Assuming they get that far by doing well in the memory test that is the Leaving Cert.
Are private schools better than public schools?
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NoRegretsCoyote
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Life is a memory test
No it's not. The function of education should be to develop the mind and teach people to think critically.Life is a memory test
NoRegretsCoyote
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It's a bit of both. My son hates learning his eight-times tables at the moment but this is a very useful life skill.
A lot of the LC is critical thinking anyway: the history and English exams for example aren't about listing dates or writing poetry from memory.
My son is doing the Leaving Cert this year. It's all about learning the right answers rather than offering an informed opinion in both History and English, particularly in History. He's pointed out things in his book which are factually incorrect but he's been told that the person checking the paper won't know that so give the answers which are expected.
NoRegretsCoyote
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Well that wasn't my approach, and I got an A1 in both
There was no A1's in my day, just A's and B's. I got an A and a B but I did find it a memory test back then and from what I can see little has changed.Well that wasn't my approach, and I got an A1 in both
DublinHead54
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On similar theme, I watched the 'Varsity Blues / College Admissions scandal' document on Netflix last night. It was pretty interesting and made good points that standardized testing is flawed. The children of wealthy / affluent / educated parents should statistically perform better. The admission process and pressure on children in the US seems very intense.
I suppose standardized testing removes subjectivity from the marker but it does weaken the learning experience.
Steven Barrett
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But then it isn't reliant on the child's performance in one written exam. There are a number of different considerations to giving a child a place in a college.
NoRegretsCoyote
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Children of tall people are generally taller than the rest of us.
This does not make a measuring tape "flawed". It is just a tool for measuring height the same way that standardized testing is just a tool for measuring cognitive ability.
It's a good way of testing if they have remembered what they were told, and that's fine.
Our system doesn't teach people to have an enquiring and open mind or to think critically. It prepares them for an entry test for third level. That's all the Leaving Cert is.
DublinHead54
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The point the documentary was making is that the 'rich' people have the means to prepare their children better, be that hire tutors, buy test prep etc.
I agree.
I agree. They are, as a cohort, generally better educated, more engaged in their children's education and more likely to see the benefits of education generally.
The child will also be in a peer group whose parents also tick those boxes above.
Gordon Gekko
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It’s more about the home environment. But all of these things are intertwined, with correlation often being mistaken for causality.
I went to private school and I’ve done okay. Is it because I went to private school? No, it’s not. It’s because both my parents are pretty smart and I grew up in an environment where I was taught the importance of hard work and where dossing just wouldn’t have been tolerated. I was pretty decent at studying but if I didn’t bother, I’d get a proverbial kick in the rear-end. I also had good facilities in terms of there being a Study in the house. And my brother and sisters aspired to have decent jobs or their own businesses, as did my pals, so there was a culture of
I’d attribute almost all of any relative success I’ve enjoyed to the home environment.
The flipside is that it must be very difficult for someone, no matter how smart or wealthy he or she is, if their homelife is messy.
I went to private school and I’ve done okay. Is it because I went to private school? No, it’s not. It’s because both my parents are pretty smart and I grew up in an environment where I was taught the importance of hard work and where dossing just wouldn’t have been tolerated. I was pretty decent at studying but if I didn’t bother, I’d get a proverbial kick in the rear-end. I also had good facilities in terms of there being a Study in the house. And my brother and sisters aspired to have decent jobs or their own businesses, as did my pals, so there was a culture of
I’d attribute almost all of any relative success I’ve enjoyed to the home environment.
The flipside is that it must be very difficult for someone, no matter how smart or wealthy he or she is, if their homelife is messy.
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NoRegretsCoyote
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Even when I was a teenager you could learn a huge amount just by going to the local library and reading. That's what I did anyway and I'm sure it helped me do well in exams. My parents didn't encourage or prevent me. The library could have been filled with other teenagers but it generally wasn't.
It's even better now as any teenager has pretty much the sum of human knowledge searchable on a smartphone. Despite this, educational achievement still varies hugely.
People are going to need to come up with a better theory than environment.
It's not down to any one factor but environment matters. It might matter most, most of the time. The school is part of the environment but it certainly isn't all of it.
Dr. Andreas Schleicher, agrees with me in relation to the Leaving Cert. In an OECD report on the Irish Second level education system he said;
"Students get taught one curriculum, it’s quite heavily focused on the reproduction of subject matter content, and not that much focus on getting students to think out of the box and link across the boundaries of subject matter disciplines.” Source
He also makes some very interesting comments on class sizes (they don't matter) and the ability to distinguish fact from opinion.
"Students get taught one curriculum, it’s quite heavily focused on the reproduction of subject matter content, and not that much focus on getting students to think out of the box and link across the boundaries of subject matter disciplines.” Source
He also makes some very interesting comments on class sizes (they don't matter) and the ability to distinguish fact from opinion.
NoRegretsCoyote
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A good teacher with 30 pupils is much better than a bad one with 20. There is probably some upper limit (my dad claims there were 50 pupils in his junior infants class which was probably hard to manage) but in the 20-30 range we are talking about class sizes just don't matter.
The only people consistently in favour of smaller class sizes are teachers' unions of course.
I had one class that was 40+ in secondary. The main issue with that, is you got almost zero time with the teacher. So if you keep up with everything 100% of the time no problem. If you didn't there was no way of getting the attention needed to catch up.
If you are going to private it school that in of itself might not be a huge advantage.
But its death of thousand paper cuts, its highly likely you have a load of other advantages thats you are not aware of.
But there's are private schools which are terrible, and kids do badly in them.
Sweeping generalizations only go so far. They are no good to you if the school you pick ends up being an outlier.
But its death of thousand paper cuts, its highly likely you have a load of other advantages thats you are not aware of.
But there's are private schools which are terrible, and kids do badly in them.
Sweeping generalizations only go so far. They are no good to you if the school you pick ends up being an outlier.
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