An 8th Grade Education

[pinksalamander]

BethM wrote:

pamnock wrote:

pinksalamander wrote:

 
But wanted I wanted to say was:

OK fair enough. Even I can name all the US states and I don't even live there!

A really sad reflection on the students of the US

Pam

 

I heard recently that students in the US are 35th in the world at math.  I think that's really sad.  Also that only 52% of kids in Los Angeles graduate high school. 

I will agree that high-level math might not be necessary for, say, an art degree.  But you'd still need an understanding of basic, and some more complicated, concepts.

Are computer courses standard in the UK?  As far as I know, they're more elective here, so many US kids don't have to know how to write html.

Well all schools study ICT. We were all taught very basic HTML. I took ICT at A Level.

By that point about ICT I meant that although my grandparents and parents may have had to learn other things in complex detail, they didn't have to learn complicated things like HTML and binary code. I would say learning and understanding the basics of a lot of modern things is a lot more difficult than learning general high school maths or science. I mean even science has progressed an awful lot since my parents did it, and we are studying completely different things that seem a lot harder.

I think education and the subjects that are on our curriculum are a lot more complex, and although there are still a lot of 'stupid' people in my generation I think a lot would actually have a higher IQ than their parents. I certainly know from talking to my teachers that I consider them to be of equal knowledge in things as me. OK so my English teacher knows a lot more about English than me, but our knowledge of history, or of maths or of science is pretty much the same. And she is 20 years old than me.

 

[hartleybun]

even this forum is an example of the difference between mine and my childrens generation. if i wanted to find out anything at their age i went to the library and trolled thru piles of books. now, they like me, sit at the computer and google. all from the comfort of the living room.

im sure i thought my mother had it easier than me when she was at school. i know my two think that way.

having said that, a few years ago a teacher told me there was no point struggling to teach my dyslexic son to write as by the time he grows up we will all be using speech recognition computers to do all our paperwork.:banghead

 

[BethM]

pinksalamander wrote:

Well all schools study ICT. We were all taught very basic HTML. I took ICT at A Level.

By that point about ICT I meant that although my grandparents and parents may have had to learn other things in complex detail, they didn't have to learn complicated things like HTML and binary code. I would say learning and understanding the basics of a lot of modern things is a lot more difficult than learning general high school maths or science. I mean even science has progressed an awful lot since my parents did it, and we are studying completely different things that seem a lot harder.

I think education and the subjects that are on our curriculum are a lot more complex, and although there are still a lot of 'stupid' people in my generation I think a lot would actually have a higher IQ than their parents. I certainly know from talking to my teachers that I consider them to be of equal knowledge in things as me. OK so my English teacher knows a lot more about English than me, but our knowledge of history, or of maths or of science is pretty much the same. And she is 20 years old than me.

First, what's "ICT?"

Where I am (Kansas), they don't teach programming or binary at the high school level. (Maybe private schools have it, but not the public ones.) It's not mandatory, anyway. There are so many people who don't have computers at home, I don't think they'd be able to get it on the curriculum without a lot of protest.

Personally, I bet the science our parents studied in school seemed difficult to them, but we've grown up with those "old" concepts, so it's the newer stuff that is difficult to us. I would probably be unfamiliar with some science concepts in textbooks now, just because it's new to me. (Though I do read and listen to a lot of science and technology related things because I find it really interesting, so I manage to keep up a little bit.)

Maybe I failed to articulate my original point, though. There are lots of people in the US that come out of school without basic knowledge. They can work a calculator, but don't understand basic math concepts, or know how to figure out something longhand. They can't do basic things like name all 50 states, or, like Kelly's example, know that the atomic bomb was dropped over Japan.

Schools must be more advanced in the UK than they are here. Arguing UK schools vs. US schools doesn't quite work. We've got the "No Child Left Behind" thing. Schools that don't pass enough student on the standard tests often get their funding cut, so some of the tests have been made easier so more people can pass. I have heard of cases where teachers will change the student's scores and pass someone who didn't know the answers. And since kids only really have to know what's on the tests, some schools don't teach anything beyond what's on the test. These are worst-case scenarios, and there are schools that go above and beyond, but there are also a lot that do the minimum (sometimes that's all they have the money to do).

I didn't actually intend to start an arguement!

 

[pla725]

I'm grading 8th grade math tests for the State of Florida. Without giving away too much, most of the students couldn't even figure out the square footage of a deck and how many gallons of stain the deck needed. To be honest I would have some difficulty with some of the problems on the test.

