Why are American kids so dumb?

[Darkstar]

Mrs. T, I'm not saying that it doesn't happen at places. But it doesn't happen in the majority of the US. Not unless someone wants to make trouble for you.

So... either you ticked someone off, or you are in an exemplary system. I hope its the later.

However, you did say pre-school. Pre-school, I am told, they pay more attention to the children at that level. That may be because the teachers at that level tend to have an extreme love for their students (a few surveys of teachers have shown preschool teachers tend to prioritize "working with/being around children" over everything else, including money, challenge, satisfication, AIR).

While I was a child in the system, I frequently skipped school. I was a chronic at certain phases of my young life. I averaged an 80% absentee rate for several years. But I was never failed, because I was always a top 1% student, often the top of the grade. Each school I was in, wanted me to stay on the rolls, because I tested out so high and that more then made up the money they lost on me being out past the mandatory fail line on my testing results. No system ever sent around anyone, and never summoned my parents to court about the matter. Only one system even bothered to phone when I was out to see if I was out for the full day, or just a half day.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Mrs. Tuberski

Oh come on Does everybody here forget they were in school at one time. The classes are not be taught at the slowest level. The slowest kids fail and have to repeat the class if they fail for chirss sake. The smart ones move on. Dumber kids dont slow the class down.

In my experience, schools are hesitant to hold back students even when they should out off fear that doing so will offend the kid's parents, they don't want to get parents angry by "implying" thier kids are dumb. Parents don't like admiting reality when it comes to them having a dumb kid.

[Darkstar]

Gatekeeper, is that before or after the curriculum has been gutted by PCness and Green Proproganda and whatever else is the fad of the decade?

As for why so many people cannot seperate Science from Religion...
* Some people think Religion is more important. That's like, concerning people's souls, and like, their rewards and punishments (which can be, like, forever man!) in the here or there after. That's more important then some transitory discomfort for a few people. This is like, eternally important matter man!
* Some people don't understand the difference.
-a) Some people treate Science as a religion. That leads others to "respond in kind".
-b) Most people don't really investigate science, and take it on faith. For much of science, even if someone wanted to investigate, they'd have to learn a lot more science, and investigate that (this can be a repeating recursion).

Just another of my wacky opinions.
Please Note: this post has a big, big wink all over it.

[Darkstar]

Odin, that is true. Often, parents cannot see reality (rather then just not want to admit it). Kids are one big walking blind spot.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Ted Striker


You got the whole thinking wrong.

When there is systematic failure, blaming never solves anything

Stop the blame and fix the problem.

It's the system that's messed up

Who runs the system?

[Gatekeeper]

Originally posted by Mrs. Tuberski
Gatekeeper, in texas, thanks to the atheist whowas recently found dead, relegion is not allowed in our public schools any longer. The people are getting all worked up over the pledge of alegince beause gods name is in it.

I think I remember reading about that atheist — wasn't she weird, and not because she was an atheist?

WRT to the Pledge of Allegiance and God, I thought it was a "historical" thing, and had been in there since the pledge was started. Then I learned that it wasn't inserted until the 1950s, as a way of "differentiating" America from the "godless" Communists. So if it's removed from the pledge, I won't particularly care. After all, our forefathers and foremothers were quite patriotic and religious w/o having God in the pledge. They got along fine, and I suspect the majority nowadays would as well. But you can bet your booties that the extreme wings of American society will do their damndest to make life "interesting," so to speak.

Gatekeeper

[Odin]

Originally posted by Darkstar
Gatekeeper, is that before or after the curriculum has been gutted by PCness and Green Proproganda and whatever else is the fad of the decade?

As for why so many people cannot seperate Science from Religion...
* Some people think Religion is more important. That's like, concerning people's souls, and like, their rewards and punishments (which can be, like, forever man!) in the here or there after. That's more important then some transitory discomfort for a few people. This is like, eternally important matter man!
* Some people don't understand the difference.
-a) Some people treate Science as a religion. That leads others to "respond in kind".
-b) Most people don't really investigate science, and take it on faith. For much of science, even if someone wanted to investigate, they'd have to learn a lot more science, and investigate that (this can be a repeating recursion).

Just another of my wacky opinions.
Please Note: this post has a big, big wink all over it.

Yep, school should be about seperating facts from faith. Unfortunately, you try to do that and the voters will kick out the school board and replace it with nuts who think Creationism should be taught in school.

[Darkstar]

I say leave the Pledge as is. I recognize its origin, but there's enough changing everything because 1 person out of 1 million is offended by it. We've moved away from the reasonable citizen test to the most sensitive/most disturbed citizen test.

