NationStates Jolt Archive

Like nearly all my thread titles, this is purposefully sensational and inaccurate. Smart people are super.
My question has more to do with education. It is constantly bandied about as the silver bullet for all social problems, to the point where it is assumed getting ahead is impossible without it (at least in the US).
While I believe everyone should have the chance at getting as much education as they wish, this system of thinking seems flawed. The downside is that education receives attention and funding that could go to more useful programs.
Now I will do what I always do, and ask what people here think. Is education the cure-all? Or should more attention be paid to other anti-poverty or anti-crime programs? A great focus on technical education may also be useful. What do people here think about that?

Also, I have only ever experienced the American public education system. I'd be interested to hear how it's different in other places.

Mandatory if Useless Link (http://www.theseminal.com/2007/10/01/education-cannot-completely-solve-our-childrens-problems/)

I think more funding should go towards anti-crime and anti-poverty programmes. Because for education to work well the people need to have money and time to help their children learn, without this some parents won't have time to keep up their job and socialise their children.
Also just because someone is well-educated doesn't mean they are nice, it just means they are better at reading books than you.
I'd like to see an alternative to education alone, because some people either can't afford it or are socially excluded from it, or develop social problems with it, not sure what but it would take some pressure off teachers in the public education system.
Not military, and having private education just means you have greater divides in class(see Elite Self Recruitment), between public and private which leads to less democratic MPs because they aren't representative of the population.
I'm off now so tired.

Education helps, as it opens new career opportunities for people. Unfortunately, the US education system is more or less broken.

Education is an anti-poverty and anti-crime scheme. I don't see why one should seperate them.

Right, I don't disagree with that. Rather, I question whether it is the best scheme, and whether it is effective as other methods.
Need education to get police officers to help fight crime, and you need education to get jobs to fight crime and poverty.

Education is great, but there are other ways to be successful. Trades such as plumbing, and construction work, can be just as financially, if not more, than jobs received because of degrees. They can be just as emotionally rewarding, too.

Education is an anti-poverty and anti-crime scheme. I don't see why one should seperate them.

Right, I don't disagree with that. Rather, I question whether it is the best scheme, and whether it is effective as other methods.

My question has more to do with education. It is constantly bandied about as the silver bullet for all social problems, to the point where it is assumed getting ahead is impossible without it (at least in the US). Getting ahead isn't impossible without education, but education makes it significantly more likely, be it an education in "book learning" or an education in a trade.

Education is great, but there are other ways to be successful. Trades such as plumbing, and construction work, can be just as financially, if not more, than jobs received because of degrees. They can be just as emotionally rewarding, too.
Here in the UK, you need formal education to do such things, from post-secondary courses, so that really comes under 'education', too.

Here in the UK, you need formal education to do such things, from post-secondary courses, so that really comes under 'education', too.

Well, there are trade school's here in the State's, too. I assumed the OP was referring to book learnin'. :)

I don't know if you need any special schooling to be a construction worker. I thought they trained you as you go, but I could be wrong.

In response to the OP:

The real problem is a huge allotment of funding towards the threshold bracket for those on standardized test scores. The least amount of funding goes to those in the highest scoring brackets, and yet we expect these same people to cure cancer, make it to Mars and beyond, and solve the national debt problems. At the very least, let's see a greater deal of equality, and even more importantly, a restructuring of "No Child Left Behind."

Like nearly all my thread titles, this is purposefully sensational and inaccurate. Smart people are super.
My question has more to do with education. It is constantly bandied about as the silver bullet for all social problems, to the point where it is assumed getting ahead is impossible without it (at least in the US).
While I believe everyone should have the chance at getting as much education as they wish, this system of thinking seems flawed. The downside is that education receives attention and funding that could go to more useful programs.
Now I will do what I always do, and ask what people here think. Is education the cure-all? Or should more attention be paid to other anti-poverty or anti-crime programs? A great focus on technical education may also be useful. What do people here think about that?

Also, I have only ever experienced the American public education system. I'd be interested to hear how it's different in other places.

Mandatory if Useless Link (http://www.theseminal.com/2007/10/01/education-cannot-completely-solve-our-childrens-problems/)

Good question.

Opportunity. Without an education, you just can't do a whole heck of a lot, and the things you can do are eventually going to require education if you ever want to rise above that position.

The downside is that education receives attention and funding that could go to more useful programs.


In the US? Read the UNESCO rankings.

Education needn't just be about academic learning, in schools. For example, education includes everything learned at home from your parents. And if this includes good guidance on how to be a decent human being and a good citizen (which I think it ought to), I don't see how it can fail to be a positive thing society as a whole.

Or to put it another way: I'd certainly far rather live in a place populated by people who have learned to think sensibly about how they behave (and, ideally, where some have also been educated in the ways of plumbing and fixing CD players and other such useful skills) than in a place populated by people who haven't been helped past the self-centered and short-sighted way of looking at things that comes naturally to most two-year-olds.

(Where I work, I'd say it's about 50-50.)

Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one. ~Malcolm S. Forbes

nuff sed

Like nearly all my thread titles, this is purposefully sensational and inaccurate. Smart people are super.
My question has more to do with education. It is constantly bandied about as the silver bullet for all social problems, to the point where it is assumed getting ahead is impossible without it (at least in the US).
While I believe everyone should have the chance at getting as much education as they wish, this system of thinking seems flawed. The downside is that education receives attention and funding that could go to more useful programs.
Now I will do what I always do, and ask what people here think. Is education the cure-all? Or should more attention be paid to other anti-poverty or anti-crime programs? A great focus on technical education may also be useful. What do people here think about that?