 

[hartleybun]

BethM wrote:

I didn't actually intend to start an arguement!

education is a real minefield over here:rollseyeswith the same debate about the ability of school leavers. tho' our education secretary (government minister) was in new york recently singing the praises of grading schools. seems that each week there's a 'new' method of teaching. when my daughter started school i , and many other parents, were berated by the reception teacher because our kids could read and write a little. we were told not to teach them to write any further because we were doing it wrong. and could we not teach them to read because the school uses a different method.

aaaaaaaarrrrrgh. luckily they are now in one of the best secondary schools around, even the government inspectors like it enough to recommend other head teachers visit it.

 

[pinksalamander]

I guess it might be different as we have the grammar school system here. So everyone goes to a similar primary school with the same curriculum, but then when you are 11 you take a test called the 11+, if you pass it, you can get into a grammar school where the teaching is (generally) much better and they achieve much higher A Level results and the teaching is generally more academic (a lot of my friends are studying latin, classics, sciences etc at A Level). If you don't pass the 11+ (like me) you go to a secondary school where the teaching is more vocational, although we still achieve good A Level results.

A lot of people don't like the grammar school system because they don't think its fair that some students get a better education than others. To be honest, I don't see a problem with it and I've been through it. My Mum suffered at school because she was borderline, so she managed to pass the test but wasn't really good enough. She ended up going to a very academic school where she was constantly pushed but was just not clever enough and came out with CFF at A Level. However I go to a school where I am in just the right place for my intelligence and am predicted CCC (which for me is pretty good).

The 'no child left behind' sounds like a pretty silly idea. There are people who I went to school with who have definitely been 'left behind' but to be honest they weren't heading anywhere any way (a friend I have in mind achieved two GCSEs before getting pregnant and now works in a factory making shower heads. She was never destined for university).

By the way, I didn't really consider this an argument at all!

And ICT stands for Information Computer Technology.

 

[BethM]

pinksalamander wrote:

I guess it might be different as we have the grammar school system here. So everyone goes to a similar primary school with the same curriculum, but then when you are 11 you take a test called the 11+, if you pass it, you can get into a grammar school where the teaching is (generally) much better and they achieve much higher A Level results and the teaching is generally more academic (a lot of my friends are studying latin, classics, sciences etc at A Level). If you don't pass the 11+ (like me) you go to a secondary school where the teaching is more vocational, although we still achieve good A Level results.

Oh, ok. That sounds like an ok system to me.

Here, if you're in public school, everyone's pretty much the same the whole way through. In high school (age 14-18, approx.) everyone takes the same core classes and then you have to fill the rest of the day with electives. I guess it's ok to give people a choice, but many young people aren't able to make good choices. I knew quite a few people who struggled in college, because they'd used all their electives on "easy" classes. It wasn't that they weren't smart enough, they just didn't have the foundation they needed, and had to catch up. (I also knew people in high school who used their electives taking Advance Placement or classes at university, and they were way ahead of anyone else.)
But each state gets to set it's own standards, so an education in one place might be better or worse than in a different state.

 

[pinksalamander]

We do 'elective' classes too. From the age of 14-16 you take GCSEs which are two year courses. You have to take the basics (english, maths, all sciences, religious education, ICT, PE) but then you choose 4 other subjects you would like to take and drop the rest (I took Product Design, Geography, Spanish and Drama, dropped stuff like history and French etc). Then at A Level (which is another 2 year course) you take 4 subjects, and drop one in the first year so at the end of school you end up with three A Levels and 1 AS level (the one you dropped, worth half).

 

[pamnock]

pinksalamander wrote:

The 'no child left behind' sounds like a pretty silly idea. There are people who I went to school with who have definitely been 'left behind' but to be honest they weren't heading anywhere any way (a friend I have in mind achieved two GCSEs before getting pregnant and now works in a factory making shower heads. She was never destined for university).

It's true that there are many who simply aren't destined for college (my middle son is one of those). Very intelligent, but prefers working with his hands over sitting in class.

Pam

 

[Elf Mommy]

I think my biggest problem with the American education system right now is its way of pigeonholing students into one way of learning. We hear about some great way of teaching in New Zealand or Japan and so the State or District decides that is the ONLY way to learn. They force all teachers to teach that way for a few years, only to find the next BEST thing and tell us all now that's the only way kids learn. Because they only want you to use that ONE method, they take away all of your materials to teach any other way. They tell you the last method they thought was God's Gift to Teaching is now baaaaaaaad! baaaaaaaaaaad! Don't do that anymore!

sigh

When I left college, one of the things they made us do was develop our own philosophy of teaching. My philosophy is that all children are different. They are going to require different methods of obtaining information as well as different methods of discipline. Look at children as individuals and cater to what each one needs to learn at the best of his or her ability.

Our country can't wrap its head around that.

 

[hartleybun]

:yeahthat:you are sooooo right:biggrin2:eloquently put:biggrin2: