Public Education is horrid, I can fairly attest.

[Blahness]

Public Education is horrid, I can fairly attest.

I have been a part of the funderful Public Education System for 11 years now, and I'm getting rather sick of the idiocracies I'm being forced to put up with.


Let's start with when I was in 4th grade or so. I'm in Michigan, going to Shawmut Hills K-6 school, when they give us MEAP tests. We take our standardized tests, and we get our grades back. 5th grade, same thing happens. 6th grade, however, they... LOST. ALL. THE. TESTS. An entire school set of taken tests, and the state somehow misplaces them. Pretty frigging dumb, if you ask me.

That's the major event of my elementary teaching, except me winning the Spelling Bee.

Discipline: What the hell? I'm told that I have to stand by the school wall for not wearing a coat during winter, and it's hardly cold(20 degrees w/o wind is fairly warm), but NOO, we got to stay near the wall. A kid, who ended up being held back for discipline issues, gathers his friends and starts to chase me around the wall, and I end up leaving to keep my head from being beaten in. The teacher gives me detention for leaving the wall, and then sends me back to the wall, where I end up getting in a fight and getting a suspension(I was trying to protect myself, but NOOO).

Another occurance, in 6th grade. I'm heading home, and it's a week before the field trip to Camp Manitou-Lin, some YMCA Christian camp(I can also bear witness to that camp's ability to entertain), which we go for the weekend. I am heading home when the same kid who chased me in the above situation sees me, and flips me off. Me, being the smartass that I am, say "Hey dude, wrong finger!", because he's using his ring finger so as to not get in trouble. He chases me down and then tackles me, and I land on a rock, breaking my right arm. However, I didn't know it was broken, I just thought that it hurt like hell. Anyway, a week later, I go to camp Manitou-Lin, but I can't do the high-ropes or rock climbing, due to my arm hurting. About a week after that, my parents are worried about the arm, so they get it X-rayed, and it turns out that it WAS broken. My dad goes to the school and tells them that the kid broke my arm, and what happens?

Coincidentially, nothing. They didn't suspend, expel, or really keep him away from campus. Instead, they gave some bogus argument about "His parents can't watch him due to a job, so we can't suspend him, otherwise he'll run around vandalizing". DURR SCHOOL, WHY NOT DO AN ON-CAMPUS SUSPENSION? Well, the school was fairly... dumb, should I use? The kid was not punished in any way for breaking my arm, and no one but us was forced to pay medical expenses. We didn't want to tie ourselfs into a lawsuit, so we didn't.(My dad explained parts of that, especially the lawsuit part, later on.)

Fast forward. I graduate Shawmut Hills, and go to City Middle/High school. Some stupid "advanced public school for gifted/advanced children", if I remember correctly. However, I was forced to do community service if I wanted to stay in that public school, which is dumb enough. The education was okay, except for a pure-evil World Geography teacher and their Extra Core(Study hall-esque) classes being nothing but game-playing. Turns out, school social banter is the same in an "advanced" school as it is in a "regular" school. In 7th grade, I took Science Processes(teaches how Science researches, lab-work, learning the Method, and so on). In 8th grade, I took Earth Science.

Fast-forward. It's the start of 9th grade, and I moved down to a regular school. Why? I figured that the extra work was worthless, and community service isn't really good for a college application if you're FORCED to do it. Shows no moral fiber, only obedience(sp?). I'm taking some computer class, which literally TEACHES YOU HOW TO TYPE and not much more. I asked repeatedly to be moved to a higher-level computer class, but to no avail. Their argument was that it was a "required class", and would not let me test out of the class in any way, shape, or form.

Fast-forward. Still 9th grade, but I moved to Arizona. I'm told to enroll in these classes: Discovery(real-life situation explination and education), Math(Geometry, what I was taking before, perfectly acceptable), English(I tested at a post-college reading level and I often read Stephen King[Off topic, but anyone else read his material? It's awesome.]), and I ended up reading in class throughout most of English(and math, but that's OT). My last class was a science class, and I had a choice between... Gasp. SCIENCE PROCESSES or EARTH SCIENCE? I took BOTH of those already! Nope, can't let you test out of them, required classes, nope, no going to biology, stay in the retard class until we tell you to.

I believe that school is about teaching, not getting good grades, which is why I wanted out of those classes and into higher classes.

Fast-forward to roughly now. I'm in 10th Grade, and I'm currently typing this in a retarded programming class. He hosts the material on his website and tells us to copy and paste it, and then he basically says "Play with the program", and that's considered teaching. (Off topic: He's wierd, seeing "Faces on the walls", always talking about "knowing the Truth", and other such nonsense.) When we take a test, without having been actually taught the materials, we're told to make the program... 93% of the class fails the test, and he starts babbling stuff about "The average student is an A student", when the class average is a C.

I've seen an exaggerated million tiny errors, mostly in spelling, but let me take some false material. A large portion comes from my faulty 10th grade Biology class, who tried to teach us that the Candle relies on the Burn speed, and that you measure the Candle when trying to see how fast a candle burns. She also thought that Transparent meant cannot-see-through, and said that a leaf was "Very Very Transparent". Every class, there are always tons of spelling errors on everything, including English tests!

I am currently pretty tired, and I can't think of much more to put, so I'll add on to it later.

This is a personal account of the fallicies of our education system, and is only based on what I've personally seen.

 

[JasonRox]

We all have similar problems.

You have every right to get mad at the school system. Most teachers are dumb nuts. Some teachers are just great even if they aren't the smartest in the world.

