# Our Educational System-Science



## Janderso (Apr 13, 2021)

I am amazed at the amount of people who don't know 4th grade science.
I'm a Youtube surfer. I have many interests that can usually be in two or three categories,
History, anything mechanical and science and wonder.

Jay Leno went to a popular tourist area in Los Angeles. This was back when he had his show. California had just come in last place for testing results.

The questions went like this,
What is the boiling point of water at sea level?
What holds the planets in place in our galaxy?
What is the speed of light?
What covers 2/3 of earths surface?
What is the largest organ on the human body?

I can proudly say I knew all the answers to these questions except the largest organ.

I then asked some of the employees here at work. The techs and the parts guys knew most of the answers. The sales staff did not do well.
Then I asked myself why. Why do I know these answers and others do not?
Is it because I had a better education in elementary school? is it because I've always been in awe over science and space?
My adult sons did not do well, I'm embarrassed to say. My wife knew one of the answers??

I have a hunch many of you know these answers too.


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## Peyton Price 17 (Apr 13, 2021)

Janderso said:


> I am amazed at the amount of people who don't know 4th grade science.
> I'm a Youtube surfer. I have many interests that can usually be in two or three categories,
> History, anything mechanical and science and wonder.
> 
> ...


I learned none of those at school. I'm in 7th grade. all from books, I read about science. I was taught 5 ways to multiply on paper!!! why??? I was told paper doesn't have a thickness so I measured it  0.0033 of an inch thick. my teacher agreed with me but not the test.


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## DavidR8 (Apr 13, 2021)

I think some people are predisposed to be curious Jeff. Whether that be about the world around them or some subject in particular. 
I've been a self-proclaimed nerd since I was in elementary school and read the Encyclopedia Britannica from A-Z. I'm still an information sponge.
Others I've known are not the same way, and are reluctant learners.


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## Peyton Price 17 (Apr 13, 2021)

DavidR8 said:


> I think some people are predisposed to be curious Jeff. Whether that be about the world around them or some subject in particular.
> I've been a self-proclaimed nerd since I was in elementary school and read the Encyclopedia Britannica from A-Z. I'm still an information sponge.
> Others I've known are not the same way, and are reluctant learners.


people called me a, know it all so I learned to keep my mouth shut in school. the best response it said was,¨i wanted to see what would happen if I did the complete opposite of you¨. Harold from the red-green show taught me that one. they stopped talking about me. guess I am a nerd then. just like harold


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## savarin (Apr 13, 2021)

Some people love learning, many do not.
Some people question things, many just want to blindly accept anything they are told.
some people believe they know everything and refuse to accept they dont, some people know how little they actually know and are always trying to learn more.
Politicians fall into that previous category and thus suffer from the Dunning Kruger effect.
Nerd is a term applied to intelligent people by dumb asses and therefore holds no derogatory connotations.


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## Janderso (Apr 13, 2021)

Savarin,
You did a wonderful job of simplifying a potentially complicated subject 
David, I agree 100%
Peyton, you are a marvel to me sir.


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## Peyton Price 17 (Apr 13, 2021)

savarin said:


> Some people love learning, many do not.
> Some people question things, many just want to blindly accept anything they are told.
> some people believe they know everything and refuse to accept they dont, some people know how little they actually know and are always trying to learn more.
> Politicians fall into that previous category and thus suffer from the Dunning Kruger effect.
> Nerd is a term applied to intelligent people by dumb asses and therefore holds no derogatory connotations.


I had to argue with substitute teachers so they wouldn't say wrong facts. they looked in the textbook and I was right. then she tried to say that you can compress water by squeezing a water bottle. I proved them wrong and then they said nuclear fission doesn't happen on earth. fun fact it does in the earth's core and one place in Africa. don't take it that I'm bragging but most teachers are right.


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## Janderso (Apr 13, 2021)

In defense of the California school system, I feel as though my education in the sixties and early 70's was pretty darn good for public schools.
Somewhere along the line it started to falter.
My wife was a teacher in California until her retirement a few years ago. According to her, border states suffered low test results partially due to a language barrier. I won't get into the political side of the subject 
My boys both agreed, Dad, you are just strange. My oldest said, school wasn't exactly a place I paid much attention. He's the one that made $194,000 last year.


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## Superburban (Apr 13, 2021)

I think the internet has made us smarter, and others dumber.  I never realized how many folks out there believe is such crazy ideas until recently. Whole crowds that think the earth is flat, gravity is fake, Covid is fake, And so on. I know I have garnered a lot from my readings, Youtube, and forums like this. But like life in general, one needs to take it all with a bit if skepticism until they can decide what is right and what is wrong.


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## Peyton Price 17 (Apr 13, 2021)

half my class dropped out of german class due to a bad teacher. due at 1:45 pm. 7 days I was sick or at doctors or dentist. my grade was a 25 for missing 7 assignments. now she failed the whole class.


Janderso said:


> In defense of the California school system, I feel as though my education in the sixties and early 70's was pretty darn good for public schools.
> Somewhere along the line it started to falter.
> My wife was a teacher in California until her retirement a few years ago. According to her, border states suffered low test results partially due to a language barrier. I won't get into the political side of the subject
> My boys both agreed, Dad, you are just strange. My oldest said, school wasn't exactly a place I paid much attention. He's the one that made $194,000 last year.


I got a 97% on the state test in 3rd grade and my friends got a 99% and a 95%. we messed around in that class because we knew all of it. pay attention for 1 day and know everything for the week. now they go over everything in 10 minutes. I know a school where a kid spoke a different langue and gave her an 85% because no one could understand what she was saying.


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## Superburban (Apr 13, 2021)

Janderso said:


> In defense of the California school system, I feel as though my education in the sixties and early 70's was pretty darn good for public schools.
> Somewhere along the line it started to falter.
> My wife was a teacher in California until her retirement a few years ago. According to her, border states suffered low test results partially due to a language barrier. I won't get into the political side of the subject
> My boys both agreed, Dad, you are just strange. My oldest said, school wasn't exactly a place I paid much attention. He's the one that made $194,000 last year.


My Son went to grade school in Pa, back in the 90's. I was shocked to learn that their kindergarten, had kids that could not speak English. There was about five kids that had adult translators, translating what the teacher said for the kids. How can anybody learn like that?



Richard King 2 said:


> Well by the end of our vacation she had her tables memorized.


