School

In earlier school years (elementary, middle, and high school) the point is to learn A) basics and B) how to think critically. You learn across a smattering of subjects - and this is what it is supposed to be. More specific learning tailored to your individual interests starts to happen in college and really takes off in graduate school.

Education is designed that way for a reason. It is important to know the basics and to learn how to think - this is what the earlier school years are for. Higher education is where you get specific.

 

Meh its my opinion that if they are going to give you the illusion of coice in picking high school classes then they should start to teach you more specific things and transition to higher education.

 

At least you pick classes. I only had a profile which had slightly more emphasis on chosen subjects, but that's about it.

 

@shadow: i agree, want someone who knows what they're doing and trust me i'm not crying about anything. eon's off to college so i know it's going to be tough. school applies to real life, too. i'm not ignorant to that fact.

@meee: yeah, i wish learning by myself helped D: here we take a wide range of subjects, as i said. we can also choose our subjects, even though there are a few we are forced to take.

imo there is useless information. I'm not sure when I'm going to need to know that the thing that connects phrases and clauses is called a conjunction. As long as you know something of how to use it and can explain it i don't think what it's called matters. yes it's good to know but i don't think it's fair to just use that kinda crap to be questions on tests. I mean, i understand it all, and i've been very good at definitions and such, and i agree it makes communication easier, but still. As long as I can find 'X' why does it matter it's called a variable. it's important to communicate, which is important, but alas it's not necessary.

The IDs are becoming a rage here. Safety measures and such that eon said, don't work all the time. there's too many flaws and then kids end up being ripped off $4 every time they can't remember. yes, this teaches values like remembering and being responsible and teaching consequences, but stealing money from kids isn't the answer. It's just a way for people to basically get away with getting even more money. i mean, the school just got new computers (and they are very new, very recent models, a few techies have told me, that are about 1k each) but yet they can't spend it on stuff that might be more helpful like i don't know...new desks? More teachers? Better books that don't fall apart when you touch them? School is about learning, and i don't care what you think, as long as the computer runs decently you will learn. a new model does not always run faster, and teachers need to learn that.

I agree that school is important, even if i feel like half the time is not especially as i sit here very tired from Physical Education that i'm going to take year round because i need these last two semesters of it. it teaches you nothing, it surrounds me by girls who run away from the ball or act like *****y idiots, and we're forced to do stupid things. i agree health is important but driving some girls to near death and allowing others to goof off isn't the answer. I want a class like now, where i learn something relevant. sometimes i hate them, but they're useful.

i just hate it at the moment because it's rough for me and i still have to get used to my classes =P

no interesting stories for today xD

 

PE is pretty useless. Whenever guys play against girls at any game, the guys always win because as kurai said, most girls run away like cowards whenever a ball gets 10 feet near them. Playing games like kickball or dodgeball indoors for thirty minutes is useless since you dont even get tired before class ends.

Also, if the schools can afford new computers when the old ones worked perfectly fine, then they should spend it on things of use, like better food or security.

 

not my class, eon. we're a class of 20, i'm not built to run but i'm the only one doing it to try and better myself and get used to working as a team which can be just as easily done with a project in school. and i agree wholeheartedly. security is BS. the locker rooms wern't even locked like they were supposed to be so someone coulda come in and stole all the stuff.

I mean really, it ticks me off. just post police and stuff at all the doors so we can use them all and as long as we have IDs we can get in.

 

I disagree, PE is important, techers are just doing it wrong most of the time. Like with other subjects, for some kids PE is about the only time they perform some actual excersises. It's not about teaching, it's about getting them to move around and it is important.

 

Get ready for a spew of typing here, guys...

In my experience the educational system is broken. Elementary schools are, for the most part, fine. It's basically designed to activate and stimulate your mind while babysitting you at an irresponsible age.

Middle school and high school are diseases. I would suggest to any parent that they leave their child in public elementary school but then move them to private for middle school, and then they can do whatever for high school.

Middle school is broken because they feel the need to "transition" you into high school. They want you to choose things and yet they give you absolutely no responsibility. Nothing counts and nothing gives you a boost.

My experience in high school was one of learning to play the system. I did absolutely zero work and got As in every class I took. I got one B, in Chemistry, from a dip**** teacher (Who also consequently had 100% of his students fail the Chemistry AP test, moron). What I did take away from high school was how to absolutely play the system. Sure, I learned some useful subjects like Chemistry and Biology, but I can tell you that 50% of what I picked up in those classes was based on outside knowledge I had learned from other sources, mainly books.

The most important thing I would suggest to anyone in high school is to read like hell. Don't just read textboosk, yada yada, ask your English teacher (although they're usually idiots) for a list of the classics.

