Stupid Students

[nationalist]

Originally posted by UberKruX

Public school should be for those who want to learn. I never understood why some of the kids showed up each day just to fail over and over. eventually most of them STOPPED showing up, but others didnt.

I have a friend who failed every class this year (his senior year). even Physical Education. He's currently supposed to be in summer school and is going to have to repeat most of the year anyway.

He has no intention of going back. and tax dollars, school supplies, text books, and teacher attention were all wasted on him. no point in that.

I have witnessed many people who fit this exact profile, UK, and it really pisses me off. I was the student member of the school board, and I personally experienced these problems, and have witnessed the waste of budgeted money on those who just didn't want to learn. I made these same complaints at the meetings as I am making here, and the board memebers and parents were horrified by my arrogance. Our education system needs a fundamental overhaul. Unfortunately, our educators don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, and parents don't want to have to see that their kids are stupid.

[Inverse Icarus]

Another thing, the "geek" problem.

in nations around the world, intelligence is something of high stature, something noble that seem to raise a person up above the general populus. Intelligent people of often respected by society at large.

Case in point America doesn't do that. The General public at early ages makes fun of the intelligent, and belittles them. The intelligent then grow up differently, or some of them actually "give up" their intelligence to "fit in" (my friend mentioned above used to be in Honors classes).

The intelligent in America do respect eachother though, and as adults intelligence does get a bit of a "stature bump". the problem is within the school system social structure.

If you had only intelligent people in the school, the school-going society would respect intelligence, no?

but then the smart get smarter and the dumb get dumber, and sooner or later you have a large scale "dumb" population.

::sigh::

one of the only things i dislike about america is a chunk of it's culture. i love the rest of this great nation so, but our "culture" shall be the death of us all.

gotta go, celerbity boxing is on.

(kidding)

[nationalist]

My school had Special Ed, General, Merit, and Honors/AP divisions. The Sepcial Ed and General classes had around 35-45% percent of the student population (Special ed was about 15%), yet those two combined recieved around 80% of our school's education budget and caused about 95% of the school's disciplinary problems. They just didn't want to be there. Merit students were forced to use the same books as the General students. Our Honors students were further neglected, and the number of AP classes were reduced every year. I was forced to take "honors" World History with idiots like the girl I mentioned above.

"You mean Hitler was in World War 2?"

[Urban Ranger]

Come on people, not knowing something is not stupidity, merely ignorance.

Some people might not be interested in learning academic stuff but they might have other talents, for example, in the arts.

Engineers and scientists are important, but we also need artists and humanists.

[Inverse Icarus]

one of my teachers actually had to say to one kid

"GHANDI GOOD. HITLER BAD." because he got them confused somehow.

when you hear "hitler lead non-violent protests in india", you can help but laugh.

[Inverse Icarus]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Come on people, not knowing something is not stupidity, merely ignorance.

Some people might not be interested in learning academic stuff but they might have other talents, for example, in the arts.

Engineers and scientists are important, but we also need artists and humanists.

then let them goto an art school. why bother spending collective tax dollars on them?

perhaps their should be different types of "public" schools? like a "public school of arts"?

[Nubclear]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Engineers and scientists are important, but we also need artists and humanists.

Er......Are they opposites? Ive met quite a few engineers whom were also pretty good artists, etc...

[Nubclear]

Originally posted by UberKruX
when you hear "hitler lead non-violent protests in india", you can help but laugh.

You have a point. I laughed at that one.

[Space05us]

when you hear "hitler lead non-violent protests in india", you can help but laugh.

thats the first thing on this forum that actually made me laugh out loud, not in my head

[nationalist]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Come on people, not knowing something is not stupidity, merely ignorance.

Some people might not be interested in learning academic stuff but they might have other talents, for example, in the arts.

Engineers and scientists are important, but we also need artists and humanists.

When people who simply aren't interested in learning are recieving a large majority of the educational funding I consider that to be a major problem. Why should students who are genuinely interested in learning, students who are outstanding at anything from math to art, be bogged down by a group of people who just don't care? The interested and capable students should be cultivated, not ignored. The sub-par, apathetic students should be challenged, not coddled.

[The Vagabond]

Personally I believe that excessive education levels in a society can be counter-productive. There are still a lot of jobs that require relatively unskilled labor. If everyone is too educated, who will fill in those jobs?

[Skanky Burns]

The robots that the population's high level of intelligence could build.

[The Vagabond]

Robots are built owing to high intelligence levels of the tech elite, not of the population as a whole.

[loinburger]

My brother had a Contemporary World History Honors teacher in high school who kept confusing Hitler and Stalin. Not quite as bad as confusing Hitler and Ghandi, sure, that is until you take into account that this was the teacher who was confusing them.

Fortunately, she transferred to a different school before I got to that class.

As for tracking programs, my high school had four levels: Basic, Regular, Honors, and Omni. Omni was actually a trade school program, not part of the regular curriculum; I thought it was a great idea, because a few kids I knew hated school but liked work, so a trade school was perfectly suited to them. One of them "dropped out" just before his Senior year because he'd gotten enough experience through the trade school program that he didn't really need high school anymore--he got a job as a mechanic instead.

[loinburger]

Originally posted by The Vagabond
Robots are built owing to high intelligence levels of the tech elite, not of the population as a whole.

Sure, why would you need proles when you've got robots?