Fuck yeah for both Punk and Canada. Where in the frozen north are you?

Welcome to the Family!

Gym. Most of Science. Algebra, a lot of math. History. A lot of English. Etc

I could go on about my opinions on education and what it isn't and what it should be, but they clearly are not going to be well received.

You know, I love this website, but I've always thought that for a group of people calling themselves goth, there's a surprising lack of open-mindedness.

Ontario. (: Thanks.

What has goth got to do with open-mindedness.

More so, what has telling you that education is essential got to do with being closed minded.

If people didn't study gym, many people would be obese, and die rather quickly.

Science, stuff that, who gives a shit about how the universe works... I just wanna watch T.V. Oh, wait, if we didn't do science, we wouldn't have T.V.s. I guess it's back to the old berry bushes then.

Maths, sheesh. If people didn't study maths there would be basically no buildings, no technology to speak of, no science. I could go on...

History teaches us to learn from our mistakes, it also teaches us about why the world is as it is now.

English is a method of communication. Without it the human race would be not about as advanced as the chimps. Which, yes, are fairly advanced as animals go.... but they don't have IPods yet.

At first I was with lucylucy, as I do believe the educational system that presently prevails in the western world is in need of dramatic reform, but she lost me when she said "LOL Y WUD I NEED 2 KNO HISTORY?"
For the record, being open-minded doesn't mean entertaining every idea, no matter how stupid it is.

What's relevant to learn is obviously subjective, and I agree with lucylucy. The current education system forces subjects onto pupils that don't give a fuck about them. I love English, but it shouldn't be compulsory if you don't care about English, at least not past literacy. The same with Maths, Science, any subject. Once you've reached competency, you should study what you want to study.

I never said the education system was great. Hell, it sucks ass. I was arguing that we need to learn maths, etc etc, in order for our species to function as it does.

What do you consider 'competency?' I certainly don't think the average person should command less knowledge of Math, History, or English than he does upon graduating from high school. In fact, I believe he should command more.

Do you honestly think that people should be forced to learn trigonometry? Or Pythagoras' Theorem? How many office workers are going to need to know Iambic Pentameter?

Architects need to do trig, and Pythagoras' Theorum. You can't just stop teaching the whole population something just because most of them won't use it. On that basis, we should only teach hair and beauty, bricklaying, and typing.

Here they teach us history according to the government's point of view, which sucks like hell
Chemistry, biology and physics are all tought by only memorizing...
You have to memorize the text book word by word from cover to cover

A curious thought
What are the standarts for an ideal educational system?
Is there such thing in the first place?!!

So make it optional, like I suggested in the first place. If someone wants to be an architect, they can follow the relevant subjects. Since I've no intention of using algebra or geometry, it's a waste of my time to force me into doing it.

You might have no intention right now of using algebra, but you might need it later in life. I avoided math like the plague and I regret it now, I gotta take it if I want my degree *sigh* and I'm going to be soooo lost because its been a long time. French also I regret dropping. I can't think of anything in high school that I regard now as completely useless.

As a matter of fact, I do believe that all people should know such rudimentary facets of all academic disciplines, to ensure this is to enrich and strengthen the culture as a whole. Sure, one should be more versed in the specific craft he chooses to pursue than he is in others, but you'd have him be cripplingly ignorant of anything beyond that realm?
Moreover, you realize that people do, in the course of their schooling, occasionally change their minds in regard to their future profession, right? If a student who likes only English at age 14 is allowed to simply ignore everything else, he'll have no foundation upon which to build an understanding of math should that subject come to intrigue him at any point in the subsequent 90 years of his life.

If they change their minds then they change their minds, they can start that studying that subject. I don't like having pointless shit forced upon me. The idea that all subjects should be compulsory or all of the ones you choose nurtures a society of mediocre jack-of-all-trades, rather than a great number of people well-skilled in different areas, and the latter is what's needed.

They'd have absolutely nowhere to begin. Where would they go, back to high school? From where, exactly, would they receive the understanding of a subject necessary to determine whether they don't want to pursue it?

I don't see how the basic, fundamental, fucking microscopic pinpoint-sized tip of the iceberg knowledge of subjects one acquires in high school is 'pointless shit'. If everyone knew only about the one thing in which they're interested, interdisciplinary discourse would be a virtual impossibility-- physicists would be able to talk only to physicists and literary scholars would be able to talk only to literary scholars, because no one would understand even the basic jargon of academic spheres beyond their own. It would stunt the intellectual growth of society.

No, it encourages a society of people who are well-skilled in different areas, but also possess a core understanding of other disciplines.
Of course, in the ideal system, everyone would know more about other shit than they're presently made to, and more about their shit than they're presently made to.

In the UK the system goes like this:

From 5-11: English, Maths, Science, RE, Art, Physical Social Health Education (talking about morality and shit), Geography, History, PE (gym), Music, ICT, Design and Technology, all of those are compulsory.

From 11-13: English, Maths, Science, RE, Art, Drama, Citizenship (essentially PSHE), Geography, History, PE, Music, a foreign language, Design and Technology, ICT, all compulsory.

From 13-16: English, Maths, Science are compulsory, the rest are up to you to choose, and you can choose five subjects (four in religious schools, as Religious Education [RE] is already a core subject), PE is also a core subject but extra PE can be taken.

From 16-18: Do whatever the fuck you want.

Now, I think that this system is pretty much good enough, except I think that eight years of Maths, English and Science by teachers with any sort of credible claim to efficiency is enough, and you should be allowed to choose them if you so wish. The only exception to this would possibly be Science, I think that's the most important of those three.

Now you're bringing a new dimension into this. I believe those subjects should be studied past the age of eleven, but I also believe they should be taught by competent educators.

If science is an exception, then so is math, as math is the language of science.

And English is just too valuable. It teaches us how to write coherently, prepares us for post secondary school, and it was just fun. Everyone I know from high school will tell you how much fun we had with Macbeth, although we had a awesome teacher who made it fun for us.

Oh my gosh! Someone else besides me does that?! That's awesome!

No, because Math would be a part of Science, as far as equations go and so forth.

As for English, it's not valuable to people who don't want to learn it, if you can't write coherently after eight years of tuition, along with being born in the country that speaks the damn language, you're a fucking idiot.

Oh, yeah, there's nothing better than division of labor.
The latter you're defending is nothing but a capitalist technique of divide-and-conquer.
You get each person to become heavily specialized in one sole facet, and you alienate everyone.
Engineer build weapons because they are not trained nor paid to think about their effects.
Political scientists can't think of alternative societies because they wouldn't know the first thing about administration.
Marketing majors fuck up the lives of endless consumers because it's not important for them to know what they're selling.
These endless consumers won't know how much they're being fucked because they're pressured to focus in the labor aspects of their lives - someone else will take care of their commodities.
And endless producers will be forever exploited, for society will still need people that heavily specialize in service and maintenance and resource extraction, which closes them the doors for better opportunities.

Nice society.

You don't think eight years of compulsory subjects is enough to let people decide to branch out more into what THEY want to do, and will lead to the death of a positive, peaceful society?

I think that's true for every country. Prople who win a war call it glorious, whereas people who lose the war call it cruel.