Why are Finnish students smarter then the rest of the world?

[Ramirez]

Are you so sure they do? a nation of people who don't actually know where their soldiers are fighting and dying doesn't seem to be awfully well educated/smart to my mind!

that was my point, IMO the US has a small superbly educated class that ranks above almost all nations but the general population that lags behind.

 

[Tez3]

Still not convinced they have the most educated lol.

What an education should be....

a wide knowledge of history including world and ancient history.

a wide knowledge of the philosophies and religions of the world, should be able to discuss rationally said differences.

a wide knowledge of the world's literature ancient and modern, to be able to discuss said literature.

a wide knowledge of the worlds art including classical and modern, including architecture.

to be widely read, to read fiction, non fiction and poetry, again modern and classical.

a wide knowledge of the natural world and the natural sciences.

to be knowledgable about the modern world, it's politics and it's issues

to have a good knowledge of geography, travel and the world's peoples.

wide knowledge of the sciences is optional but one should know at least what they are.

to be able to debate, to speak at least one foreign language, to be open to learning.


There's more but that's an education. It's not training for a job or career, it's not even about intelligence, it's about broadening the mind, stretching it, learning as much as you can, everyone should be taught to read and write and put on the path to education, they don't have to take it but it should be there for them.

You should know your Kant from your Descartes, your Athenian from your Roman, you should know about the great writers of the world, the great poets. You should be able to be discerning in what you read, to be able to separate the dross from the pearls. This is education. What most get is job training.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

What an education should be....

Your opinion. Not mine. Or am I required to share your opinion of what an education "should be?"

There's more but that's an education. It's not training for a job or career, it's not even about intelligence, it's about broadening the mind, stretching it, learning as much as you can, everyone should be taught to read and write and put on the path to education, they don't have to take it but it should be there for them.

In the USA, it is 'there for them'. Anyone who wants to obtain an education may do so. They do have to be admitted. They do have to find a way to pay for it. But there is nothing stopping them from educating themselves. In what way is education 'not there for them' now?

You should know your Kant from your Descartes, your Athenian from your Roman, you should know about the great writers of the world, the great poets. You should be able to be discerning in what you read, to be able to separate the dross from the pearls. This is education.

Read "Jude, the Obscure," by Thomas Hardy for an explanation of why stonecutters neither need nor are necessarily enriched by an education in the classics as well as a scathing opinion of the effete snobs and elitists who feel that 'education' is about thinking lofty thoughts and not learning how to bend electrons or track peptides or enhance business opportunities.

I know Kant from Schopenhauer, and I think your analysis is rubbish. Poor American education, no doubt.

What most get is job training.

And that is what most both want and need in order to have a normal, happy, satisfying, and productive life. Yay, job training.

 

[Tez3]

Your opinion. Not mine. Or am I required to share your opinion of what an education "should be?"

In the USA, it is 'there for them'. Anyone who wants to obtain an education may do so. They do have to be admitted. They do have to find a way to pay for it. But there is nothing stopping them from educating themselves. In what way is education 'not there for them' now?

Read "Jude, the Obscure," by Thomas Hardy for an explanation of why stonecutters neither need nor are necessarily enriched by an education in the classics as well as a scathing opinion of the effete snobs and elitists who feel that 'education' is about thinking lofty thoughts and not learning how to bend electrons or track peptides or enhance business opportunities.

I know Kant from Schopenhauer, and I think your analysis is rubbish. Poor American education, no doubt.

And that is what most both want and need in order to have a normal, happy, satisfying, and productive life. Yay, job training.

I didn't say job training wasn't important, you can be well trained and well educated but unlike you I don't look down on and write off those who work in sewers, or dig ditches. That's frightfully snobby coming from a country that prides itself on being egalitarian. One would have thought that sentiment was expressed by an 'old worlder'! I would argue that a sewer worker is more important than someone who can bend electrons.

Lofty thoughts? Not at all. Independant thoughts, the ability to think for oneself and not follow the herd. To be able to work out problems for oneself and not go about whinging.

Thomas Hardy was the son of a 'stone cutter' who was also somewhat of a bitter man, rejection and falling out with his wife over his work then her death made him also quite an unhappy one so he was inclined to be vitriolic about those that rejected his work. he also lived in different times from us, when the working man was supposed to 'know his place', under the heel of his 'better's.
I actually know a stone cutter or mason as he should be called, works at York Minster, a very well educated man as well as being very skilful in his job.
To be honest saying my argument is 'rubbish' is amusing. Can't you come up with something better than 'rubbish'?

How can you have a normal, happy, productive life if one doesn't think? What is life for if not to explore?