Read books like the Art of War, The Source (James Michener), Frankenstein (Mary Shelley), The Catcher in the Rye. Avoid retarded books like Jane Erye (NEVER READ THIS BOOK! IT IS EVIL AND STUPID!). Read, read, read. It is the single most powerful tool I've ever had, my command of the English language. Ever since I was 12 I've been able to read at a 12th grade (or above) level, and it has made school SO easy for me.

Even today I can pump out papers like it was no tomorrow.

The last thing I will rant about is standardized testing. No, not the SAT. The SAT is dumb but it has a purpose, to give you a chance to separate yourself from other students at competing high schools who don't know how to properly calculate GPAs (*Cough* Hillsborough schools is near me and they have students with 5.6 GPAs on a scale of 4).

The FCAT (Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test) is, I swear to God, the dumbest thing produced by human kind. It is the most retarded test I've ever taken. A three year old could seriously pass this test. It is designed to test the lowest of the low in the class and SEVERELY hinders the more advanced students by making them focus on material that is years old. I remember being in AP English and AP Calculus classes and having to go through this drone about Geometry and angles in order to "prepare for the FCAT." It was the biggest waste.

@ Kurai,

Security is something that your administrators will pride themselves on because they never quite had anything to be proud of. They absolutely love being in control of you. They will do whatever and whenever to catch you doing something or to make you alter your life because it makes them feel good that their power was able to change your day in some way.

Of course IDs don't make your school safer. Know what would make schools safer? Better teachers and smallers schools. But this takes money and effort, something our country hasn't put into its education systems since the 1950s.

In Germany, class sizes are around 12-15 in a regular class. In the US that number can be up to 45. If teachers knew all of their students they wouldn't have any problem picking out the intruder. Smaller, more secure schools.

Thank you and good night.

 

wow, I actually read all that and agree with everything you said, though my high school must have been harder than yours since even after studying, I was still lucky if I got an A (3.2 GPA for total HS years). I never took any of the school's AP tests because I considered the regular class hard enough without overcooking my brain.

The HS kurai goes to has over 2600 students in one building, and is extremely overcrowded. However, the current position the school is in is due to the taxpayers, not the school. The district has been trying to get a new high school build for the past 2 years, and the voters kept denying any plan the school has made because they dont want thier kid's freinds to end up in separate schools.

They finally desided on building a 9th grade school(of all things) and it actually passed the vote. So now, imo, the school system is pretty f'ed up. We have a few elementary schools(K-5), a 6th grade school, 2-3 middle schools(7-8), 1 future 9th grade school, and 1 high school.

Also, the 9th grade school and HS are on thier own school disrict separate from the K through 8th grade schools; meaning holiday vacation dates are different, snow days dont always match since the younger aged schools are more likely to get out when the HS likely wont.

This causes disasters for families where both parents work since they dont always have thier teenage child to be able to babysit thier younger siblings, and most siters are of high school age and likely have school as well.

 

@jon: i thought it would have been something like that. Eon is right again, my school is positively huge, too big for its own good on any levels. The school was only built to hold 1000 and it held about 2500 last year. and now they expanded on it, and it probably able to hold ~2000 students now, but it's way over populated. It's just a hassle, and getting through the hallways is insanity. If someone snuck in, no one would ever know. Teachers don't patrol the hallway and honestly why would they want to when sometimes people in the hallways can't even --move- due to the congestion.

@eon: yup, it's that screwed up. Our lil sis has half days, and she'll get home ebfore us. It's terrible becasue they give little kids half days or days off that they don't give the older kids. so as eon said, the poor little guy can end up waiting to be picked up, or end up being home alone. these kids can be kidnapped or get lost, for God's sakes. i don't care if they're kids and need less school, work somethign out like let them go outside. That's one thing i miss at our school now. Where they build the new halls use ti be a path outside and it was the only time you could get some fresh air. and now we're sealed inside and in a crammed, nasty place for 7 hours straight.

 

ahem
ITS WORSE THAN SLEEPING WITH HAY!
...sorry..


anyway

@JON didn't they do streamlining there? overhere we are placed in classes based on our skills in the subject, lets everyone work at the level thats best for them.

communication is an issue, student-teacher and teacher-teacher, seriously i've got 3 NCEA sxience exams i'm supposed to study for (most people don't even do NCEA untill year 11, damn intelligence...) i hardly ever get homework (well, with a consequence for not doing it anyway) and now they pile it on...