If I had to ask for anything out of a teacher, I'd ask for a teacher that cares and gets you to thrive for your goals.

Note: I've seen a lot more College Teachers that care than Elementary or High School Teachers I've ever seen. That's certainly not a good thing because you need it most when you are young.

 

[Blahness]

^Aha! That was the point I was going to make.


They didn't bother teaching us manners and promptness in elementary school, so they implement stuff to teach us habits while in high school. Don't teachers remember how hard it is to break old habits?

Teachers just get their paychecks, and there HAVE been cases of abuse of students with that. From James Bovard's Lost Rights, a teacher was found telling students that if they wanted to pass the class, they'd send 2 letters to administration demanding higher wages for their teacher.

However, I HAVE had good teachers before. For example, my Health teacher in 9th grade, taught us stuff by showing how it actually effects our real lives, which is rare. Schools usually don't teach comprehension, but only factoids. More on the crappy teaching later.

Now then, something else I was taught that was useless. In 4th/5th grade, I was taught Cursive writing. They taught it like "Take the paper, turn it to the left, then turn your arm all the way to the left until it hurts to right the words so they slant to the right", and said that it was a very important skill to write cursive, and that that was the only thing we'd ever use. After 6th grade, I never wrote in cursive again, and nothing negative's happened. COMPLETE. WASTE. OF. CLASS. TIME.

I got in trouble in English a few days ago. I was reading about politics, and I was told by my ENGLISH teacher to "stop reading", though I'm getting an A in the class. Oh noes, he's reading, STOP HIM!

Off-topic: I know that I'm not indenting or anything, but this is just a rough draft of an essay, and could be more related to a rant then anything else.

 

[laminatedevildoll]

Yeah that's sort of true. I don't remember teachers in elementary being very caring.

 

[Blahness]

Sorry, had to log off, the computer systems froze ONCE AGAIN, deleting all the school work I was in the middle of.(They've been having problems with their servers, and everyone's work is being deleted in the middle of the making. Been 2 weeks now.)

When I'm able to get back on for more then 2 minutes at a time, I'm going to discuss the testing, and how teaching methods and what we're being taught is mostly irrelevant, plus how errors happen quite often on tests, and that they make tests so easy(World History to start with).

Thank you for listening people, I've needed somewhere to rant this stuff.

 

[BobG]

Now then, something else I was taught that was useless. In 4th/5th grade, I was taught Cursive writing. They taught it like "Take the paper, turn it to the left, then turn your arm all the way to the left until it hurts to right the words so they slant to the right", and said that it was a very important skill to write cursive, and that that was the only thing we'd ever use. After 6th grade, I never wrote in cursive again, and nothing negative's happened. COMPLETE. WASTE. OF. CLASS. TIME.

Wow! Cursive writing has become an obsolete skill? I guess E-Mails have pretty much taken the place of writing a letter.

 

[motai]

Wow! Cursive writing has become an obsolete skill? I guess E-Mails have pretty much taken the place of writing a letter.

Pretty much. I have vague memories of my then-teacher telling us (while we were learning cursive) that we'd be using it a lot, or even every single day of our lives... Of course I've always liked print more, but usually when I end up writing fast it turns into a strange blend of half-cursive half-print.

And yeah, the public school system sucks. Having gone through all of it, and recgonizing the vast superiority of the college system, public schooling is very inadequate for college-bound students.

 

[Moonbear]

Well, after working a few years in MI and seeing the products of their public school system, I have to agree they're doing something very scarily wrong up there. It's definitely quite different from when I was in school. There were always more advanced options for the students who learned faster, even in elementary school (at least 3 reading groups, for example, with plenty of extra activities to both challenge you and keep you occupied if you finished your assignment early while the teacher was busy with another reading group).

You even seem to be echoing yomamma's comments about computer class teaching nothing but typing. How unfortunate given the prevalence of computers nowadays. Even when I was in school and very few people expected to actually use a computer outside of class, we learned something about computer programming, not just how to type. Of course we also probably spent a little too long learning "8 bits is a byte, 1000 bytes is a kilobyte" and memorizing the alphabet in binary (yeah, that really turned out useful...but I guess it did get across the most basic concept of how computers work too).

You guys don't learn cursive until 5th grade? That seems pretty late! We learned in 2nd grade, because that's one of those really basic skills you should learn very early. By the time you're in 5th grade, you should be starting to read some literature and write essays on it, not be fussing over penmanship!

I'm shocked to hear how far schools have fallen behind the students' needs...I knew they were bad, but not THAT bad!

 

[JasonRox]

Have you ever thought that cursive writing can enhance your writing skills in general?

You have just started writing around Grade 4 (everything before that is pretty darn basic). It's probably a good way to get those skills of writing up by writing other ways.

They teach a lot of dumb stuff.

My main concern is that they teach so slow that they forget about the bright students in the class. I was really bored in high school and never bothered to show up. I'm in university now, and have an 80% average, but this term might go up 85-90%. I also work like 30 hours during school so take that into account.

The bottom line is... if the teachers would have paid more attention to me, they might have noticed that I was bored as ****. I wasn't learning boring stuff or pointless stuff. It just didn't take me a month to understand factorization!

