People would tell you the intention is to equip you with the tools to learn early in life so you have the skills to do it later for the things you need or want to learn.
I’m not sure the education system actually does that very well but here we are.
I mean when it comes to subjects like math, languages and the various sciences - absolutely, they provide you with some basic tools that you may or may not use later in life. History is the fucking worst though. And a lot of it is the teachers’ fault. You could design tests to be more about explaining what happened, why it was important, etc. But at least in my school, you could barely get a passing grade on only that type of knowledge. You really needed all the dates and shit memorized for a good grade. Really strict teacher, not pleasant at all. Funnily enough - if you took any of her elective classes (extra history and philosophy) that only had like 6 or 7 students each, she was a very different person and the tests were a lot more about your general understanding, rather than being rally anal about very specific facts.
There’s no standardized testing for history in Estonia. No final exam to worry about. The teachers make up their own tests. Only in a few subjects did we actually have national exams. Estonian, English and math are the ones I had to take in high school. They could make significantly better tests if they wanted to. Teachers vary a lot by quality too, so in middle school my biology grade was a 3 (lowest passing grade in Estonia) and in high school it was a 5. The middle school teacher sucked at keeping students interested and the tests were uber strict. Miss one word in an explanation and you lose the point. The high school teacher was way friendlier, more engaging and paid more attention to what you knew, rather than how well you knew the minute details.
People would tell you the intention is to equip you with the tools to learn early in life so you have the skills to do it later for the things you need or want to learn.
I’m not sure the education system actually does that very well but here we are.
I mean when it comes to subjects like math, languages and the various sciences - absolutely, they provide you with some basic tools that you may or may not use later in life. History is the fucking worst though. And a lot of it is the teachers’ fault. You could design tests to be more about explaining what happened, why it was important, etc. But at least in my school, you could barely get a passing grade on only that type of knowledge. You really needed all the dates and shit memorized for a good grade. Really strict teacher, not pleasant at all. Funnily enough - if you took any of her elective classes (extra history and philosophy) that only had like 6 or 7 students each, she was a very different person and the tests were a lot more about your general understanding, rather than being rally anal about very specific facts.
There’s no standardized testing for history in Estonia. No final exam to worry about. The teachers make up their own tests. Only in a few subjects did we actually have national exams. Estonian, English and math are the ones I had to take in high school. They could make significantly better tests if they wanted to. Teachers vary a lot by quality too, so in middle school my biology grade was a 3 (lowest passing grade in Estonia) and in high school it was a 5. The middle school teacher sucked at keeping students interested and the tests were uber strict. Miss one word in an explanation and you lose the point. The high school teacher was way friendlier, more engaging and paid more attention to what you knew, rather than how well you knew the minute details.