Education Forum: Discuss Politics & Experiences

[J77]

I understand there's the Academic Advice forum.

However, would it not make sense to have an Education forum. A place where the politics of education systems around the world can be discussed, or more lightly, a place where students can talk about their experiences, new and old, at universities.

I don't feel that trivial talk about educational institutes or heavier talk on education policies belongs in Academic advice, or indeed, in World Politics.

Perhaps a subforum of AA?

 

[Blahness]

Thinking back to the big debates I accidentally spawned a few months ago, I'd like this idea.

 

[Mattara]

What is wrong with having those posts in GD? It has worked in the past I would say(?)

 

[Astronuc]

'Heavy talk' on education policies does indeed belong in Politics & World Affairs. There are some threads already on education and its effectiveness.

 

[Moonbear]

I tried replying to this yesterday, but my reply went *poof* during a server hiccup.

I'm not entirely clear what you mean when you're referring to the politics of education. If you really mean politics, such as how legislation or administrative policy influences education, then that does belong in Politics and World Affairs. If you're talking more about at the level of the school district, as in the day-to-day issues teachers and principals need to deal with to "keep the peace," then General Discussion is a reasonable place for it.

Also, Academic and Career Guidance is not ONLY for students to ask questions about career choices and courses to take, as it's mostly being used, but also for educators to ask questions about things like lesson plans or how to better teach a subject, or even for first time graduate teaching assistants to ask questions about how to best manage a classroom to provide an optimal learning environment for the students (i.e., where to aim between dictatorship and anarchy ). We just don't get very many of those types of questions, but they would belong there too if we did get them.

For just general banter about school experiences, general discussion is the appropriate place.

Overall, we create new forums and subforums when there's a demonstrated need for it. We created A&CG after numerous threads were created in places like homework help and general discussion asking about what classes to take or advice on choosing a major or future career directions. There was a clear need for a place to keep all these topics together in one place.

I'm not so sure there are enough threads started anywhere at this time to warrant a subforum within A&CG dedicated only to those topics you've listed. So, I'm not saying we'll never need such a subforum, or it's a bad idea, just not something that we necessarily need now.

 

[bomba923]

'Heavy talk' on education policies does indeed belong in Politics & World Affairs. There are some threads already on education and its effectiveness.

While talk on educational politics (and education in general) exists in PWA & GD, I believe the talk is sufficiently...'heavy' (< your term ...to merit its own forum. Although a variety of domestic policies are discussed in PWA, much of talk often switches to academic politics (even if the original topic was something else) (which is understandable, as education is central to (and a crucial of part of any) successful domestic policy).

*Edit: Perhaps, we might vote on this?
J77, maybe you can add a poll to this thread?

 

[ZapperZ]

Whenever there is a suggestion for a new forum, or sub-forum, I usually ask myself "Now how many posts within the past, oh, one week or so, that would fit into this?"

Unless I've been asleep (and I can certainly miss them if they were posted in the politics forum since I avoid that like a plague), there haven't been that many, am I right? If this is true, then the current forum categories that we already have can handle that quite easily. Even in the Career/Academic forum can accommodate such discussion.

Again, as Moonbear has mentioned, there has to be an existing overwhelming need for it first, and an evidence for such a need would be the frequency of posts that would fall under that category, not via a "popularity" vote. From what I can tell, there is nothing to warrant a new sub-forum for it.

Zz.

 

[Astronuc]

Again, as Moonbear has mentioned, there has to be an existing overwhelming need for it first, . . .

Yeah, like the World Cup!

 

[Astronuc]

While talk on educational politics (and education in general) exists in PWA & GD, I believe the talk is sufficiently...'heavy' (< your term ...to merit its own forum. Although a variety of domestic policies are discussed in PWA, much of talk often switches to academic politics (even if the original topic was something else) (which is understandable, as education is central to (and a crucial of part of any) successful domestic policy).

I think Moonbear provided an appropriate response -

Also, Academic and Career Guidance is not ONLY for students to ask questions about career choices and courses to take, as it's mostly being used, but also for educators to ask questions about things like lesson plans or how to better teach a subject, or even for first time graduate teaching assistants to ask questions about how to best manage a classroom to provide an optimal learning environment for the students (i.e., where to aim between dictatorship and anarchy ). We just don't get very many of those types of questions, but they would belong there too if we did get them.

I see the two main topics being discussion of "teaching/educational methods/systems" and "educational policy". The former would belong in A&CG and the latter in P&WA.

 

[Moonbear]

While talk on educational politics (and education in general) exists in PWA & GD, I believe the talk is sufficiently...'heavy' (< your term ...to merit its own forum. Although a variety of domestic policies are discussed in PWA, much of talk often switches to academic politics (even if the original topic was something else) (which is understandable, as education is central to (and a crucial of part of any) successful domestic policy).

*Edit: Perhaps, we might vote on this?
J77, maybe you can add a poll to this thread?

Much? I see one thread that was started quite some time ago and recently brought back to the current discussions, and despite several months of discussion, only has about 50 replies. A handful of other threads have been started now and again in both P&WA and General Discussion, and most fizzle out fairly quickly.

When we start a new subforum, generally, there should be enough recent posts (within the last month) that are being actively discussed to move into that forum to populate it with at least a page of threads. If we cannot find that many threads fitting the category to move into the subforum, then it is not something that is an active enough area of discussion to warrant a subforum. It doesn't look good for the site to have a subforum sitting nearly empty and inactive. And, since the topics people do discuss are not swamping out any other topics in any forum, and fit within the scope of those forums just fine, I just don't see enough evidence to make a strong argument for another subforum. We don't want to have so many subforums that the site gets difficult to navigate.