 

[moose]

I remember when I was in 7th and 8th grade, my school was pretty good. Now, almost all teachers who taught me in 8th grade have left, and each one was replaced by someone horrible. It is a horrible school now! Glad I left when I did!Anyway, bassically, in high school now kids won't learn anything unless they want to. They won't acquire many skills either. In math, it is always set up horribly wrong where you can memorize everything and pass with an A. Kids complain when problems aren't exactly like ones they did before. To me, those are the best questions, ones which you have to think of how to apply what you know and figure out how to solve it and then solve it. My reviews which I get in my precalculus class are identical to the test, just with slightly different numbers. I just wish the teacher would assign harder problems, it would also help with the repetitiveness of the homework. grrrWith cursive, I learned in first grade, and then in around seventh grade, we stopped using it... ever. When I had computer classes in elementary school, we learned to type and well... use frontpage instead of html.

I think that physics should be required until junior year of high school. Like in Poland, they start taking physics courses in sixth grade and essentially take physics throughout their entire educational life. This way, certain things there are far more "obvious" than to people living here. Out of every single class I have ever taken in my life, I can say that AP Biology and Earth/Space Science are the best as a class (of course I rank math higher than biology, that wasn't my point). In AP Biology, we never get any extra credit, any grade inflations, any "oooo, I have good news, you can use your notes on the test", none of that stuff. Earth/space science just had a phenomenal teacher. He was honestly the best teacher I have ever had. In my current physics class, everything we cover was covered before in Earth'space. Most people don't realize it, because the teacher simply stated the concepts, or there were barely any questions on them on the tests. Everyone understood it in that class too, he had the ability to talk really fast through tons of information and concepts without losing any of the class. Everyone I know who was in his class absolutely loved it. I am honestly thinking about retaking it senior year, even though it is a freshmen coursse . Let's just say that if I were to receive an award someday, I would thank him for being my teacher.

EDIT: Woah, this is quite possibly my longest post ever.

 

[bomba923]

That's the major event of my elementary teaching, except me winning the Spelling Bee.

To qualify for my middle school spelling bee, a student had to be the best speller in his or her English class. I was unfairly disqualified in class---I laughed at a student (native English speaker) who misspelled "package" in seventh grade. I could have won. I would have won if it wasn't for my ****ing English teacher. The school spelling bee words were extremely simple; I tried hard to contain myself after the "best class spellers" could not even spell the simplest words. My native language is Russian, but I have never been corrected in spelling since the second grade (I do have perfect spelling, not afraid to admit this).

Go ahead and misspell in AIM or in thread posts if you wish. There is never an excuse for poor spelling and grammar in academics; see https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=66661&highlight=Spelling.
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Back to issue of public education:
1) Ok, some people need a month to learn fractions. Yet this special minority somehow justifies loads upon loads of empty and useless homework assigned the smarter majority. Result: Majority gets dumbed down.
2) Majority gets dumbed down, and we're down to a few capable individuals. Hey, they're a minority just like the people who need a month to learn fractions! Why not help them to more advanced material, considering we're already helping the majority to more of the same? Sorry, just venting here (with these two questions).

In my opinion, the public school system (PSS) fails to acknowledge the potential of the (now) minority of capable students. Rather than rewarding them with education advancement, it seems that PSS worries that slower students might be discouraged---what we like to call "a lower self-esteem."

And that is the problem. Protected from any criticism concerning their incompetency (i.e., that avoid-at-all-costs concept of "destructive criticism"), students never realize why AP exam scores are low, despite A's & B's in AP classes; why SAT scores are low, despite A's & B's in math and English classes. And with this protection, they gain that "self-esteem" -- that feeling good for no reason at all -- a belief whose greatest enemy is the human capacity for judgment.| Uh-oh! And the solution to this "judgment problem" ? Simply remove those "rigorous" academic standards (which we used to judge and compare ourselves to), and replace them with ones that incompetent people can associate with and enjoy.

**But Blahness and Jameson, it seems both of you and I judge ourselves to a higher academic standard...

The problem is that many HS public school teachers will not let capable student off with less of that useless homework; else, the slower kids will feel bad.
*What this means for the intelligent--->time that can be used for subject-related advancement is wasted on mindless review
*What this means for the untillegent--->more of the same work, we probably won't understanding anything, just like the last time

It seems that HS teachers try to justify their investment of time spent teaching. If they are not repaid with skills and understanding from their students, they'll at least feel happy some students take the time to do or copy some of that homework--or organize those retarded binders/notebooks. Students worry more about how to "draw" George Washington on a poster than learning about his life, achievements, and role during the American Revolution.

 

[Blahness]

Yea, what is up with these posters and presentations on already learned materials? Aren't TESTS supposed to gauge knowledge gain?

Speaking of, now I shall dive into tests. But first, a quick notation on my programming class once more. I couldn't go into that yesterday cause the computers started up on their customary crashing and deleting all I was working on, so I lost what I was typing.

(OT: Sorry for lack of indentation; I'm typing this on speed bursts)

He told us that a program on his site has the ability to match the window size, but didn't tell us what part of the program does that. He just told us to copy and paste the code to our JCreator, and, once again, MESS WITH IT. Not understand it. MESS WITH IT. Not learn it. MESS WITH IT. Meh, screw that.

Now back to tests.

Tests: A questionaire that measures the knowledge of a person's understanding and comprehension of a specific subject.

NOT

Tests: A questionaire to see how well you can copy off notes and retain short-term memory.

As moose said, we should NOT be allowed notes on tests, cause that doesn't help gauge our ability to know and remember taught information.

Studying RIGHT before a test? NO! Study the night before, sure, but not on the day of the test! Short-term memory should NOT be able to get you through HS.

Tests rarely actually measure comprehension, but memory, as I said. Memory works for History, but not for Science, where students should be asked to find correlations between scientific information learned and what actually happens in real life. That, and teaching is often "dumbed down" from realistic to idealistic means, simply to hide the fact that students are NOT excelling.

