I was resting in bed a few moments ago (I woke up early, sue me) and started to think about some of life's mysteries. This happens a lot.
After a while, I started to reminisce about my old school days; in grade 7, I remember being assigned one of those boring research projects in Social Studies -- choose a country and write up a 3000-word report on its culture, geography, political structure, demographics, etc.
Because this project bored the !*#$ out of me, I put it off until the last minute. When it finally came time to write the project, I sat down in front of my computer and started puttering away. As time progressed, I started to get more and more bored of the report, so I tried to insert some humour into it. For instance:
"Peepholes
What? I don't use any peepholes.
Peoples
Oh, I see! Well, Canada[...]"
When I got the marked paper back, the teacher had completely lined through the "Peepholes" section (as well as the part where I joked about 1.78 children per couple as being an average, not actually a fraction of a living person). At the time I thought she was being needlessly grouchy. In retrospect, of course, I know that kind of humour was a very bad thing to do in a formal report.
So it strikes me now that I never actually learned the difference between formal and informal documents! I mean, sure, they tell you how to write formally and how to write informally... but they never tell you how to determine the context in which you're supposed to be writing. No teacher has ever told me, "I want this to be a formal report." No teacher has ever mentioned, "You don't have to be formal when writing your short story." Most importantly, no teacher has ever taught me how to tell the difference between which situations warrant a formal style and which situations warrant an informal style -- I had to learn that all on my own.
I think context should really be added to the list of students' curricula. I mean, if an intelligent sap like me didn't fully understand when a certain context is appropriate, what does that say for the normal people?
I don't think school taught me much. There where some basics there, but nothing I could not have learned on my own at a much faster pace. I realize that not everyone can learn at the speed I can, but still, it was boring to sit through 4 years of highschool that was just a review of middleschool.
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Public school is more about indoctrinating children to accept authority and tasks than anything else. Unfortunately, they don't seem to be handling even that task so well.
It always amazes me how little American children learn in 12 years of formal education. When they graduate, under ideal circumstances, they still lack fundamental knowledge essential to interaction in society. Many don't even have a functional grasp of fairly basic knowledge. Sad. | |
Well, they focus on non-basic skills. They focus on "advanced" maths(Those of which will not help the common man), social studies(Why is history called that, social would infer that we are studying society and social interaction, rather than history), English(OK, proper English is very important to learn, this is very important, no matter how much I didn't like it), and non-technical science.
They need to be teaching life skills, and really push them. I know of kids who wouldn't be able to change their oil, even with instructions. Classes like drafting teach art, design, computers, and applied math, at the same time. Computers open up options to teach basic computing, applied math, and electrical physics, at the same time. They need to worry less about having kids memorize the periodic tables and more about them learning how the universe works. We need to learn less about dead civilizations, and more about growing our own(Which does require learning a little about dead ones). They need to push logic and problem solving over memorization. They need to accept that different children learn differently, and allow those who cannot learn by sticking their nose in a book learn by example and experimentation. Sorry for going almost off topic, public schools really bother me. | |
The normal people won't care. Formal vs. informal will be totally irrelevant to them, unless they're particularly interested in the area(writing) and decide to find out for themselves.
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What they don't teach in school This statement boggled my mind; for living in America, instead it's the question, "What the hell do they teach in school?!" And I agree with Scoobert, but I've seen private schools do the exact same thing, if not worse. I believe it's a problem with our all-around education system. | |
All I know is that IGN has been featuring articles which are waaaaaaay too formal. Have you seen those snorefests? They're what people pay you to hand to teachers with their name on them. They're not what infotainment companies should pay you to put up on their site.
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I think people exaggerate that school doesn't teach you anything. However, I agree wholly with Scoobert that most of it doesn't have practical use in basic survival. It's the classes like Home Economics (what a misnomer) and shop class (my high school called it "FnASK", or "Fine Arts and Applied Skills"*) that are the most useful -- anything that teaches you applied skills as opposed to theoretical studies.
Now, of course, I figure they teach theoretical studies because in theory (*snerk*) you can make a lot more money if you get into a job which demands those skills. Of course, in practice, people need to work their way up from the bottom before they can get the job of their dreams, so I do think there should be a bit of a shift. * They probably added the N because people joked about FASKing one another and other such merriment. | |
Home Economics has plenty of practical uses! Pies... cakes... pizza, cookies, I could go on! :)
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Next year: Shopping 101.
Well, actually, they'd have to make it a little more technical-sounding: Judicious Purchasing 101. "Okay class! Let's buy some shoes!" | |
Guys, guys, evolutions is a THEORY, not a FACT.
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Elation wrote:
Guys, guys, evolutions is a THEORY, not a FACT. So's gravity, but we still learn about what we think keeps us from flying away. | |
It's the difference between scientific theory and 'common' theory. The words mean different things in different contexts.
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The important distinction is that evolution, though theoretical, is based on evidence. Creationism, also theoretical, is based on religious faith. Both are valid in their own ways, but only one is valid in a system that has separated government from religion.
Where'd this creationism/evolution thing come from, anyway...? I didn't mention a thing about it in my post and up until a moment ago it wasn't in the comments either. =P | |
Elation was a being a troll, as per usual.
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After that it sucks though.