To my amazement, that is something they do not teach any more. Worse yet, they teach estimation, even when the kid knows the answer, they have to estimate the wrong answer. You teach your kid things to help them out, and it ends up hruting them.


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## Richard King 2 (Apr 13, 2021)

OH and my daughter came home with weekend home-work. I said on Sunday, do you have your home-work finished?  She said "Dad I can turn it in on Wednesday and get 1/2 credit...!!!!!!!!!!!!!    I said get your butt into your room and finish it NOW!!   God, try that with your boss at work. They are dumbing down our kids....   If you can home school or send your kids to a private school. You better.


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## Peyton Price 17 (Apr 13, 2021)

stay within the rules please. some are on the outlines.


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## MrWhoopee (Apr 13, 2021)

Peyton Price 17 said:


> people called me a, know it all so I learned to keep my mouth shut in school. the best response it said was,¨i wanted to see what would happen if I did the complete opposite of you¨. Harold from the red-green show taught me that one. they stopped talking about me. guess I am a nerd then. just like harold


My screen name (and avatar) are that of a know-it-all knowledgeable person from a long forgotten cartoon. I was given the name by a friend back in the 70s because there was no Google (or internet) and I was only too happy to answer his questions and explain how things work. I haven't changed much.

It truly does relate to curiosity and the ability to retain information (both useful and useless).
I'm still curious, but the retention is beginning to slip, so now I just make sh*t up.


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## MrWhoopee (Apr 13, 2021)

Peyton Price 17 said:


> stay within the rules please. some are on the outlines.


Are you sure you're only in 7th grade?


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## savarin (Apr 13, 2021)

This will sound big headed but is true.
When I went to catering college (1966) there was a basic science subject.
I went to the first class to get my name on the books and that was all.
I turned up for the exam and after asking who I was the teacher let me take the test.
In 5 mins I got up and handed the paper back whereupon he said "I didnt think you could do it"
I said "No, I've answered all the questions"
He looked at them and said "Okay, now I know why you never came to class" and passed me.
It really was basic general science knowledge but half the class failed.
Towards the end of my teaching career a student had to attend 80% of all classes (not just the practical classes) and pass the exam to be given a pass irrespective of a score of 100% in the test which if the test is a valid test should be sufficient.
Our education system is being dumbed down, there are no full time teachers left in my old department, they only employ part time staff now who have no teaching qualifications and very little real world practical experience.
I find it very dissapointing.


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## Peyton Price 17 (Apr 13, 2021)

MrWhoopee said:


> Are you sure you're only in 7th grade?


according to dave the tolerance is half a brooms stick and they have big brooms, so it is easy to tell what is on the border of the rules. yes, I'm in 7th grade for now. soon will be 8th. cant go to tech school until 10th grade and you use manual machines in 11th and CNC in 12th.


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## Janderso (Apr 13, 2021)

Peyton Price 17 said:


> stay within the rules please. some are on the outlines.


The lines are gray to me


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## FOMOGO (Apr 13, 2021)

Ignorant you can work with, stupid, not so much, and possibly the worst willfully ignorant. Mike


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## Peyton Price 17 (Apr 13, 2021)

FOMOGO said:


> Ignorant you can work with, stupid, not so much, and possibly the worst willfully ignorant. Mike


I know people who are like that. hard to work within groups with them. just let them copy off of my paper so they would stop begging me for answers, this was for the speed of steel vs acrilic ball rolling.


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## Janderso (Apr 13, 2021)

Peyton Price 17 said:


> speed of steel vs glass ball rolling.


Tell me about it, no seriously.


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## Peyton Price 17 (Apr 13, 2021)

Janderso said:


> Tell me about it, no seriously.


steel was faster and went for longer it hit a wood door and was loud.. sorry I mean acrylic, not glass.


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## Aukai (Apr 13, 2021)

If they would make sure students can read, AND comprehend, the rest would fall inline on it's own. Teachers send students home for the parents to continue teaching, Now with families having both parents working, or the parents not able to teach because of their education level, the ignorance is perpetuated. Just my feeling, I was a very poor student with professional student parents both had multiple Masters. I read my way to where I am, not far, but I got somewhere


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## Peyton Price 17 (Apr 13, 2021)

Aukai said:


> If they would make sure students can read, AND comprehend, the rest would fall inline on it's own. Teachers send students home for the parents to continue teaching, Now with families having both parents working, or the parents not able to teach because of their education level, the ignorance is perpetuated. Just my feeling, I was a very poor student with professional student parents both had multiple Masters. I read my way to where I am, not far, but I got somewhere


I saw a book about machine shop class for 5th grade. first in it was to single-point thread a bold and nut! that would end with broken machines and tools even in 8th grade. someone pushed a kid down the stairs for walking slow. they started pushing me in the hallways so I stood still at the stairs and that stopped pushing people because I would let them go if they stopped pushing me.


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## Braeden P (Apr 13, 2021)

I do feel that schools are not teaching important stuff anymore they don't teach you how to use a credit card and in exploring tec all we do is typing and we did the same lessons on typing every year and Richard most people do the same now turn it in later get a lower grade I turn mine in as soon as I can but for science turn it in late no points taken off and most stuff is 5 points if you do the work and are 50%  correct you get full points you can delete half the stuff and you will get full points! what happened


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## KevinM (Apr 13, 2021)

It's telling that the word "book" shows up often in this thread.


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## Aukai (Apr 13, 2021)

Bullying has gotten out of hand, and parents who fight the teachers for reprimanding the student, where did that come from? Not from my childhood.....


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## Braeden P (Apr 13, 2021)

my school says if you are being bullied ask them to be your friend my dad says punch them in the face one way stops it guess which one


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## Aukai (Apr 13, 2021)

LOL I got in 1 fight in high school, I would not say I won, but I did knock him on his a$$ one time, and never had an issue after that.


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## Aaron_W (Apr 13, 2021)

DavidR8 said:


> I think some people are predisposed to be curious Jeff. Whether that be about the world around them or some subject in particular.
> I've been a self-proclaimed nerd since I was in elementary school and read the Encyclopedia Britannica from A-Z. I'm still an information sponge.
> Others I've known are not the same way, and are reluctant learners.



Agree, some people just don't care. You see this in all fields as well, not just science. I've chatted with other firefighters, you ask some about the engine they are on and all they know is it is red, others know it is a 1998 Pierce Arrow with a Cummins L10 engine, 1500gpm 2 stage Hale pump and a 600 gallon tank. 