Also, I have only ever experienced the American public education system. I'd be interested to hear how it's different in other places.

Mandatory if Useless Link (http://www.theseminal.com/2007/10/01/education-cannot-completely-solve-our-childrens-problems/)

Education is help to self-help.
Show me one way money could be spent better.

Education is an enabler, and is a far better and more efficient way of getting value for money than the ridiculous and wasteful amount of money spent on 'defence'. Education spending actually leads to improved prosperity for the entire nation, large parts of 'defence' spending seems to lead to handing wads of cash over to private companies to produce tanks that don't do what they are supposed to or guns that won't work in the desert.

The OECD has some useful figures on educational spending in the ever useful Education at a glance
http://www.oecd.org/document/30/0,3343,en_2649_37455_39251550_1_1_1_37455,00.html#data

Education is great, of course it doesn't solve all problems and there still needs to be money for other projects against poverty and crime, but I don't really see a lot which needs much money, and is as effective as education.

Education is good because smart people will solve the problems for us :)

The cool thing about education is that, while it's not a magic cure-all, it helps with so many different problems.

People have to know their options before they can make a real choice. It's going to be pretty goddam exhausting if we decide that we have to make the right choice on behalf of all the people out there who are living in poverty, or who are uninformed, or who are in need of help. Instead, why don't we educate them and help make sure they have the means to make the choices they feel are best for themselves? After all, they know a shitload more about their personal situation than any of us do.

Like nearly all my thread titles, this is purposefully sensational and inaccurate. Smart people are super.
My question has more to do with education. It is constantly bandied about as the silver bullet for all social problems, to the point where it is assumed getting ahead is impossible without it (at least in the US).
While I believe everyone should have the chance at getting as much education as they wish, this system of thinking seems flawed. The downside is that education receives attention and funding that could go to more useful programs.
Now I will do what I always do, and ask what people here think. Is education the cure-all? Or should more attention be paid to other anti-poverty or anti-crime programs? A great focus on technical education may also be useful. What do people here think about that?

Also, I have only ever experienced the American public education system. I'd be interested to hear how it's different in other places.

Mandatory if Useless Link (http://www.theseminal.com/2007/10/01/education-cannot-completely-solve-our-childrens-problems/)

1) People have an easier time solving problems if they have learned about problem solving first.

2) People can generally get better jobs if they have an education. There is an inverse correlation between crime and employment rates.

3) It costs less to send a man to Harvard than it does to send him to prison.

4) Expanded education shrinks the labor pool (people going to school instead of work), which means that even people who don't get an education themselves get better pay than they otherwise would because there is less competition for jobs.

Opportunity. Without an education, you just can't do a whole heck of a lot, and the things you can do are eventually going to require education if you ever want to rise above that position.

Sure education opens up opportunity however I am assuming you are talking about trade schools too.

I want to steer away from the US and Western Europe for a bit about education. In many nations they educate their people. I will use Morocco as I am very familiar with it. In Morocco they do "educate" their people. However after they finish there is no "opportunity" for work. So you have a bunch of educated people running around with no work. Then you get a vacuum of people leaving the nation for jobs in Europe. So it just isn't education that needs to be emphasized in a nation but also creating an enviroment to foster jobs too.

Education is good because smart people will solve the problems for us :)

Just because they are educated doesn't mean they are smart and vice-versa. If you check through history of inventors/problem solvers many were not formally educated.

Education may not cure everything, but keep in mind that a lot of south africans believe you can cure AIDS by having sex with a virgin, which is why more than one in five south africans have it and rape has gone through the roof.

Just because they are educated doesn't mean they are smart and vice-versa. If you check through history of inventors/problem solvers many were not formally educated.

Most were and most of those who weren't were educated nonetheless. Certainly history recalls very few peasants who stood up in their fields and were hit by bolts of inspiration.

Well, there are trade school's here in the State's, too. I assumed the OP was referring to book learnin'. :)

I don't know if you need any special schooling to be a construction worker. I thought they trained you as you go, but I could be wrong.

It depends. You don't need any special training or papers to work as a general labourer. But to do anything associated with a trade, which is the vast amount of construction work, you need some sort of education or minimally some sort of paper from a master tradesperson which attests to your experience and on the job training. Local laws may vary.

Sure education opens up opportunity however I am assuming you are talking about trade schools too.

I want to steer away from the US and Western Europe for a bit about education. In many nations they educate their people. I will use Morocco as I am very familiar with it. In Morocco they do "educate" their people. However after they finish there is no "opportunity" for work. So you have a bunch of educated people running around with no work. Then you get a vacuum of people leaving the nation for jobs in Europe. So it just isn't education that needs to be emphasized in a nation but also creating an enviroment to foster jobs too.

Cuba has a similar problem with having a glut of overeducated people without jobs in their field. This is one of the reasons why Cuba exports doctors to other countries in return for other stuff.

Education is help to self-help.
Show me one way money could be spent better.

Strippers!!!

Strippers!!!

Stripper training college

What's So Great About Smart People? I know, but if i told you, you wouldnt understand.