Grade inflations? Hell no. Quit taking bribes, teachers. Maybe if the state tried to help failing students by putting money in, not giving the money to already succeeding classrooms, and actually legitimately split kids up based on ability to learn, there'd be less problems.

Judge myself to a higher academic standard? Damn straight(Sorry I'm getting into swearing, I don't often swear). I learn stuff that they don't teach.

Yes, I learned cursive in 5th grade. I learned multiplication in 3rd grade, which shows you the horrible state of the earliness of teaching. Multiplication, I could do in 1st grade. Because I'm being dragged down by other students with lower capibilities doesn't mean I WANT to be. Let me free, damn educational system('scuse me for swearing again). Let me learn what I want to learn! Let me take physics instead of learning(for the third time) how to do a lab!

(pause for about 2 mins)
Sorry, my comp froze ONCE AGAIN due to the faulty school Networking systems.

Where was I? ...Ah yes.

WHY MUST I BE CONSTRAINED DUE TO THE LIMITATIONS OF OTHER PEOPLE, AND THE CORRUPTION AND CARELESSNESS OF TEACHERS?

To end that point. Next point: Carelessness of teachers.

We usually copy what we see, which is how we learn a lot of what we learn. When teachers consistantly make spelling errors, typoes, and mistakes in grammar and such, even in ENGLISH CLASS, does this really teach us to strive for perfection? Look at the guy above, bomba. Perfect spelling, which is rare in society these days. Bomba, I salute you, and wish I could spell perfectly all the time. I still get some words confused (Mostly Norwegian), but schools DO try to teach spelling early on, so I give schools credit for that. However, shouldn't teachers abide by spelling/grammar rules as well as the students? Inadequacy spawns more inadequacy.

Same with carelessness. Look at the discipline. The discipline structures are whacked and out of their mind. They would NOT punish a kid who caused hundreds of dollars in medical damage to me, nor take any action against the parents or the kid himself. IN-SCHOOL SUSPENSIONS SHOULD HAVE BEEN USED.

Tardiness. Often happens, and punishments grow. However, where I go to school, they have a thing called Sweep. Sweep means that you don't go to class if you are late, but instead go to a detention-esque Room of Nothingness for an hour and a half. This means that you do nothing but stare at a wall. No education. Doesn't teach anything, in any way, shape or form, though it claims to teach "Promptness", which should have been instilled within us at a young age. They don't even allow reading! >_< All it does is creates a loss of time that could instead be used productively.

Okay, I've ranted about fallicies. I prolly have more to put in, but I'm not sure right now. However, thank you people for listening and sharing your own educational nightmares.

However, I have 1 more issue: What do I do? It's so frustrating, being intellectually dragged down due to the inability to allow me to study above my age level. Age =/= intelligence, school. I can't go up, and I have a hard time doing real work due to the lack of work habits taught at a young age. Homework in 6th grade was "Do 1 worksheet with 10 questions overnight", which. Sucks. Waaay too easy, I ended up finishing early, which makes it hard to cope with large assignments when you're used to loafing around not having work.

Old habits die hard, and they're taking me with them. Still... What should I do? Who could I talk to? Am I doomed to be in an idiotic class?

 

[Blahness]

Since I can't edit my above post for some reason, I need to add this:

I often read in class, mostly about subjects unrelated to class. However, for all my knowledge of science and history and other subjects amassed, I'm still only on an algebraic scale for math. How should I improve my mathematical abilities?

 

[siddharth]

My native language is Russian, but I have never been corrected in spelling since the second grade (I do have perfect spelling, not afraid to admit this).
...
What this means for the untillegent

Anyway, the American education system seems to be highly decentralized. Wouldn't be easier for a National Education Board to be set up which prescribes a common curriculum to be followed in most schools across the country? That way, it can be ensured that all students have an equal opportunity to learn.

 

[Blahness]

^Yes, it would. Changing schools from state to state is often hazardous, and it'd make it MUCH easier to transfer(and be equal to others with opprotunities) to do that.

Anyway, people. What do you think about our schools?

I want to hear more opinions, and maybe a solution to my problem >_<

 

[Moonbear]

Anyway, the American education system seems to be highly decentralized. Wouldn't be easier for a National Education Board to be set up which prescribes a common curriculum to be followed in most schools across the country? That way, it can be ensured that all students have an equal opportunity to learn.

There are two obstacles to this: 1) The way our Constitution is written, education is charged as a state responsibility, outside the powers of the federal government, and often gets relegated to the community level by the states, and 2) Nobody trusts the federal government enough to give them that much control over a common curriculum.

 

[AngelShare]

You think that's bad? I just recently found out that my public schooling system is behind the norm. Imagine this, you're going to school and all is well with the exception of a few typical problems (Fights here and there, inevitable run-ins with kids who need a few good swats across the backside, nasty teachers, etc.). You're grades are relatively high and, guess what? You rarely need to study. Everything you learn between Kindergarten and 6th grade comes easily.

Then, you enter into 7th grade which, in this district, is high school. First problem? Bullying. You don't bother anyone, you keep to yourself, you're a normal, nice kid who can't seem to make and keep a friend for the life of you. You're sexually harassed almost daily and you’re even hit a couple of times by both girls and guys. You’re told, by the counselor, to tell when such things happen. You figure, why not? You keep getting sexually harassed so you go to the counselor, who is in the café with you during your lunch period, and tell her what’s going on…only to be ignored.