Some people just don't care to know anything more than they have to. I do not fall into that category often learning esoteric details just because I find them interesting.

I was one of those kids who scored well above my grade level on school tests, but got terrible grades. I scored 12/9 (12th grade, 9 months aka high school graduate) for reading comprehension and vocabulary in the 5th grade. I was bored out of my skull in most of my classes other than science and history. I love learning but hated school until I got into college.



Superburban said:


> My Son went to grade school in Pa, back in the 90's. I was shocked to learn that their kindergarten, had kids that could not speak English. There was about five kids that had adult translators, translating what the teacher said for the kids. How can anybody learn like that?
> 
> 
> To my amazement, that is something they do not teach any more. Worse yet, they teach estimation, even when the kid knows the answer, they have to estimate the wrong answer. You teach your kid things to help them out, and it ends up hruting them.



Estimation is a useful skill, but as with most things context matters. Schools are often terrible about explaining the how but not the why it is important which becomes confusing. They teach exact calculations and estimation but probably give little instruction on when it is appropriate to use them.

I hated math until the 8th grade, it made no sense to me and had little useful purpose. My 8th grade math teacher Mr Plash, offered to let kids come in at lunch to work on their particular issues in math. In just a few days math started to make sense because in these less formal lunch sessions he could get away from the official curriculum and focus not just how, but why what we were learning mattered. He helped us see how we would use math in our lives beyond counting how many cookies we had. Showing things like the difference between buying a car with cash or a low interest loan vs a high interest credit card (8th graders are old enough to care about money) or how being able to figure out the volume of an area so you know how much concrete to buy for a patio. Real world problems we could care about instead of just being theory.

He also used these sessions it as a way to impart useful life skills related to math like showing how much buying something on a credit card without paying it off quickly really costs, and how to write a check and maintain a budget by showing how fees add up, if you don't track your budget well. Important stuff school never formally taught me.

Just for context I graduated high school in 1986.



MrWhoopee said:


> My screen name (and avatar) are that of a know-it-all knowledgeable person from a long forgotten cartoon. I was given the name by a friend back in the 70s because there was no Google (or internet) and I was only too happy to answer his questions and explain how things work. I haven't changed much.
> 
> It truly does relate to curiosity and the ability to retain information (both useful and useless).
> I'm still curious, but the retention is beginning to slip, so now I just make sh*t up.



Now where did I leave my 3 dimensional blackboard.    



Janderso said:


> In defense of the California school system, I feel as though my education in the sixties and early 70's was pretty darn good for public schools.
> Somewhere along the line it started to falter.
> My wife was a teacher in California until her retirement a few years ago. According to her, border states suffered low test results partially due to a language barrier. I won't get into the political side of the subject
> My boys both agreed, Dad, you are just strange. My oldest said, school wasn't exactly a place I paid much attention. He's the one that made $194,000 last year.



School testing is pretty awful, and does a poor job of factoring in the conditions surrounding the school. It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to understand a school with a large population of students whose primary language is not English, schools with a large number of low income students etc are not going to perform as well as schools in high income areas, yet the powers that be always seem shocked when the tests reveal problems in problem areas.


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## jbolt (Apr 13, 2021)

What is the boiling point of water at sea level? To make coffee.
What holds the planets in place in our galaxy? Planets have orbits so they are not "held" in place. The suns gravity keeps them in orbit.
What is the speed of light? Einstein's Constant
What covers 2/3 of earths surface? Used to be soda pop pull tabs, then cigarette buts, now its plastic.
What is the largest organ on the human body? eh-hem.....SKIN!


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## Larry$ (Apr 13, 2021)

savarin said:


> very little real world practical experience.


About 100 years ago when I was in high school, they changed the rules on who could teach. The only shop class I took was electronics. The teacher had been a tech and was excellent. It was his last year of teaching because he didn't have a teaching certificate from a university. 

When I was in college I had a math minor, just for fun. Several people wanted me to help them with their only required (to get a teaching certificate) math class. Many sessions later I had managed to get them through it. They had to know how to figure average, median, and draw a bell curve. That's it! 

My grand kids spend way more time on sports than learning something useful. Yup, I avoided PE as much as possible. Maybe I could have made millions as a basket ball star?


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## mikey (Apr 13, 2021)

I dunno', facts are important but facts can be looked up. I suspect many of us were taught "facts" and failed to remember them for very long unless those facts mattered in our daily lives. What is more disturbing to me is that our young people are not taught to think critically, to ask *why* or *how*, and then figure it out for themselves. 

One of the most intelligent people I have ever known was my Grandmother. She was a 100% Hawaiian woman with a 3rd grade education. She was fluent in both the Hawaiian and English languages, a master Lauhala weaver and was a Kahuna lāʻau lapaʻau (herbal medicine doctor). I lived most of my younger life with her and my grandfather on Maui and we essentially lived off the land and trust me, we lived well! She taught me to always ask myself why things are the way they are and if it wasn't immediately apparent, figure out how that thing worked. In her world, there were no books or computers; she had to figure things out for herself because there was no other choice. I truly wonder how many PhD's could be dropped into the wild and survive, much less thrive as she did.

I clearly remember one day when I sat beside her cleaning some sweet potatoes with a knife. I wasn't paying attention and sliced my index finger down to the bone. She calmly put pressure on it and reached over to grab some leaves from what I thought was a weed that grew all over the place on our property and chewed them, then spit them out onto that cut. Later, she made a poultice from that weed and changed it daily. Within two weeks, that cut was completely healed. No stitches, no infection, no loss of nerve function and no loss of circulation. It was decades later that I learned the "fact" that the nerves and blood supply to the fingers run along the sides of our digits, right where that knife cut, and that such an injury today would require a hand surgeon and antibiotics. 

So yes, facts are important but they are not all important. Of all the many people I know or knew, the one I most admire was my Grandmother. She taught me how to live but more importantly, she taught me how to think.


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## Larry$ (Apr 13, 2021)

mikey said:


> What is more disturbing to me is that our young people are not taught to think critically, to ask *why* or *how*, and then figure it out for themselves.


Sad but true. When asking why, use the Japanese system and ask WHY 5 times. That will likely get you to the root of the question.  
When all else fails, *read* the instructions.


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## jbolt (Apr 13, 2021)

Larry$ said:


> When all else fails, *read* the instructions.


Instruction are for people who don't know what they are doing.


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## vtcnc (Apr 13, 2021)

Larry$ said:


> Sad but true. When asking why, use the Japanese system and ask WHY 5 times. That will likely get you to the root of the question.
> When all else fails, *read* the instructions.


