Views: 2312 A Government Run By Me...
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Hi MobaFire! <3
A long time ago (2009, in fact), I wrote a list of some of the conditions of living that I'd require of my citizens if I was a dictator. Looking back now, I can see some of the ideas were not very well fleshed out, and that some of my priorities have changed.
Here is my improved list of societal rules, with the negatives and positives listed for each proposal. Some are "big" in scope, and some are just small alterations to current ideas that I believe would make my imaginary society better. As I am studying to be a teacher, a lot of my ideas are related to children, students and schooling.
Please don't take offense to any of my suggestions. I'm happy to defend my "decrees", and if you have a better idea, I'll be more than glad to hear it. But don't assume I'm targeting you, or ignoring minorities, or whatever. That's not the point of this exercise. It's simply a reflection of what I believe would be a step towards a better society.
The "policies" are listed in order of relevance to "age". So infant, child, adolescent, adult.
Mandatory Parental Support
I believe that a bank account should be opened for a child at birth, and $1 a day deposited into that account. Between two parents that's only 50c each day. For one parent, that's only $7 a week. By the time the child turns 18, they have a bank account with $6552 + interest.
Supervised Exercise
Mandatory/required 1 hour supervised exercise per day, 5 days a week. At school, this would mean PE every day for an hour. At work this would mean everyone would have to go to the gym for one hour, and this hour would be paid. At uni this would mean compulsory attendance, such as a tutorial or lecture.
Aptitude VS Age
Schools grades would not be broken up by age. A 13 year old with the aptitude of a 16 year old shouldn't be confined to grade 8 due to their age. Thus grouping classes via aptitude (intelligence) instead of age.
Monitoring Student Attendance
Students who attend any type of learning system/operation will have to sign in; a student will swipe his student card to indicate he was present, and then swipe his card to indicate he has left. The device which signs people in can easily be implemented into schools, TAFEs, workplaces and universities. This system would obsolete Form classes at highschools, and would track university attendance.
Most highschools/universities/workplaces have ID cards that allow access to certain places or things (ie Student ID cards allow borrowing of books, or access to computer rooms at night). It wouldn't take much to reissue new ID cards that are compatible with the Sign In system.
Obviously the amount of Sign In systems in individual places would be different; at the entrance of a class room, there would only be a few Sign In devices, whereas at the entrance of a lecture hall, there would be five or six to prevent waiting.
Also, uni courses that offer participation scores for attending tutorials would find this method easier than physically recording who attended and then typing these figures into a database.
Military Conscript
Minimum 1 year of mandatory military training for every citizen, regardless of gender, as a "Year 13" (final year of high school). This training would increase their strength and discipline. During this year, they will not be part of the "reserve", but an independent group; they will not be subject to deployment or any "real" military activity, just the training. Think a military boot camp.
Mandatory Tertiary Educational Rental Relocation Assistance
Universities should offer rent assistance to uni students who leave home to study - not all universities have the same course, and some students are forced to attend a university far from their home town to attend the course they wanted. Perhaps $1000 a semester, regardless about how much money their parents earn, and this money will only be paid if the student passes for that semester AND attends over 50% of lectures and tutorials (explained in next point). At the end of the course, the owed money can be paid off incorporated into end of study student fees, and will not have any interest. This rent assistance is optional for students (students do not need to accept this assistance if they do not want it), but mandatory for all universities.
Official Job Database
There should be one online database for jobs. All companies are obliged to promote all job openings on it, and it must be updated periodically. This means that it is less "WHO YOU KNOW", but "WHAT YOU KNOW". After the job seeker has filled out the criteria of the job that she would prefer, the available list of jobs will come up, each job containing a brief description, prospective wage, skill requirements and hours wanted, directly displayed on the page without the use of jump links. There would be a checklist on the right of the page, and the job seeker merely has to check off which job they'd like to be considered for, and immediately their Resume, Application Letter, Relevant Information and Previous Employment will be sent to the company for consideration.
Of course it is expected that each company would implement the use of a criteria filled expectation for each job - so only a person that fits that specific criteria by more than 65% will be automatically accepted for consideration.
