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Old 03-05-2011, 06:17 AM   #1
Agemegos
 
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Default Something much better than high school

Imagine a distant future, about GURPS TL10, when the mediaeval traditions of modern schooling have been swept away and forgotten, replaced by much more advanced methods of pedagogy. There is very little time wasted with the teacher talking to a class of twenty to thirty bored an un-engaged kids. Instead, each child has a personal LAI tutor running on a mainframe somewhere, employing problem-based, play-based, exploration-based learning methods in full-time, one-on-one teaching, not sticking to a rigid curriculum, but programmed for subtly steering the pupil on a course that will give a sound basis in specified fundamentals. The goal of the schools is to teach skills and methods, not to promote the memorisation of brute facts, though very likely the pupils will pick up a great deal of random knowledge about, say, battles or dinosaurs or racing-pod engines in the course of learning research, abstraction, and critical thinking skills.

Imagine further that these schools encourage about three to four hours per day of guided learning, with other time devoted to singing and playing music, athletics and games, unstructured play, dancing, amateur dramatics, etc.

Imagine finally that the goal of this education system is to give a "liberal, humane, pre-vocational" education with a broad understanding of how the world works. Like what a bachelor's degree is supposed to be, except for lacking a major, and preparing a student for a vocational baccalaureate much more specialised and practical than we might be used to. It is a constraint that kids have to stay in these schools until they are eighteen: they cannot go matriculate early, but with highly-flexible open-ended individual curriculums they won't run out of material and get bored.

What GURPS skills should a student have who was educated in such a school system? Just a wide range of defaults in IQ-based skills?
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Old 03-05-2011, 06:38 AM   #2
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Default Re: Something much better than high school

If you really want to emphasize the superiority of the system, it would not be out of line to simply raise the average IQ for people educated that way. If it's not quite that broad, perhaps a Talent could be devised. Skillwise, it might provide some "core" skills. Writing, Research, maybe Mathematics; perhaps a few others if they were emphasized.

It could also act to reduce the incidence of certain traits (Staid, for example).
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Old 03-05-2011, 06:55 AM   #3
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Default Re: Something much better than high school

I have my wonders how it would help with social skills. One complaint, unfounded or not, about home-schooling is a student's social skills are often lacking compared to more traditionally schooled peers.

I'll admit, the one person I have ongoing contact with who was home-schooled does have some of the worst social skills of anyone I know.

Now if this system was designed to encourage students to group together to solve a complex problem, especially if it could be programmed to match dissimilar personalities in ways that both have synergy and forces (due to the synergy) them to interact with people who they might otherwise not.
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Old 03-05-2011, 07:46 AM   #4
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Default Re: Something much better than high school

Quote:
Originally Posted by ciaran_skye View Post
I have my wonders how it would help with social skills. One complaint, unfounded or not, about home-schooling is a student's social skills are often lacking compared to more traditionally schooled peers.
I'm not sure it would be a problem. If the system is running 24/7 (and perhaps starts earlier than high school) then you simply need to get children together. They'll do what kids do and the system, if I'm reading the OP right, will sneak learning into their everyday play. The problem with home-schooling stems from not allowing the child unstructured/unsupervised time with their peers.

Now what I'd be surprised with is if, even with this system, high school actually vanished. Regardless of the AI there's still certain practical hands on activities that require some adult supervision. However I do believe that what you might get are state funded "youth centers" where kids could go to access the materials for things such as wood working and automotive "classes", not to mention the more hands on parts of science studies. Throw in a gym or two with the appropriate equipment for sports and have the occasional dance or festival and you have a center for both education and socialization.
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Old 03-05-2011, 08:08 AM   #5
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Default Re: Something much better than high school

This is an interesting idea. I think an increased IQ would be the best way to represent the effects you are discussing, although undoubtedly SOME skills would also be imparted by adulthood. I would say IQ 11 at TL 9-10, and perhaps IQ 12 at TL 11+, plus a few points of culturally important skills. I would also consider the effects of bioengineering - unless there is a cultural prohibition against it, there would likely be an additional increase due to genetic engineering.

On the same line, this suggests that low-tech cultures may be more accurately modeled with a slightly lower average IQ and more points in specific skills. A 12th century tradesman might be very skilled in certain areas but would likely struggle mightily to handle new skills.
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Old 03-05-2011, 08:22 AM   #6
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Default Re: Something much better than high school

Research and Computer Operation/10 skills for sure. Maybe 1-3 other skills as emphasized by the "cybericulum". I agree with the raising of IQ in general.