Hi @Larry$, someday, remind me to start a long thread for posterity on sharing my research on how the 5Y system originated from a WWII training program.


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## jbolt (Apr 13, 2021)

What did I learn about the public education system in high school in the late 70' early 80s? The school’s primary mission was keeping warm bodies in chairs (head count for tax dollars) and moving you through the system as expedient as possible regardless of outcome.

My experience:

My freshman year I had Algebra 1. This had been the norm for freshman. The first semester went fine, and I did well. About two weeks into the second semester, I got lost (those darn polynomials) and I waited too long to ask for help. I learn by example and when the homework did not follow the in-class instruction it was game over. I got so far behind my school counselor told me to drop it and take again the next year.

Junior year and Algebra 1 once again. The first semester was a breeze as I had already aced that the previous year. This time I was ready for what was to come. As soon as I started to have trouble I went to the teacher (not the same as the previous year) and asked for help. Her response? If you can’t keep up, you don’t belong in the class. WTH????

Now at the time my father was the dean of the local community college. When I told him about what had happened, he didn’t believe me. Assuring him of the situation he scheduled a meeting with the teacher. He was a professional educator and administrator, so this is his wheelhouse so to speak.

I waited outside while he met with her. I expected to be called in to discuss how I would get help. Instead, my father came out seeming upset and said, “let’s go”. We marched to the principal’s office where my father read him the riot act about how worthless my teacher was, had no business teaching anyone anything and would be pulling me out of her class. Things got heated, and words were exchanged I did not hear very often from him.

That set the tone for the rest of the year. I’m fairly sure the principle put a target on my back as many of my teachers became openly hostile to me the remainder of the year. It got bad enough my father had another “contentious” meeting with the principle and in the end, it was agreed I would transfer to another high school for my junior and senior year. The principle did not want me to leave (lost warm body to collect tax dollars on) but my father prevailed.

At the start of my junior year my new school counselor, thinking I was just a screwup, advised me to take general math as it would satisfy my math requirement to graduate. Fine whatever, I was done with the system at this point.

General math was an eye opener. The first day I was given a work sheet to do in class. On it were four squares divided equally into four connecting squares with some of the areas shaded. The task was to figure what fraction represented the shaded area. It was multiple choice! There was no time limit and students turned them in as they finished and started on the next. I was a bit shocked as this was grade school level math. It took me all of 10 seconds to do the first sheet. I felt so bad for the other students, some of which I knew, who were really struggling.

Two weeks into the class and one day my teacher tells me I cannot be in her class anymore??? The problem was I had finished all the work for the semester and she had nothing else for me to do. Now, by this time Algebra 1 and been broken up into two courses, 1a & 1b, so Algebra 1 over two years. This reaffirmed to me that grade and middle school was no longer preparing students well enough for high school. I was seeing evidence of this in other classes.

My new counselor in his infinite wisdom put me in Algebra 1a, which is the first semester of Algebra 1 over a whole year. I told him I would rather take 1b as I had already taken the equivalent of 1a twice already. The bureaucracy says NO! you must take 1a before 1b! No exceptions! Ugh!

Algebra 1a, Wow, being in a class full of freshmen as a junior. That was fun. The class was taught by the swim coach who I believe was about one chapter ahead of the class. He did figure out quite quickly that I was well versed with the course. So much so I was promoted to teachers aid which meant he spent 10 minutes on the lesson plan and then I was left to answer question while he went and tanned by the pool!

Half of my senior class had to take at least one summer class to have enough credits to get their diploma even though they could participate in the graduation ceremony. Really disappointing. I managed to graduate on time by taking five English classes my senior year.

After high school my girlfriend (now wife) wanted to take some refresher courses over the summer before college started. I took an Algebra 1 class with her just because I wanted to actually finish it. It was a fast paced three-week class, six hours a day at the community college my father worked at. The instructor was amazing. He was one of the best instructors I ever had. He could tell by looking at you if you got it or not and if he sensed you didn’t he would present the material in a different way until you did without ever asking. It was awesome. I liked him so much I signed up for all his summer classes up though calculus.

None of which I can now remember without looking up, except fractions and decimals!


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## savarin (Apr 13, 2021)

Its amazing how much a good teacher can bring out of a student.
I always came bottom of the class in History for the first three years in high school.
For some reason the teacher hated me and I never scored higher than 15% in any history test.
In the 4th year we had a different teacher and wonder of wonders I came second with a 98% score in the first test.
I never dropped below 90% in any history test in that year.
I once had a student who had zero confidence and always put himself down. Over the course of his first year I managed to turn him around to where he succeeded and passed and on graduation his mother hugged me and thanked me for the huge improvement I had made to her son.
I think he had been told his whole school life that he was no good and believed it and it colored his whole behavior.


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## francist (Apr 13, 2021)

savarin said:


> I think he had been told his whole school life that he was no good and believed it and it colored his whole behavior.


That is so true. I had the opportunity once to mentor a friend build a toy tractor for his son. He knew I could build stuff and had a workshop so he asked if I’d help him. Every weekend he’d come over and we’d work away, and then one day I was stunned to find out he’d never been shown how to build anything before. He said his Dad would always take the hammer away and say something like “gimme that, you’re no good doing that and will hurt yourself...” so he never learned. He was in his mid-fifties for crying out loud and had never used a saw before.

I don’t know, I guess I was really lucky growing up. I was good at school but my parents supported me in whatever I wanted to do. Some kids aren’t so fortunate, and I think that’s really sad.

-frank


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## Peyton Price 17 (Apr 14, 2021)

jbolt said:


> What did I learn about the public education system in high school in the late 70' early 80s? The school’s primary mission was keeping warm bodies in chairs (head count for tax dollars) and moving you through the system as expedient as possible regardless of outcome.
> 
> My experience:
> 
> ...


I'm taking pre-algebra in 7th grade, next year I take algebra 1. some kids even make it to calculus in 11th grade!!


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## Braeden P (Apr 14, 2021)

So sounds like my German teacher she would not except any late work even if you are sick and you ask for help and she would yell that you should have kept up and she speaks in mostly German and we only learned 10 words and then she would blame her personal problems on whoever was the first to ask a question so we dropped out a class of 20 now only has 4 people left and my parents went on a zoom call with her to see what was going on and she was giving them attitude when they would ask a question so as soon as they got off that call they called  the principal and we dropped out but she can’t be fired because of teacher union and the highest grade in that class right now is a 25% really low.


