Educational Conundrums...

School should teach a kid how to learn - so stick them with easy maths and they can't grasp easy work like being a waiter. Go to Mug&Bean and ask the waiter about the food - dumb look response is all you get.

People can say maths would not have helped the waiter - but difficult maths which requires a bit of thinking would have made the waiter spend his or her free time trying to figure out everything around them including the menu.

I am now an accountant - trig, geo does not help me in my day to day job obviously - but it did instill on me the focus to balance my numbers especially when it gets tough like looking for R266 in R54 000 000.

School should be very very difficult - kids should not pass it easily. If they can't finish so be it. If a kid drops out because they can't do the work so be it. It would make matric mean something.
In other words, grade 10 should be as difficult as matric is now. Matric should be difficult to achieve. Drop outs won't be totally useless and matrics would be worth something.
Currently you have a bunch of matrics who can't even read properly.
Dropping the standard is not the answer - increasing it is.
 
lsuacner said:
School should teach a kid how to learn - so stick them with easy maths and they can't grasp easy work like being a waiter. Go to Mug&Bean and ask the waiter about the food - dumb look response is all you get.

People can say maths would not have helped the waiter - but difficult maths which requires a bit of thinking would have made the waiter spend his or her free time trying to figure out everything around them including the menu.

I am now an accountant - trig, geo does not help me in my day to day job obviously - but it did instill on me the focus to balance my numbers especially when it gets tough like looking for R266 in R54 000 000.

School should be very very difficult - kids should not pass it easily. If they can't finish so be it. If a kid drops out because they can't do the work so be it. It would make matric mean something.
In other words, grade 10 should be as difficult as matric is now. Matric should be difficult to achieve. Drop outs won't be totally useless and matrics would be worth something.
Currently you have a bunch of matrics who can't even read properly.
Dropping the standard is not the answer - increasing it is.
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That brought a tear to my eye...
 
Balstrome said:
I have been ranting a bit in another forum about education and the lack of want to do it in our youth today. http://mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?t=172002
Most of the replies are basically weasel replies as they try to show how not doing English, Maths and Science is not going to have a bad effect on them later in life.
This generation will be the Left Behind generation, because the world at large is on a fast pace forward and only those who grab a good education now will succeed.
Even if they have to educate themselves because of poor education policies, the youth today will have to do this or fail.
Why does one read a bank statement? To see how much money is in it. So if one can put money into a bank statement through working for it, using one education, then surely one would know how to read said bank statement. So why have the need to teach students how to read a bank statement ? Small thing, but one of many small things that add up to clutter students minds.
Teach logic, scepticism, problem solving, experimentation if we want students to succeed.
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Mathematics and science are essential to a society that intends to compete on a worldwide basis. As has been mentioned, the OBE curriculum does little more than establish this country as a typical backwater African society. Should we want to encourage technological advancement akin to pioneers such as Chris Barnard then science and mathematics become a fundamental part of any curriculum.

Teach logic, scepticism, problem solving, experimentation are most important, but toward Matric a certain encouragement of specialisation is essential to help the students understand their tertiary education abilities.
 
Serqet said:
I think business economics should be compulsory. More focus should be put on preparing children for the workplace and how to interact with people in the professional world. I am not saying maths should be thrown out the window. But the focus should be on different subjects. In our school we had french. What on earth is the point of learning french? It's great to learn another language sure but it should be an extra subject not a subject that makes up your 6 subjects. I don't think Afrikaans should be compulsory as i have never spoken Afrikaans to date. History, biology and geography are also important but aren't fundamental to ensuring you pass. It just ensures you are a more well rounded individual.

Perhaps if they enforced a system whereby subjects were prioritised and different passing rates were required for different subjects. We were allowed to take Home Economics as one of our 6 subjects. Most kids took this route as it was the easy way out. How is cooking or sewing a dress fundamental?
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French literature experts? Translators? Ambassadors to France?

