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when did education become a burden?

Learning is something to be valued and enjoyed yet I feel like at some point in my life I just learned to dread school. Was it something I learned from friends or siblings or the media? School is supposed to be fun, right?
SW-User
It becomes a burden since we become dependent on schooling to define our future and overall image of our life. Society becomes obsessed with the idea of 'education = jobs = future'. The plan for our life had been set up since the day we born, to follow what society expects us to do. The idea of 'learning is to enjoy' gradually turns into 'learning is to survive'.

People start to view education is just a tool to help them get a job, not something to enjoys during the process. Most of them learn for their job, not for their desire for knowledge. And education is losing its value of knowledge since people start to use it as a short-term benefit. Once they get what they want, they will abandon it like it has never existed in their life.
SW-User
@Stilltryinghard Sadly, this is what most students nowadays feel.
@SW-User I also remember with oversized poignancy two specific teachers who knew stuff and wanted to communicate it. And can't find anyone who was in those classes, don't wanna remember who they were and none of them ever looked 4 me either...

Too much competition prevented real friendships there.
lka2802 · 26-30, F
@SW-User "learning is to survive"..really well-put. The sad reality of our time.
ThePerfectUsername · 70-79, M
Aged 30 after having served my time as an apprentice engineer I suddenly found myself being made redundant and went back to college full time to re-train in computers. I was a complete computer nut and enrolled for 6 different classes in the subject but was told that I had to substitute one of the classes for a non-computing one.

I chose Environmental Science and discovered for the very first time what a difference a truly inspired tutor could make. Phil Lasan, the head of the environmental dept, lead the classes and was every bit as passionate about his subject as I was mine. And he changed my life for ever, and gave me a passion for learning that has never deserted me.

So few teachers it seems are capable of doing.
lka2802 · 26-30, F
@ThePerfectUsername If every teacher were like this, it would make so many students' lives so much better!! It honestly boggles my mind how little teachers get paid :/
@lka2802 ...but kids prior to elementary school already have a built-in passion for learning. We don't need teachers to re-kindle that fire, we need parents/family/friends & schools/teachers/methods which don't extinguish this in the first place.
in10RjFox · M
Schooling is a bad system.. as you are stuffed with all sorts of information before you need it .. its like you being forced to take all medicines before you fall ill ..

Similarly its like expecting a 6 year old to lift 50 kgs .. when the same can be lifted easily when the person is 15 ..
in10RjFox · M
@Stilltryinghard calibrate is the word I could not recall.. the sysyem implants so many controls /hooks in a child .. for society to pull or turn ..
lka2802 · 26-30, F
@in10RjFox I agree with everything you both are saying! But then that begs the question that if we do not have grades, how do we motivate kids as well as ensure they are learning/retaining the information?
in10RjFox · M
@lka2802 The grades are for the educators as how good their pedagogy is. It was never meant for parents. If our child's grade is low, it means their method of teaching is wrong.. tests were introduced to have a check on school only .. but they smartly turned it around on us ..😂😂

They are supposed to be experts and reason why we send our children. Why do I need a school if I can do it myself. And many parents home school for that reason.
MaryJanine · 61-69, F
I am not sure what you consider "fun". When I started school, it was - but until I hit high school , I had various teachers who seemed to like to pick on me for some ungodly reason. With the exception of raising my hand in class to answer a teacher's question during a lesson, or ask a question, I kept to myself and behaved as I should do and my parents instructed me. But I had a fifth grade teacher who wrote down everytime you "spoke out of turn" - and she wrote me up when the person in back of me poked me in my back and whispered something I didn't catch; all I did was turn and say, "What?" She didn't catch the kid who did the whispering, but she targeted me.

In the sixth, seventh and eighth grades, most of the teachers conducting a lesson would be going through "the motions", but their minds were elsewhere for certain. I had a teacher who spaced out during the recitation of a history lesson. I was going along when I saw the teacher close her eyes and shake her head; I stopped and said, "No?" Then she apologized for it and the lesson resumed. The thing is, she DID it. I never figured out where he mind was that day, but she never did it again.
FreestyleArt · 31-35, M
School's been changed in many years. In the United States it is a broken system. What's the point of buying new update books that won't help you much? Universities and colleges is just a monopoly. The government's most important system and shoving propagandas in most classes. You spend that much money just to create a reputation when you can actually get one from online when they're cheap and some are free
@FreestyleArt But online can deprive u of credentials. so learning 4 its own sake?

when there is so much anxiety about making ends meet?