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## savarin (Apr 14, 2021)

I loved calculus at school and was pretty good. Never used it since so today all I can remember is the name.


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## RJSakowski (Apr 14, 2021)

I am amazed and dismayed at the amount of ignorance that I see today.  Much of it is due to the internet and the ability of Joe Blow to spout out a bunch of misinformation and people to accept that misinformation as fact. 

On the other hand. I am truly amazed at the brilliance that I see in the 12 to 18 year old youngsters who participate in the FIRST robotics teams.  I was asked some time ago by the regional director of the FIRST program to consider becoming a mentor but after attending one of the local sessions, came to the conclusion that there was nothing that I could teach them.  This, considering that I have multiple degrees in math, physics, and chemistry and multiple careers as an analytical chemist, a electronics manufacturer, and in engineering, was a humbling moment.


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## Peyton Price 17 (Apr 14, 2021)

RJSakowski said:


> I am amazed and dismayed at the amount of ignorance that I see today.  Much of it is due to the internet and the ability of Joe Blow to spout out a bunch of misinformation and people to accept that misinformation as fact.
> 
> On the other hand. I am truly amazed at the brilliance that I see in the 12 to 18 year old youngsters who participate in the FIRST robotics teams.  I was asked some time ago by the regional director of the FIRST program to consider becoming a mentor but after attending one of the local sessions, came to the conclusion that there was nothing that I could teach them.  This, considering that I have multiple degrees in math, physics, and chemistry and multiple careers as an analytical chemist, a electronics manufacturer, and in engineering, was a humbling moment.


I was turned down from the team because using an arduino board is not electronics! All they did was make legos with gears to make them walk of a table.


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## RJSakowski (Apr 14, 2021)

Peyton Price 17 said:


> I was turned down from the team because using an arduino board is not electronics! All they did was make legos with gears to make them walk of a table.


That's the FIRST Leggo League.  Intended to get kids interested in STEM.  The FIRST robotics challenge is entirely different.  The teams are given a challenge to design, build, and compete in local, regional, national, and international competition, a robot capable of perfo4rming a specified set of tasks.  The tasks are announced and a budget is allocated some 6 weeks prior to competition.  These grade 9-12 students, working on their robots after normal school activities and on weekends, will complete their robots in that six wee time frame.  

The local team that I visited had a full machine shop, including a Tormach CNC at their disposal.  They were designing in SolidWorks and creating their G code, as well as designing their own electronics and writing complex code for controlling their robots.  In addition, they had an administrative group managing the budget and human and material resources.

At the competition sites, they had an engineering pit where on the spot tweeks and repairs were carried out.  As the competition progressed, they would make design improvements.

I have worked for a number of  companies, including one Fortune 500 Silicon Valley company and I would defy any of them to design a  new product from concept to finish in six months, let alone six weeks.


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## gr8legs (Apr 14, 2021)

I was blessed to grow up in a smaller school system (about 600 kids in grades 9-12) and graduated high school in 1966.

That puts me in grade school about the time Sputnik went up and everybody in the US was hogwild for science and math education.  I soaked up information like a sponge.

The high school didn't exactly know how to deal with a student like me so they left me alone to learn at my own pace, and I could 'float' from class to class without much on the way of 'Imperial Entanglements'.  I did, however, need to clock the minimum hours to graduate from high school so I took correspondence courses on school time and even 'student taught' for a science class that the actual teacher was the basketball coach and didn't much care for science. 

I also ran the AV department, did game performance statistics for the athletic program and generally tried to be 'me'. 

Nowadays it seem that schools 'teach to the test' and the best and brightest (both students and teachers) get pounded down to the least common denominator. Nobody can go any faster than the slowest kid in the class; excellence is discouraged.

~ Sigh ~

Would that it were otherwise. 

Stu

“There's no doubt who was a leader in space after the Apollo Program. Nobody came close to us. And our education system, in science, technology, engineering, and math, was at the top of the world. It's no longer there. We're descending rather rapidly." -- Buzz Aldrin, former NASA astronaut and second person to walk on the moon


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## jbolt (Apr 14, 2021)

RJSakowski said:


> I am amazed and dismayed at the amount of ignorance that I see today.  Much of it is due to the internet and the ability of Joe Blow to spout out a bunch of misinformation and people to accept that misinformation as fact.
> 
> On the other hand. I am truly amazed at the brilliance that I see in the 12 to 18 year old youngsters who participate in the FIRST robotics teams.  I was asked some time ago by the regional director of the FIRST program to consider becoming a mentor but after attending one of the local sessions, came to the conclusion that there was nothing that I could teach them.  This, considering that I have multiple degrees in math, physics, and chemistry and multiple careers as an analytical chemist, a electronics manufacturer, and in engineering, was a humbling moment.


FIRST Robotics is one of the most amazing programs I have ever had the pleasure to be a part of. FIRST is a cooperation of students and mentors working side by side, not a teacher student program. A really solid program.

I am not college educated but have a lifetime of real world practical mechanical and fabrication experience that many of the mentors didn't have so I filled a niche that others did not. Many of the students had never used hand tools before. I did always feel intimidated by the math and engineering abilities of some of the young mentors and students but took great pleasure during the design and manufacturing to be consulted on how to approach or make something and then work with them to think it through and implement. 

The most rewarding thing for me was training students to use the lathe. With such a limited amount of time for training I taught them how to make the parts the team typically made. Some students were naturals and other struggled but always succeeded with some encouragement. 

Completions are great fun to watch and participate in. I would encourage anyone who has the opportunity to be a part of it to do so.


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## Larry$ (Apr 14, 2021)

gr8legs said:


> the actual teacher was the basketball coach and didn't much care for science.


I had a teacher that wanted to be the football coach, end up civics teacher. He was so bored in class that he put himself to sleep, multiple times. I played chess with a friend in the back row. At least the chess games were interesting.


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## Lo-Fi (Apr 14, 2021)

gr8legs said:


> Nowadays it seem that schools 'teach to the test' and the best and brightest (both students and teachers) get pounded down to the least common denominator. Nobody can go any faster than the slowest kid in the class; excellence is discouraged.



I was almost a victim of this myself and had the same experience. I narrowly dodged falling into a pit of despair by refusing to go to secondary (high) school for a term and a half and doing what pleased me at home. I went back for exams and passed with some of the better grades in my year. I went to college after, absorbed what I wanted from my science, maths and electronics classes and didn't bother to turn up to the exams, which to this day I do not regret.