You continue on being stalked everywhere you go in that godforsaken school without any help when, finally, your father withdraws you for the day threatening to take action. The school freaks and calls, the principal eventually saying “Well, I think these two like each other and don’t know how to say anything.” I’ll stop with the “imagine this” type of talk right here and explain…

Throughout elementary school, I had no problems. Then, suddenly, my neighbor springs a trap on me she had set up three years prior to my even entering into high school. What she did was, spread rumors about me for three years before I got to the high school. That way, people knew a lot about me, false information mind you, by the time I got there. My reputation was shot up before I even knew what was going on.

This spread, naturally, to the rest of my grade, one boy in particular choosing to go extra hard on me. This kid was fat, ugly, and loud…your stereotypical fat comedian. He didn’t like me, and I didn’t like him. It was that simple. Eventually, the school took care of the problem but the damage had already been done. I turned into a depressed, slightly paranoid (Concerning trusting others since, during that time I had a friend turn on me to save her own skin) loner who is currently quite socially inept thus my being in a cyber school.:shy:

I begged to be let out, finally getting my wish after 9th grade. I went from being an honor roll student to being a student who can/could barely get by. As my facilitator put it when I explained my problems to him, “You were a big fish in a little pond and now you’re a little fish in a big lake.” Math is horrid as well as Chemistry, I struggled in both. Not one year has gone by without my having problems and this year is no different.

Chemistry is my weak subject (That’s why I’m here. I went to another site but, apparently, they don’t really want you to ask for help even though that’s how they advertise their site. ) and I’m struggling with it already. Now, I come to find out through the daughter of my Dad’s friend that I’m having problems because, even though I was good at my other school, it’s behind the norm. She went to college only to find out their “beginning of the year review” was all new to her despite her being such a good student in high school.

As if that school wasn’t easy enough already, they lowered the failing grade from 69% and below to 64% and below. And guess what? Despite their assignments being as challenging as finger painting to a kindergartener, kids still manage to fail. The students don’t care, the teachers don’t care, and the parents seem to be too dumb to figure anything out either.

I hate my public school with a passion.

 

[Manchot]

I'm extremely glad that I went to Catholic school for 13 years. Say what you will about it, but I certainly never had to put up with any crap like what Blahness and Angelshare had to put up with. If the administration got even a whiff of bullying, you can be sure that something would be done about it (no, not corporal punishment :) ). To be fair, however, private school administrators have far more discretion than there public school counterparts (especially with regards to expulsion).

Also, between the mandatory church twice a week and the religion/theology class every day, we still managed to cover far more important material than most public schools. Again, I think that it had more to do with the greater flexibility of the school's administrators. For example, from sixth through tweflth grade, all of my science classes were of the more "physical" variety (with the exception of biology). I never had to learn any of that "earth science" garbage in which all you do is memorize facts. Instead, we'd learn the more general principles of chemistry and physics. And you know what? On our state's science standardized test, which was almost exclusively Earth science, our average was well above the average, since we were actually taught how to think scientifically. (In case you're thinking that creationism was taught in school, let me head you off right now. I think the first time that I learned about evolution in a classroom setting was in third grade, and it was taught as fact right up through high school biology.)

So, overall, I'd say that the problem with public schools is inflexibility. Zero-tolerance policies and set-in-stone curriculums make them bad environments for learning.

 

[Smasherman]

It's fun to hate public education! The elementary schools where I was living (they go to 8th grade) separated kids into different math courses, based on ability. I finished algebra 1 in 7th grade, so I had to retake it in 8th grade. My entire 8th grade year was spent pretty much just hanging out at school, getting straight A's when I bothered to do the repetitive homework (I usually did).

9th grade I managed to get a C average. At first I had trouble actually doing an hour of homework a night, but then I had trouble caring about the homework. 10th grade as pretty much the same, but I was sort of cool then (popularity rocks).

I'm in a new school now (11th grade), with high standards and all. I'm in all normal classes because I came in late. My current classes aren't any harder than last year's classes, despite the school's reputation. I suppose the AP classes compensate, but usually what I hear is that honors and AP classes are just more homework.

Due to the supposedly high education level of my school, my (non-honors) precalculus class is mostly full of kids who don't care about their education. As a result, I get to sit in class and invent my own language (or flirt, of course). I aced the last quiz without a calculator and couldn't figure out why we were allowed to use them. Apparently some kids were afraid of taking a trig quiz without a calculator. In my old school, precaluclus was full of kids who were intent on getting good grades.

Right now my least favorite class is english. It started off good, but the teacher doesn't seem to like me since I turned an essay in late. I had a legitimate reason, but I went about it badly, so it really was my fault. The part that upset me was the lecture she gave me about responsibility. I never had one before, but now I know how easy it is to tune someone out entirely!

My history class is just great. The teacher has actually lived life and can teach from experience. He also has high standards and is, well, REAL. He actually trusts his students (as long as they give him no reason not to) and talks realistically, so few students try to "beat the system" in his class.

Tests are laughable, but at least my short-term memory works well. My history teacher has found a partial solution, though. He has a test of important dates four times a year. The first time we know the day of the test, the second time the week, the third time the month, and the fourth time could be anytime during the quarter.

I barely remember school before 5th grade. Most of what I remember is having no friends the vast majority of the time. That and getting in trouble because someone else did something, but them getting off the hook.

Anyway, (public) school sucks. The least-common-denominator determines far too much. I'll be free in less than two years and I think I can make it. I just need to stop lurking* and posting on PF and do my homework is all...