 

yeah, 'm bogged down with math homework.
it's not so much homework as i gotta memorize stuff. Like in anatomy and physiology i have to memorize the planes of the body. I.e. the medical terms for parts of the body. Like the elbow being the cubical, the eyes being orbital, etc. It's really hard, and I think I've maybe memorized half of them so far Dx

It's a lot of work. And yes, overmind, i agree. There is little teacher student communication going on. But some of my teachers are awesome and i think i could talk to them about a problem. The other people like principals and the counselor, no, i couldn't talk to them. They just do it because they get paid. Teachers don't get paid a lot so either they love what they do or they had nothing better to do. I've been suck with both kinds, but i absolutely adore some of my teachers, and we have good communication. Not everyone gets lucky with that, however. I know where you are coming from with that fact, overmind. Not everyone gets lucky and ends up with a teacher or two who they can communicate with be it on school levels or more personal. It really depends on the place, the individuals, and other things. I've met many teachers who couldn't care less about their students. But in the Virginia tech school that had the shooting, that one teacher gave his life to get his students to evacuate and stayed behind and got killed. There are good teachers and bad teachers, just depends on the person.

 

Wow...

I started school last Tuesday. Guess what, it was high school!

Okay so during orientation which was August 13th for me, I couldn't register and get my schedule because I hadn't had my Tuberculosis test yet. And then when I did get it and went for the late registration, I still couldn't register because I had to have a doctor check the welt (not that I had one).

I finally got registered the day school started (August 19th) but I had to wait in a frikin line for 30 minutes and because of poor communication from the teachers to the students, me and my friend waited in line for an extra 15 minutes for no reason because they had already called all freshmen to register.

I finally got my damn schedule. I was late for 1st period which was Geometry however I was excused. So the teacher's name was Mrs. Lico, she has this really Filipino accent but I can understand her most of the time. She is really short I mean less than 5 feet tall short.

Then I had second period computers (Why computers!??!?!) and the teacher's name was... Mrs. Koliopolous
(koll - ee - aw - pull - us) And she talked kind of slow, as if thinking we were stupid. But she was alright.

On to third period... Biology with Mrs. Hannon... She had a small Nicaraguan accent but nothing too big. However... I knew only one person in that class and there were mostly sophomores in the class... So I was pretty scared...

4th Period (almost done!) P.E. Yay... Mrs. Paul was my teacher. Oh yeah, and on my way to the Gym, I got lost. One of the student helpers kind of misguided me... So I was almost late. That was the class who I knew the most in. All we did was sit there and I was assigned a PE locker but there was all this nasty rust in the bottom...

5th Period (omg) spanish! Well, just my luck, I got the teacher who teaches is differently than the other teachers. But it turns out, we get almost no homework and we do not use the textbook very often. But Mrs. Pena (Pen -yah , couldn't get the squiggly n) talks in all Spanish and hardly and English.

6th Period... Wait... There is a sixth period? But I don't have it on the schedules. Those damn counselors didn't give me my sixth period!!! So I went to the counselor's office... but when I got there I was near the end of a huge line of people who also did not get sixth periods. Since it was a minimum day the bell rang before it was my turn, but I stayed in line. I finally reached and I told them I didn't have a sixth period. They gave me the only guy teacher I would have, Mr. Sweatte (sweat) who according to my brother is the most boring teacher he ever had. So boring he played card games in class and still got an A.

I went home since school was over. I had to walk down this huge hill! I mean huge huge. Here is what the slop looks like:

Edit: Okay for some reason it just puts all of my dots to the left side...


FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL! I SURVIVED!

 

i have seven periods, you lucky butt D:

very interesting day, however :3

 

Wow, it takes me weeks to learn all the teacher's names...

btw. In one school I had teacher who's name was Shah Ahmed. He claims to be from London. We believe otherwise
>.>
<.<

 

lol

i have 5 periods +form time (which is only 20minutes)
i still don't know all my teachers names...

my art teacher is indian, she speaks in a really annoying voice and coupled with the accent you can't hear her sometimes and it gives me headaches...

 

Well, I was supposed to get Enriched English, meaning advanced/honors, but the damn counselors just put me in some random English class. My mom had to talk to the principal and then in 1st period I got my new schedule, all nice and perfect.

Well, I switched my second period to Enriched English, Mrs. Grandfield. At first I thought she was pretty nice and wasn't annoying at all... Until she started talking... Half of her sentences end in some sort of question like:
Okay, so you want to take out your binders? And I'm going to pass this paper around and write your homework on it?

And then my 6th period switched to Health class. Mrs. Broadwater... Wtf she's so strict most of the time. At the end of the period yesterday, she told us all to wait by the door but don't go outside. Some idiot goes outside a bit and then Mrs. Broadwater yells at him and makes him stay until everyone leaves and yells some more.

 

i think there is a very big distinction between dutch school and US school, mainly because of the absense of private schools in holland, and the increased quality of education. for an exapmple( not american, so not sure) you have three times as much of a chance to become a succesfull politician when you go to a private school, but without those kind of schools in holland, 1/3rd of the population really had to education to be able to become minister-president, so doing school good really is important

 

What do politics have to do with anything? Here we have politicians without secondary education >.>

 

*coughs* barrack obama *coughs*