I think some parents have the unfortunate tendency to think that their brilliant child is above the lessons being taught, and they convey this to their child, much to the child’s detriment.
As a second-grade teacher, I encounter this on occasion: a child thinks the work I’m giving is too mickey-mouse (e.g., I might ask a child to solve a two-digit addition problem, and prove the answer). I’m pretty happy on such occasions to give the child more difficult work. Usually when I do so, the kid is flummoxed: what they think they know, and what they really know, don’t match up. My example child, when confronted with a three-digit addition problem, may know how to get a correct answer, but has no idea how to prove the answer–and in math, if you don’t understand why a process works, you haven’t mastered the process.
There is a pernicious pattern today, because of No Child Left Behind, to focus the lion’s share of teaching on the struggling students, assuming that the brighter students will take care of themselves. I utterly reject that idea: I figure that the struggling kids certainly need help, but the academically oriented kids are precisely the ones for whom school is the most useful, and it’s my job to help them get the most out of it that they can.
Oh, I had had a good work ethic from the previous 10 years of schooling. And I learned a lot; like I said: what I learned was all independent. Time in the library, time at home. Not coursework; I was already beyond that facile crap.
She worked her ass off for school stuff, and all she came out of school with was the school’s limited OBE objectives. Granted, I don’t know what else she did with her time; maybe she was like me and worked on more interesting stuff.
I’m neither lazy, nor arrogant, and have no blind sense of entitlement. Those things in people kind of piss me off, in fact. Actually, I attribute the lack of all three as part of the reason for my current success and ability to maintain my lifestyle. I can refute laziness by pointing out my work and continuing education. No way to refute being arrogant, though. As for sense of entitlement, wow, you don’t read my other posts around here, do you?
No, seriously, put your money on a failed implementation of a dubious educational philosophy.
I went to all public schools from elementary to graduate school. I learned a lot and enjoyed most of my time in school.
I hear people a lot complaining how dumbed down schools are and how boring they are and how the teachers spend most of their time disciplining disruptive student. Either that or that schools kill off creativity and teach the kids to be mindless consumers.
It’s all so strange for me, because I went to normal public schools in the center of a big city (Houston) and feel I was challenged, inspired, and I learned a lot!
My French teacher was excellent. My algebra teacher, my World History and US History teacher, my music teacher, my biology teacher, and all my English teachers were amazing. My trig/precal teacher was competent, as was my government and economics teacher. My geometry teacher was dreadful, but I learned on my own.
I will admit that I learned quite a lot more in university. I felt held back a lot in high school because we had to cater to the lowest common denominator way too often, and in university we got more into the nitty-gritty of subjects, which is what I love.
But yes, I learned quite a bit in high school, both through teachers and on my own.
So you think the stuff they want her to learn in high school was actually totally useless stuff and that she learned it well was a waste of time? But all that OTHER stuff you learned on your own (rather than getting better grades) was time well spent? So, in high school, you had a way better idea of what needed to be learned than a whole educational system?
Yeah, there is chance that you are that rare genius for which that is true, but for every one of “you” that thinks like that, there are hundreds that are dead wrong IMO.
I learned almost nothing in my school career, and I hated every minute I had to spend there. If I hadn’t had such a poor attitude I might have picked up more, but class was so boring for me I felt like I had to entertain myself, and I would get so interested in what I was doing/reading on my own that I missed the small islands of valuable information in the vast sea of pointless worksheets, repeated information I already knew, classmate conversation, the teacher trying to keep order and make sure 28 students were doing what they were supposed to, etc.
I did as little homework or class work as I could get away with (parents and teachers did their best to make sure I did it) and got bad grades. I read my own books during the school day every chance I got. I retained enough to do well on tests I suppose. I’ve always been good at tests and that’s how I passed the grades until high school (when I really began to flunk since you couldn’t coast on good test results). I liked to read the class textbooks and could remember enough from doing that a few times a year to do well on quizzes.
I do love to read and learn, and picked up a ton of stuff on my own since I spent hours each day at school and at home between the ages of 4-18 with my nose in one book or another.
Since I refused to pay attention in class, I missed all basic math. I didn’t even know the times tables by 5th grade. IIRC I didn’t know how to do long division or multiply either! My mom got me tutored around then, and I picked up enough basics to pass the next few years.
I was in remedial classes in high school because I stopped participating totally. I never got past ‘8th grade’ math, flunked 9th grade completely, and dropped out my junior year.
