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

I just think its sad that kids are taught math by using a calculator and have no idea how to long divide or do it by hand. Some kids are using calculators as young as 3rd grade. Fractions...no idea about them. Our youngest graduated high school and still was very lacking in simple math, although she made it thru with B's. Scary to me.

Originally posted by blueorder

Originally posted by YouAreLiedTo
reply to post by joyride0187

 

I went to school in a small town in southern PA. My entire town had less than 5,000 people in it.

We had no city aid for our school. We held carnivals, festivals, parents donated, and once a year we even bought a junker car and people paid $5 for 2 minutes with a sledgehammer beating the hell out of it.

And yet we could still afford labs, auto shop, wood shop, seamstress class, home ec, 4 sports teams... and that was just in the 7th grade.

I still wonder what the hell happened...

one of the main things that happened is chronic family breakdown, as a stable two parent family is MUCH more likely to produce "success" in all areas, including education, than a one parent family- kudos to those one parent families who produce well educated kids, but no point in pretending that it isn't easier to raise a kid with two..................

Where oh where is a FUNCTIONAL two parent family? I love when this is part of the scenaro is dragged into the issue of cruddy schooling and used as the rally point of all societial ills. The problem with schooling is the curriculum and all the experimental efforts to test, teach to test and what not. I am a grown up - by many years an older adult. I came from a divorced family and you know what? It sounds so much better then what any of my friends went through with their dysfunctional two parent households. Really. If I had a dollar for all the stories of dysfunction, substance, physcial and emotional abuse that went on in those glorified 2 parent households I would be wealthy. I am not saying I advocate divorce but this is one dead horse lets stop beating it.
I am starting to think what this is really code for is life is so much better if we just stay under the thumb of a man.
Cuz really all the problems seem to be with these one parent, mostly woman run houses. Yes I sterotype, because is that not what that really means? If we would just get under that (usually) white man's thumb and get back to those 50s values, then all these world problems would correct themselves.

reply to post by jimnuggits


I just want to say thank you. The few teacher that did give a damn were the ones that impacted my life the most. That made me care about learning. Teachers like you are far and few between, hopeful that won't be the case soon.

I have a problem with op's post. All three of those facts have to do with dates. Some people just arent good with dates. For example, i didnt know the ears of any of those facts either because im not good with remembering years.

reply to post by Believer101


I can design, fabricate and construct a car from the ground up, I could build a house and everything in it. I didn't need a piece of paper to say i can do that. That's all my point is. I work on semi trucks and heavy duty fabrication with a side job building hot rods. I live sticking it to the man. For surgery I agree.. but for almost anything else.. not so much.

Working on starting up my own business now.. Most of the worlds most successful people didn't go through college.

reply to post by ConspiraCity


You may have not gone through college or gotten a degree/certification in your field of work, however, you still are EDUCATED in what you do. Whether it's from reading car manuals, or watching others do it and help you. You've still got the knowledge in your field of work.
That's my point. It may not come from a class room or school-teacher, but you still are educated and trained to do what you do for a living. School is everywhere, in everything you do and learn on a day to day basis. It may not be in a class room, but it's still there.

reply to post by Believer101


Agree 100%. and that's essentially what I'm saying, there is no need to shell out tens of thousands of dollars on education when there is learning opportunities everywhere!

reply to post by ConspiraCity


Yes, there is a reason. While it may be everywhere, not everything in this life is free. I would rather be paying the $25 grand for my college education in Massage Therapy and learn it properly than do my own research and not understand it as well or learn the correct things.

reply to post by Believer101


And most of what you learn from that course is collective knowlege that wasn't gained from a formal education institution.

Although I appreciate where this post is coming from.

WHO CARES? I have never needed any of these facts in my day to day life. These bits of history are better known as a basic analysis than rather an exact time frame. WHAT happened is more important. In determing WHY the WHAT, then the WHEN may become more important. I memorized these useless facts for tests in every history class in almost every grade. Since I left school, I have not thought at all about WHEN these events happened, and very little of WHAT happened.

I do not think the kids not knowing the when makes them stupid. How AWARE are the children? There is more to intelligence than memorizing numbers in history.

You know, as a daughter of a Turkish expat living abroad, I can safely say that American schools EVERYWHERE outside the US are ten times better in terms of content matter, quality of education and discipline than schools inside the US.

In fact, US schools abroad are known for their rigorous syllabi, and extra curricular activities, and are extremely difficult to get into.

No idea why its so different inside the US.

I believe the problem is not just some students who may not be as bright as the rest but the teachers teaching them as well. I'm not saying all the teachers have problems. I just recall encountering one teacher when I was in High School back in the 1980's who I thought wasn't that bright. I spotted one of my friends and we were in some advanced classes. This one particular class seemed like it was on super slow speed and the teacher sucked I thought. Anyway I must have blurted out something to the effect that I thought I could teach the class better than the teacher. The teacher actually let me do so. I did it for 3 days. The teacher told me I was doing a great job. This was the first time I had taken the course and it was a math class probably basic algebra or something like that. Anyway I was thinking the teacher should be teaching the class not me so I cut that out.

The most important lesson to learn from studying history is that those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it. That would include all the bad things that happened to mankind in history. They went into more details than I really cared to know when I was studying history. One teacher told us about a fictional situation where the US had lost a war and owed many trillions of dollars. Then she said the US was having an election and what each candidate promised. One of those candidates offered extra peace and security but he would do things like nationalize certain things. Anyway the class voted for these candidates.