Don't just assume everyone is going to be a small business entrepreneur or corporate middle management. There are plenty of artisans out there that could benefit from such a subject.

In my opinion I found Business Economics to be a complete waste of time in High School. Maths, Science and English give one the basic skills to undertake many jobs and most tertiary facility courses.
 
Serqet said:
I understand what you are saying but surely everyone will end up in business as we all have to work for a living to survive?

Perhaps compulsory wouldn't quite work but it wasn't even an option for me in school.

You are right though we shouldn't have identical educations but i find most children just haven't a clue what they should pick as subjects so we definitely need more help in that area.
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What about ending up in research and becoming the genius behind the major discoveries of our time.

Furthermore, Many people would be content to work in an organisation where they do not have to worry about the day to day workings of the company. Having a job is good enough (maybe not for you, but many are happy to accept that position in their lives).

I understand that secondary education should give a well rounded perspective and encourage future development; Business Economics is a subject that could provide just that. But so could many other subjects with their intuitive and investigative techniques - namely, thinking for yourself. Mathematics, History, Biology and Science are good examples - don't just accept with, but also ask why.
 
America and australia is using obe if I remember correctly - but in america it is failing, but the aussies seemed to get it right.

I think obe might be a good thing if I look at the subjects, but I don't think our country is ready for it.

I also do think teaching life skills is important, we got a course at our company this year and I saw that there were people you got really irritated by the course. Those were the people you already had most or all of the skills that were taught.

But most people did not have the life skills which really surprised me as we were all graduates, and we generally think that our old school system was so good.

I think we need to have separate schools for separate people like germany.

Germany has 3 types of schools, 1 for people you intend to study at university, and two others for people who would want to work in shops etc. Of course you can go to a bridging school to go to university if you went to a different school.
 
Phonejunky, just a correction...Australia EXPERIMENTED with OBE before tossing it out as a waste of time. They use very small variations of it combined with a system very much like the original system we had before the ANC government decided to re-invent the wheel.

The American system is a disaster and one that will guarantee illiteracy...just pray to God that we don't go off on a tangent in that direction.

Using the German example is interesting and very simiar to what we had in SA!!!!!!!!!!! We had Technical Schools for those with a technical bent and we had academic schools for the rest. The bloody idiots in ANC saw this as perpetuating some sort of class distinction, so they shut down the Technical schools and tried inserting "Life Skills" as something to cover all angles. It DOES NOT WORK! Any teacher, such as me, who has taught under both systems is gatvol of this rubbish foisted on us by a bunch of idiots with massive chips on their shoulders, who are trying to reinvent the bloody wheel!!
 
Oh, sorry - I had this debate about 4 years ago and I was using information from what I can recall.

Yes it is similar to what we had, but the the school for further study has 13 grades, then there is a school till grade 10 and a school till grade 9.

My father is 'n Secondary Business Economics teacher (don't know what they call it these days) and he does not like the whole OBE style, my mother is a primary school teacher on a farm school and she says it benefits them (they just got an computer room), bu she still has allot of problems with this system.

But I think if America is failing and Australia has given up on it, then we have no chance of successfully implementing it.

Different strokes for different ***es - I think we need different schools, for the different demands.

edit: I hate these filters - this is the second time. Can't a person who swears just be banned! they are messing up my idioms.
 
How would you feel, tech schools aside (which were known as "Apprentice Schools" where I'm from, because you get a solid educational grounding, with enough choice between certain "blue collar" jobs - plumbing etc and then at age 15/16 you go work with someone in the field to prep you), do you think that we have too few subjects at school?

I mean, I reckon that 6 subjects are way too little and instead of dropping 7 when you go to Grade 10, you choose a "bent" so to speak. Social/Natural Sciences. Your "six" main subjects could be from Natural/Social sciences, with the other subjects just rounding a person out.

