> > > I am currently a sophmore in high school, and I have noticed a disturbing trend. Remember the days of elementary school and you would tell your parents what you were doing in school, like learning about the difference between sugar and protein or how plants make oxygen? What did your parents say? Well mine would always say "wow, I didn't learn that until the ninth grade!" or "gee I didn't do that until grad school!" What I'm getting at is that the things that kids are expected to know nowadays are not necessarily what they need to know. And it is becoming worse and worse. For example, at my school the freshman science class my freshman year was "Foundations of science", which you could skip if you wanted to (and passed the test) and go into Biology, mostly a sophmore class. I got into biology. This year, my sophmore year, they administration got rid of Foundations, and now Biology is the freshman science class.
> > > My english class is reading The Scarlet Letter, an accepted American Classic, a tale of the human heart and human nature going up against strict Puritan values. This is a book reserved for college guys, and they like that book. Nobody in my class doesn't hate it. Shoving this college reading material down our fifteen and sixteen year-old throats is not only unnatural, but it has ruined a book that I might have enjoyed, or at least understood, while in college.
>
> Really? At my (private) middle school, the eighth graders were assigned to read The Scarlet Letter. But when I finally got into eighth grade we got a new english teacher, and the only novel we read _all_year_long_ was the Bronze Bow. And we spent three months on it!

We spent the last three quarters on Romeo and Juliet last year.

> > > This is seriously scary, the inflation of education. Everyone is trying to get ahead, but what's happenning is like the academic version of an arms race, where schools figure that they can get kids more prepared by teaching them more and more complex, adult stuff at a very adolescent age. We can't handle it.
> > >
> > > A very concerned Finchplucker
> >
> > Can I go to your school?
> >
> > Here, even the so-called Honors Programs are slow. We did Puritan Projects in English (an Honor class) which consisted of learning to make clothes &/or grind wheat &/or cook. The teacher gave us class time for all of it. Took up about a week. In math, we go snail's pace and some of the people still don't get it. Maybe if they *tried* their homework (which isn't collected).... Now, some people in that class, yes, just have a majorly hard time at math in general. I don't have any beef with them-- I go out of my way not to. But they are the ones that only ask questions on a few problems they don't understand. The people that are dragging down the class average and forcing the teacher to think he's going too fast are the ones that simply don't care. There's no reason for them to. There's no challenge. Several are fairly intelligent, they just have no reason to try. Same thing in Chemi and all the language classes. Freshman science is IS9 [integrated science ninth grade] and is a total slacker class. I mean, the rest are too, but even more so. If you got a B or better in science eighth grade year you can go to Biology. Eight Grade science consisted, for me, of measuring and cooking. Biology was, with my teacher, bad jokes [not bad like in the RinkWorks section, bad like are banned from it] and army stories. I couldn't even get a good evolution/creation argument from the guy.
>
> Well hey, that's what Rinkworks is for. ;-)

Yeah, but people here are, like, smart. They actually know what they're talking about. Or so it seems as a general rule. It's rather intimidating when I don't-- which is most of the time.

> >I topped out his class (got over 100%... not sure if all of you are familiar with my terminology) fot the sole purpose of ticking him off.
>
> Your teacher was ticked off that you got over 100%? Hrmmm...

Well, he'd never had anybody top out his class before. I found that perfectly astounding. At the very end of the year, I had something like a 97%-- only so low because I forgot some of the assignments since they were so mundane and rarely studied since I didn't need to. Even if I had, I wouldn't have gotten them wrong anyway.

_Sample Test_

Books allowed
Notes allowed
I'll tell you any answers you want

Multiple Choice
1. An orchid is (thirteen points):
a. flower b. bird c. piece of software d. what my ex-wife kills

2. Celebrity Jeopardy is (eight points):
A. Hard

3. Which is a mollusk (fifteen points):
a. Seagull b. diamond c. napkin d. my ex-wife

Short Answer
4. What is the average air speed velocity of a young migrating male African swallow to the nearest hundreth of a kilmeter per hour? [Not in book or notes and I don't know either-- I'll look it up after the test]

________________________

5. What gender am I? Justify your answer.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The teacher gave this huge extra-credit project towards the end of school that was enough to rais e a really low grade about eight to ten percent, or mine to a hundred and something. The whole purpose was to pull people up to passing grades. I worked nights, since I didn't have any other time, to finish it. Tied for highest grade on it, had the highest grade in the class.

I think it ticked him off because, first, it proved what I'd been thinking, that he wasn't actually teaching us and also because that wasn't the point of the extra-credit. I showed him I was willing to do all that and not have it affect my GPA.

> >I have one class I actually have to work for my grade-- Honors US History, or HUSH-- and out of all my classes I think I'll use that the least. I mean, I totally believe in learning from past mistakes, but we're really in-depth. It happens, though I'm no history buff, to be my favorite class.
> > I'm getting an A in English... you see how unorganized this is....
>
> Yeeha! US history rules!
>
> -M"no, I'm not being sarcastic"el

I'm no History buff, but it's been my fav. subject because out of the two clases I've ever had in it, both had marvelous teachers.

Chr"not difficulty of work, quantity"is