American Educational System Equals Fail

ice2505 • 9 June 2012 at 3:54 PM

@siri

ikr...

zafeyry • 9 June 2012 at 8:45 PM

@siri
With the language I take, Spanish, I feel like I learned a lot in the past year so I guess we have different opinions about this. There are also low expectations in American schools because education isn't valued that much here. Some people in my grade (7th) still count on their fingers. It's sick.

Deleted • 9 June 2012 at 8:45 PM

@siri //Pokes Finland

zafeyry • 9 June 2012 at 8:47 PM

I think we should be grateful that we can attend school.

vampire666 • 9 June 2012 at 8:47 PM

@siri - Well, I agree with that. Three and a half years of Spanish in school and I still can't speak or listen to Spanish and understand. I don't feel quite so stupid anymore. 😋

icymuffin • 9 June 2012 at 9:14 PM

@zafeyry

But with that kind of mentality, problems will never solved. They'll just sit there and get worse and worse.

I AM thankful for the free education I've been given since I was a child and not get pulled out like in other nations before I completed elementrary school because I am a female & needed at home.
But I DON'T appreciate people taking away from my education because the previous generations' problems are now in our hands. Problems I can't fix because those same people take money from my education, say that I'm "just some stupid child who is unqualified & needs a better education," and because a screwed up system of education is standing in my way.
I think that goes for the whole lot of us.


[ Though the main idea of the first post is mainly for a certain class, I think it applies to the educational system as a whole. The idea of a letter grade makes us focus on "achieving" rather than learning... but I digress. ]

Deleted • 10 June 2012 at 10:19 AM

@vampire666: I am glad. Feeling dumb hurts ☹️

@icymuffin
Actually my original post and title of this discussion was aimed at the USA's education system and only using a foreign language class as an example. But it is now apparent that this problem spans into other countries as well, and since this still falls under education, which is really what I am striking at, that's ok.
An that's exactly how I feel about the education system here.

To maybe better reinstate the issue, we all learn differently, but most or at least some schools only primarily use only one method of teaching, depraving some of us and making us feel dumb and not really caring about what we learn. That's awful.

And worse it's the kids who are the ones being bashed and blamed, when it's not at all their fault. I personally don't blame a child for choosing to play over doing school work. After all, school work is generally boring to some and non-stimulating either because they just don't understand the work or they are just not interested in the subject matter. Being taught in a way that does not suite the child and not invoking their attention enough will lead to poor performance in a school and will leave the child feeling left out and stupid.

metaphor • 10 June 2012 at 10:33 PM

As one who has completed four years of high school Spanish, I think I agree with you to some degree. To master a language, it is essential to listen to a language being spoken by various people who speak it as their primary language or at least who can speak it fluently, as dialect varies from region to region. Grammar rules and vocab mean nothing if you don't know how to integrate them into casual speech. That's not to say everybody will be flawlessly fluent in the language by the time the course is complete, but chances are they will have a better understanding on how the language is spoken.

For all four levels of Spanish I had taken in high school, there was at least one listening section on every exam, along with the usual verb conjugation charts and vocabulary matching sections. We'd also watch familiar movies in Spanish, often with English subtitles, to get a better feel for how it's spoken. We'd also have several writing exercises where we'd have to write a story or personal essay about our ideal house or what we would do with 1 million dollars, for instance, and present it, so that we too could get a better feel for speaking the language.


So yes, @siri, I believe that you do have a point. I think the key method is some type of balance.

Deleted • 10 June 2012 at 11:45 PM

@metaphor
Exactly. Well said.

james-bond • 30 June 2012 at 2:43 AM

Don't worry, New Zealand's 'Numeracy' (Maths) primary/secondary school education system is BAD.