I rememeber at Grade 8 (Std 6 I think...) that we could choose between French and Zulu, and a few other subjects to add. We had woodwork and then another choice between accounting and biology or some such. Imagine if we could get the people who choose natural sciences to have Physics/Chemistry separate and the social science guys would have it together (as it is done now). The Social Science people would have First Language linguistics/literature separate, the natural science guys would have it together (like now).

Not sure if I'm making myself clear... really really tired, so will try and be a bit more comprehensible later on :)
 
ANY teacher who has taught under both systems will tell you that OBE is a load of horse in many respects.

Once again, all I can say is that it is time the idiots in government woke up to the fact that there was no need to reinvent education in the first place. If you go back and see what I had to say about teaching English last night, you will see that they are making an unholy stuffup that will only be to the detriment of the kids being forced to endure it right now. How to "lose" an entire generation in one easy move!
 
smokey said:
How would you feel, tech schools aside (which were known as "Apprentice Schools" where I'm from, because you get a solid educational grounding, with enough choice between certain "blue collar" jobs - plumbing etc and then at age 15/16 you go work with someone in the field to prep you), do you think that we have too few subjects at school?

I mean, I reckon that 6 subjects are way too little and instead of dropping 7 when you go to Grade 10, you choose a "bent" so to speak. Social/Natural Sciences. Your "six" main subjects could be from Natural/Social sciences, with the other subjects just rounding a person out.

I rememeber at Grade 8 (Std 6 I think...) that we could choose between French and Zulu, and a few other subjects to add. We had woodwork and then another choice between accounting and biology or some such. Imagine if we could get the people who choose natural sciences to have Physics/Chemistry separate and the social science guys would have it together (as it is done now). The Social Science people would have First Language linguistics/literature separate, the natural science guys would have it together (like now).

Not sure if I'm making myself clear... really really tired, so will try and be a bit more comprehensible later on :)
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If the idiots in government were not so hell bent on removing any link from the past, and petrified of the perceived elitism that comes with a good academic education, we might get somewhere.

a) Technical schools should be reintoduced, whereby an NTC of some sort is issued rather than a matric certificate which isn't worth the paper it's written on.
b) Any basic education MUST include a language and some sort of maths training, simply to get through life after school.
c) Academic schools must cover all subjects that would lead on to a recognised professional carreer - ie Languages, Mathematical sciences,Biology, Physics and Chem (Essential for medical training) and History or Geography...then add to that the choice of Business education for those with that particular bent. Art and Art History could be taught in both types of schools, with the more technical aspect of it (Technical Drawing) being the route in Tech schools.

That grouping would cater for those people wanting to go to varsity, as well as getting Joe the Pluber and Mac the mechanic up and running and able to earn money as soon as they leave school.

Of course it smacks too much of what we had before OBE, so it's unlikely that it will ever happen!
 
Smokey I could not follow you that clearly, will read it later on though.

The university that I attended entrance exam counts more than your matriek results now. And some students who want to study engineering first have to do a year of basic bsc and then they are evaluated after that. The school system is wasting precious years for these students.
 
Fazda said:
If the idiots in government were not so hell bent on removing any link from the past, and petrified of the perceived elitism that comes with a good academic education, we might get somewhere.

a) Technical schools should be reintoduced, whereby an NTC of some sort is issued rather than a matric certificate which isn't worth the paper it's written on.
b) Any basic education MUST include a language and some sort of maths training, simply to get through life after school.
c) Academic schools must cover all subjects that would lead on to a recognised professional carreer - ie Languages, Mathematical sciences,Biology, Physics and Chem (Essential for medical training) and History or Geography...then add to that the choice of Business education for those with that particular bent. Art and Art History could be taught in both types of schools, with the more technical aspect of it (Technical Drawing) being the route in Tech schools.

That grouping would cater for those people wanting to go to varsity, as well as getting Joe the Pluber and Mac the mechanic up and running and able to earn money as soon as they leave school.

Of course it smacks too much of what we had before OBE, so it's unlikely that it will ever happen!
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That actually makes a lot of sense.

