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Post by B. on Jun 7, 2015 14:33:44 GMT -5
I read somewhere recently that some director was saying art should be a compulsory subject in schools...What's your opinion on the fact that more creatively inclined people are forced to take years of academic subjects they often have little aptitude for, whereas academic people are not forced to take any creative or more vocational subjects?
Edit: Put in disturbing discussion because this could potentially get nasty...also don't think I've ever made a thread in this board.
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Post by Kit's tits kick ticks on Jun 7, 2015 15:21:11 GMT -5
In Germany we have to do art and music until year 10, and then for the last two years we can choose one of them. Music is more theory than anything else though, mostly music history. That always annoyed me, because musically completely untalented people could still get good marks just by learning history facts. I would have liked trying some different instruments or having listening tests.
Even though I'm not that talented in art I never thought it was bad that I had to do it at school. It was a relaxing subject, we could just sit there and do art stuff, and we were allowed to talk and sometimes listen to music. Sometimes we had to do things that were less fun, but still it was nice to get something different to do sometimes.
I generally think that everyone should do a bit of every subject at some point, because everyone should have some knowledge about the basics of everything. I was a bit sad for example that I never had to learn how to cook anything, or a bit of sign language.
The only thing I didn't like is that I had to do sport for the whole 12 years I went to school. And we don't even have much of a choice what kind of sport we do. We have to do lot of running and other athletics every year, and many different ball games. In some years we also do swimming and in other years some gymnastics, which was the only thing where I was not completely terrible. Of course everyone should do some sport because it's healthy and stuff, but I think they should let people choose what kind of sport they do, and not just make them do something and then give them marks.
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Post by penne on Jun 7, 2015 15:22:32 GMT -5
i had written a long response to this but it was rambling and repetitive so
i have an issue with this distinction people make between "creative people" and "academic people"- i feel often times those definitions overlap and sometimes it can take a "forced" first contact with a certain subject for someone to realize that. here in brazil i have to take every subject, from math to arts to philosophy to physics, and i have found i am interested in journalism and social science because i like that intersection between humanities and natural science. and i'm worried i might've not discovered that had i been able to choose my classes- i'd probably written off some sciencey stuff as uninteresting and never have found out they're things i can actually excel at. so i guess what i mean to say is that i think teaching the bare minimum of everything is important, because i think everyone can get something out of anything, even if that something is the confirmation that they are not into it and don't want to look into it any further. in which case, they shouldn't have to, but those who want to should have the opportunity to do so. i don't know if that's already how things are handled in other countries
i also think the way our subjects are divided is problematic, but that's for another discussion
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Post by Isadora Is a Door on Jun 7, 2015 16:50:50 GMT -5
pft, i spent ages trying to make a post just like you were going to make and then you end up making. You could at least have told me.
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Post by Hermes on Jun 8, 2015 7:26:17 GMT -5
Well, when I was young not so much was compulsory, though it was beginning to change, and on the whole I preferred it that way. As I've mentioned before, my old headmaster said that it might not make for a rounded education, but at least it meant we did subjects we could do. I think a lot of people actually come to dislike subjects because they are required to do them at school, when they might enjoy them more if they found them for themselves.
Still, art may be a special case, since it requires facilities which people might find it hard to find for themselves - if I want to know more about history or literature I can just pick up a book, or, nowadays, log into a website, but it's not so easy if I want to learn to paint. I had compulsory art at junior school, and I guess that was a good thing. I think everyone should be given the chance - making things compulsory up to 16 or 18, though, is another matter; by that point people may have long since decided they don't have the aptitude for it. I fear some people think that if everyone is taught art in school they will end up as artistic people, and I don't think that's true, any more than that if everyone is taught maths in school they will end up able to do sums.
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Post by gliquey on Jun 8, 2015 11:51:18 GMT -5
(I should say now that I'm in the UK; a "GCSE", if anyone doesn't know, is a qualification you work towards in the fourth and fifth years of school, between the ages of 14-16. They are the replacement for O-Levels.)
I'm currently in the middle of my GCSEs. These were the first subjects I was allowed to choose, other than some small choices I was allowed to make under the heading "Design and Technology" (e.g. "Food Tech", "Systems and Control", "Graphic Design") and the choices in P.E. with ridiculous names ("Healthy Lifestyles", "Maximum Performers" etc.).
In P.E., the choices essentially amounted to "choose the ability set you want to be in" — "Healthy Lifestyles", the choice I made, was basically a euphemism for "not much effort; for people who neither are nor want to be good at sport". In school, P.E. was something I hated, but I have nothing against the subject or the practise of making it mandatory. I enjoy swimming and used to run and cycle a lot outside school. I agree that schools should make P.E. compulsory — healthy lifestyles are important, but even in a "Healthy Lifestyles" class, we did too much sport and not enough exercise. If you're trying to keep children fit, making them develop intense hatred towards football or tennis helps nothing; within the realm of compulsory P.E., running, cycling, rowing, swimming or something more efficient at keeping you fit should be a much higher priority. (That said, I'm sure most people love football and tennis and would choose to do either if the alternative was fitness stuff, but people should have the choice.) (My opinion is basically just a rambling version of Anka's.)