Official Professional Job Seeking Profile
Children will be assigned their own portfolio profile page at the above website/online database at the beginning of high school, where their school results and employment history is automatically updated. This promotes the need for good academic marks. Teachers and other influential members may leave testimonials on student profiles to increase their chances of getting work. This profile will be used "forever" for the above website.
Earning, Learning, or Working
After leaving the mandatory secondary type of education, there are only three choices. Earning money or study. If the young adult is not earning or studying within half a year of leaving their chosen secondary education, they are automatically assigned community service (such as cleaning the streets, helping the elderly at retirement homes, helping not-for-profit organizations etc) and paid the minimum wage; this would be considered "working". Essentially this is what is called the Doll in Australia, but you actually have to work for this free money.
A long time ago (2009, in fact), I wrote a list of some of the conditions of living that I'd require of my citizens if I was a dictator. Looking back now, I can see some of the ideas were not very well fleshed out, and that some of my priorities have changed.
Here is my improved list of societal rules, with the negatives and positives listed for each proposal. Some are "big" in scope, and some are just small alterations to current ideas that I believe would make my imaginary society better. As I am studying to be a teacher, a lot of my ideas are related to children, students and schooling.
Please don't take offense to any of my suggestions. I'm happy to defend my "decrees", and if you have a better idea, I'll be more than glad to hear it. But don't assume I'm targeting you, or ignoring minorities, or whatever. That's not the point of this exercise. It's simply a reflection of what I believe would be a step towards a better society.
The "policies" are listed in order of relevance to "age". So infant, child, adolescent, adult.
Mandatory Parental Support
I believe that a bank account should be opened for a child at birth, and $1 a day deposited into that account. Between two parents that's only 50c each day. For one parent, that's only $7 a week. By the time the child turns 18, they have a bank account with $6552 + interest.
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Positives + Child has a reasonable sum of money to move out and afford the expenses of living away from home + Covers the cost of some tertiary education fees + In the case of injury or something, there is money saved |
Negatives - If the child has not worked prior to receiving the money on their 18th birthday, they could squander it, having no idea the value of such a large sum - It can be argued that 18 is too young to entrust such a large amount of money |
Supervised Exercise
Mandatory/required 1 hour supervised exercise per day, 5 days a week. At school, this would mean PE every day for an hour. At work this would mean everyone would have to go to the gym for one hour, and this hour would be paid. At uni this would mean compulsory attendance, such as a tutorial or lecture.
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Positives + Higher level of fitness + Lower level of obesity |
Negatives - Some people are fat and won't want to do it - Some people may be too unfit to even attempt it |
Aptitude VS Age
Schools grades would not be broken up by age. A 13 year old with the aptitude of a 16 year old shouldn't be confined to grade 8 due to their age. Thus grouping classes via aptitude (intelligence) instead of age.
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Positives + Students are receiving the teaching they need, regardless of intelligence level + Students are surrounded by like-minded peers |
Negatives - May cause embarrassment if individual situations are unfavourable (a 16 year old being grouped with 12 year olds) - Age appropriate material will be hard to define |
Monitoring Student Attendance
Students who attend any type of learning system/operation will have to sign in; a student will swipe his student card to indicate he was present, and then swipe his card to indicate he has left. The device which signs people in can easily be implemented into schools, TAFEs, workplaces and universities. This system would obsolete Form classes at highschools, and would track university attendance.
Most highschools/universities/workplaces have ID cards that allow access to certain places or things (ie Student ID cards allow borrowing of books, or access to computer rooms at night). It wouldn't take much to reissue new ID cards that are compatible with the Sign In system.
Obviously the amount of Sign In systems in individual places would be different; at the entrance of a class room, there would only be a few Sign In devices, whereas at the entrance of a lecture hall, there would be five or six to prevent waiting.
Also, uni courses that offer participation scores for attending tutorials would find this method easier than physically recording who attended and then typing these figures into a database.
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Positives + Students attendance is easily monitored, allowing for teachers to know where a student is in the case of an emergency + Statistics can be collected about the student; if a student is late, absent, leaves early. |
Negatives - Can be argued that it eliminates privacy (not really, as students have roll call at the beginning of every class anyway) - Forces university students to attend lectures; would have to have another system set up for distance education students |
Military Conscript
Minimum 1 year of mandatory military training for every citizen, regardless of gender, as a "Year 13" (final year of high school). This training would increase their strength and discipline. During this year, they will not be part of the "reserve", but an independent group; they will not be subject to deployment or any "real" military activity, just the training. Think a military boot camp.