*Is it considered lurking if I read a thread but don't post on it, but post in other threads?

 

[Niode]

I went to a great preschool for three years (still know my teacher), a public elementary school for three years, and a private high-school for one semester. I've been home-schooling for roughly eight and a half years and have about eight more months to go till I finish my high-school education. Then I go to college.

Even though I went to public school for only a few years, and it was only elementary school, I've still got my opinions.

I think it's all about the kids and the kinds of teachers they need. You've got the obnoxious, loud, fidgity kids who need more reccess and more one-on-one time with a fun, but strict teacher. Then you've got little kids like me who need someone relaxed, kind, and encouraging. The easy on the ears type.

I loved first and second grade. The teachers were so nice, so patient... But second grade? Good grief, I remember locking my mom out of the car one morning at school because I didn't want to go to class. I sat in the backseat, crying. My mom had to get the principal. The two of them managed to convince me to unlock the door and leave the car. I hated my second grade teacher so much... She was so mean and loud, the exact opposite of what I needed. No schooling year of my life was less fun than that. They should've fired her ages ago!

... Phew, I feel better.

 

[ek]

Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I have nothing but good things to say about the education I received in my 13 years in British Columbia public schools.

 

[bomba923]

BC is not in the USA ek!

 

[moose]

Yes, everyone knows that Europe supresses US education by a long run. It's sad :(

 

[Blahness]

Sometimes I feel that I can't move, trapped like a nightmare.
Meh, i'll find a way out, I HAVE to!

Anyway, more.

Remember what I said about doing the same classes over? Same thing happened in english.

In 7th and 8th grade, I did some "The Pearl" by John Steinbeck project, then we did Romeo and Juliet.

Guess what I did in 9th grade? THE SAME. %&#*&%*#&%*#&%. THING.

Now back to our previously scheduled rant.


STANDARDS. ARE. WAAAAAAAAAY. TOO. LOW.
As Angel said, standards are being lowered so that it SEEMS that kids are doing better, when in fact they're doing the same and being graded less harshly. When you're doing that, you're reducing efficiency and causing many problems within our school systems. For example, I looked at the AIMS(Arizona Instrument to Measure Standards) Standardized test scores and expected scores, and the requirements for many of them were horribly low. I don't have the exact graph with me, but I saw it and it had some subjects needing only 20% of the students passing to meet AMO. It was sad to look at.

Hell, even TEACHER standards have gone WAY down. I have my History teacher that tried to teach us that Voltaire said "I do not agree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it", and you see TYPOES. EVERYWHERE. It's infuriating! In Biology, our teacher tried to tell us that the Candle depended on the Burn Speed when trying to see how fast certain candles burned, and that "Very Very Transparent" means you cannot see through it. IT'S HORRIBLE!

I say we form a mob and tip stuff over!
... Okay, maybe not. But still, SOMETHING has to be done, and as a part of this crappy system, we should be able to do SOMETHING. Back to me being trapped again. I can't get out of my crappy classes, I can't move forward because I was not taught good study/work habits because I never needed them because standards are so low because people are trying to fool other people to think that they're doing better but they're not because they're doing the same and the standards have just lowered which encompasses an entire nation of kids that may be...
Pause.

Sorry, I went into a rant there. I kind of am NOT happy about this, so... yea.

I'm glad I'm getting so much support, and that I KNEW I wasn't alone! Thank you people! ^_^_^
I'm going to talk to my counselor and get information.

I have a request, for anyone: Can you please find where I can read exactly what the NCLB Act does(From both sides, supporting and against), and what the AIMS test requirements for schools to pass were from 2000 to 2005, with the actual school scores?

I'd be extremely thankful for the information found, for it'd legitimize the part of my rant that's led off the topic of what I've seen.

 

[AngelShare]

I'm looking for something to be done before 2010 if things keep going the way they are. Why? Cyber schools. I don't know about the rest of you, but around here, cyber schools are getting big. My doctor has even heard of them and supports them. He knows I left because I was depressed (Horribly depressed. I had to go to the doctor to get medicine for it.) and asks how I'm doing each time I go back for my school applications (We have to renew them each year.). He said he heard that school districts are beginning to worry because more students are leaving and that costs them. Actually, I read that it costs them about $5,000 to $11,000 per student each year. They'll have to either fix their problems or just keep paying.

As for studying habits, I hear ya. I rarely had to study and I always put off most of my homework until the last second. It was so easy that I was even able to reach high honors (We have honors, high honors, and highest honors.) once. Because my school was so easy, it's made keeping up in some classes (Like Chem and Trig) almost impossible for me. It's gotten so bad that I have to ask for help on sites like this one and I almost always worry (And am right to.) that people will think I'm just trying to get someone else to do my work for me because I'm missing so many basic facts that it seems like I'm not trying when I am.

Now I'm so stressed out (Due to many things, not just school.) that it's begun to affect my memory. I can't remember some things for the life of me anymore...I think I've begun to lose my short term memory because it doesn't take me long to forget.

Here are some random things I found for you:

http://www.kimberlyswygert.com/archives/002887.html"
http://www.isbe.state.il.us/nclb/"
http://www.ed.gov/nclb/landing.jhtml"
http://www.nea.org/esea/index.html"
http://www.ade.state.az.us/standards/aims/"

 

[franznietzsche]

Wow! Cursive writing has become an obsolete skill? I guess E-Mails have pretty much taken the place of writing a letter.

I don't even remember how to write in cursive. I can write more in greek than I can in cursive.