 

[Bill Mattocks]

I didn't say job training wasn't important, you can be well trained and well educated but unlike you I don't look down on and write off those who work in sewers, or dig ditches. That's frightfully snobby coming from a country that prides itself on being egalitarian. One would have thought that sentiment was expressed by an 'old worlder'! I would argue that a sewer worker is more important than someone who can bend electrons.

Who said I look down on them? They're terribly important; society cannot function without them.

I said that a) most workers neither need nor want higher education, b) it is available for them if they do, c) it should be somewhat difficult to obtain so that only those truly motivated to get an education do so, d) the world needs many poor people, the poor being the basis of the economic pyramid and e) there is some correlation between education level and work performed.

Nowhere did I say I looked down on the poor, or the working class, or even the uneducated.

Lofty thoughts? Not at all. Independant thoughts, the ability to think for oneself and not follow the herd. To be able to work out problems for oneself and not go about whinging.

No one needs to be able to read Greek in order to not whine about one's lot in life. And 'following the herd' is actually how there happens to be a herd in the first place. If most don't follow, then there is no herd.

Thomas Hardy was the son of a 'stone cutter' who was also somewhat of a bitter man, rejection and falling out with his wife over his work then her death made him also quite an unhappy one so he was inclined to be vitriolic about those that rejected his work. he also lived in different times from us, when the working man was supposed to 'know his place', under the heel of his 'better's.

Then you missed one of the major themes of the novel.

I actually know a stone cutter or mason as he should be called, works at York Minster, a very well educated man as well as being very skilful in his job.

I would not deny that very intelligent people can be found in jobs that do not require great intellect, higher education, or even deep thought. If they happen to have those attributes, that's good for them. Presuming they want a higher education, I would encourage them to get one; please show where I have said otherwise.

To be honest saying my argument is 'rubbish' is amusing. Can't you come up with something better than 'rubbish'?

Can't you come up with actual argument instead of taking issue with my vocabulary or choice of words? Let me resort to the vernacular, then. I think your argument is crap. I've outlined why.

How can you have a normal, happy, productive life if one doesn't think?

And yet most of the planet doesn't, and presumably has a happy life. Your mistake is that you believe your level of intellectual curiosity is shared by the rest of the world - it isn't. That's not a bad thing, necessarily. Most are quite happy watching whatever is on TV on any given night. Read the book "Amusing Ourselves to Death," By Neil Postman for a fine exposition of this theme.

The majority of humanity are booger-eatin' morons. And they like it that way. Think? No. They feel. And they like it. More power to 'em.

What is life for if not to explore?

Please see my previous reference to aesthetes who have no clue that the rest of the world doesn't sit around thinking deep thoughts when the football game is on.

 

[Sukerkin]

Steady now lads and ladettes, let's not get too excited in countering each others positions.

Ironic in a way and related to this thread as something that education should prepare you for is the ability to debate.

It is something that is dying out, I think, as I have had a holder of (recent) Masters degrees trying to shout me down in my own house; what he should have been doing is building his case convincingly rather than attempting to prevent me building my counterpoint.

The state of education in general in many places has become terrible, with 'exam passing' targets taking the place of the nurturing of critical thinking.

 

[Tez3]

Bill and I are only sparring, we aren't fighting! don't spoil our fun!

He'll have to wait for an answer though, I've just sent the other half for fish and chips!

 

[Makalakumu]

LOL....raises an interesting question, is it better to have a generally better educated population or a small extremely educated class.

I think that having a small educated class and bunch of slobbering morons creates non-functioning democracies. If everyone has a vote and people are too dumb to know how to cast it or for what they even believe in, the system isn't going to work. The public just becomes a bunch of easily manipulated patsies. The state of affairs in the US pretty much bears this out.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

I think that having a small educated class and bunch of slobbering morons creates non-functioning democracies. If everyone has a vote and people are too dumb to know how to cast it or for what they even believe in, the system isn't going to work. The public just becomes a bunch of easily manipulated patsies. The state of affairs in the US pretty much bears this out.

That's not education. That's intelligence. Most people haven't got the sense to pour urine out of a boot with the instructions printed on the bottom.

Democracy is an interesting concept, and our system of representative republic (not true democracy) works - kind of - because it resists idiots by design. Laws are hard to change and have to pass Constitutional muster, and our system is designed to fight itself through three countervailing systems (legislative, executive, and judicial) that, with the cooperation of a free press and a semi-engaged electorate, can sustain an amazing amount of damage and still soldier on.

However, as the balance of power shifts towards the executive, and people realize - as Tytler supposedly said, "vote themselves largess from the public coffer," the system begins to experience entropy to a degree that may not be sustainable over the long term.

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy." - ascribed to Alexander Fraser Tytler.

In the long term, our form of government is unstable. It is, however, more stable than any other form that has been discovered to date, and preserves the independent rights of the citizenry better than any other as well. Long live the Republic; but it is the judgment of history that it will one day fall.