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Positives + Any students with discipline problems would be straightened out + Fitness levels would increase |
Negatives - Create a military-aware society (prone to war?) - Does not take into account young families (teenage pregnancies) |
Mandatory Tertiary Educational Rental Relocation Assistance
Universities should offer rent assistance to uni students who leave home to study - not all universities have the same course, and some students are forced to attend a university far from their home town to attend the course they wanted. Perhaps $1000 a semester, regardless about how much money their parents earn, and this money will only be paid if the student passes for that semester AND attends over 50% of lectures and tutorials (explained in next point). At the end of the course, the owed money can be paid off incorporated into end of study student fees, and will not have any interest. This rent assistance is optional for students (students do not need to accept this assistance if they do not want it), but mandatory for all universities.
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Positives + Students are supported in their decision to attend a university away from home + Students who would otherwise not able to afford accommodation, are given some money to help them |
Negatives - Universities would be allocating a lot of money to students, and risk not getting the money back - Universities may increase prices of units in order to sustain these relocation scholarships |
Official Job Database
There should be one online database for jobs. All companies are obliged to promote all job openings on it, and it must be updated periodically. This means that it is less "WHO YOU KNOW", but "WHAT YOU KNOW". After the job seeker has filled out the criteria of the job that she would prefer, the available list of jobs will come up, each job containing a brief description, prospective wage, skill requirements and hours wanted, directly displayed on the page without the use of jump links. There would be a checklist on the right of the page, and the job seeker merely has to check off which job they'd like to be considered for, and immediately their Resume, Application Letter, Relevant Information and Previous Employment will be sent to the company for consideration.
Of course it is expected that each company would implement the use of a criteria filled expectation for each job - so only a person that fits that specific criteria by more than 65% will be automatically accepted for consideration.
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Positives + People really looking for work will be able to apply for jobs they otherwise wouldn't have known existed + Employers will receive all relevant applications straight away |
Negatives - Applicants with the best resume etc will more than likely be hired - Competing with a bigger market, as the jobs are easier to access and apply for |
Official Professional Job Seeking Profile
Children will be assigned their own portfolio profile page at the above website/online database at the beginning of high school, where their school results and employment history is automatically updated. This promotes the need for good academic marks. Teachers and other influential members may leave testimonials on student profiles to increase their chances of getting work. This profile will be used "forever" for the above website.
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Positives + Good students are rewarded with an exceptional profile + Employees can track the academic progress of their future employee |
Negatives - Students with poor attendance/records will be at a disadvantage - Teachers/previous employers may leave unfavourable testimonials |
Earning, Learning, or Working
After leaving the mandatory secondary type of education, there are only three choices. Earning money or study. If the young adult is not earning or studying within half a year of leaving their chosen secondary education, they are automatically assigned community service (such as cleaning the streets, helping the elderly at retirement homes, helping not-for-profit organizations etc) and paid the minimum wage; this would be considered "working". Essentially this is what is called the Doll in Australia, but you actually have to work for this free money.
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Positives + There are no idle people, everyone is "employed" + People want to get a job, because being paid the minimum wage for doing hard labour sucks |
Negatives - Doesn't take into account people who physically or mentally can't work - People may just sink into this "doll work" for easy, guaranteed, no skills money |
I strongly disagree with this >.> If children lack discipline that's just because their parents have no idea how to raise them properly. As for strengthening them, you already have the mandatory 1 hour of fitness c:
Earning, Learning, or Working <-- that is genius. I'd like to live in a society like this.
Now the age & intelligence thing.. Well, lets just say that's asking for failure.
For example, I'm much better at nearly everything than most of my peers. I just suck at gym ( I do exercise properly but i suck in team sports) Chemistry( Well, I'm still better than 90% of my peers at it, but Not as good as a couple of students) and I'm somewhat bad at maths,though most of my tests are either B's or A's. As for history, I suck at remembering years... so yeah. That's 4 subjects I'm not so good at. I find physics challenging but I show good results at it. So, 5 subjects. The rest i find relatively easy which basically means I should already be in high school for 9 of my subjects but my age is appropriate for 5 of them. How do you propose we deal with this?
