World Education rankings... USA 28th

originally posted by: stumason
a reply to: WarminIndy

Whilst I agree with the general thrust of your post, I would take issue with you tying listening to Classical Music or reading ancient Philosophers has anything to do with being intelligent.

Classical Music is crap and the ancient dudes are largely irrelevant (and wrong, in many cases), with many more modern writers to choose from.

Did you know that Classical music actually makes you smarter? It is something about the firing of the synapses.

The Mozart Effect

a reply to: WarminIndy

Not sure about that, but whenever I hear Ride of the Valkyries I do have an urge to massacre innocent villagers....

originally posted by: stumason
a reply to: WarminIndy

Not sure about that, but whenever I hear Ride of the Valkyries I do have an urge to massacre innocent villagers....

ROFL, you Teuton, you.

Sometimes I hear Also Sprach Zarathustra and have an urge to wave my cloak.

a reply to: Greathouse

Up till now I thought you were smart. If you can't see the hidden meaning in that post please never replied to me again I prefer to talk to intelligent people.

That would be the 27 people above you.

a reply to: Argyll

Well it certainly wouldn't be you.

a reply to: Greathouse

Why is that?

A lot of the 1700-1800 "classical music" were written by children and teen...Mozart etc.

It was a style, thought to be high brow.....compared to common folk music....but it wasnt.

Even the Duke Boys way down dixey, if slowed down, embellished with strings, wind and arrangements would sound as good as these "classics".

The Beatles music is often "Classic-ified" with strings etc, and sounds just as inspiring as the Old music.

What about the beautiful Movie/TV theme songs of the past 80 years............many are far better than old "Classical music".
What about all the Bond theme tunes, The Thunderbirds tune, the Avengers (the real ones from England), all the marches....all as inspiring and more so than, Mozart or Beetroothoven.

www.youtube.com...

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World Education rankings... USA 28th

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originally posted by: MystikMushroom
a reply to: Snarl

So people should stay in marriages that are intolerable or abusive because their church won't let them get a divorce?

Sure divorce rates may have gone up, but that's just unmasking how unhappy the people were anyway. Just because the church won't grant a divorce doesn't mean the people are happy.

I don't know. What it looks like to me is people are too willing to enter into pretend marriages ... or they just don't understand the concept. The State dissolution of marriage has become all too commonplace. Everyone focuses on the immediate aftermath. What they™ don't measure out are the 2d and 3d order effects. You can't 'paper over' single-parent-raised kids. Some do well later in life, but one has to wonder how much farther along they'd get if not for the set-back they experienced earlier in life. And ... this has become the norm ... lowest common denominator shizzle.

Pretty amazing to see how well an education 'system' works (Korea's #3 on the list) compared to what I grew up with. I had a good education. The Koreans are doing it better than that ... but at a cost.

Kids need a parent at home to tech 'em right from wrong, make sure they're doing their homework (which means the parent needs to understand the lessons) and reinforce family and educational values. Raising kids is nothing like bringing home a puppy from the pound one can ignore for hours on-end.

Just my humble opinion, but it worked out well for me and mine. I'm sure some who've charted a different course will beg to differ, but I've yet to see anyone effort an explanation of those endeavors in-thread (and I have been looking).

originally posted by: Greathouse
a reply to: 727Sky

Do you know what I had for dinner tonight? Inch and a half thick ribeye steak, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn on the cob, a big salad, a great big cold glass of milk then I topped it off with apple pie and ice cream. And I actually threw about half of it away. What did the rest of the world eat ?

Yeah we still have it like that! I think the rest of the world is confused by a case of envy!!

Do you know what I had for dinner tonight? A modest salad and a glass of water with no dessert, that's all I can afford oddly enough I'm an American too. If anything I find it incredibly sad that an American fortunate enough to be so prosperous would throw away such large amounts of food rather than do the economical and less wasteful thing and save for leftovers. Then I look at this study, throwing away all that food certainly wasn't the intelligent move. Maybe that 28th place (and falling) is deserved.