I owe a lot to my own curiousity and to people who were kind enough to lend me their time and benefit from their knowledge. Some of those were science/tech teachers who happily taught what I wanted to learn, which, of course, was outside syllabus. If we'd had the internet as we know it now 20 years ago, I'd have skipped college altogether.


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## Aukai (Apr 14, 2021)

My stepson who is now 40, and a PhD Mechanical Engineer in Mountain view CA wanted to get out of his advanced classes in his Junior year to be with his slower(normal ed) friends. I took him for a man to man talk, and told him if you do that, you will end up working at Mc Donald's after graduation, and be stuck here with us. As I'm writing this, I'm not sure which part of that scared him. But it worked.....


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## pdentrem (Apr 14, 2021)

Our young engineer at work, is a member of First Robotics team, as a mentor at the university. The kids are smart!
When I went to university, the stats prof was the worst. We all failed the mid term except for one guy, he got 100%! In the end I passed to course, not due to his teaching but street smarts. The last 2 weeks he was going through previous years exam questions and being open book final, I wrote them all down as examples to draw from. When we sat for the final, the questions were the ones he had shown in class! Should of heard the chatter as the others figured out what was going down. For me, the 3 hour exam was 20 minutes of transcribing and out the door, to never look back. 
My favorite class was Production Management. All case studies and with an industry experienced prof. The class was all Q&A and the easiest 25% of the final mark was to either ask or answer a question in class. How easy was that! Some had 0 by the end of the year. Only 3 of us had the full 25% and we sat in the back!
Teacher can make or break kids, but the system can destroy all if allowed to. Unfortunately most parents are not active at the local level and it is their kids lost and the future of their society. Social media had a chance to improve the world at it beginnings but is now the lowest and worst source of information. We older folks had working libraries and even in some cases home encyclopedias to use to further our education of the real world.
Pierre


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## Aukai (Apr 14, 2021)

The old encyclopedia set, and National Geographic(not for the "native pics") I read through them.


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## Ischgl99 (Apr 14, 2021)

Peyton Price 17 said:


> I'm taking pre-algebra in 7th grade, next year I take algebra 1. some kids even make it to calculus in 11th grade!!


That’s the path both my kids are taking.  My son is in AP Calc as a junior, he is FAR smarter than I was in school!  I was not a good student, but mostly because I was bored to tears in school.  I probably had ADD, but back then nobody knew what that was.  When I was in 6th grade, we had to take a standardized test and I wasn’t in the mood to take the test that day, so I made a pattern of the dots on the math portion instead of answering the questions.  I got placed in remedial math the next year and the teacher realized I was in the wrong class when I was solving problems using methods a couple years more advanced than her class.  That was too late in the year and I couldn’t move to another class, so that put me behind where I should have been.  She was a great teacher and gave me special assignments to help me catch up.


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## vtcnc (Apr 15, 2021)

The skill of learning and instructing is still in its early stages for this civilization. Systematic learning in organizations (if you could call them that depending on the era, demographics, etc.) was the norm globally but only in organizations and institutions that had an interest in investing in that infrastructure: universities, churches, trade guilds, etc. and employed apprenticeship and _some_ documentation. Corporations as we know them today that required large scale coordination beyond the use of forced or indentured labor weren't really a thing until you get to the 16th and 17th century.

It was only less than 150 years ago during the onset of the Industrial Revolution that there was a need for a better educated population. This led to the adoption of generational education. The methods of learning and instruction that worked for centuries in guilds, apprenticeships and through hands-on experience was not really well suited to providing the basics needed by companies, landowners, industrialists, capitalists, etc. that wanted more than a person who could fog a mirror. It's important to note that educational systems are never designed to create the best. They are - by design - _always_ going to produce "average". Yes, you get the people who fall into the tails of distribution - some superstars and some lost souls. But that is statistics.

The mean average can be changed though. It sounds like the sentiment here is that the mean average has lowered over time. That may be true, but I think there is some context to consider and I'm not convinced that it is in fact, true.

IF, the things that were important to people say, 50-500 years ago was to learn something in order to "understand the world we live in", then it may be useful to know how the earth orbits the sun, how that affects our seasons, or weather, our growing cycles, rainfall, dew-points, frost, etc. In other words, it was a matter of survival (not to be overly dramatic) to understand how the world _actually_ works.

Can you say that today? Do you need to know the growing seasons in order to eat? Do you need to know how to braze in order to fix the plow? These are not rhetorical questions in order to make a value judgement about our dissatisfaction with the education system, but our civilization is VERY different today and no longer requires the same knowledge required just a few generations ago. The requirements ARE in fact, different - and this is important - FOR THE MASSES. 

Thankfully, the individual who is curious about the world realizes that he has a choice - be ignorant or learn. This is one of the reasons why this forum exists, even though it has never been stated that way.

In my opinion, rather than blaming others for all of our ills, the matter comes back to the man in the mirror. What is important to us? Why does it matter? Should it matter? The answers to these questions should lead us to better understand the world we live in and make a decision on how we learn and navigate in our world. With that said, we live in a time where nobody can EVER reliably claim ignorance. One who choses the path of ignorance is doomed to be left behind and it is likely their generation will suffer the same fate and so on and so on. And here we find ourselves in 2021.

That is the context of my response when an engineer, one of my sons, my wife, a parent, a friend, or any other person says to me, "I don't know."

My answer: "Google it."


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## stupoty (Apr 15, 2021)

Janderso said:


> I am amazed at the amount of people who don't know 4th grade science.
> I'm a Youtube surfer. I have many interests that can usually be in two or three categories,
> History, anything mechanical and science and wonder.
> 
> ...



Have you seen Mark Dice ask people to name an author(of any book ever) ?

ow dear  .

Stu


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## vtcnc (Apr 15, 2021)

stupoty said:


> Have you seen Mark Dice ask people to name an author(of any book ever) ?
> 
> ow dear  .
> 
> Stu


While the Mark Dice and Jay Leno and many other copycat routines are very entertaining and can make ourselves feel better about our station in life, or, leave us in despair - it is important to remember that these are curated and heavily edited productions to pull out the most entertaining examples, i.e. least informed/educated. The wrong conclusion to draw from these is that literacy is at an all time low. The opposite is true. With that said, there are nearly 1 billion people on the planet who are illiterate and many more who are somewhat literate. That means some of them are amongst us in literate, civilized societies and provides plenty of fodder for entertainment and outrage media.