I think something nice would be a system where people learn what they're good at. They get a basic education of everything and then specialize in some field.. How you would find out what each individual is good at i have no idea though
Then to the comments; I disagree with almost everything. There are two points which i partly agree with you. Both of those are already in Finland. Another one is the university id-card. Over here you can go to the IT-class by using the card or if you wanna go to the university when it's closed you can do it by using id-card. Well actually this is only half true, this works on some places but not in everywhere. But the idea is great. I do not think that id-card would be needed at day-time.
About the age&intelligence; I believe that everyone should go with people of his own age. It makes thinks so much easier and brings the real childhood for everyone.
And the parental support: In Finland we have kind of parental support. For example you can buy insurance for a baby which will be valid until he is 20 years old. You can save money for the child while paying the insurance money. All the money will get pretty nice interest rate over 20 years and income is pretty good. This is just one application but I'd say that you have got a point on that one, even thought i would never pay that 1$ per day, it is quite good if it's part of a insurance-tax or same sort of payment.
There's few things to think about. Overall I like the way how you created a thread which is so close to my specialty. :D I'll be happy to answer any questions what you may have considering applications of these ideas of yours in Scandinavia or further more in Finland.
edit: And I really can't see why you would wanna make military service mandatory, and I'd have another question on that matter, do you wanna make women's military service mandatory too? Since some people are planning to make women's military service mandatory in Finland and mmh I believe it was Norway. (The country which has been in the newspapers for this matter.)
I am studying to be a teacher, and there are a few more things against that then you would think.
One of the huge benefits to grouping students with peers who do not have the same skill set as them creates a situation that is very similar to any job out there. Your co-worker will not be at the same level as you are in all areas. Essentially what this heterogeneous grouping of students does is raise the ability of all students in the group when given tasks that they must rely on their peers.
"Oh but grrg, what if they arn't doing group work" -Someone
Excellent question someone, another benefit is that is allows all students to come to a better understanding of the material presented. The high achieving students will be asked questions by the low achieving students. This causes the high achieving students to look at material in a different manner, giving better understanding of what they are explaining. This also gives a different viewpoint to the low achieving students as well.
Now, homogeneous grouping is good in principal. The problem lies in that it is essentially segregating the population of the school. If you have studied american history, you would understand why the terms "separate but equal" don't really mean what they say. However, the way you presented it does seem like it would be more fair than other, similar programs implemented in the past. I would be interested in seeing what happens in an educational environment like that.
If you ever do become dictator of a country. Please allow me to come research what happens with your educational system.
But these are lifestyle changes and by human nature are hard to do because we are programmed to stay in our "safety zone" or should i say a zone where we feel most comfortable in. when we take ourselves out of that safety zone is where we can get the results to improve.
The thing is though is no matter how much we excercise there is always a limit to how much it can help us. You get your best results coming from exercise in the first half hour of the workout. Something that could be implemented into this would be to slowly abolish any food that is not man made, get rid of pesticides,herbicides,hormones fed to animals or whatever heck else other chemical product you can think of. Sure they help to mass produce our food so that everyone can eat( or should i say overeat), but all these chemicals are then absorbed into our bodies and are very detrimental to our health.
Anyways iv'e rambled a little bit here but all this to say i agree with your points and the food portion could be an addition to help everyone live a fit and healthy good life.
-Supervised Exercise: This would work well for when children are still at school. For myself, PE was the best class I had until i finished highschool, and even through university/college. However, that is not cannot be said of everyone. I agree with people having to keep healthy, however, the question is if it is moral for us to enforce this on other people. Would this be intruding on their liberties too much, even though it is for their own good, and for the good of their fellow countrymen? I cannot anwser this question, and the discussion revolving around this would be very interesting indeed.
Well the thing is, it'd be an established rule and a routine. It is also paid during work hours. You literally would be paid to get fit. And it wouldn't be something to joke about or make fun of. I think that the obesity epidemic is something that shouldn't be ignored and that this one hour work out per week day would heighten fitness.
