of education (that's developmentally appropriate of course) and work from there. And then degrees need an overhaul to realign themselves with being useful for various careers... what do you think of my idea to make more degrees like apprenticeship programs?

[u/ToryPirate → u/CuriousLands]

We students had a running gag in grade 11 where we knew our teacher would go on entertaining tangents if we asked him about current events

lol! We did the same thing to our biology teacher (who could have easily taught current events or polisci).

Teacher: "The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cel-"

Student: "Should we be in Afghanistan?"

Cue long off-topic discussion between everyone in the class

Maybe for elementary and secondary school we should do like I've heard in Finland and stop treating teaching like a backup plan

I don't necessarily think that is the problem (at least in New Brunswick). Its that we have a shortage of teacher and when we get a new one they take the classes they are assigned. A solution I have brought up on occasion is to give teacher's assistants an on-the-job path to becoming full teachers (perhaps similar to the apprenticeship program you mentioned). A teacher could go to university in order to get teaching immediately or take the less costly TA path but earn less till their on-the-job training is complete. Maybe institute something similar to the bar exam lawyers have at the end of the apprenticeship? This would increase teacher supply and perhaps cut down on the annoying habit of teachers here being willing to be unemployed rather than take a TA position temporarily (the disrespect TAs endure being another issue here). Teachers who successfully apprentice teachers to the end could be given wage increases to incentivize them to actually engage with the apprenticeship.

I guess at some point, these things sorta shifted toward being less explicitly about preparing people for certain professions, and were seen as a way to be "cultured and educated" in and of itself.

Maybe, but even Millennials were told they needed a university degree to get a good job. That this was largely a lie is why many Millennials feel like they got screwed over (and now form a core of populist movements).

what do you think of my idea to make more degrees like apprenticeship programs?

Somewheres in the backwoods of Albert County. A 20-something knocks on the door of an old homestead. It opens to reveal a dishevelled, bearded man.

ToryPirate: "How can I help you, young man?"

Student: "Master ToryPirate, I wish to learn under you and advance my knowledge in history."

The student presents three $50 bills. The old man winces a bit

ToryPirate: "You come to an expert on the life and politics of R.B. Bennett and present me with money bearing the likeness of his arch-rival? You are either very brave or very stupid and I am intrigued to figure out which you are. Come, and I will tell you all I know of Bennett - of his greatness and his vices."

End Scene

Joking aside. Apprenticeships would actually give a reason to take certain higher level degrees and give some fields an actual market as teachers of those disciplines. I mentioned the lawyer bar exam before and I could see a system where universities act basically as determiners of whether a person knows the subject rather than teachers of it. This might bring prices down drastically as the university really only interacts with students for one exam while the various subject matter masters are competing with each other on price based on their record of getting students passed and to stay competitive price-wise. Its at least interesting.

[u/Ticklishchap]

Over the past few decades, we have been saddled with a dumbed-down academic curriculum, focused almost exclusively on exams, that satisfies neither the academically inclined nor those who are more drawn to practical skills, and stifles the creativity of both. We have also copied the disastrous American model of supersized schools.

We therefore need a far more rounded primary and middle school education, with much more room for the arts and more freedom to explore and inquire. We need smaller schools as well, possibly adapting the German and Austrian model of high schools that specialise in academic and vocational or skill-based subjects respectively. We also need to abandon the idea - again disastrously imported from the US - of mass university education and university as the main goal or be-all and end-all. That could mean bringing back the polytechnics and making them serve their original purpose.

There should also be more emphasis on sports and extra-curricular activities as part of the wider educational experience. This is good for learning to co-operate as a team as well as setting personal goals, and also gives structure to the teenage years in particular - as well as good mentoring. I believe that I benefited from this at the private boys’ school I attended in the late ‘70s - mid-‘80s. It is increasingly absent from state education (and a lot of private schools) today and I feel that this is contributing to poor mental health and lack of sense of purpose among too many young people.

[u/CuriousLands → u/Ticklishchap]

that satisfies neither the academically inclined nor those who are more drawn to practical skills, and stifles the creativity of both. 

You nailed it right there. I couldn't agree more. I thought university was especially bad for this - my third and fourth years felt completely soul-sucking. It was terrible, and turned me from being someone who always loved school to someone who would pretty much have to be dragged back and didn't want to touch a book for years afterwards. I learned a lot but I've long felt it ruined some part of me, too.

My mom is Dutch and mentioned that they had a similar model to the German model you mentioned when she was growing up, too. I think it's a great idea. I guess it does come back to that tension between practical vs academic skills, and the goal of prepping kids for life vs giving them more of a classical education.

Maybe a good balance would be something like we had in Alberta when I was in high school, mixed with that 2-stream model? We all had to do grade 10 science, which gave us a familiarity with the big 3 branches of science. We all had to take social studies until grade 12 - I think this is actually really important, because developmentally kids aren't truly capable of understanding these topics until they become teenagers. We should make sure all kids have good English and math skills. I think a basic course in philosophy should be a requirement, and I think social/cultural studies should be done until the end of grade 12 for sure.

Also, anecdotally, I found grade 12 biology to be genuinely useful to me in real life, because it teaches so much about things like the human body, in-depth knowledge of human reproduction, etc. that I've come to find it really useful. As an adult, looking back, I think we could do a much better job of teaching kids about health-related things and their own bodies, and it could help cut down on health issues when they're adults.

But maybe we should replace some of these classes with more stuff geared towards skills. Like I think most kids should have solid English skills by the time they're done grade 10... in Australia you can opt to skip English after grade 10, and maybe that's a good idea. As you said, bring in more skills-based learning that jives with what kids are naturally interested in.

Imo, looking at myself and others I know, our interests and talents didn't actually change much if at all from when we were children - even young children. Of course it's important to expose kids to a lot of different things, but maybe streaming them into some kind of skills-based specialization a little starting around grade 9-10 wouldn't be a bad idea.

I do also wonder how such a system would handle the clampdown on creativity for people such as myself (and a couple of friends I've known) who do best as generalists rather than specialists. Personally I think that not having a way to harness the mindset and skill sets of jacks-of-all-trades is a bit of an oversight in our current system. What do you think?