 

[Makalakumu]

Oh, yes, I agree, democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding on whose for dinner.

However, we have a system that uses votes and requires information and this demands education. You can be intelligent, but if your information is flawed or absent, it won't make a difference.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Oh, yes, I agree, democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding on whose for dinner.

However, we have a system that uses votes and requires information and this demands education. You can be intelligent, but if your information is flawed or absent, it won't make a difference.

No system could exist as you describe. It relies upon a fundamental premise that does not exist - that two people, given access to education, given a high level of intellect, and who both care about the outcome of an election, would come to a similar conclusion about which candidate to vote for. This is a fallacy. Informed voters are the same as uninformed voters; they are not capable of making the 'correct' choice because there isn't one to make.

This is analogous to the stock market. Sophisticates and neophytes both get haircuts from time to time; it only differs in terms of who gets what when. The only winners are those who have access to privileged information or luck on their side. If it were truly down to skill, there could be no stock market, because people would only choose winners, there would be no losers, and the stock market would go up forever.

It's a common theme - if the electorate only understood the issues, they'd vote my way. But whether they do or they do not, they will or won't vote your way, and education is no guarantee of how one will vote.

 

[Tez3]

I would dispute the statement that most workers don't want higher education. Every weekday night in the UK millions are studying at local education authority evening classes and 250,000 'mature' students a year are studying at the Open University, not just for degrees but in subjects such as literature and art history. Unions here through the TUC offer learning through affliated colleges and having union reps who's task is to promote learning among the members. Yes there is section of society that will sit and slob out but there's huge numbers of workers who are busy studying! There is also a college in Oxford that is specifically for people with no qualifiactions or are disadvantaged to enable them to study, it's called Ruskin College and should be of interest to Americans! There's also the Workers Educational Association.

http://www3.open.ac.uk/study/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruskin_College

http://www.wea.org.uk/aboutus/index.htm

These are the classes offered at our nearest big town, we also have classes in village halls and local schools. If you don't get your name down quickly you miss out as the classes fill up quickly.

http://durham.floodlight.co.uk/durh...dy/darlington/16180339/220706/100/domain.html

The local universities offer part time course as well as evening classes, commerical companies offering distance learning are very popular.

Thomas Hardy is over rated in my opinion, I find him boring frankly, C P Snow much more my thing.

 

[Sukerkin]

That is a most important and often underestimated point, Bill :tup:.

A classic example of this is the discourses between me and one of my friends at work.

He is, in my opinion at least, a near genius, with a masterfully analytical mind that holds information seemingly forever (unlike my leaky bucket which loses stuff over time ).

I like to think that I am well read and know quite a bit about a broad range of things (my big claim to fame is having a linguistic IQ of 192 (maths one was only 155, so I'll whisper that bit :lol:}).

So we're both intelligent and well educated ... and yet there are a number of things we disagree on fundamentally when it comes to the matters touched on by politics.

In my eyes, his big problem (and no laughing, please, my American friends who have discoursed with me here over the years) is that he is too liberal in his thinking. He cannot see that sometimes your own people and their wants and needs must come first, over and above those of everybody else, no matter how deserving they may be.

That sort of difference of opinion is little impacted by education or intelligence because it is a value judgement.

It can be argued that better informed people make better calls on value judgements too, which might be true but not in all cases.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

I would dispute the statement that most workers don't want higher education. Every weekday night in the UK millions are studying at local education authority evening classes and 250,000 'mature' students a year are studying at the Open University, not just for degrees but in subjects such as literature and art history. Unions here through the TUC offer learning through affliated colleges and having union reps who's task is to promote learning among the members. Yes there is section of society that will sit and slob out but there's huge numbers of workers who are busy studying! There is also a college in Oxford that is specifically for people with no qualifiactions or are disadvantaged to enable them to study, it's called Ruskin College and should be of interest to Americans! There's also the Workers Educational Association.

Then you've already disproved your premise that higher education is not generally available. Apparently, it is, and for those who want it, there is no lack of places they can go to get it.

And in any case - the popularity of advanced education does not challenge my assertion that 'most' people don't prefer to continue to educate themselves.

On my side, I give you television. List the number of educational shows versus the number of shows that depict violence or sex or both; tell me which is more popular. According to Neilson, the average American spends 8 hours and 15 minutes watching television every 24 hours. It's a full-time job.

How many schools versus how many bars and pubs?

85% of Americans have completed high school - 27% have a four-year college degree. A very small percentage possess post-graduate degrees.

People get the education they want. Most don't want any more than they have.

Thomas Hardy is over rated in my opinion, I find him boring frankly, C P Snow much more my thing.