There are some schools already that are based upon aptitude instead of age. The main reason why this style of school hasn't replaced current ones is due to the stigma of age-related ideologies. Society as a whole seems to think puberty is something that could be possibly harmful if exposed to younger children, or that if older children are given the chance, they'll corrupt younger ones or bully them about. I'm proposing a society that does not think this way, where age doesn't play a part in education. I know my own education was lacklustre, and I could easily pass many of my classes, whereas some were genuinely too hard. I feel that streaming via aptitude is a legitimate method of creating quality classrooms.
So currently in Australia there are three options after high school. Working, learning or the doll. The doll is basically given to anyone who needs money. I'm proposing that people should work for the doll by performing community service activities.
You raise many valid points and they are things I have considered. On the whole, however, I don't see the major detriment to a military conscript. Perhaps you can provide me with more points of the negativity of it?
Indeed, this is not something I considered. I was being... I don't know the word for it... considerate? But now I can see how it could be an "out" to the training.
It's not about whether they're happy to train or not, it's about learning discipline, learning cooperation, learning how to live and work with others. I think it'd broaden a lot of people's minds, and I think it'd be an opportunity to grow mentally and physically. Originally I wanted to join some sort of military force, but realised I'd could be called on to fight; the conscript I'm proposing is mandatory, but it doesn't put you in the army reserve. It's purely for training purposes only. Those who wish to make a career of it can do so.
Thanks for your thoughts, Alex! :)
I like your blog posting. Here are the things I totally agree with;
-Mandatory Child Support
- Mandatory attendence to class
-Official Job database
-Mandatory Tertiary Educational Rental Relocation Assistance
-Official Professional Job Seeking Profile
I beleive the points you made there are complete and correct, I have nothing to add.
Here are the points I am neutral and skeptical of:
-Supervised Exercise: This would work well for when children are still at school. For myself, PE was the best class I had until i finished highschool, and even through university/college. However, that is not cannot be said of everyone. I agree with people having to keep healthy, however, the question is if it is moral for us to enforce this on other people. Would this be intruding on their liberties too much, even though it is for their own good, and for the good of their fellow countrymen? I cannot anwser this question, and the discussion revolving around this would be very interesting indeed.
-Aptitude VS Age: I do not think this to be a good point. Of course, there are exceptions, but I get the feeling that you would be applying your system too liberally. DO NOT QUOTE ME ON THIS, but I am pretty sure that there are studies that prove that children of their own age group interact better and improve better than if they were off with people with 2-3 years more or less than them. The issue I am most afraid of would be the one of bullying, and of how the person above their own level of intelligence would get teased by the older kids, or the older kid getting teased by the younger ones. You might argue that this kind of abuse is counterable, but I think that a teacher, parents or other factors cannot stop this from happening. The only way I see this to be possible is for the society to be already extremely educated and tolerant, and however much we would like a society to be that way, it isn't possible. ( Sorry, I am very pessimistic this morning).
-Earning, Learning, or Working: I guess it works. For me to fully understand it you would have to be more descriptive.
Here is the point I totally disagree with.
-Military Conscript. Prepare for my litte speel on this, it will be a long one.
Alright to start off, I am a full time Regular Force member myself, and have been since I was 16. I believe that I can back up what I am saying with my own experiences, and from what I have observed.
-Any students with discipline problems would be straightened out.
This is false. Some people are just incurable of the disease of slopiness, laziness, and whatsnot. I have seen people get publicily humiliated, severl punished, physically punished, get their whole platoon punished, and STILL THEY ARE UNDISCIPLINED. These kind of people exist, and even though nothing is wronger to me than to be unwilling to TRY TO IMPROVE WHEN YOUR MATES ARE GETTING **** BECAUSE OF YOUR OWN FAULT, it doesn't mean that its a bad thing. Society needs these kinds of people for a reason, and although I cannot give you their purpose, (I am no sociologist, I studied military strategics and politics lol) they must have one.
-Create a military-aware society (prone to war?)
A military aware society would be great in my opinion. I am Canadian, and to be honest, we do not get much recognition for what we do. Do not get me wrong, we are mostly respected for what we do. However, we do not get much support from our society. They do not think that we serve a useful purpose. Maybe they are right. However, I firmly beleive in what my mates and I do. This mandatory conscription would ensure that society knows that what we do is important and useful. Most importantly, it would respect its Military members, and SUPPORT them.