I'm curious ... from your point of view Fadza, why have the teachers not formed some sort of association and presented this sort of information to the government in the way of a proposal? Would it just fall on deaf ears? Is there some sort of body like this that already exists?

IMO the teachers are the ones with first hand experience. They should dictate how things are taught. Not the government!
 
Fazda said:
If the idiots in government were not so hell bent on removing any link from the past, and petrified of the perceived elitism that comes with a good academic education, we might get somewhere.

a) Technical schools should be reintoduced, whereby an NTC of some sort is issued rather than a matric certificate which isn't worth the paper it's written on.

I agree with you

b) Any basic education MUST include a language and some sort of maths training, simply to get through life after school.

I studied engineering so I am all for maths, but I do think that the math's literacy could work if implemented correctly

c) Academic schools must cover all subjects that would lead on to a recognised professional carreer - ie Languages, Mathematical sciences,Biology, Physics and Chem (Essential for medical training) and History or Geography...then add to that the choice of Business education for those with that particular bent. Art and Art History could be taught in both types of schools, with the more technical aspect of it (Technical Drawing) being the route in Tech schools.

I think we should have 3 different stages of school. Primary from grade 1 - 6, secondary 7-9, and some sort of specializing school for 10 -12, where the schools specialize either in sciences or business or the arts

That grouping would cater for those people wanting to go to varsity, as well as getting Joe the Pluber and Mac the mechanic up and running and able to earn money as soon as they leave school.

Of course it smacks too much of what we had before OBE, so it's unlikely that it will ever happen!
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Read in read
 
@phonejunky

"Business" subjects are a cross between social and natural sciences (talking maths in particular) so that a social/natural science path is the best way to go and cater accordingly.

Math Literacy is a rubbish idea whichever way you put it. You either know maths or not. Giving this Maths literacy is just giving a crutch to people who don't want to study and hampering those who might have a learning problem but actually have the determination to see proper maths through. Imagine because of... I dunno... ADD or somehting like that a kid gets shunted to maths literacy, even though he could be interested/capable of real maths... with a little effort on the parent/teacher side.
 
i thought you get to choose your subjects.

As I see it, a person going to university needs real maths, but a person you intends on being a plumber and is not capable of real maths still needs a maths base and that is where maths lit comes in.
 
Serqet said:
That actually makes a lot of sense.

I'm curious ... from your point of view Fadza, why have the teachers not formed some sort of association and presented this sort of information to the government in the way of a proposal? Would it just fall on deaf ears? Is there some sort of body like this that already exists?

IMO the teachers are the ones with first hand experience. They should dictate how things are taught. Not the government!
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Teachers cries fall on deaf ears.

There was a point where I was on several advisory committees, and EVERY suggestion was shot down in flames. The most likely reason would be the fact that our suggestions would have made these idiots look stupid as it was made public that OBE was a disaster!

You DO realise that the people who implimented OBE were last in the classroom when they were at school...not a single currently working teacher amongst them!

I was also on a committee where we came up with a proposal to spread school holidays evenly through the year instead of the botch up that it presently is. The year actually can be divided into three productive terms with decent holidays...but that again involved someone having to get off their fat backside and do something...also ignored!:mad:
 
phoneJunky said:
i thought you get to choose your subjects.

As I see it, a person going to university needs real maths, but a person you intends on being a plumber and is not capable of real maths still needs a maths base and that is where maths lit comes in.
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That's where a Technical and academic split comes in very sweetly as maths, for example is honed towards it's particular market in each school. Just as you don't have to get into the "heavies" of language in a Technical school, where the pupils will not need to have dissected Shakespear in order to rewire a house!
 
That's truely terrible. How are we to ever make progress if we don't listen to the experts? *sigh*
 
Serqet said:
That's truely terrible. How are we to ever make progress if we don't listen to the experts? *sigh*
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As long as you are an ANC elected official you will always think of yourself as knowing more than any expert...comes with the territory I'm afraid!:(
 
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