That stuff makes me sorry I grew up. No lie.
MaryJanine · 61-69, F
It depends on what kind of a teacher you get and whether he or she makes your life miserable or not. I had fun in kindergarten, then got accused of something in first grade and got punished (unjustly) for it. I hated her for the rest of the year. Second and third were okay, then our class jumped from 3rd to 5th, I ended up with the crabbiest teacher in creation. She picked on me for everything imaginable, and her favorite phrase was, "How you got to fifth grade, I'll never know!"

Oh, how I longed to tell that old bat, "By double promotion." But I had the feeling such an answer wouldn't be welcome, so I never did.
lka2802 · 26-30, F
@MaryJanine I've had my share of wonderful and awful teachers too; it makes me wonder why the awful teachers sign up for a job that they don't enjoy and that doesn't pay very well
MaryJanine · 61-69, F
@lka2802 There are two kinds of adults - parents and teachers - that should like kids and enjoy interacting with them. If they can't do that, they shouldn't teach or have kids.
raysam363 · 31-35, F
About the time when it became rote memorization and forced. Most schools won't teach actual life skills anymore, instead going over broad concepts that may or may not apply to the student's life. Is the history of the Soviet's Union economy interesting? Yes. Is talking about obscure authors neat? Of course. Are they necessary for everyday life? No.
ViciDraco · 36-40, M
@raysam363 I disagree. If we have people voting, they should have an in depth understanding of multiple economic theories.

Bad politicians are a symptom of uninformed voters. Yet they have extreme influence on our day to day lives.
raysam363 · 31-35, F
@ViciDraco A brief lesson will suffice for grade school. Pumping college electives into them can only make them hate school more.
MaryJanine · 61-69, F
@raysam363 When I was in high school (1972) I had a class called "Life Management." The teacher was young and smart, and she taught us things we would find necessary in the outside world. Things that were happening THEN -not obscure years ago. That was the only class I had I had any use for.
Success · 26-30, F
Kids have always celebrated recess, holidays, closures, and the end of the school year.
DonaldTrumpet · 70-79, M
DonaldTrumpet · 70-79, M
I BlameZ the feminists HUNz
lka2802 · 26-30, F
DonaldTrumpet · 70-79, M
@lka2802 u soZ WeLCUMeZ HuNnyz
I like school.
I Just hate the people there.
ViciDraco · 36-40, M
It's because of the obligation to do so and the pressure to perform at it. You aren't learning out of interest, you are being coerced to do so. That tends to build resentment and rebellion over time.
@Stilltryinghard Disagree. I loved learning, even did some independent studies.
ViciDraco · 36-40, M
@SomeMichGuy what part do you disagree with? You readily admit enjoying learning and thus never felt the coercive pressure I am talking about. The people learning out of interest generally enjoy school. I like learning so I more or less enjoyed school. But I have a friend who makes a perfect example. He grew up hating reading because the school made him do it and chose what he had to read. As an adult his wife convinced him to try it again and let him read what interests him. Now he loves reading and feels like the school robbed him of all those years he could have enjoyed reading because of their strict curriculums.
@ViciDraco Due to some weirdness in the replying sequence, it picked up on the wrong primary poster, which I fixed.

I don't think kids have to be forced; if that is happening, you either killed their inherent curiosity or you haven't figured out how to motivate the "why?"

Check out the Harvey Mudd College's approach (they make sure that students know how every course fits into what they need to know).
SW-User
I'm not sure most people think school is supposed to be fun. It is hard work to do well in school so I think most people just want to get through it.
@SW-User Do most people feel the same way about real life too?
@SW-User School ought to be fun in that it is solving a series of problems, which can be approached as games.
I didn't enjoy being harassed for being at school for the learning, but I always loved school, and I even learned from poor teachers, but I have been a voracious learner.
no, its still about the old factory-worker model and sobriety and duty...

not fun
Since your interests lies else where and you're forced to do so against your will...
It’s not supposed to be “fun” necessarily, it has a serious purpose. But it’s not supposed to be the worst time of one’s life, either. Unfortunately, the human element comes into play, and bullies, both in the classroom (behind the desk) and on the schoolyard can change one’s life and outlook as much as any curriculum. 😒
@Stilltryinghard Or of being the star kid.
@bijouxbroussard Yeah that too. Heh.

and sometimes...both simultaneously
lka2802 · 26-30, F
@Stilltryinghard It's a perpetuating cycle really.. star parents usually breed star kids. Of course there are exceptions so I won't completely generalize, but oftentimes the reasons parents succeed are passed onto their children through cultural, economic, and social capital. These things are often not seen by the kids though so they blame the individual for their shortcomings rather than seeing how it all fits into the structure of education and society

 
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