 

[franznietzsche]

There are two obstacles to this: 1) The way our Constitution is written, education is charged as a state responsibility, outside the powers of the federal government, and often gets relegated to the community level by the states, and 2) Nobody trusts the federal government enough to give them that much control over a common curriculum.

Besides, handing over control of the education system to the feds wouldn't solve the basic problem, that the school system is controlled by politicians, who couldn't collectively find their own posteriors despite how far their heads are rammed up them.
The school system in the US is an abject failure. Even the IB program (which is a Swiss curriculum offered in only some high schools in the US, basically 1 school per district, if you're that lucky even) is barely what I would call satisfactory (actually the curriculum for it in terms of material is fine, but its still far too easy in terms of the amount of work). Bottom line, american students spend far too little time in school. Just compare american school days to those in Japan or Korea.

 

[Smasherman]

I write almost exclusively in cursive (when I don't type), which is extremely rare. I remember being told how important cursive would be, also. It seems to me that cursive's purpose is exclusively for signatures.

 

[Moonbear]

I remember being told how important cursive would be, also. It seems to me that cursive's purpose is exclusively for signatures.

The best I can determine, the people who write cursive with near perfect penmanship, and almost exclusively, are secretaries. Penmanship and proportion of cursive to printed writing seem inversely proportional to level of education achieved. Besides, most important forms come with the instructions to print or type. I write some odd mixture of both. For example, I often start a word with a printed letter, then the rest of the word is cursive, though it's not terribly legible to anyone but me. When I write notes for other people, I print...besides, printing leads to less chalkboard squeaking (ever try pushing chalk upward on a chalkboard as you have to for writing the up-strokes in cursive? It can be quite horrendous.)

 

[AngelShare]

I write some odd mixture of both. For example, I often start a word with a printed letter, then the rest of the word is cursive, though it's not terribly legible to anyone but me.

You and me both. I write the letter G in cursive if it's at the beginning but besides that, the first letter is almost always printed. Looking at my writing would show that I write my F, S, and E in cursive. The rest, however, depend upon how I'm holding my pencil that day/time. My writing style has changed between at least five different "styles" within the last four years repeatedly.

 

[bomba923]

Ahh...I always seek perfection in my cursive. For each letter and phrase
Good cursive penmanship is something I value indeed.

**That said, I do not refer to perfection as "writing the letters and words just like they appear on third or fourth grade cursive practice sheets." That cursive is quite inefficient!

--The handwriting format I usually use is "condensed cursive"-->meaning the letters appear slightly narrower (less wide, "horizontally"-speaking) and certain letters are also written somewhat differently (design-wise) than you might see on third/fourth grade "cursive practice worksheets."

 

[JamesU]

Public Education is horrid, I can fairly attest.
I have been a part of the funderful Public Education System for 11 years now, and I'm getting rather sick of the idiocracies I'm being forced to put up with.
Let's start with when I was in 4th grade or so. I'm in Michigan, going to Shawmut Hills K-6 school, when they give us MEAP tests. We take our standardized tests, and we get our grades back. 5th grade, same thing happens. 6th grade, however, they... LOST. ALL. THE. TESTS. An entire school set of taken tests, and the state somehow misplaces them. Pretty frigging dumb, if you ask me.
That's the major event of my elementary teaching, except me winning the Spelling Bee.
Discipline: What the hell? I'm told that I have to stand by the school wall for not wearing a coat during winter, and it's hardly cold(20 degrees w/o wind is fairly warm), but NOO, we got to stay near the wall. A kid, who ended up being held back for discipline issues, gathers his friends and starts to chase me around the wall, and I end up leaving to keep my head from being beaten in. The teacher gives me detention for leaving the wall, and then sends me back to the wall, where I end up getting in a fight and getting a suspension(I was trying to protect myself, but NOOO).
Another occurance, in 6th grade. I'm heading home, and it's a week before the field trip to Camp Manitou-Lin, some YMCA Christian camp(I can also bear witness to that camp's ability to entertain), which we go for the weekend. I am heading home when the same kid who chased me in the above situation sees me, and flips me off. Me, being the smartass that I am, say "Hey dude, wrong finger!", because he's using his ring finger so as to not get in trouble. He chases me down and then tackles me, and I land on a rock, breaking my right arm. However, I didn't know it was broken, I just thought that it hurt like hell. Anyway, a week later, I go to camp Manitou-Lin, but I can't do the high-ropes or rock climbing, due to my arm hurting. About a week after that, my parents are worried about the arm, so they get it X-rayed, and it turns out that it WAS broken. My dad goes to the school and tells them that the kid broke my arm, and what happens?
Coincidentially, nothing. They didn't suspend, expel, or really keep him away from campus. Instead, they gave some bogus argument about "His parents can't watch him due to a job, so we can't suspend him, otherwise he'll run around vandalizing". DURR SCHOOL, WHY NOT DO AN ON-CAMPUS SUSPENSION? Well, the school was fairly... dumb, should I use? The kid was not punished in any way for breaking my arm, and no one but us was forced to pay medical expenses. We didn't want to tie ourselfs into a lawsuit, so we didn't.(My dad explained parts of that, especially the lawsuit part, later on.)
Fast forward. I graduate Shawmut Hills, and go to City Middle/High school. Some stupid "advanced public school for gifted/advanced children", if I remember correctly. However, I was forced to do community service if I wanted to stay in that public school, which is dumb enough. The education was okay, except for a pure-evil World Geography teacher and their Extra Core(Study hall-esque) classes being nothing but game-playing. Turns out, school social banter is the same in an "advanced" school as it is in a "regular" school. In 7th grade, I took Science Processes(teaches how Science researches, lab-work, learning the Method, and so on). In 8th grade, I took Earth Science.
Fast-forward. It's the start of 9th grade, and I moved down to a regular school. Why? I figured that the extra work was worthless, and community service isn't really good for a college application if you're FORCED to do it. Shows no moral fiber, only obedience(sp?). I'm taking some computer class, which literally TEACHES YOU HOW TO TYPE and not much more. I asked repeatedly to be moved to a higher-level computer class, but to no avail. Their argument was that it was a "required class", and would not let me test out of the class in any way, shape, or form.
Fast-forward. Still 9th grade, but I moved to Arizona. I'm told to enroll in these classes: Discovery(real-life situation explination and education), Math(Geometry, what I was taking before, perfectly acceptable), English(I tested at a post-college reading level and I often read Stephen King[Off topic, but anyone else read his material? It's awesome.]), and I ended up reading in class throughout most of English(and math, but that's OT). My last class was a science class, and I had a choice between... Gasp. SCIENCE PROCESSES or EARTH SCIENCE? I took BOTH of those already! Nope, can't let you test out of them, required classes, nope, no going to biology, stay in the retard class until we tell you to.
I believe that school is about teaching, not getting good grades, which is why I wanted out of those classes and into higher classes.
Fast-forward to roughly now. I'm in 10th Grade, and I'm currently typing this in a retarded programming class. He hosts the material on his website and tells us to copy and paste it, and then he basically says "Play with the program", and that's considered teaching. (Off topic: He's wierd, seeing "Faces on the walls", always talking about "knowing the Truth", and other such nonsense.) When we take a test, without having been actually taught the materials, we're told to make the program... 93% of the class fails the test, and he starts babbling stuff about "The average student is an A student", when the class average is a C.
I've seen an exaggerated million tiny errors, mostly in spelling, but let me take some false material. A large portion comes from my faulty 10th grade Biology class, who tried to teach us that the Candle relies on the Burn speed, and that you measure the Candle when trying to see how fast a candle burns. She also thought that Transparent meant cannot-see-through, and said that a leaf was "Very Very Transparent". Every class, there are always tons of spelling errors on everything, including English tests!
I am currently pretty tired, and I can't think of much more to put, so I'll add on to it later.
This is a personal account of the fallicies of our education system, and is only based on what I've personally seen.