Sorry, I'm the buzzkill in the room.


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## stupoty (Apr 15, 2021)

vtcnc said:


> While the Mark Dice and Jay Leno and many other copycat routines are very entertaining and can make ourselves feel better about our station in life, or, leave us in despair - it is important to remember that these are curated and heavily edited productions to pull out the most entertaining examples, i.e. least informed/educated. The wrong conclusion to draw from these is that literacy is at an all time low. The opposite is true. With that said, there are nearly 1 billion people on the planet who are illiterate and many more who are somewhat literate. That means some of them are amongst us in literate, civilized societies and provides plenty of fodder for entertainment and outrage media.
> 
> Sorry, I'm the buzzkill in the room.



Well you might think that , I'm sure mr leno has more time to edit and shoot.

From my time at school it was definitely the "what are you doing reading a book"  "whats a book" and that was a while ago now.

Literacy vs being retarded isn't the same thing.






Stu


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## vtcnc (Apr 15, 2021)

stupoty said:


> Well you might think that , I'm sure mr leno has more time to edit and shoot.
> 
> From my time at school it was definitely the "what are you doing reading a book"  "whats a book" and that was a while ago now.
> 
> ...


While I don't disagree with your sentiment expressed here - I choose to try a different approach:
_
"Whenever a person’s lack of shame offends you, you should immediately ask yourself, 'So is it possible for there to be no shameless people in the world?' It isn’t, and you should therefore stop demanding the impossible. He’s just one of those shameless people who must necessarily exist in the world. You should keep the same thought readily available for when you’re faced with devious and untrustworthy people, and people who are flawed in any way. As soon as you remind yourself that it’s impossible for such people not to exist, you’ll be kinder to each and every one of them. It’s also helpful immediately to consider what virtue nature has granted us human beings to deal with any given offense — gentleness, for instance, to counter discourteous people…" 

- Marcus Aurelius_


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## Janderso (Apr 15, 2021)

savarin said:


> Its amazing how much a good teacher can bring out of a student.
> I always came bottom of the class in History for the first three years in high school.
> For some reason the teacher hated me and I never scored higher than 15% in any history test.
> In the 4th year we had a different teacher and wonder of wonders I came second with a 98% score in the first test.
> ...


Sounds like my senior year Government class. I couldn't wait to get to that class = great teacher!


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## Janderso (Apr 15, 2021)

Aukai said:


> The old encyclopedia set, and National Geographic(not for the "native pics") I read through them.


World Book, Yes. I loved those books.


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## Janderso (Apr 15, 2021)

Just for fun, but yeah pretty sad.


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## stupoty (Apr 15, 2021)

vtcnc said:


> While I don't disagree with your sentiment expressed here - I choose to try a different approach:
> 
> _"Whenever a person’s lack of shame offends you, you should immediately ask yourself, 'So is it possible for there to be no shameless people in the world?' It isn’t, and you should therefore stop demanding the impossible. He’s just one of those shameless people who must necessarily exist in the world. You should keep the same thought readily available for when you’re faced with devious and untrustworthy people, and people who are flawed in any way. As soon as you remind yourself that it’s impossible for such people not to exist, you’ll be kinder to each and every one of them. It’s also helpful immediately to consider what virtue nature has granted us human beings to deal with any given offense — gentleness, for instance, to counter discourteous people…"
> 
> - Marcus Aurelius_



Ahh yes but you read the words of a stoic in a book he wrote and were inspired  

Stu

(lighthearted joke intended)


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## Janderso (Apr 15, 2021)

stupoty said:


> Have you seen Mark Dice ask people to name an author(of any book ever) ?
> 
> ow dear  .
> 
> Stu


That is something I have seen I'm afraid.
There is hope, my youngest has a Masters degree in child development. He didn't read a real book until high school.
I think sometimes it just takes an experience or exposure to something the individual has an interest in.


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## stupoty (Apr 15, 2021)

Janderso said:


> That is something I have seen I'm afraid.
> There is hope, my youngest has a Masters degree in child development. He didn't read a real book until high school.
> I think sometimes it just takes an experience or exposure to something the individual has an interest in.



I was chatting to a pal who is a head of faculty at a major uk uni , he was marking, I was asking him and giving some bantz  about the use of gramerly and other AI writing assistants on course work and such.

Yeah it's an interest thing for sure and the amount of media available to people is ever increasing.  Quoting from a video that I worked on related to historic works of art "the average person see's more images in one hour of there day to day life than the average person of the 15th century would see in a lifetime".  

We are all bombarded with so much easy entertainment and synapse pleasuring things that it's easy to not go out looking for something deeper or more meaningful.  (hay look I have watched some episodes of friends myself I'm not judging I'm just saying   )

Stu


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## Lo-Fi (Apr 15, 2021)

Janderso said:


> I think sometimes it just takes an experience or exposure to something the individual has an interest in



Literally this. School wrecked my will to read with dull, dated, uninteresting dross that was below my level, being honest about it. I got seriously ill with flu when I was maybe 9 or 10. Dad rented me a couple of movies, one of which was Asterix in Britain. I loved it. Then I found Dad had the whole collection of comics on the bookshelf and that got me started again. I now have a sizeable Sci-Fi hardback collection and technical library. 

A few years later at secondary school I got into wargaming with one of my mates who was heavily dyslexic. Such was his desire and enthusiasm to read Games Worshop magazine's and rulebooks, his reading level shot up so fast I believe they didn't even class him as dyslexic enough to need special help by the time we left school. His mum was ecstatic that he'd found something that interested him enough to kick-start his reading and the rest followed. 

Doesn't take much.


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## Aaron_W (Apr 15, 2021)

pdentrem said:


> Social media had a chance to improve the world at it beginnings but is now the lowest and worst source of information. We older folks had working libraries and even in some cases home encyclopedias to use to further our education of the real world.
> Pierre



Social media has made the development of critical thinking skills so important. With social media we now have the issue of people putting claims that Politician X is secretly an alien lizardman from Antares on the same level as man crashes his car into a lamp post. One of these is plausible, the other...



