Quote:
Originally Posted by Rochard
My kid goes to school here in the US, she's in 8th grade. We went to the open house not too long ago, and I noticed something that surprised me... Think about this for a moment - what exactly is a school? What does a school have? At the end of the day, it's students with books and teachers teaching them. It's really not different than it was thirty years ago when I was a student. The desks and the books are the same - the books are better now - the chalkboard has been replaced with a white board and markers, and the overhead projector has been replaced with a camera over the teacher's desk or they use a laptop to stream to a projector on the whiteboard. Now they have computers with a single monitor in every room. They also have a computer lab and a library, and a gym.
All in all, they have the same exact stuff I had when I went to school, with some improvements.
The teachers seem fine too. They are teachers because they really want to teach, and enjoy working with kids.
The new "core curriculum" is coming online. If I understand correctly, we will begin teaching kids harder stuff and then testing them on it - and being firm in the process. This seems to have worked well in some states, such as Massachusetts.
At the same time, why do we teach some stuff we teach? Take algebra for example. I've never needed to solve for x or plot a graph. Ever.
I think we are doing okay and I think this new system will make it better.
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There are two reasons that they teach kids algebra even though most of them will never use it in their adult lives. First, teaching kids how to do something difficult is a good thing. Not only do they learn how to solve the problem, but they learn how to overcome big obstacles and it helps them learn how to learn which is a skill they will use in their lives. Second, many kids will use it. They will go on to go to college and learn technical skills that require math, but they may not realize that in an early grade when they are learning algebra. Here they teach algebra and in grade school and it gives kids a math foundation they can build on. Those who decide 3-4 years later that they want to pursue a technical career already have the foundation in place.