As a random aside, have you ever read about how much food is wasted by the higher ups of the North Korean government? How about their tourist restaurants where they serve every table with a meal (even when no one is sitting there), then throw out all the uneaten food, while the workers have nothing at all to eat.

originally posted by: 727Sky
The first step to solve a problem is to recognize there is one to begin with... Our (America's education system) sucks... Just look at many/most of the scientific papers being published and the names affixed to them. Many PHDs came from overseas to finish the higher education... found a well paying job in the states and remained.. Even Michio Kaku brought the sad state of our education system in one of his videos.. by saying something to the effect we would have slipped farther without bringing in educated Brain power from overseas..

How do we fix it? Is it even something that we should fix? The general trend, and I've seen this in my own life is that the more I learn the more miserable I get, the saying "ignorance is bliss" is completely true. What are nations like China, Japan, and Taiwan getting for their educational suffering? In Japan you are more likely to kill yourself as a high school student than to be killed by violent crime and they have widespread suicide prevention programs aimed at students. The Asian educational system has good results but those who go through it are utterly miserable. Is it worth it?

originally posted by: PeachesNCream
a reply to: Cuervo

To an extent I agree with you. I never went to college but have been more successful monetarily than many with higher education. That said i agree we as a country can't keep up like this, but its going to take a massive shift in how our educational system works. Honestly i don't know where we would start.

Engineers, programmers, scientists, and mathematicians don't make billions of dollars from running corporations. That comes from someone less educated in a suit who can speak well and maximize business dealings. If being uneducated puts you in the 1st-50th percentile, being educated puts you in the 51st-90th percentile. People who can take advantage of those who know how to do things get into the 91st-99th percentiles.

originally posted by: WarminIndy
They think they are intelligent, but alas, no. Their education standards have dropped and it was not because of religious politicians. How many of you young people on this thread who are defending the education system, tell us, at what grade did you read any of the classics? How many of you listen to Classical music? How many of you have read any books from philosophers?

Can any of you young, educated, smart people tell me the difference between Marx and Trotsky without going to Wikipedia? Can you tell me about the waiter, as Sartre conjectured?

But how many of you can parrot the mantras of Dawkins and Hitchens? Maybe you can tell me about Anime. Perhaps you can even tell me about Angry Birds or Epic Rap Battles of History. What you do know, and I have seen it for 10 years now, is that you perpetuate the myth that holocaust never happened, you never invest time into researching the fact the the very anti-Zionist fraud Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion was that, a fraud.

I don't know if I'm smart, I certainly don't feel that way but others tell me I am. I stop short of saying I'm defending the education system, but I like what I see out of Common Core so far and I think universities are on the right track when it comes to scope of knowledge (if anything they don't go far enough, but time constraints are a thing). As to your questions:
I sometimes listen to classical, I don't listen to much music but it is my favorite genre Beethoven and Tchaikovsky are my preferred composers.

I have read from philosophers, being a mathy person Zeno is the one that has made me think the most. Having some knowledge of animation techniques (keyframes and motion capture) I find it very interesting that animation (particularly keyframe) neatly sidesteps around the arrow paradox.

I know the difference between Marx and Trotsky.

I can tell you a lot about anime, I don't have time to watch much but I do make it a point to read a few manga per year (many of which become animes at some point), the process in creating Fullmetal Alchemist (the manga or second anime) is the epitome of what every TV series in the US should strive for, only Babylon 5 has successfully done it here though. That process being creating the entire series start to finish, deciding ahead of time how long it will air to tell the story, and then ending when it's over. Game of Thrones when it finishes may be the second series to pull it off.

I haven't played Angry Birds much but being a game developer there is a lot I can say on the subject, it's a great game that took a simple and well used catapult concept, applied it to a new medium (touchscreens), and saw massive success. It's a good example of how the same concept in a different medium can make all the difference in the world.

You got me on Dawkins and Hitchens though, I've never paid either much attention.