As for the prone to war question... it is not something I can anwser. Personnaly, I have realized how so much better peace is than war. I value peace. If I could, I would never go to war unles circumstances forced it. But then again, it is different for others. Some only want to go to war. That is the only reason they ever decided to be in the Military. To legally kill people. The amount of people who are prone to fighting vs people who want peace would decide this factor in your country. However, if well educated, I beleive that you can eliminate most war mongering. Take that into consideration.
-Does not take into account young families (teenage pregnancies).
This completely breaks your system. Don't want to go through that year of boot camp? Lets both bang, get a baby, and here problem solved. It would be abused. People would start having families not for love, but for avoiding the year of conscription. Here is a similar situation in the younger population of the Canadian military: To avoid having to live on base with other privates, often sharing rooms and etc, most privates will hasten a marriage so that they can live off base, alone with that girl. Some do it even though they do not love each other, only because it accomodates each of them (doesn't need to be an official marraige, they can also do civil unions and such). This sort of situation would be sure to reproduce itself in your society also.
-+ Fitness levels would increase
That is the only point I completely agree with.
Here's another point. Some people are just not made to be military. However hard they try to be good and happy, they are not. Is your year of conscription that important that you can justify the unhappiness of all of those people? Is that moral? Is it justified, even? To be honest, when would Australia ever need to use the whole of her population to go to war in her current situation, and in this era? What use is it to force people to do something against their will when you do not need it? When would it even be necessary? It is the same situation for Canada. When I was 16 I thought eveyone should be forced to serve at least a year. But since then, I have realized that it isn't necessary. It would create more unhappiness than anything else, and are you not trying to create happiness with the set of rules you came up with?
So. I'll leave you to think about all this. I hope you do read it, and understand the points I am trying to get across. I am French Canadian, so I ask your forgiveness for all the mistakes I am sure to have made.
Have a wonderful day,
Alex
EDIT: I didn't see the comment with all these arguements before posting D:
Sorry if I raise some points you already discussed!
Mandatory Parental Support
Actually quite common, usually helped by grandparents.
But a lot of children don't have generous parents. In my "utopia", this bank account would be mandatory by law.
Meh. At school this might be a good idea but adults can make their own decisions.
No, they can't :P If I was forced to exercise, I'd be much more happy.
Worst idea ever, school is also about social status. As someone who has been the youngest of his class all the time, until I was 14, I can say I have had a lot of trouble socially.
It depends. There's only that conception today because we were raised to believe that age is the factor that contributes to responsibility or knowledge or whatever. If the idea of "age" didn't exist in terms of schooling, I really actually do believe society would progress faster. I know that I, personally, should have been a few years ahead. I only skipped one year, but I should have probably skipped two or three.
Not necessary, and would ruin your economy as everyone would be basically imprisoned for a year. Plus, obselete if someone already is disciplined and fit.
Year 13. It wouldn't be "everyone", just people after year 12. Also, there are other benefits to having a military training, like co-operation and teamwork, communication and routine establishing. You can be fit and disciplined, but still suck at co-operation etc.
Actually a bad idea. People have to invest some time looking for a job, looking into the company culture, and what competencies they need to have to be fit for the job. This will motivate them, with your idea all they see is some words.
You don't automatically get the job, you still would need to attend an interview process. This just eliminates the unnecessary wait time as applicants have to search through 10 different websites to find a relevant job.
How would the universities pay for the tutors and lecturers? Or the facilities? In the end, universities are a business, and can't afford to give it's education away for free.
Love this idea. For students it used to be $1.50 bus fare, but now it's something like $3 if you don't have your GO card.
I completely agree. I really dislike people who are afraid of using ATMs or the internet to pay for things.
I'm not sure how this would incorporated as a "national" thing?
The sport thingies seem unnecessary. I know it is fun and all to have a healthy society, but that can also be done by using good food instead of junk :P Which is the main reason people are fat.