I still love to learn on my own about things I have an interest in, and if I need to know about something else for work or a certain purpose, I study. For example a couple years ago I got a job where I had to convert fractions to decimals and make certain mathmatical calculations on a regular basis - I had no idea how to do any of this, but it wasn’t hard to learn. I picked it up in a couple weeks.
I could have learned plenty from school. I just tried very hard to avoid it. For many people it is a matter of reaping what you sow.
I’m not sure the direction we’re going with this. Do I still remember whatever I learned during that time period? Heck yes. But did I learn it from the actual school system? Not really until college. I’ve always been the type who teaches himself. I actively seek knowledge. And since it’s knowledge I want to know, I actually retain it.
Then there’s what I learned about society in school. Based on my interaction with homeschoolers, I’d say I learned a lot about how to deal with people–including some things that homeschoolers seem unable to learn. It’s like they missed out on the time to learn it.
I was unschooled (technically ‘homeschooled’ but my mother was too lazy to actually homeschool me) from about age 12 until 16. Whatever I learned during that time I learned from reading, television, the internet, and day-to-day life. When I decided to enter high school, the school made me take a test to determine my grade level. They offered to put me in the senior class. :eek: Apparently, those four missing years did not affect me much if the high school determined that I was fully capable of going directly into the senior class a year ahead of me.
I learned a lot in high school (and before), and much of it is still useful, both personally and professionally. In particular, I learned a huge amount of math, and a good deal of history and literature, and I learned to touch type.
What I did not learn so well was how to study, as I was able to get by without working terribly hard. This bit me in the ass in undergraduate school. I also didn’t learn to think critically until well after high school. And I learned zip about philosophy, psychology, and business, or about how to get along with people.
For those who didn’t learn anything at all in school. Was analyzing a piece of literature something that came naturally? How about writing a persuasive argument? In all the years you went to school you literally didn’t learn a thing there? I just find that so hard to believe.
Seriously? Analyzing literature and writing a persuasive argument? I would say a vanishingly small percentage of human beings are capable of this. Certainly not your average product of public school.
I haven’t the faintest idea how I would analyze literature. I don’t have any desire to learn, because reading or listening to other people’s analysis of literature might be the closest thing to torture I have experienced. Probably couldn’t write a persuasive argument either. I haven’t written anything besides internet posts since 2003.
From what I hear from all the college professors in my family (three current, one former, and 3 others in admissions and administration), even 3rd year English majors aren’t even so hot at this sort of thing. I hear phrases like ‘barely literate’ and ‘like they never wrote anything in their life’ tossed around a great deal.
I learned a hell of a lot more on my own than I did in school. School was unbridled tedium and make-work. Useless worksheets, and reading assignments I’d already done as soon as I got the book. Many assigned books I read months or years earlier just to get them out of the way. Odesio, I can say with great authority I’ve never had to analyze literature ever since senior year of high school. That was one of my most loathed activities. I love to read as a hobby, and to have to pick the book apart to “see what the author was TRYING to say” :rolleyes: is a great way to make an enjoyable experience awful.
My highschool life was otherwise horrible, but as far as education goes I had a lot of Mrs. Krabapples.
I loved science classes, but I wasn’t ever able to get into the good ones due to math prerequisites. I was never good at math. I just don’t grok variable and formulae. I took algebra all four years of high school, and I was fine with that. My AP history class was interesting, but I could never be bothered to do the reading for the class (it was a very dry history book) so I was always behind. I actually learned more about ancient Mexican cultures in Spanish class than I did learn actual Spanish. I did have a crush on my super hot 24 year old Spanish teacher in Junior year. mmmm…
I wouldn’t say that I learned NOTHING in schoo. I did learn some things that are actually useful in real life. I learned how to type, I learned that computer security is usually woefully underestimated my woodworking hobbies would be more difficult without knowing how to calculate area and converting fractions to decimal. I learned all about bureaucracy, which I still run into in daily life. I learned that jury-rigging and kludgy repairs of things will do just fine, most of the time.
I agree. School should be about honing critical thinking skills not just rote memorization. Unfortunately most US schools don’t teach that, they teach how to do well on a test so the school can get more federal funding.
My daughter’s high school is actually split up into three different schools, almost like technical schools. Along with basic classes they have programs for arts and media, one for engineering mastery (like woodshop), and one for the more math-y and science classes. I like that, as it’s not focusing on how to get you ready for college, it’s preparing you for the Real World. A college education isn’t a guarantee of a good job like it used to be.