Every few months I catch up on ERB, I quite liked their finale comparing the directors (Tarantino won).

originally posted by: WarminIndy
Some young Americans are kind of picky, they don't like foods that they can't perceive the rest of the world eating.

People like what is familiar to them. I live in a small town and my friends frequently tell me I eat "weird s$*#" but to me it's completely normal. Once I took a couple of them on a trip to a big city (about a 4 hour drive) so we could eat some ethnic cuisine. Nothing major, just a Japanese restaurant in the asian district. Try as I might I could not get them to eat tempura, or sushi, or sashimi, eventually after much prodding from me they tried some pork/chicken+rice dishes. On the way home we stopped at a Korean bakery and I couldn't decide what to buy after not having had the food for a couple years and having to settle for just a couple items. Yet again I couldn't get them to even try one after I mentioned it was made with red bean paste, apparently the words bean paste are unappetizing.

This all relates to education because I find those who are more open to a variety of foods are also more open to seeing the validity of other cultures methods and implementing them for your own gain. Having a narrow palete leads to having a narrow mind and in America we've basically devolved into sweet, salty, and oily. Perhaps that's a factor in why our education scores are so low.

originally posted by: KnightLight
Where is America really ranked? We must just be number one?? Come on.. Those days are over.

Why are those days over?

Even if we aren't number one, is 28th acceptable? Is it acceptable for a country that tries to act like the world police?

originally posted by: mahatche
Why are those days over?

Even if we aren't number one, is 28th acceptable? Is it acceptable for a country that tries to act like the world police?

Let me ask you something, and I think this is indicative of our nations education as a whole. What does the number 28 even mean? If you list the 100 wealthiest people in the world, is 28th on the list no longer wealthy?

If every one of our graduates was on the level of Terence Tao, Michio Kaku, Donald Knuth, or Steve Wozniak and we were still in 28th place would that be a bad thing? 28 as a number is completely meaningless, are those with a higher number in education getting a better quality of life out of that education?

Rather than focus on what number we're at, why don't we focus on teaching our students to have productive fulfilling lives and let the rankings fall where they may. Interestingly enough, Finland which ranks high (and was previously #1) takes this exact approach, they don't even care about their ranking to the point they argued it was a flawed methodology that gave them the #1 spot in the past.

originally posted by: Aazadan

originally posted by: mahatche
Why are those days over?

Even if we aren't number one, is 28th acceptable? Is it acceptable for a country that tries to act like the world police?

Let me ask you something, and I think this is indicative of our nations education as a whole. What does the number 28 even mean? If you list the 100 wealthiest people in the world, is 28th on the list no longer wealthy?

If every one of our graduates was on the level of Terence Tao, Michio Kaku, Donald Knuth, or Steve Wozniak and we were still in 28th place would that be a bad thing? 28 as a number is completely meaningless, are those with a higher number in education getting a better quality of life out of that education?

Rather than focus on what number we're at, why don't we focus on teaching our students to have productive fulfilling lives and let the rankings fall where they may. Interestingly enough, Finland which ranks high (and was previously #1) takes this exact approach, they don't even care about their ranking to the point they argued it was a flawed methodology that gave them the #1 spot in the past.

I completely disagree with this idea, might even say I hate it.

If there is anything in the world worth competing in it's intelligence. There are many things I can honestly say I don't care about, but having educated citizens isn't one of them. We absolutely need to compete in intelligence. It's beneficial.

You might have an argument if people reported feeling satisfied with our school system, but it's almost universally accepted as ineffective and getting worse. Our media is endlessly dumbed down, our education channels have become redneck networks, thought provoking music doesn't get played, but romanticized gangsters do. We are letting political correctness establish a hive mind that kills discussions. Our news networks are garbage. Can we take time to celebrate intelligence?

We don't need to be Michiou Kako, but I hate intellectual complacency. We've already turned the great American idea into a shopping mall, I don't want to trash our standings in intelligence as well.

a reply to: mahatche

You seem to have missed the point. 28th is just a number, but without knowing the scale in place, the actual position is pretty much meaningless.

