Dumb As A Rock: You Will Be Absolutely Amazed At The Things That U.S. High School Students Do Not Kn

Final thoughts on this one for now....I think this thread has proven to me at least, that not knowing dates or even history doesnt mean a person is dumb.....and this fact quiz is not a good way of measuring intelligence.

It does prove some people are ignorant of certain facts, but that does not mean they are ignorant of every thing. It doesn't make them ignorant people overall. I am ignorant of anything that involves a car engine or organic chemistry and that is just for starters....

This thread proves there are quite a few young people who are learning, growing and enjoy the learning process, so not all hope is lost.

Also, it is not just in the USA that society is struggling to find a way to keep kids interested in learning. I think this thread proves it is a problem in many post industralized countries.

Finally, I think the OP was right when they said parents, teachers, school and kids all carry a portion of the blame for why kids are failing, now hopefully, instead of debating over dates we can get down to the real work at hand, getting kids back on track, so that they do value education and excel at school, it is in everyone's best interest when they do......

I for one am tired of getting incorrect change at the store......

reply to post by joyride0187


I don't care about learning what happened in the war of 1812, or WW1, or WW2. I could care less if they teach those in schools. What I want them to teach kids is about the constitution and their rights as up and coming citizens. I want the schools to teach them how to critically think, argue, support their arguments, and solve problems. You can't solve our world problems by diverting those critical areas.

If schools want to teach about history, it's fine, but it does not trump what you learn when you combine the above.

Originally posted by Kriltosthe2nd
I do not envy you. I've often thought about going back to College to gain more Education, but then...what for? our current world will not last much longer (you all have your own dates) and a each of paper saying im "qualified" to do something will become pointless.

I can imagine its very hard for those who do want to learn in a class room full of kids messing around. The teachers attention is going to be on the trouble makers..

Yea, you are right.. but in the mean time I still have bills to pay in order to live. I'm currently enrolled in the nursing program, and if it wasn't for the certification I would have bypassed college altogether.

Many of the kids in my class mainly talk about getting "f**ked up" on the weekend, and find the he said she said more important than math. Currently I am taking astronomy as an elective, which I find amazingly interesting. There is an entire row behind me full of young females that talk through the ENTIRE lecture.. although extremely hot, the organized ex-military side of me wants to stand up, turn around and tell them to shut up .. oh well.

One of the downfalls of educations, instead of teaching to understand we teach to just to know. If you don't understand what you know, then its meaningless.

reply to post by Mcupobob


Perfect.

You could not have said it any better!

I thank everyone for a great thread today...this one was a good one no doubt!

Thanks again mcupobob for the book reference, I need to read it and maybe you can post a thread on it and we can discuss further.....it sounds pretty revalent to this and other topics on ATS...I'd like to hear your thoughts on it more, but now dinner is calling, so adios ATS!

reply to post by 31Bravo


Why not? Seriously think about it. you'd be doing them a favor if you turned around and just spat out some home truths to them. I'm sure the teacher wouldn't mind if they were getting out of hand, Hell i did it once when i was at college learning to become a Electrician, i was in a class with some kids that came right out of school, messing around, i stood up sharply and shouted at them to shut up and stop wasting my time, or lets take it out side. i apologized to my teacher after but he said, thank god you did that, i wish i could. made me laugh. Ofc you cant hit a girl but you get the picture

Its true what they say, "you'll regret not trying Harder at school" god that was said to me sooo much, and yeah. i do regret! but i try and make up for lost grounds by reading as much as i can, when i can.

reply to post by Mijamija


Oh no problem and thanks to you for participating. I'm planning on doing a thread about my thoughts on U.S education and my thought on it soon. So look for if your interested.

Originally posted by Mcupobob
reply to post by Mijamija

 

Oh no problem and thanks to you for participating. I'm planning on doing a thread about my thoughts on U.S education and my thought on it soon. So look for if your interested.

Like I said, before you do, if you have netflix, or hell even YouTube, watch "Waiting for Superman".. it might help you with your thread.. goodluck

I am a public school graduate, and a public school teacher, and I beg to differ with the notion that our students are dumb as rocks. A ficus maybe, but rocks? Nah.

Our public schools have failed to evolve as institutes of learning as our culture has evolved.

Facts are useless things to teach, if they are not given in a worthwhile context. Yet, we continue to spout facts. 1492. Rhombus. Gerund. Our curriculum is irrelevant, outdated, and frankly becomes a bit insulting in places, because our children are not us, and we are letting them down.

Who wouldn't zombie out after years of facts with no concept of how to think about what they mean?

If they are lazy, its because we are lazy.

We have no idea of the world they have grown up in, the level of stimulation both visual and audible, the experiences they have already seen and had. A 15 year old child in America has seen an average of 10000 murders or deaths on television. Who put it there?

It is truly frightening to see the sad state of our educational system, but it is a far cry better than nothing.