As for the rest of subjects, I think you should be able to drop some subjects — art, dance, drama, music — after a year of high school. My opinion isn't because I'm more academic or have some problem with these subjects: I play two instruments, flute and keyboard (grade 6 at both), but still don't want anyone to do music if they know they just don't care. I knew from much earlier than year 7 that art would be torture — why make me do it? Art taught me nothing — in fact, music lessons in school taught me nothing — and if there's some educational benefit to teaching these subjects to kids who hate them, it isn't working.
As a very last resort compromise, make kids take one art-based/creative subject and let them choose which one it is. Then you would get kids in each class who want to be there, and teachers who are capable of teaching well because there's now a limited spread of ability in the class.
Maths is mandatory until GCSE level, but there's talk of making people take maths qualifications at A-Levels (sixth form / age 16-18). I think GCSE is about right. For those who just want a C, the foundation paper is mostly number work that seems useful in the real world. For those aiming for a B, A or A*, the higher paper covers stuff I can't imagine you need in the real world (Pythagoras, simultaneous equations, trigonometry, basic co-ordinate geometry), but it also covers some of the stuff from the foundation paper, to make sure everyone taking higher can already do the basic number work and foundation maths. (Side note: I took the GCSE calculator maths paper today! Woo! I think I probably got 100% — in the December mock, I got 98%. To get an A*, you need maybe 80-85%.)
For those who find GCSE maths too easy (I'd say this applies to between 1-5% of the population, which is still significant), schools vary. Some people take maths a year or more early (tbh, I should have been taking it at least 2 years ago). Our school makes top sets take FSMQ, which is a paper supposedly of AS level difficulty (read: lower sixth form maths). For any maths geeks who'll understand me, that means calculus (differentiation, integration), kinematics (SUVAT equations and applied calculus), binomial distribution and expansion, co-ordinate geometry and some really hard problems with shapes, plus a few other things. I think that means most kids are pushed in maths — although I still think I could have been done with A level maths by now if the education system was more efficient.
For English Language, everything seems to be relevant to the real world, even on a higher paper. Basically, you're reading and commenting on various articles and texts, and then writing some of your own stuff. This means you write six essays in a 2 hour 15 test (that time includes the time to read through 4 texts you've never seen before) — timing is ridiculous, but they understand you can't actually write proper essays within this time limit. I think the way the GCSE works is terrible, but I agree the subject should be mandatory.
English Literature is something I'm not sure should be mandatory, but it is. There are three sections: prose text, poetry and Shakespeare (who I assume would be offended to know his works count as neither). I don't see the point of making Shakespeare and poetry mandatory (for the same reason I don't think I should have had to do GCSE art), but I suppose some of the prose texts are good for us to study (we did "To Kill a Mockingbird", which was excellent, and "The Woman in Black", which was horrendous IMO).
Most people do one combined science qualification that counts for 2 GCSEs, while I chose to do the three sciences separately (3 GCSEs, but it counts as one of your options so everyone else is taking that third GCSE in a different subject). I'm not sure any of it should be mandatory at GCSE, but you have to do some form of science under the current system. Yes, maybe it's important to tell children basic science like reproduction, evolution, atomic theory and forces, but why does everyone have to learn about arbitrary topics from longitudinal vs transverse waves to electrolysis or anaerobic respiration?
As for geography and history, I think aspects of both are important and the system we have (make them do it up until year 9 / third year of school) is good, although again, I have issues with their curricula.
Okay, that's enough about the UK education system and definitely too much about me. To summarise: I think that creative subjects should be compulsory only up to about 11/12, "core" subjects (maths, English, science) should be mandatory until the end of high school and there should be more choice than there currently is in the UK. There certainly are people who are more creative than academic — and that's not a euphemistic way of saying "dumb" — and it's stupid to make them take some of the mandatory academic subjects.
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Post by Kit's tits kick ticks on Jun 8, 2015 12:37:44 GMT -5
I fear some people think that if everyone is taught art in school they will end up as artistic people, and I don't think that's true, any more than that if everyone is taught maths in school they will end up able to do sums. Being able to do sums (and all the other basic maths stuff) is important, but after like year 4 that is kind of a normal thing that evryone expects you to know anyway. For getting any qualification that makes you allowed to go to university here, which also includes studying art or music, you need to have Maths as a major subject for at least 12 years at school and do things like integrals and some weird multidimensional geometry stuff. I was quite good at that, but many people have problems there. I also think there doesn't have to be that much literature for people who don't want that. I don't know why literature is any more important than art. And of course peope need to know history, but when I went to school I had to do it all twice. We started with the stone age in year 6, rushed through everything until somewhere near the present until year 9, and then in from year 10-12 we did everything from ancient Greek until the present again. The second time was not that necessary. Also reading people's posts here makes me think that there should be some internationally comparable marks. A* with 80-85%? We don't even have anything like A* here, and for an A you need about 95%. Probably the %s are not equally easy to get then, but you still can't really compare that.
