I am 16 and the education system is destroying my health

[SoulRiser]

Quote:The pressure put on today’s young people is immense. All we are learning is that our best isn’t good enough and that one bad test makes you a failure.

This is an article about how our education system is ruining young people’s lives. Nobody is listening to the teachers who say it, so perhaps someone will listen to me.

The system is teaching people that your best isn’t good enough, that you must constantly try harder and that one bad result makes you a failure. Success is measured by how well you remember the criteria on a given day. How can we justify putting the health of children on the line for an exam board’s definition of achievement? The most important achievement a person should aim for is being comfortable in their skin, safe in the knowledge they can live their life and define success on their own terms.

More at Source

[no]

I thought you were in your 30s

[Ky]

No, School Survival is 16.

[SoulRiser]

It's in quotes, dammit.

[Sunbourn]

We can do better than this archaic system which is designed to teach you what to think instead of how to think.

[sfslol]

No matter how much I would love an education system like the one in the post, I don't think it'll work in reality. The problem is that people are different, which means that one education system can not fulfill everybody's wishes. Some don't like school at all, some like learning about a specific topic and some like learning about everything.

I believe that the recipe for an education system, is freedom to an extent. For instance, why would a car mechanic need the skill to write and analyze a poem? The answer is they don't. If it only aimed at giving you everyday abilities, like simple math, and then let you specialize at a specific topic it would give you a quicker education, more freedom and a better learning environment because people are actually interested in what they study plus so much more. I don't get why you are expected to know so much, when in reality you really only need the basics. At the same time, you can't let people have to much freedom because the people going through the system is still young. They are not really mature enough to make their own decisions, and nobody wants math right? This is why I'm saying freedom to an extent, teach the basics to make sure they work in the real world and then let them specialize at something they enjoy and something that can give them a future.

Even though it's not perfect, I believe it's realistic.
There are a lot of things that could improve, but I think it's important to start realistically and do something instead of ignoring it. Mental health is a very serious matter, and is in cases so bad that it leads to suicide and so on which is the reason why we need to take the development of our education system seriously because currently it is destroying the mental health of young people.

Also, another thing I believe is important to think, is that "we should not think about how we can cure mental illness, but how we can prevent it".

[SoulRiser]

Quote:They are not really mature enough to make their own decisions, and nobody wants math right?

I'm sorry, what? If they want to do something that requires math, they will want math. Like, the only reasons I bothered with numbers and stuff back then was because I wanted to learn programming, and because I needed to work out how many songs I can fit on a tape (yeah, 90's problems, lol). Once I moved on to writing CD's my interest in math quickly faded, until I needed it for a programming project.

There's little to no point in learning math just for the sake of math...

[sfslol]

(10-27-2015 10:37 PM)SoulRiser Wrote:  

Quote:They are not really mature enough to make their own decisions, and nobody wants math right?

I'm sorry, what? If they want to do something that requires math, they will want math. Like, the only reasons I bothered with numbers and stuff back then was because I wanted to learn programming, and because I needed to work out how many songs I can fit on a tape (yeah, 90's problems, lol). Once I moved on to writing CD's my interest in math quickly faded, until I needed it for a programming project.

There's little to no point in learning math just for the sake of math...

I'm not talking about advanced math, like algebra and stuff like that, but you are really required to know basic math if you want to work in the modern society. And do you think that if people could choose if they wanted math or not, they would say yes? Also please know that this was only me rambling at night and it's not a system that would be efficient without a lot of thinking and developing.

[schoolsux]

A great idea for change in the schools is to not really have school beyond 8th grade (US). The schools teach basic skills in every subject, much like today's schools. Foreign languages would be taught too (starting much younger than 7th grade). I know my school (and a school I nearly transferred to) both start teaching foreign languages in 7th grade.

Unlike today's schools, there would be NO standardized testing. Grades would not exist. There would be more schools teaching things in a specific field (e.g. engineering).