Gripes with Formal Education

[aejones]

I'm finishing my sophomore year at a University in the midwest, but since the middle of high school I've had my reservations about formal education. Although recent (last two years) events have made my educational situation perhaps different from others (humble compared to some of this forum, but significant nonetheless), I've had qualms and gripes about formal education since the middle of high school.

I can't help but think to myself, "Why should I be learning this?"

Obviously, many people share this sentiment (and many from the poker community have dropped out of school because of it, perhaps). However, my complaints are somewhat deeper than that. I have a complete distaste for recieving grades for our efforts. For example, I always did very well in school, I was 4th in my high school class, got high standardized test scores, etc.- but there were some people that had it ruin their lives. When I was a junior, a girl that was in my class put forth so much effort into school, she repeatedly told some of us that if she ever got a B her mother would ground her. A year later, she got a B in an academic class, dropping her from the validictorian spot in our class. Her mother wrote a letter a week to the teacher... there were tears and animosity between classmates.. the whole situation was ugly, and had even more details than that.

That is simply an example of how seriously some families take formal education. Why? I have no idea.

Does that B mean that 'straight-A Suzy' (not her name obv) can't get into an Ivy League school? Possibly. But is even the remote possibility of losing a few thousand dollars of scholarship money worth splitting a family apart at the seams?

I've had some professors in college- great professors- who do a fantastic job of de-emphasizing the importance of grades. So many students in this institution of higher learning are obsessed with grades. My roomates girlfriend calls him up in tears once every two weeks about how she failed her chemistry exam.

Perhaps I'm being naive by thinking that the amount of effort you put into your school work is the amount you get out of it. Maybe it's always come more natural to me than the average person, and I'm being selfish by complaining- but I always thought: You work this much, you deserve this grade. There are some exceptions and some variance in grading, depending on what you study the night before or what you happened to remember from class, but in general the effort should correlate to the result.

Aside from grading being over emphasized, formal education seems to mislead students. I mean sure, by now I should be in college and have a more focused major to study, but I still have the occasional "Cultures of South Asia" class that I'll never have to know anything about in my life (although the globalization of India is fairly interesting).

I really do believe in specialization of labor. Sure, this is a long time after the industrial revolution, but even now I keep thinking: "My mind isn't going to waste. I enjoy studying poker. I want to study poker a few hours a day, and then put that study into practice."

Some people like to work on cars, let them work on cars.

Obviously, this is oversimplified, and I'm not suggesting that we don't require Americans to graduate from high school- but since college is becoming the norm, I feel that all too often today's youth is being forced to acquire unnecessary knowledge- and even then, it's more like "I'll cram for this test 6 hours before, and not remember a damn thing 6 hours after."

What a waste of time.

I want to travel the world, I want to read Freud and figure out what the hell he's trying to say on my own, I want to teach myself the piano, I want to have conversation with intelligent people, learn about New York by traveling around the city, I want to eat good food and talk to good looking women, god damnit I want to read El Diablo's Discussion Forum and find out good buys at Whole Foods- but I don't want to be held to a standard of formal education that defines who I am and my worth in this society.

[ArturiusX]

You'd be surprised what you retain. You're also learning how to cram; an important skill. You're learning how to extract the core facts from a curriculum's, a skill that will serve you well later in life

[Morganballer]

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You'd be surprised what you retain. You're also learning how to cram; an important skill. You're learning how to extract the core facts from a curriculum's, a skill that will serve you well later in life

[/ QUOTE ]

Cramming is absolutly the worst way to retain information. Your memory retains what you learn by repetition as well as the amount of interest you have in the subject. "Cramming" information will stay in your short term memory and if you do not recall that information again sometime soon it will be lost. I remember learning about proofs in high school and im pretty sure I got an A on the test for it. But if you ask me to do one right now I would have no clue because i had no interest in it and I havent used that information since the test. So it goes to show that my test grade was basically meaningless because it does not show my mastery of the subject but that I can recall information from the night before.

[captZEEbo]

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[ QUOTE ]
You'd be surprised what you retain. You're also learning how to cram; an important skill. You're learning how to extract the core facts from a curriculum's, a skill that will serve you well later in life

[/ QUOTE ]

Cramming is absolutly the worst way to retain information. Your memory retains what you learn by repetition as well as the amount of interest you have in the subject. "Cramming" information will stay in your short term memory and if you do not recall that information again sometime soon it will be lost. I remember learning about proofs in high school and im pretty sure I got an A on the test for it. But if you ask me to do one right now I would have no clue because i had no interest in it and I havent used that information since the test. So it goes to show that my test grade was basically meaningless because it does not show my mastery of the subject but that I can recall information from the night before.

[/ QUOTE ]who says we want to retain information? We just want to pass.

[Morganballer]

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[ QUOTE ]
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You'd be surprised what you retain. You're also learning how to cram; an important skill. You're learning how to extract the core facts from a curriculum's, a skill that will serve you well later in life

[/ QUOTE ]


Cramming is absolutly the worst way to retain information. Your memory retains what you learn by repetition as well as the amount of interest you have in the subject. "Cramming" information will stay in your short term memory and if you do not recall that information again sometime soon it will be lost. I remember learning about proofs in high school and im pretty sure I got an A on the test for it. But if you ask me to do one right now I would have no clue because i had no interest in it and I havent used that information since the test. So it goes to show that my test grade was basically meaningless because it does not show my mastery of the subject but that I can recall information from the night before.

[/ QUOTE ]who says we want to retain information? We just want to pass.

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That is the problem with the education system is that we put the focus on only passing. That is why our country is falling so far behind other countries in terms of math and science because we dont have anyone knowing anything simply passing the tests and losing when they go against someone from another country that truly knows what they are talking about. Retaining information is how one gets truly successful. If you don't retain anything you read in a poker book that information is useless to you except the day you read it.

[daryn]

i basically agree with everything you've said, grades, people that shouldn't be there, etc.

some people just should not be in college. education is key, sure.. but a large percentage, maybe more than half of people who are in college should not be there. they just go because they think they should. maybe they do need to though, maybe it's the system of hiring that's f'ed up and forces them to be there.

[WordWhiz]

Join the club. Education functions more as a signaling device than an actual benefit. Getting a college degree proves to potential employers that you can get a college degree, which a lot of people can't do.

There are a variety of reasons for this. One is that education is heavily subsidized, so more people go to college than would in a free market. Another is that signaling is important to some degree: it's much easier to sort through hundreds of resumes by instantly discarding non college grads, or people who aren't ABC certified in XYZ field, or whatever, even if it's not really necessary to the job.

One of my favorite economists, Bryan Caplan, is writing his next book on the overeducation of Americans. Here's the first page.

[captZEEbo]

haha welcome to everyone's opinions [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

However, since people aren't motivated enough to learn things on their own, grades are used to make sure there's some base level of competency. College is basically just a training ground to make sure you can handle deadlines and learn some basic new material for subjects you might not have known much about before and that you can commit to something.

[Pudge714]

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haha welcome to everyone's opinions [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

However, since people aren't motivated enough to learn things on their own, grades are used to make sure there's some base level of competency. College is basically just a training ground to make sure you can handle deadlines and learn some basic new material for subjects you might not have known much about before and that you can commit to something.

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I agree completely with this.
I have a friend who dropped out of school (a non poker friend) and he says stuff like "I can learn all the stuff you are learning on the internet." He is obviously pretty set in his ways and isn't going to change his mind, but he doesn't realize there is clear value in getting a degree and competing with others, being motivated by external factors and having to live up to some sort of an objective standard are really important in life.

[Patrick del Poker Grande]

Sounds like about 80% of all sophomores in college.