Where would you learn that kind of thing in school? My English classes largely consisted of listening to a book-on-tape or watching a movie and then regurgitating a few facts about the plot. There was certainly nothing about analysis or debate.
I mean “didn’t learn a thing” is certainly over stating it but not by much. I enjoyed school, well highschool at least I have very little memory of being younger than 13 or so, but it was a complete failure as far as education goes.
Freshman year of HS, I started off in French. Lasted about two weeks before I bailed. Switched to a semester of woodworking class, and another semester of typing. Both were far more useful to me than French ever would have been.
As for the rest of my education, apart from learning the basics in elementary and middle school - reading, writing, spelling, math - I learned what I liked and didn’t like. High school in particular exposed me to a variety of stuff, whether I wanted it or not. Social studies/history? World/American Lit? Blah. Bring me physics, chemistry, and biology. Even the phys-ed classes exposed me to a wide range of sports, some of which I enjoyed, some I didn’t. But at least I learned what they were all like, and I probably would not have learned that outside of high school; nobody signs up to compete in every sport.
With a career in engineering, the advanced math - algebra, geometry, trigonometry, calculus - has been indispensible; if I had not had that stuff in HS, I would have been playing catch-up for my first few years of undergraduate college.
We certainly learned the basics of such things when I was in school. Granted, we did these things at the level of a middle school child, but, hey, that’s what we were.
It’s something you never did in school? Never figured out what Mark Twain was trying to say with The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn? Never discussed the lines “Out, damn spot” and what that might have said about Lady MacBeth’s character?
As sad as that is, you’re telling me you never ever wrote a persuasive paper while you were in school? Never?
I wouldn’t say I had a whole lot of debate -except for a speech class I once took- but analysis of what we read was part of my high school English courses. I also wrote more than one persuasive argument paper when I was in school. I didn’t go to college until 11 years after I graduated high school and I still knew the basics of how to write a real paper. Introduction, body, and follow that up with a conclusion. I was admittedly surprised by how many other freshman in my class who had graduated the previous year did not know how to write a formal paper. Maybe I just went to a really good high school.
No kidding. People who homeschool because they want to spare their kids the social agony of high school are doing them a great disservice - that’s how you learn to be a grownup, wait in line at the DMV, work for somebody you don’t like, and fulfull dumb requirements. Even astronauts have to do these things, and odds are you will not grow up to be an astronaut.
I went to a Catholic grammar school (1-8), where I learned quite a bit. They were much better than the town’s public schools at grammar and math. They couldn’t teach science or languages well, though.
I attended one year of junior high and three years of senior high at our town’s public school, where I learned quite a bit of math (I was able to advance-place out of my first semester of calculus at MIT!), languages (Spanish and Latin), and History. I definitely got quite a bit out of my English Literature classes (we read the entire Odyssey – Fitzgerald’s translation – my freshman year, and that wasan’t even a major part of the course). Also four years of Band and Orchestra.
I have no complaints. I learned a lot. When I was still attendid grammar school I passed the junior high on my walk home. I used to sit outside the classroom and listen to the Algebra I lectures.
Now this last sentence surprises me. What kind of job could you have where you never have to write? I’m a software engineer, so writing is far from my most common task, but even so once in a while I have to write a proposal to my superiors on how I plan to approach a programming task. It has to be a persuasive argument.
There are quite a few blue collar jobs that don’t require top notch writing skills. I had a fairly high tech job for about ten years (troubleshoot & fix circuit boards at component level) and during that time I never penned anything fancier than a shop work order bill.
Laborers in general and many in the service industry don’t need to have anything more than minimum writing capability - construction, auto repair, waiters, etc. Where I work now there is an IT Operations desk where highly paid technicians watch for network alerts and do command line troubleshooting in Cisco routers and switches. Some of them make over six figures. But I cringe when I see some of the emails they send out when they need to put words together to make sentences (to escalate to management or contact vendor support, for example). Without fail, over 90% of them will accept, without question, MS Word’s auto-correction that changes “please advise” to “please advice”.
my woodworking hobbies would be more difficult without knowing how to calculate area and converting fractions to decimal. I learned all about bureaucracy, which I still run into in daily life. I learned that jury-rigging and kludgy repairs of things will do just fine, most of the time.