One difference between Chinese schools and American schools is the attitude to competition.

Chinese schools maximize competition, gameify difficult subjects, and reward the winners.

American schools go to extremes to avoid competition.

I learned how to teach in China. I was recently investigating becoming a teacher in the US, and did interviews mainly to learn their expectations. They did NOT like me. I said very inconvenient things...

I told them why autism is rising and how to mitigate it with architectural design. I told them how to raise math scores. I told them why childrens' vocabularies are smaller now than in the past, and how to fix it. I told them they should prioritize coding and design, and gave them a plan, even though I'm not a coder.

America cannot compete while schools are failing. And schools will only continue to fail while the teaching philosophy taught in teachers' training is so wildly wrong.

And the solutions can't come from within the education system. The solutions don't exist there.

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I like the Waldorf method. Helps children enjoy learning. Not a big fan of competition as an incentive. I can also see how the everyone gets a trophie thing is BS though. ๐Ÿค”๐Ÿคท

Me too. I was in the process of trying to teach at a Waldorf school, but I have other interests which moved to the forefront. One ex-Waldorf teacher I talked to was very against Waldorf because they went woke. He had 40 years if experience.

Funny you say that. My kids went to one their whole life. Now a hand full of teachers are making their own because the school sucks now. So grateful my kids got the best of it when they were young. They are both In highschool now so it's less of a concern. The ideas of it seem solid but people tend to mess shit up with their political nonsense.

The kids will mess it up no matter how you try to run a school (maybe not your kids)

Adults mess it up, not kids.

I thought so at one age but then I tried a lot of different schools

The last school I went to as a kid was of the "Sudbury" model where there's no schedule, kids organize their own classes and stuff

I was still ostracized and abused for being too smart and telling the truth too much

Teachers should have handled things more fairly but that was in the teenage years, at some point the kids are responsible for how we treat each other ourselves

If corruption starts in childhood from within the children, and good people are outnumbered by corrupt people pumping out more babies, what can a teacher or their chosen system do?

Again, I assume your kids aren't part of the problem, that's not sarcasm

I'm 28 now, the "we ourselves" wording was weird, I was thinking of my generation while typing that

My kids blow my mind with how amazing they are. They don't act like typical teenagers. I feel very lucky. I credit myself, their mother, and their school. I am blessed.

The "good" kids still weren't good to me and their parents wouldn't have known since they weren't my parents

I only think you're right about your kids because you've put effort into building a life better than society offers, and I grew up in a place for people who just want "the best of society" whatever that means - probably no families like yours in my home area

I am very blessed. All we can do is our best with what we have.

But then you see how the kids and the parents can overpower any plan?

Sure. For me, plans never work out the way i want, honestly. Clear intention and surrender to flow is my way. Not sure how that works in a school system.

Living on your own terms is no doubt a big reason for that. Another part of fixing education is getting rid of suburbia. Uniformity and learned helplessness should not be the foundation of society.

If and when I have more children, they will he homeschooled for sure.

OK. I'm very intrigued by pretty much everything in this note.

Its basically me raging in reaction to something I heard.

Public schools will never work in a system that isn't under total political control. And even if it did 'work,' the outcomes will never be good in the long run. You may end up with skilled students, but what good is that if they're also state drones? I don't want to compete with China. I want to be free and different. I want public education in the US to die. Free markets should determine which schools and teachers work best.

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Nice to see bitcoiners interested in teaching. Persevere if you feel strongly about it. Maybe go to the private sector.

I might. I was thinking of developing my interest in biology, maybe as a detour before returning to teaching. And I prefer to teach high schoolers or adults, so it could fit.

Hi comte de sats germain ๐ŸคŸ๐Ÿ˜‰๐Ÿดโ€โ˜ ๏ธ Your observations are spot on. The current education system in the U.S. seems more focused on avoiding discomfort than fostering growth and true competition. Itโ€™s a system built to avoid failure, but ironically, thatโ€™s where innovation thrives through failure, competition, and pushing boundaries. Itโ€™s clear that the old ways are holding us back, and change needs to come from the outside, not from within the system itself. We need to rethink what education is truly about and focus on preparing kids for the challenges of the future, not just the present

I should've also said that I worked at "experimental" schools - I'm sure the regular schools do things differently