[Gatekeeper]

Originally posted by Darkstar
Gatekeeper, is that before or after the curriculum has been gutted by PCness and Green Proproganda and whatever else is the fad of the decade?

Fads come and go, which is their very nature. The latest fad, it seems, is to introduce religious elements — Intelligent Design, aka creationism — into public science classes. Hopefully that, too, will go the way of Ebonics.

As for why so many people cannot seperate Science from Religion...
* Some people think Religion is more important. That's like, concerning people's souls, and like, their rewards and punishments (which can be, like, forever man!) in the here or there after. That's more important then some transitory discomfort for a few people. This is like, eternally important matter man!
* Some people don't understand the difference.
-a) Some people treate Science as a religion. That leads others to "respond in kind".
-b) Most people don't really investigate science, and take it on faith. For much of science, even if someone wanted to investigate, they'd have to learn a lot more science, and investigate that (this can be a repeating recursion).

Just another of my wacky opinions.
Please Note: this post has a big, big wink all over it.

In the end, I believe the people of faith and scientists are seeking the same goal, just taking different paths to reach it. On one hand, people of faith don't seek physical proof that what they believe in is true — that is faith in its purest form. On the other hand, there are those who want proof and go out searching for it — that is science in its purest form. Both are one and the same in the end, all that differs is the methadology, so to speak.

Gatekeeper

P.S. Oh, and here's a right back atcha!

[Ted Striker]

Originally posted by notyoueither


Who runs the system?

We all do

thanks

[notyoueither]

How terribly glib. I shouldn't have expected more, but still.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
The school system really has broken down in major ways.

Ask ANY teacher if they would recommend teaching as a profession, and most of them will say no. They work long hours, get crap pay, and the kids have a host of social problems that didn't exist before.

The kids spend most of their day now learning how to take tests instead of learning how to think.

Teacher pay isn't that bad for the quality of the teachers it currently attracts. When I was in college education majors were the stupidest on campus based on their test scores. Most of them have no more reason to complain about compensation than anyone else. However if we do want to attract a better class of person into teaching than we will have to make the profession more competitive in terms of compensation.

Compensation is only one impediment to improving teacher quality though. Licensing is at least as bad. One of my friends desperately wanted to teach. She was brilliant, and had a degree in geology as well as a teaching certificate from Michigan where we went to college. She moved with her husband to Colorado where he was attending law school and couldn't get hired here until she spent another year taking more complete wastes of time also known as education classes. Instead she tutored college students in calculus until she was hired by the University to run one of their computer centers. Another friend (with a PhD in Mathematics) had similar problems, although she eventually was allowed to teach in an inner city school while she worked on her state teaching certificate.

The point is that both of these women wanted to go into teaching in full knowledge of the conditions and pay, even though they could have made much more money doing other things. One was turned away by the system, while the other was forced into a crucible which sees a majority of those who work in it quit the profession. They were both more than qualified, and both had teaching certificates from other states. But the system is designed to protect the jobs of semi-competent union employees rather than to screen new applicants for competence.

As for the social problems, I don't see them as any more challenging than the problems of the past. What has changed is in fact the expectations of what the education system is supposed to accomplish (we aim much higher). At the same time we have diminished the freedom of action that teachers need to even match the levels of achievement seen in the past. So teachers are expected to teach much more material (including a lot of dubious material) to students who they are not allowed to effectively discipline. Add to that the fact that today's teachers (like today's nurses and secretaries) aren't nearly so skilled on average as they were in the past due to the successes of the women's movement in opening up numerous other employment opportunities for women.

I also firmly disagree about the testing issue. We need to test to see where we are, to do otherwise is insane. The testing issue has become a power struggle between the teacher's unions and the republicans, with neither side operating completely in good faith. But I hold that teaching to the test is very desirable if your test is a good one. And there is no reason whatever that a test can't test for a variety of skills (ie testing whether or not the student has actually learned to think) rather than a rote list of unconnected facts.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
Like when 9th grade girls are pretending to be lesbians in order to attract guys! Crazy!!!

Crazy like a couple of foxes.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Comrade Tassadar
The United States has an anti-intellectualist culture and general apathy towards learning. Throwing money at schools and forcing children to "learn" 24/7 wont correct this. As well, the US cirruculum is confused abouit its goals and thus achieves none of them.
US schools are disorderly, as well.

Spot on.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Mrs. Tuberski

Oh come on Does everybody here forget they were in school at one time. The classes are not be taught at the slowest level. The slowest kids fail and have to repeat the class if they fail for chirss sake. The smart ones move on. Dumber kids dont slow the class down.