This sounds like it would make for a very useful lens.
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Old 03-05-2011, 09:45 AM   #7
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Default Re: Something much better than high school

GURPS Magic School Bus? Ms. Frizzle is an SAI?
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Old 03-05-2011, 09:53 AM   #8
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Default Re: Something much better than high school

Add in Common Sense as well.
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Old 03-05-2011, 10:15 AM   #9
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Default Re: Something much better than high school

Another vote for raising IQ.
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Old 03-05-2011, 10:55 AM   #10
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Default Re: Something much better than high school

Quote:
Originally Posted by ciaran_skye View Post
I have my wonders how it would help with social skills. One complaint, unfounded or not, about home-schooling is a student's social skills are often lacking compared to more traditionally schooled peers.

I'll admit, the one person I have ongoing contact with who was home-schooled does have some of the worst social skills of anyone I know.

Now if this system was designed to encourage students to group together to solve a complex problem, especially if it could be programmed to match dissimilar personalities in ways that both have synergy and forces (due to the synergy) them to interact with people who they might otherwise not.
I never believed that. For one thing, in practice homeschoolers often teach in alliances between families. For another it is not clear that the social problems of high school have much relation to those of actual life. Moreover while it is unlikely that the atmosphere of all that many real high schools are as poisonous as it is in school stories, surely learning which sweater is hottest this year is a lesson most adolescents can get by without. Furthermore socializing can be provided outside of official high school in reasonably healthy environments. There are clubs like little league and scouting, and in neighborhoods with strong ties, children can be taught in neighborhood groupings rather then just by one family. In any case most of real high school is not socializing; it is sitting in the same room with each student being restrained from communicating with every other making them effectively alone. In any case, one thing that always made me skeptical of that argument is that I actually was in school; a private school admittedly, but the way some people talk you would think they don't remember what it is like to be a student.

The main disadvantage seems to be that teachers are not officially qualified; that doesn't mean they are unqualified(I would be as qualified as a history teacher as many who actually teach for a living) but that they are mixed in quality. The advantage is that it provides a more congenial atmosphere and a greater ability to adapt to the varying needs and abilities of given students, especially given that parents usually know their own children. High Schools are by definition "factory" schools for mass producing knowledge and individual students can get lost in the shuffle.

There is enough resource available to substitute for textbooks and come out ahead. For history, Greenwood Press books are splendid, and if you start using one of them you will desire to use school history texts to line cat litter boxes. Time-lifes also are very good. Both of these, and similar sources are easy to obtain, readable, and provide education that is as good as anyone can expect to get who does not intend to be a professional scholar. Even those who do intend this, can find this sort of thing useful.
Other subjects have similar texts for them written at a level comprehensible to a teenager though I am really getting out of my subject there.

Also, it does not appear to me that teaching students that following the routine like a Good Little Vilani wins points from Big Teacher or Big Jock or Big Cheerleader or Big Anything is the best lesson for children unless we intend them all to be soldiers, sailors or factory workers. Well discipline in work is a useful thing to teach there are are a lot of other things that are sacrificed by the way.

As for something much better, I have speculated a lot. Unfortunately some of my speculations are really not fit for the US. I imagined elementary in the hands of large clan-groups and vocational in the hands of vocational guilds and the main status of the state was as quality inspector and provider of tests. The first part is unworkable because it is in a pseudoculture; it could happen somewhere(because I was trying to make it a plausible culture under the context, not a utopia or dystopia) but not in US. However the third idea seems interesting. I am thinking that school should center around examination boards who will not ask where knowledge is acquired but will be more concerned about the fact that it is there. There should still be standardized tests, but the getting to them should be up to the student and parents. In the mean time there would be a large number of options; charter schools, private schools, religious schools, homeschooling, and what not. Perhaps public schools would remain but they would have a smaller part. Some trends in today's society seem to be headed that way.

Also far more use of the internet could be allowed. When I mentioned this before elsewhere it was pointed out that some things just can't be taught online such as things that require actual physical interaction(surgeons have to learn how to cut people up for instance). That granted, it does still seem that more can be done with the net then is done. Courses that require mainly abstract knowledge like math, some science, most history, and so on can still be on the net.

We can do a lot better then factory school's.
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