After we voted the teacher told us the class elected Hitler for president of the US. She said what she didn't tell us was that the conditions were similar in inflation dollars to the situation Germany faced. She said don't ever vote for anyone who will take away your freedoms. Think about something like our current government ignoring the constitution making laws ignoring constitutional rights. The politician claims extra peace and security but it's a ruse. People were fooled and didn't defend those who were losing their freedoms until there was no one left when their freedoms were removed. History is repeating here in the US but since so many Americans failed to pay attention to history, it's repeating. In my opinion the universal health care law is one such thing mandating groups do things in violation of freedom of religion in some cases. In years past, no politician would dare violate something that was in the constitution. If people don't defend one part of a legal document, then who will be left to defend you when they come to confiscate your guns or your house just because some politician thinks you don't need it anymore?

reply to post by orionthehunter

Anyway I was thinking the teacher should be teaching the class not me so I cut that out.

That could have been a good teacher, if he was encouraging you to use your mind rather than just give you the answers. And really that is the problem today with teachers everywhere in North America, not just in the States.

Teachers are not creative any longer, they do not guide students to the answers. Thinking and analytical skills are simply not being developed correctly, the mind is not taught to hunger for more knowledge.

Was there any attempt to make sure people weren't just putting down stupid answers intentionally?

Who was the first President of the United States? 23 percent

Only 23% of Highschoolers answered that correctly? I can't believe that few answered that question correctly.

They are teenagers, and I know when I was a teenager, I'd probably get a little annoyed at being asked stupid questions.


Yeah, Americans are pretty dumb, but I don't think they are quite as dumb as the surveys are suggesting.

Originally posted by ur44lois
I just think its sad that kids are taught math by using a calculator and have no idea how to long divide or do it by hand. Some kids are using calculators as young as 3rd grade. Fractions...no idea about them. Our youngest graduated high school and still was very lacking in simple math, although she made it thru with B's. Scary to me.

I hated the TI calculators with a passion, I could never really figure the damn thing out. The worst part was that I could do the problems they gave us on paper, but it was never accepted because we had to show how we could solve the problems with a calculator.

I never ended up passing any of those math classes, but the irony of it all was when I got my GED, I only got one answer wrong during the Math portion of the test. Luckily the test focused on my math skills and not my knowledge of a calculator that is now outdated by 10 years.

Originally posted by Passafist
I'd just like to say, teachers and students are equaly to blame. Throwing money at it solves nothing. It's about getting student and teacher actually INTRESTED to learn/teach and feel they can apply what they learn in real life. The most important thing a student needs to learn is how to think for themselves. People highly underestimate the relationship between crucial thinking and learning. And no, a lame ass guy at the audtitorium trying to rap how cool school is won't do that.

It's funny, that you don't blame the people that are most responsible...
THE PARENTS!

Parents would rather have their kids in front of a screen than teaching them things.

And yet the truth is that kids today are smarter than past generations. Partly the internet is responsible for this and the fact is there is only so many hours in a school day so some things cannot be taught in school due to time constraints. If these questions were asked to kids in the 40s, 50s etc. you would get similar responses and if anything in those days there was less room or acceptance for originality. Certainly walking more in lock step decades or even centuries ago than today.

For adults it seems natural to want to believe their education was better, truth is time has passed them by and they wax nostalgic only remembering the good times.

Now i have seen some societies where the kids rattle off answers to their studies but once deviating from that narrow window they are lost. If a synchronized swimmer find themselves alone in an ocean they cant just break out into their synchronized swimming routine and expect to get to the shore.

reply to post by orionthehunter


"The most important lesson to learn from studying history is that those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it."

I am not so sure about that. I hate to say that i dont believe in that at all because that would just be too absolute. These days there is far too much of an interest in the past and not enough interest in the future. We have to realize that the longer we are here on earth the more history there will be. This can take up all of our time just rehashing the past. And that would be a shame/

Reply to post by Malcher

I agree with this post, the biggest thing our youth have going for them is that our recent past has not been forgotten. I mean so what they dont know they exact date of the civil war.....they remember the civil rights era and the same basic lessons hold true there. We have the LGBT community currently fighting for rights this too will be in our memory for a long long time. Dates are meaningless and so is long division and cursive honestly. Everything is computerizied....if society breaks down there are textbooks. Yes I know how to do long divison I also know how to do algebra....what purpose does it serve? None. These are things taught to cultivate certain skills that kids are still being taught. The sad thing here is that many of you have not learned critical thinking which is of the utmost importance and are just shaking your heads without really thinking about the real lessons you take away from the classroom....you go ahead and let the govt teach to some standardized test....lets see how far that takes your kids.


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Originally posted by Ghost375
Was there any attempt to make sure people weren't just putting down stupid answers intentionally?

Who was the first President of the United States? 23 percent

Only 23% of Highschoolers answered that correctly? I can't believe that few answered that question correctly.

They are teenagers, and I know when I was a teenager, I'd probably get a little annoyed at being asked stupid questions.


Yeah, Americans are pretty dumb, but I don't think they are quite as dumb as the surveys are suggesting.

edit on 9-2-2012 by Ghost375 because: (no reason given)

Considering we only hear or read about American statistics or surveys its kind of difficult to draw a conclusion. Not to mention that you usually have more immigrants in American schools so that American may be first generation.