Lo-Fi said:


> Literally this. School wrecked my will to read with dull, dated, uninteresting dross that was below my level, being honest about it. I got seriously ill with flu when I was maybe 9 or 10. Dad rented me a couple of movies, one of which was Asterix in Britain. I loved it. Then I found Dad had the whole collection of comics on the bookshelf and that got me started again. I now have a sizeable Sci-Fi hardback collection and technical library.
> 
> A few years later at secondary school I got into wargaming with one of my mates who was heavily dyslexic. Such was his desire and enthusiasm to read Games Worshop magazine's and rulebooks, his reading level shot up so fast I believe they didn't even class him as dyslexic enough to need special help by the time we left school. His mum was ecstatic that he'd found something that interested him enough to kick-start his reading and the rest followed.
> 
> Doesn't take much.



My wife had a similar issue, it was actually painful for her to read in the beginning so by middle school she could barely read, it was only when she found some fantasy books (the Xanth series) that she really enjoyed that she was able to push through that and learned to read. As an adult she reads a lot.


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## Janderso (Apr 15, 2021)

Aaron,
Good point. My brother will tell me politician X did this and so and so did that.
I'm alarmed so I check it out. Come to find out there is no truth to his news.
I just grin and move on.
I say, Rick, you are 66, why do you want to go through life angry. Turn off the TV.


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## KevinM (Apr 15, 2021)

Janderso said:


> Aaron,
> Good point. My brother will tell me politician X did this and so and so did that.
> I'm alarmed so I check it out. Come to find out there is no truth to his news.
> I just grin and move on.
> I say, Rick, you are 66, why do you want to go through life angry. Turn off the TV.




The best decision that I ever made was when I stopped viewing/listening/reading the sensationalized (fake??) news.  My blood pressure is down, I feel much more relaxed and have a better outlook on life.


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## Aukai (Apr 15, 2021)

Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley, and David Brinkley are rolling in their graves with what has happened to the news providers. This could go off the deep end, so just nod in agreement.


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## Winegrower (Apr 15, 2021)

Not to be rude, but you only have to read through this thread and similar to get a feeling for education levels.   Punctuation, spelling, paragraphs, even periods, wow.


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## kb58 (Apr 15, 2021)

Well, any rant has to be tempered by the fact that anyone can "prove" anything they want by cherry picking the data. I'd bet money that Leno (and anyone else setting out to make people look silly), edit out most, if not all the intelligent replies. I mean, who wants to hear smart people talk, where's the 3rd-grade level of entertainment in that? Yes, we're becoming more dumb, yes, science seems to be taking a back seat to loudmouthed people making absurd claims. Lately, society seems to have equated thinking that if something can't easily be disproven, it means that not only _could _it be true, but that it _is _true. That last bit of "logic" is just astounding. A pastor asks everyone who's had their prayer answered to stand up, and one person out of 300 does. He then says, "There's your proof that prayer works." It's not that it's said, it's that people just accept it as fact without critical thinking. And now I'm ranting... Anyway, I still don't think it's quite as bad as shows/media make it out to be.

A big first step for everyone would be to unsubscribe from Facebook and Twitter.


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## Larry$ (Apr 15, 2021)

From my experience trying to educate employees: I could help them learn but if the desire to learn wasn't there ................... 
Google is great, If there is desire. With out the desire to learn all the books, teachers, Googles on earth can't help. Schools should try to encourage the desire, memorizing something is a total waste if the reason isn't understood. No curiosity? Unlikely to learn.


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## vtcnc (Apr 16, 2021)

There is an old saying, “if the person hasn’t learned, the instructor hasn’t taught.”


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Janderso (Apr 16, 2021)

I just remembered a great program we had in the 5th grade. This would have been 1965/66.
It was the President's Council on Physical Fitness. I think it was initiated by the Kennedy administration.
We jogged around the campus to earn points during recess. We did push ups and sit ups, broad jump etc.
Most of the kids participated. I don't remember what we did with the points.
I can't see anything like that happening today. Kids are so out of shape-No P.E.
I am proud to say, my son takes his 7th and 8th grade students out to Bidwell Park on Fridays to play soccer.
The kids love it and it's the only exercise they get all week in many cases.
My wife tags along to watch our grandson play with the big kids


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## cathead (Apr 16, 2021)

Yes, and the proponderance of bad spellors if fenomenal.


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## rabler (Apr 16, 2021)

I taught project classes.  I liked to ask the students  "How many of you think your boss will ask you to solve a problem that he already has the answer to".  That usually got their attention.  Student skills are all over the place, our education system encourages a mass-production style approach leaning toward teaching the least-common denominator in rote skills. 

One colleague said  "1/3 of these students would succeed if we didnt' teach anything.  1/3 won't no matter how you try.  Focus on the middle 1/3."


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## Larry$ (Apr 16, 2021)

Step one: motivate, 2. Direct the learning path. 3 Realize you can't *teach* you can only help them learn. If there is no motivation there will be very little learning. Much better would be to get  them to be able to see the problem that needs solving. Analyze - Why, 5 times and understand that there is always more than one cause. I've seen too much of the "teaching" answers w/o teaching how to get there, thinking.


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## Bi11Hudson (Apr 16, 2021)

I saw this when there were only a couple of comments, when it was first posted. I desperately want to comment, but most anything I have to say will involve politics or religion. Both of which are "forbidden".

.


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## savarin (Apr 16, 2021)

vtcnc said:


> There is an old saying, “if the person hasn’t learned, the instructor hasn’t taught.”
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Just like the old adage "Those who cant, teach"
Both are rubbish and mean diddly squat.
But! Like every segment of society you can find a tiny percentage who will fit even the most outrageous statement.


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## FOMOGO (Apr 16, 2021)

The main issue with are educational system, is that the last thing our politicians on both sides want is an educated electorate, and this is why education is never properly funded, or designed to impart useful knowledge, and truth. Just my .0002 cents. Mike


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## Janderso (Apr 17, 2021)

Aukai said:


> Walter Cronkite, Chet Huntley, and David Brinkley are rolling in their graves with what has happened to the news providers. This could go off the deep end, so just nod in agreement.


I was watching an archived Firing Line, with William F Buckley Jr., he was interviewing Woodward and Bernstein about their book, All the President’s Men. (I subscribe to Firing Line, good stuff).
Those of you old enough to remember the Watergate break in will get this.
Woodward and Bernstein were reporters who worked for the Washington Post, at that time, the paper would not print a story unless there were two corroborated accounts. 
Yes, Cronkite and the gang, would turn over in their graves if they saw where their once honored profession has gone.


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## derf (Apr 17, 2021)

savarin said:


> Just like the old adage "Those who cant, teach"


I always thought it went like this: Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. Those who can't teach, teach phys ed.


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