I have not read C.P. Snow. I never said preferred Hardy, I only cited his novel as an example of the folly of the notion that everyone should be universally educated in the classic liberal sense. Frankly, I prefer Kinky Friedman. The man can turn a phrase.

 

[Tez3]

Now I'm confused, it was never my premise that higher education wasn't generally available, in fact I haven't mentioned anything about education being either available or unavailable. Where did you get that idea? I did expound on my opinion of what education is, an idea shared by many btw, but nowhere did I say education was unavailable widely.


Television, the BBC has 'a mission to educate' and we have a high propartion of programmes which do and are popular. The other channels also have programmes that amuse and educate. Programmes such as Coast, Time Team, Spring and Autumn Watch, Life on Earth, we have a high proportion of documentaries about science, natural history, history, medicine, geography etc all very popular.

I know you didn't say you preferred Hardy, I was merely saying I find him boring.

I'm sure you know your countrymen very well however you don't know mine as well so generalisations about mankind based on American behaviour just doesn't wash I'm afraid.

 

[Makalakumu]

No system could exist as you describe. It relies upon a fundamental premise that does not exist - that two people, given access to education, given a high level of intellect, and who both care about the outcome of an election, would come to a similar conclusion about which candidate to vote for. This is a fallacy. Informed voters are the same as uninformed voters; they are not capable of making the 'correct' choice because there isn't one to make.

This is analogous to the stock market. Sophisticates and neophytes both get haircuts from time to time; it only differs in terms of who gets what when. The only winners are those who have access to privileged information or luck on their side. If it were truly down to skill, there could be no stock market, because people would only choose winners, there would be no losers, and the stock market would go up forever.

It's a common theme - if the electorate only understood the issues, they'd vote my way. But whether they do or they do not, they will or won't vote your way, and education is no guarantee of how one will vote.

I agree with you, but that isn't what I'm trying to say. This discussion probes one of the fundamental discussions regarding the nature of education. Does it simply pour knowledge into the brain or does it exercise the mind and develop the individual? The latter is essential for democracy, the former is brainwashing, in my opinion.

 

[Tez3]

I agree with you, but that isn't what I'm trying to say. This discussion probes one of the fundamental discussions regarding the nature of education. Does it simply pour knowledge into the brain or does it exercise the mind and develop the individual? The latter is essential for democracy, the former is brainwashing, in my opinion.[/quote]

Ah you grasped my point!


thats exactly how I see it. The purpose of education is to exercise the mind, to broaden it, to learn from history so as not to repeat mistakes, to learn from wise people and to ultimately be enlighten ones self. The thing is, it's the most enormous fun to be curious and constantly searching for knowledge. It is necessary for democracy but it also keep your mind alive, keeps it sharp and makes you an interesting person to talk to!

 

[Bill Mattocks]

I agree with you, but that isn't what I'm trying to say. This discussion probes one of the fundamental discussions regarding the nature of education. Does it simply pour knowledge into the brain or does it exercise the mind and develop the individual? The latter is essential for democracy, the former is brainwashing, in my opinion.

The difference between the two is down to the individual. Everything is poison, it's merely a question of dosage.

When people propose to filter or change the presentation of information in order to fit their own concept of what education is versus what brainwashing is, one merely accepts their brainwashing versus the previous version. The new boss is the same as the old boss.

Personally, I'm an autodidact. I don't need my information presented in any particular format or manner; I'll do the thinking, thank you very much. I develop myself; the very notion that someone would 'develop' me by a specialized system of education makes me slightly queasy.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

The purpose of education is to exercise the mind, to broaden it, to learn from history so as not to repeat mistakes, to learn from wise people and to ultimately be enlighten ones self.

No it isn't. That's a description of education for buttinskis who feel they know better than others what they should be learning.

The thing is, it's the most enormous fun to be curious and constantly searching for knowledge.

For you, clearly. For me, yes as well. For most, bowling and hot wings suffice for 'the most fun'. Leave them alone; let them seek their education as they see fit.

It is necessary for democracy

Not only is it not necessary, it's not particularly desirable.

but it also keep your mind alive, keeps it sharp and makes you an interesting person to talk to!

And for those who simply don't wish to sit at that immaculate table (which, I maintain, is the majority)?

 

[Tez3]

No it isn't. That's a description of education for buttinskis who feel they know better than others what they should be learning.

For you, clearly. For me, yes as well. For most, bowling and hot wings suffice for 'the most fun'. Leave them alone; let them seek their education as they see fit.

Not only is it not necessary, it's not particularly desirable.

And for those who simply don't wish to sit at that immaculate table (which, I maintain, is the majority)?

In your neck of the woods perhaps, the figures here show that education for the masses is popular and widely taken up. For someone who thinks his country is the best in the world you have a very poor opinion of your fellow countrymen, dear me, I think better of them than you do!