You're like...me.

 

[bomba923]

Hello, yomamma and Blahness. Perhaps you find this interesting,
(from Sowell, Thomas. Inside American Education. Free Press, 1992. page 4.)

Science is not the only field in which American students are lacking in knowledge and--more importantly--in the ability to tie what they know together to form a coherent chain of reasoning. Many American students seem unaware of even the need for such a process. Test scores are only the tip of the inceberg. Professor Diane Ravitch, a scholar specializing in the study of American education, reports that "professors complain about students who arrive at college with strong convictions but not enough knowledge to argue persuasively for their beliefs." As Professor Ravitch concludes: "Having opinions without knowledge is not of much value; not knowing the difference between them is a positive indicator of ignorance." In short, it is not merely that Johnny can't read, or even that Johnny can't think. Johnny doesn't know what thinking is, because thinking is so often confused with feeling in many public schools.

What do YOU think?

 

[fuzzyfelt]

Ahh...I always seek perfection in my cursive. For each letter and phrase
Good cursive penmanship is something I value indeed.

**That said, I do not refer to perfection as "writing the letters and words just like they appear on third or fourth grade cursive practice sheets." That cursive is quite inefficient!

--The handwriting format I usually use is "condensed cursive"-->meaning the letters appear slightly narrower (less wide, "horizontally"-speaking) and certain letters are also written somewhat differently (design-wise) than you might see on third/fourth grade "cursive practice worksheets."

The school my kids go to teaches them a fast semi-cursive writing at age four, rather than ever teaching them to print. The reason they give is that it helps with spelling, speed and concentration. This article explains their reasoning-
http://www.tes.co.uk/section/story/?story_id=2047983&window_type=print

 

[Blahness]

To fi: If they teach it REALLY early on, it would help. So, yes, I can see the reasoning behind that logic.

To Angel: Thank you so much for getting that! Much obliged. ^_^'

To bomba: Bingo. We're learning factoids that most people only retain in short-term, which may lead to opinions formulated based on teacher bias and former possible knowledge. Factoids don't help: MAKING CONNECTIONS DO!

Anyway, My school that I go to right now is rated on a state ranking of "Excelling". This means that my school is in the top 9.1% of all schools in Arizona, based on graduation(sp >_<) rates, GPA, and test scores.

Seems all good, right? WRONG. Most of the standards are soooo low that anyone with the ability to make logical inductions could pass it. That, and the standards go down more each year, as Smash, Angel, and I have seen.

Look at the average kid in your school. Can you see them excelling in life?


Anyway, to say stuff to some people.

You're like... me O_O

Sweet. ^_^. I'm not suprised, though.
Anything to contribute, perhaps?

To bomba923: I only use cursive for signatures, as said previously. That being said, I have/had ADD and my handwriting sucks no matter WHAT system I use. Ah well, as long as it's legible, no one really cares.

To Angel: Once again, thanks for the stuff.

To fi: The thing is, they're learning cursive at age 4. We were taught it at age 9-11.


And a final note, to show that schools aren't COMPLETELY degraded: They still value spelling a LOT. Thank (insert omniscient and omnipotent being here).