You can eat the freshest, most healthy food in the world, and still be overweight (point case, me!). When I was in primary school I was super fit, I played touch football and got to my green belt in karate (after school activities). As soon as I hit year 10, PE was no longer mandatory and I started to gain weight. As soon as I left home and school, and only had to attend a few hours of uni every day, I kept on putting on weight. If it was mandatory to perform 1 hour of physical exertion by law, I believe a LOT of people would become more fit.
lol lazy smarties. Remember, this idea ties in with the "online portfolio" idea. It literally would hurt your future career if you screw around in class. In my imagination, I see at least 90% participation in all aspects of a school lesson, and that would improve grades phenomenally. My highest "participation" score would be around 70% - there are always students staring off into the distance or just not participating and learning, no MATTER the content being taught.
That's a little off tangent about the age thing, but yah ^^
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I think Military Conscript was mandatory in Portugal in the time of my dad!
It's still mandatory is some countries, like China. That may not be the best example, but I hear no complaints from them 8D
I do honestly agree. My sister has never worked a day in her life. She has always had money to support everything she wanted. She became an "only child" when I left for uni, so she was spoilt rotten with movies every night and take-away every other night. She graduated high school second in her entire cohort (an OP1 in Queensland, Australia, which allows her to apply for any difficult field of study, like becoming a doctor etc). As such, she was given a Vice Chancellor's Scholarship of $3000 a semester. In addition to that, she also receives a scholarship from my dad's work, valued at $5000 a year.
As you can imagine, she has tonnes of money right now. $8k saved up from her two years of study. And she just spends it on whatever she likes. I mean, $8k saved up is great! But because she has no idea of the value of money, of what it's like to work a whole hour for $10, she just has no idea how obscenely wealthy she is.
Eugh =.=
And the way it's going, she'll never have to work a conventional 9-5 job anyway, as she's hoping to become a film director.
but they took it off, I dont know why hehe :P
and I agree with IceCreamy when he says to "Teach children about money more. Show them how an average family works, what their costs are, etc."
I need that, and I am 16 :S
Which is the main reason people are fat.
I find the age and intelligence school thingy very interesting, though I do think that, like Icecreamy said, will cause social problems. The low age smart people will be very unwelcome amongst the high age dummies. It is a very complicated problem, yet a very interesting one. The best solution atm would be to split up the smarties and dummies of the same age, but that is already happening right now. Even then, the difference will be big, since there will be a middle ground where hardworking dummies and lazy smarties are in the same group. Maybe in the future, we can just look at the brain and see what they are capable of, and putting them in the right group ;P. But by then, we probably are able to change the brain in such a way that we all can be smart. I am starting to ramble a bit.
The other topics I either have no opinion about, or do honestly not really care about.
But still, an interesting blog :P
Actually quite common, usually helped by grandparents.
Supervised Exercise
Meh. At school this might be a good idea but adults can make their own decisions.
Aptitude VS Age
Worst idea ever, school is also about social status. As someone who has been the youngest of his class all the time, until I was 14, I can say I have had a lot of trouble socially.
Military Conscript
Not necessary, and would ruin your economy as everyone would be basically imprisoned for a year. Plus, obselete if someone already is disciplined and fit.
Mandatory Tertiary Educational Rental Relocation Assistance
If parents (or even student) can afford it, not needed, but otherwise great. You can backcheck it with tax services, so "poor" people can also study. Great idea :)
Official Job Database
Actually a bad idea. People have to invest some time looking for a job, looking into the company culture, and what competencies they need to have to be fit for the job. This will motivate them, with your idea all they see is some words.
Official Professional Job Seeking Profile
Great idea, portfolio's are really important and making one is a drag.
Earning, Learning, or Working
Great idea, would really like to see this implemented.
Some ideas I have:
- Whenever someone finishes high school, they are granted 4 years during which they can study for free. This will encourage people to go study, but still punish them if they take too long.
- Students are granted free travel in public transport. Actually already in use here in NL, it works great as by far most of the people I know travel for free instead of taking the car. Really good for the environment :)
- All passes incorporated into one. At the moment I have like 10 passes in my wallet, and I don't understand why.
- Abolish paper money and coins. All money transactions will go by bank. It's a problem if it's disabled due to technical reasons, but I think making a 100 % secure internet banking service is possible.
- Teach children about money more. Show them how an average family works, what their costs are, etc.