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Forums - Politics Discussion - sooo... the US has now invented education?

blkfish92 on 27 August 2012

Well one thing is for sure, the high school I went to was GARBAGE.



           

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Kasz216 on 27 August 2012
gamelover2000 said:
Kasz216 said:

Actually... I think the US did invent widespread schools and the school system as we know it today.

Don't quote me on it though, because honestly I don't care enough to check.

 

Of course, schools in an invidividual sense have been around since greek philosphers and before.

 

However that a country should try and educate the majority of it's people... I think that such a thing may have been implemented by the US first.

The United States has never been known for it's excellent education, US education peaked in the 80's and 90's and has been in decline ever since. A ton of European countries have scored better at education throughout the world (if you need sources a simple Google search will do). Especially Scandinavia, Germany and the Netherlands far outscore Britain, France, US and other larger countries.

 

The average person in Belgium/Netherlands speaks 2 or 3 languages, just to give you an idea of the advantages they have over us.

A) Not... really related to a single thing in my post.

B) The biggest US hanidcap is Summer break.

C) The average Belgium/Netherlands person speaks 2 or 3 languages, becuase they pretty much have to by default due to being so close to so many foreign speaking countries, and the fact that belgium has like 3 official languages if i recall correctly.  That and it's way easier to learn languages if you have to when your younger and you have a lot of people speaking said language around.

Additionally, there really is a less pressing need for Americans to learn a second language, because English happens to be the most important language in the world.  It's the international language of buisness, and as I believe the leading taught second language in the world.



Chandler on 27 August 2012

Well if you are dutch the incentive to learn other languages is very high because your own language sounds like clown talk^^

On topic: The church mandated free education for the poor in the 11th or 12th century if I remember correctly so I guess we need to specify what exactly the US did first concerning education.



Ongoing bet with think-man: He wins if MH4 releases in any shape or form on PSV in 2013, I win if it doesn't.

Mr Khan on 27 August 2012
ithis said:

Interesting read on Wikipedia about education. I skimmed through what is from start just a short history of it. the US did not invent education. Some parts of it did implement some sort of modern education (for males) pretty early (17th century), but not before others did in Europe (see Scotland).
The Islamic world has a good claim on being among the first that had schools for all. (10th century?)
@Mr Khan: Japan was modernizing it's existing education system, not implementing one when they (according to Wikipedia) took inspiration in what the western Europeans were doing, which I suppose could easily have been the US actually.

That's true, because Japan had some good large-scale education throughout the Tokugawa era, being one of the first societies to approach the notion of universal literacy (the heyday of the Muslim Caliphates tried something similar, but didn't get in quite as well)



Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.

ithis on 28 August 2012
Kasz216 said:

A) Not... really related to a single thing in my post.

B) The biggest US hanidcap is Summer break.

C) The average Belgium/Netherlands person speaks 2 or 3 languages, becuase they pretty much have to by default due to being so close to so many foreign speaking countries, and the fact that belgium has like 3 official languages if i recall correctly.  That and it's way easier to learn languages if you have to when your younger and you have a lot of people speaking said language around.

Additionally, there really is a less pressing need for Americans to learn a second language, because English happens to be the most important language in the world.  It's the international language of buisness, and as I believe the leading taught second language in the world.

Why is that? Others have Summer break too.



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Dark_Lord_2008 on 28 August 2012

Education for all children regardless of their socio-economic background was started by the Jesuits an arm of the Catholic Church back in the late 19th century or early 20th century.



Chris Hu on 28 August 2012
ithis said:
Kasz216 said:

A) Not... really related to a single thing in my post.

B) The biggest US hanidcap is Summer break.

C) The average Belgium/Netherlands person speaks 2 or 3 languages, becuase they pretty much have to by default due to being so close to so many foreign speaking countries, and the fact that belgium has like 3 official languages if i recall correctly.  That and it's way easier to learn languages if you have to when your younger and you have a lot of people speaking said language around.

Additionally, there really is a less pressing need for Americans to learn a second language, because English happens to be the most important language in the world.  It's the international language of buisness, and as I believe the leading taught second language in the world.

Why is that? Others have Summer break too.

But not for twelve weeks.



ithis on 28 August 2012
Chris Hu said:
ithis said:
Kasz216 said:

A) Not... really related to a single thing in my post.

B) The biggest US hanidcap is Summer break.

C) The average Belgium/Netherlands person speaks 2 or 3 languages, becuase they pretty much have to by default due to being so close to so many foreign speaking countries, and the fact that belgium has like 3 official languages if i recall correctly.  That and it's way easier to learn languages if you have to when your younger and you have a lot of people speaking said language around.

Additionally, there really is a less pressing need for Americans to learn a second language, because English happens to be the most important language in the world.  It's the international language of buisness, and as I believe the leading taught second language in the world.

Why is that? Others have Summer break too.

But not for twelve weeks

Wikipedia to the rescue. Summer vacation lasts from 2 to 3 months with few exceptions in Europe, just like in the US.

I can tell you from personal experience. Summer vacation has nothing to do with it. In Romania we have 3 months now and it was 3 months 20 years ago. The percentage of kids that know stuff that comes out of High Schools today is much smaller than it was then. YAY for western style education.



FrancisNobleman on 28 August 2012

I am surprised to see "US" in the title instead of "America".

Winds of change are whispering...

Anyway, education started in ancient Roman colonies maybe ?



MrT-Tar on 28 August 2012
ithis said:

Wikipedia to the rescue. Summer vacation lasts from 2 to 3 months with few exceptions in Europe, just like in the US.

I can tell you from personal experience. Summer vacation has nothing to do with it. In Romania we have 3 months now and it was 3 months 20 years ago. The percentage of kids that know stuff that comes out of High Schools today is much smaller than it was then. YAY for western style education.


I can't speak for the rest of Europe, but here in the U.K, I got between 1 and 1.5 months summer holidays.  For example, this year my old sixth form college were off from the 20/07 and are starting again on the 03/09.

 

But now I'm at university and have been off since my last exam on the 25/05 (I'm starting on 24/09)