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Post by gliquey on Jun 8, 2015 13:14:41 GMT -5
Also reading people's posts here makes me think that there should be some internationally comparable marks. A* with 80-85%? We don't even have anything like A* here, and for an A you need about 95%. Probably the %s are not equally easy to get then, but you still can't really compare that. Oh, you should see the grade boundaries with some OCR science stuff. A*? Yeah, you need maybe 65%. But it's really all over the place. 95% for an A is much higher than here (but I assume fewer people get As in Germany, so it has more meaning). Depending on the subject, I think between 15-30% of people get an A or higher. But in raw percentage score? In history, 80% is an A*. In IT (Information Technology, meaning "computers"), you need 90%. In English Language, I think you need about 75% for one of the tests, but 90% for coursework. You could say our papers are harder - a lot of people tried to, after the non-calculator maths paper this year (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/11652918/Students-vent-their-frustration-at-Edexcel-GCSE-maths-exam.html). I sat that paper a week ago and I can say that, for me, the question that everyone complained about was not the hardest question on the paper; I found the sweets question easy (as well as the rest of the exam). There was a question about grain, involving algebra and volumes of cones and cylinders, that I found harder. Also, no-one complained about the graph question at the end (part (a) was "given y = f(x) has maximum points (5, 3), find the maximum point of y = f(x-4)") which I thought others would find hard. The grade boundaries for each paper are decided after they know everyone's scores, so if it's a hard paper maybe 65% should be the boundary for an A*. But I doubt it. Maybe our tests are harder. Maybe Germans are just smarter, or work harder, than British people.
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Post by Hermes on Jun 8, 2015 13:23:55 GMT -5
I also think there doesn't have to be that much literature for people who don't want that. I don't know why literature is any more important than art. Well, literature means knowing about it, whereas art normally means doing it. It might indeed be a good thing if more people learned about art. (I did do History of Art for a year when I was 14, I guess, but not for exams.) I have a feeling, though, that literature is more important, because words are how we communicate, so literature pervades the way we interact in a way that art doesn't. At a guess: The first time is to ensure basic knowledge; the second time is so you can be tested on it. I think this may be the source of the problem; there are some basic things that people ought to know, and they should should be taught them as early as possible, but it would be unfair to make their whole future depend on how they do at that stage, so people feels the fixed curriculum has to continue at a higher level, for testing. But perhaps people should have more freedom over what they are tested on. If I remember rightly, we did the 'from ancient times till now' thing in junior school, but in O Level (the predecessor of GCSE) we just did two periods which our teachers happened to like. Yes, it's not as if the marks had fixed meaning; in essay-based subjects we really decide the grade first and then work out how many marks it amounts to. Here an A is 70 [non-Brits faint], but that doesn't mean you can get an A with the same work that would be 70 anywhere else. (I actually think the numerical marks are a bit silly, and it would be better to have just A+, A, A- and so on. We have to agonise over whether something deserves 63 or 64, and there's really no way of deciding that sort of thing objectively.)
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Post by Kit's tits kick ticks on Jun 8, 2015 13:52:26 GMT -5
I have a feeling, though, that literature is more important, because words are how we communicate, so literature pervades the way we interact in a way that art doesn't. Literature is not the only approach to language though. At university I'm learning something about maxims of conversation for example, which tells me much more about communication than some books which were written in a century where they didn't even use the same grammatical constructions as today. At school languages are mostly restricted to literature, after learning how to use the grammar (and not even why). We were tested in all subjects in all years, but for the final mark that is relevant for applications, only everything from the last two years counts. The difference was that in year 6-9 we learnt more about the facts, and in year 10-12 we almost only had to analyse historical texts and pictures.
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Post by Tryina Denouement on Jun 8, 2015 14:03:17 GMT -5
Well, personally, I think everything must be compulsory up to Secondary school, because I'm sure by that point most students know what they're good at.
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Post by Linda Rhaldeen on Jun 8, 2015 19:54:20 GMT -5
In the high school I went to, during the four years you had to get a certain number of credits for each subject (one credit equalling one class period for a school year and half being a half-year class). I remember English was the only one compulsory all 4 years, I think you needed 3 math, history 3, science 2, and I think 1 1/2 PE and 1 1/2 arts (which included anything from choir to orchestra to pottery to art history). Then we had to do a half-year financial literacy, health, and computer classes and I think 2 half year classes in some kind of life skills class like cooking or welding. The rest of the credits could be whatever you wanted, and a lot of the required credits let you pick between a couple of different options.
There can be disadvantages to that type of system, but I think it combines the best elements of both things - compulsory education on each subject but freedom to choose within the subject.
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Post by bandit on Jun 8, 2015 20:54:23 GMT -5
Yeah, that's exactly how my high school works. It's fine
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Post by Deleted on Aug 15, 2015 21:08:57 GMT -5
I am in high school right now and art is compulsory, but we only have it for 2 periods a week on a Tuesday.
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