Classic hallmark of political indoctrination. All Liberal actually
means is free-thinking, not constrained by previous ideas (but also
not prohibited from those same ideas) If it wasn't for 'liberals' the
few lucky enough to go to school would be memorising times tables by
rote in full uniform, and getting a caning for having dirty nails.

I for one, am currently dealing with one of the consequences of this
act. A friends new step-daughter (they've been married now about 3
months) is repeating the 5th grade. She failed the rgade last year,
but because of 'no child left behind' the school was trying to push
her p to the middle school anyway, that is what the act calls for
after all - no child to be left behind. It took her father, and her
new step-mother (our friend) 2 weeks of fighting with the school
district to have her repeat the year. As it is, i'm working out some
extra stuff and am now gong to tutor her every other weekend.


When i first moved to the US 2 1/2 years ago, my wife's cousin was
just finishing high school, and needed some serious help with her
maths classes. Since we were staying at their house (whilst i painted
and prepped our new house) i was tutoring her in the evenings (since i
have UK A-levels in maths and further maths, closest equivilent to the
US is an associates in maths) Going over the sylabus, it was nothing
more than basic calculus and trig. VERY basic stuff, the same stuff
i'd done years earlier in the (getting dumbed down year-by-year)
british system aged 15-16. To say she was flat out amazed when all
her homeworks and problems were answered just by looking at them (the
trig were almost all varients of 3-4-5, 1-2-root3 or 1-1-root2
triangles and since i've just given you all 3 sides, its more a ratios
question than trig)

A guy in one of my IRC channels (on astronomy) is just starting
university, and was bitching about the books he had to buy for his
first year. The one for his physics classes was the same one i used
for my GCSEs (those are school-leaving qualifications, taken one
per-subject, at age 16) Hes not online right now, so i'm not sure
where hes going, but its New England area i think.


The US education system lacks far behind european nations. American
educated students, have to take a 'year0' or foundation year at
british universities, to get them upto standards. The problem is easy
- theres too much time for socialising, and irrelevence. Too much time
spent giving so much choice to students, being able to pick and choose
classes, the extra-curricular activities, that the point of school -
BEING THERE TO LEARN has been forgotten.

We had homecomming last friday. It started off quite literally about
20ft from my desk here. It was filled by 'senior favourites' and
'class of 06 that' and even the one private school in the this county
(and indeed the only one in the surrounding 8 as well) was there with
a big floats. All together, maybe 90% of the kids in the high school
were invovled somehow, from band, to flag corp (?!?!?!?) to JROTC (and
don't get me started on them, I saw less of an unruly mob during the
Miner's Strikes against Thatcher in the 80's.

Where has all the education gone? look right there. Don't get me
wrong, i'm not against the organisations themselves, its just the way
they've 'taken over' school life. When I was at school, the school has
a lot more sports teams (roughly 7 cricket teams, a similar number for
football (or soccer, as the world minority in north america calls it)
and the same again for Rugby (or American football for men) 2
swimming squads, an athletics team, 4 basketball teams, 2 badminton
teams, a squash 'squad', a cycling team, a hockey team (grass, not
ice) and even a small half-marathon team (try and fit THAT practice
into a lunch hour!) as well as more cerebral teams like chess,
****ytical chemistry, debating, mock trials, all of these competing at
the national level, and STILL kept in the top 5 schools in the region
academically, because ALL those squads and teams were own time stuff.
They used school equipment, but all on their own time. I rmmeber once,
when i was about 14-15, the headmaster announcing that the football
first XI had won the national football competition, but there were no
parades, that was it. It didn't dominate the school, because the
school was about LEARNING.

its more about the aims of that agenda and how they're reached.