I am trying folks, and so are my colleagues, but somedays are a real slog. And we are fighting uphill.

The evidence shows a lack of knowledge in the social science/history fields. And having recently graduated and being in AP classes all throughout highschool, i have realized that the students who apply themselves and want to learn advance themselves, while the students who focus on social outlets such as facebook and popularity etc. generally get left behind. And this is mainly attributed to the current culture, but dont get me started on that. In highschool it was evident who was in an AP class or general class, it was as easy as looking at who they hang out with and how they carry themselves.... Oh, and it also comes down to teachers. My senior year i was a teachers assistant for a world history class. Many times a student would ask a question that had an answer and even i with my limited knowledge could answer, but the teacher would be dumbfounded. He would simply respond (after breaking out the textbook and searching for a bit) "oh, thats a good question. The book really doesnt say." -_-
The dumbing down of society is due to alot of factors. Mainly the influence of popular culture and the media. Earlier and earlier kids are being indoctrinated with this b.s......just take most mainstream music. It makes me sick. 3/4th of the songs glorify girls with fat a***es, talk about having fun in the club; this along with alot of other pointless materialstic stuff....its amazing that todays society has corrupted something so pure as music and song.....or is it. But im done, thats my two cents worth

Who cares? What does history matter anyway? Real world smarts are significantly more important

reply to post by ConspiraCity


So not knowing where you came from, how something happened, and if it could happen again evidently do not matter then

reply to post by markuz93


They say we learn history so we don't repeat our mistakes.. look at this world and honestly tell me if you think that's working..

We make all the mistakes over and over. So I say... what does it matter?

reply to post by ConspiraCity


Yes, sadly that is true, and it is bound to happen over and over again. But do you realize what you are saying? Without a knowledge of history there would be no such thing as real world smarts. You build a knowledge of how the world operates from experiances, observations, proven events, aka history.

There are plenty of over acheiving kids today and they are as sharp as tack, and will do well in life. Unfortunately, and this is what we hear about in the MSM, is all of the underacheiving kids. Yes there are a lot of them out there. But I think SOME of those underachievers in HS will find themselves in their niche and achieve at that a few years from now, and will also be successful in life. The others, well they are the ne'er -do-wells and criminals. But even those kids probably have a story of family problems, abusive parents, divorce, etc.

I find it difficult to just blame the school systems. How many kids live in disfunctional households, or go to bed hungry, or live with parents that do nothing but "party", instead of making sure their kids have had homework time, had a good dinner, a bath, and go to bed at 8:00pm so they get a good night's sleep? Hhmm? This problem goes in so many directions...there is no one solution. Many social problems need a good solution to solve the problem. All you can do if you are a parent is to make sure you set your children up for success...yes...it's up to parents.

reply to post by markuz93


I see what your saying, history in a broad sense is relevant to daily life. however, dates of events is meaningless in the grand scheme.. we all know it's not working.. the bigger thing to worry about is, how do we fix it?

To be honest with you, I learned more outside of school on my own, than I did while attending high school. I am a college graudate now and think back on all of the things I should've been taught in high school, and it makes me sick. I did not apply myself in high school, and still graduated.

I was class president in school, didn't even go to college after waking up to the real world.. school is simply an industry, just like everything, they want you to think that you need a piece of paper that says what you can and cant do. If your smart, then you will see right through this crap and realize there is nothing in life you cant achieve.. school is not needed.

I once happened to see an episode of Jamie Oliver's food revolution. He decided to 'test' the basic knowledge of middle school kids on food - stuff the kids come into contact with every day. I couldn't see the point of it - the test was so simple that I thought an elementary school kid could ace it; picture of a food item and then the kid had to choose the source of it between two pictures. Even Oliver himself thought that it was so easy anyone could do it. Then the horror began: the origins of cheese, butter, milk, corn, chocolate etc was beyond their knowledge.

I've known for a while that there's something seriously wrong with the US education system but holy #. I'm fairly certain most middle school kids can't even calculate percentages. SO yeah, high school.. What do you expect. /shiver


I'll just leave this here:

www.youtube.com...

Go anywhere in the world and I bet you will be able to find kids who dont no sh*t.......

Originally posted by ConspiraCity
I was class president in school, didn't even go to college after waking up to the real world.. school is simply an industry, just like everything, they want you to think that you need a piece of paper that says what you can and cant do. If your smart, then you will see right through this crap and realize there is nothing in life you cant achieve.. school is not needed.

School is not needed? I beg to differ. People need certifications and degrees to do specific fields of work for a reason. Would I want some random dude, who had no idea what he was doing, to give me a heart transplant? # no. Would I like someone who had no idea how the body or it's muscles worked to give me Neuromuscular work on my back? # no. Would I let someone who didn't know how to even change a tire doing a complete overhaul on my vehicle? Hell no.
School is very much needed to do different fields of work.