Actually, looking into this a bit more deeply the PISA 2015 scores shouldn't even be available until Dec. 2016 which means any story on this right now can only be using the 2012 numbers (the tests are on a 3 year cycle).

Furthermore, the tests are scaled between nations to an average score of ~500 on a 1000 point scale. In the 2012 tests, which Singapore appears to have been way above everyone with Taiwan, China, Japan, and South Korea below them by varying amounts. Once you drop down past those 6 though everyone between 7th and 40th place has a score within 10% of each other, and then it begins to once again rapidly decline. Infact, when you look at composite scores everything from Liechtenstein at a score of 1575 and 9th place to Israel at 40th place with a score of 1422 falls within that 10%. The scores really begin to drop after Israel and begin to change from about -6 points/rank to about -20/rank. Incidentally, when looking at the composite the US ranks at 29 at 1476 with a mean of 1491. Only the top 26 countries are above the mean due to Shanghai's ridiculously high score that skews all other results.

3 US states also entered the testing as their own entities, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Florida.

If ranked as their own countries Connecticut would have made it to 15th place with their 1542 score, Massachusetts 10th with their 1568, and Florida 39th (remember what I said about 40 being the cutoff?) at 1444.

All of this goes back to reinforcing why Common Core is a good thing, part of the goal behind it is to standardize the education quality between the states, as this points out Florida has the education quality of Russia and Slovakia while Massachusetts is up there with Finland, Canada, and Poland. How are we supposed to progress as a nation and even have our states stand on equal footing with each other when there is such a large disparity in educational quality? Basically, our good states are really good but our bad states are so abysmally bad that they're dragging down the total.

And just think, Massachusetts and Connecticut are doing it without a school regimen that leads their students to widespread depression, suicide, and misery.

Ask my husband who is a teacher why the U.S. is 28th. I get the lectures all day long. Teachers aren't allowed to teach in the U.S. He states that the schools have become too teacher focused AKA, the student s sit an listen to the teacher lecture and end up becoming bored to tears and disengaging their minds. He has been reprimanded and even lost a job for being to student focused. Meaning he got the students involved and used Socratic methods.

This particular school happened to push the military as a way for the students to secure their futures. As my husband always says, the military doesn't want individual thought. With out coming out and saying it, I have a feeling that he believes the schools are training the next generation of soldiers . The young people are disillusioned with our country so they have to fix the education system to produce more young people who will go to war for this country without giving it a second thought.

Of course our next generation of great scientists and mathematicians will come from the offspring of the wealthy who receive a superior education that the middle class and poor.

a reply to: calstorm

Your husband sounds like a very smart man.

America obviously have some of the most educated people on earth living there, but they are all educated in elite private schools.

The masses are just trained to be 'compliant slaves'. Bunch of drones, that just follow the status quo and fall victim to the propaganda of the US being the only place on earth where a privileged quality of life is possible.

So they become fanatics, then join the army, to protect the lies they've been conditioned to believe, at the expense of there very own existence.

originally posted by: Greathouse
a reply to: 727Sky

Do you know what I had for dinner tonight? Inch and a half thick ribeye steak, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn on the cob, a big salad, a great big cold glass of milk then I topped it off with apple pie and ice cream. And I actually threw about half of it away. What did the rest of the world eat ?

Yeah we still have it like that! I think the rest of the world is confused by a case of envy!!

Arrogance, self-centeredness, and narcissism are prevalent in the USA.

Academics is very subjective, but compassion, respect, and humility are something I personally seek in human beings.

I would rather be friends with a poor, uneducated compassionate person, than a educated douche-bag that has a superiority complex.

Education does not make someone better, however it does grant them the ability to understand, manipulate, and maneuver better in our chaotic world.

Peace,

RT

a reply to: 727Sky

Us school system is a joke

Results speak for themselves