The system encourages this indeterminacy of the student ability, by
providing only one grade, the GPA. When the school does grade subjects
individually, its just a single flat mark, be it percentage or a
grade. Ability/effort grading internalls, and per-subject competance
grading externally is what is needed. A 3.0 GPA means what? they're a
bit above average in all subjects? They're really good in all but 1 or 2?


not sure i agree with you 100% here. It depends what you mean, really.
General shop (or really design-technology) is good, anything specific
in that isn't. What do you mean by special science programs? ones
conecntrating on a specific area of a subject, or a good in depth look
all over. The ability to drop subjects is one there should be, but it
should only be doable once or twice, and then its not dropping, as
switching. I for one dropped Music when i could, switching for
Business Studies, and dropped Spanish for 3D art+design


I'm all for homework, the more the better. However, when my 8yo gets
stuck, I don't help. i only guide a step or 2. If she still can't do
it, i'll guide another step or two and then, if its still stumping
her, i'll write a note to the teacher, and bring her attention to
that. Helping them through their homework hurts, because you're doing
the problems, not them. You won't be there in the exam time. Her 3rd
grade teacher this year has been very hapy with the grades my
daughter's got. Her teacher last year was also happy with it (she had
just qualified as a teacher, and was her first year of work) So far,
my daughter's had all a's for that whole time. In her first grade, her
teacher wouldn't work with us, She taught in school, worked in school,
and when she wasn't at school, she didn't want to think about
schoolwork.Not a good teacher.


Guess thats where i'm lucky. I spend most of my time working from home.

nowt wrong with soapboxing. US education system does need a severe
kick up the arse though

by


http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2004/08/23/harshness_of_red_marks_has_students_seeing_purple/


seriously

warming).


They do have them, but where I grew up most kids went to public schools
unless the parents had specific religious convictions (Catholic, mostly).

I think by and large we agree that something needs to change. To shove it
into the shoes of left or right doesn't fix it, though. The problem has been
here with both extremes in power.

And what's wrong with that? (just kidding)

As much as we hate that stultifying picture, the question of what
skills and knowledge should be taught in school, and the question of
what atmosphere (oppressive or free wheeling) in which those skills
and knowledge should be taught are very separate. Unfortunately, many
among us lump them together for ideological expediency.

Interesting perspective - well put.

programs --


I think anything that helps the connecting of different synapses is a plus:
We've all been in classes as kids where all we'd do is regurgitate facts.
You and I can tell anyone what the capitol of Juguslavia was without even
thinking -- and that's not an all bad thing as long as there are other
classes that allow one to open the mind a little. If one never learned to be
interested in history/politial sciences/cultures, knowing the capitol of
Yuguslavia is hardly relevant (anymore).

Shop could be wood working, welding, car repair or metal working - where one
learns how something works or learns to build something from design to
product. Science/Technology could be some sort of programming class or some
sort of biology experiment.

Thank you - You said it all.

Pretty damn sad. I sometimes catch the Jay Leno segment where he asks
people on the street about geography, etc... The questions are so easy
that even my 2nd grade niece knows the answers without fail - even the
political name associations. It's supposed to be a funny bit, but I
find it just shocking. I'm no prude, and not above poking a little fun
now and then, but I just sit there stunned and saddened. There's
another idiotic game show called Street Smarts with person on the
street questioning of extremely basic questions. Most of the
respondents are just clueless. I just can't believe it.

Another thing I find really annoying is newscasters and other verbal
media who can't even use the words may, might, and can correctly. They
use the terms interchangeably when they mean vastly different things.
In weeks of pre and post Katrina news, I caught so many mistakes about
these words, that if you took what was being said literally, you'd
think you were listening to gibberish. Yet, other people watching the
same newscasts didn't bat an eye.

I know a guy who throws cigarette butts out the car window on purpose
because without purposeful littering, street cleaners would lose their
jobs...and this guy is dead serious!

OMFG, just end the world now.

---------------
Could you be more Pacific ? ? :-)
---------------

'Curly'

Silly - it was the Atlanta Ocean, not the Pacific!

Mike <8^P

Or the word "unique" without a modifier...

Phoenix news caster: "Phoenix has the highest rate of skin cancer in
the nation, second only to Miami."

One Fox News reporter called Katrina the "perfect storm", even though
it wasn't a catagory 5 hurricane and hit most land with catagory 3
intensity.