What are they teaching in school nowadays?

[pinduck]

I will be 80 years old this month, my Grandparents raised me, my Grandfatgher was a carpenter, I could read a rule when I was 5 years old.
Still remember being told measure twice, cut once.
Glen

 

[NCTexan]

Reading a ruler is way too black and white... Not enough room to interpret with your feelings.

And you really can't express yourself by reading a ruler.

Also, rulers are not very diverse... only metric and imperial.

Come to think of it, "imperial" sounds very oppressive of lesser measurements.

After careful thought and consideration... I fully understand why we don't teach "ruler" anymore.

 

[kozmic]

a kid who spent his teen years getting high instead of going to school and had disinterested or hopelessly screwed up parent.

Commenting on this would be bad. Very bad!

 

[kozmic]

I was mortified that I had failed my oldest when his guitar amp blew a fuse at college and he had no idea of the concept or it's function or replacement. I just figured someplace along the way in high school he would get a primer in electricity and circuits and the like.

High school ain't like the old days.

 

[Comrad]

We desperately need to return to a time, 1950s and 1960s, where schools taught real skills that we need. Shop classes, all kinds, we have electric shop, got my first good shock there, wood shop, metal shop and automotive repair, well maybe we need to build cars that can be repaired with a set of sockets and some wrenches, but I digress. By the time we got in shop class we already had basic skills picked up with toys like Erector sets, and from building wooden go carts. I know it's not politically correct but the girls learned how to cook and sew. I could go on and on but I know I am singing to the choir since most here came up the same way.
I have a relative who took the GED after smoking his way through HS and it kind of grates on me that it took a couple hours to take two tests to get a HS diploma. I'm thinking 4 years of course material boiled down to two tests, think of all the fun we missed, if we only knew. Now where's the GED PhD test I can give it a couple hours, Dr. Comrad, has a nice ring to it.

 

[quneur]

Reading a ruler came with 3rd grade math. Anyone remember the 'number line'?

 

[Brian41]

I worked in a supermarket with lots of young people not long out of high school and a few with some college. I found they were helpless with much of the basics and could hardly function in their stocker/cashier jobs. Current events even they were lost except for what was currently on TV and the lives of entertainers and sports stars. Surely our schools let them down as well as their own parents to have them so ill prepared.
When I retired they could not find a replacement as the job required experience, education and a state contractor license. It seems with so many out of work here none had applied themselves for that sort of skilled trade (Supermarket refrigeration).

 

[-db-]

If we all agree modern public schooling is as bad as we're saying it is, dropping out might actually be the smartest thing a kid can do today.

 

[BigBill]

I got bored, tired of having no food and money so I dropped out. At 16yo and went to work. My parents divorced and my dad was a pre dead beat dad before they labeled it. I learned very quickly if I wanted anything I had to work for it. I had a "C" average in high school and never studied. I just didn't care about school. I focused on making money and working 24/7.
I worked as a mechanic at a dealership during the week days, pumped gas in the evenings. Repaired cars on Saturday mornings as a side business. I was off on Sunday afternoons and evenings. I then got a job in a machine tool company as a machinest. I made more money than the three jobs I had. I went back to take the GED test, didn't study I got a 78. Yup I passed. Had a brain, I wasn't stupid. I could do just about anything I put my mind too. Staying motivated and focused wasn't a problem. I still remembered those hungry days and those five cent bottles and cans. They would haunt me and drive me more for success. I moved to the machine erecting department and became a class A machine builder in '76. I lost my job in '83, '84, & '85 due to the recession. These three years I made only 10k per year. It showed me how little I needed to live on. I been putting firewood since '79 and started selling it when I lost my job in '83.
With my experiences I got a job with an elevator company working with an engineering group in a r&d test lab in '86. Moved up to lead tech and retired in '02.

My point is the motivation and drive comes from within. You can't sit back
and accept this is all I'm ever going to have or this is all I'm ever going to be in life. The choice is in your hands. Nothing is free in this world. You need to realize we're going to work for everything we want in life.

Remember these kids learn from there parents too. The parents are the role models, there mentors to there kids. If the kid has no motivation I'll bet he doesn't cut the grass at home too. There's no drive to even help themselves. Then in school the teachers just push them through. The teachers should give them motivation.

The teacher in my daughter's classroom told all the kids you will never have a job like I have. What's up with that? She puts little kids down. My daughter today in her thirties owns her own house, two new cars
While my two sons in there thirties own new cars and there own homes too. The motivation for hard work and success didn't come from school it came from home. One of my son's told me if dad can make it I can too. The money is out there waiting for you to work for it.

I taught my kids early in life your either going to have a st
Ring mind (get a good education/college degree) or have a strong back and work hard for everything you want in life. The choice is yours.

My oldest son has two degrees in engineering, my daughter has two degrees in accounting and business management. My youngest son is a cabinet maker he does custom renovations in Martha's vineyard type estates. Remember the Apple doesn't fall too far from the tree.

What's also missing today with kids is the fear of God and the old man. My dad put the fear in me at a very young age not to screw up or get into trouble or his size 12 was going you know where. These kids have no respect for themselves or anyone else. They have no knowledge about the big picture in life nor what there future holds.

 

[wildenout]

We need to reform education in our country for sure, lots of things we can stop doing, lots of things we stopped doing and need to do again, and lots of new things we need to add in. As I finish off my college degree, I look back and realize that I learned more here at College, and became more well rounded I feel, than I ever did in High school.

 

[BigBill]

Don't forget these kids have video games. In my day we were fishing, hiking, playing softball, hardball and stoop ball. These kids have only video games. We rode bicycles for miles. We had the YMCA plus the local boys club. We were active. Now the kids do nothing. We had the boy scouts too camping, summer & winter. We did things on weekends.

 

[sq hunter]

Drive is needed most don't have it. Left school at 16 helped support my family. Got a GED . Never went past 9th grade. I have 2 trades 3 counting my CDL. raised 2 kids ,owned 2 houses. I try to teach youngsters the basics not really interested. That young man took the oppertunityto learn. It's not up to me why he isn't in school . Just glad to hear he is trying to improve.

 

[therevjay]

I'm kinda surprised that no one has called me on misspelling college

As long as we can understand what you mean, that's close enough.

"I have no respect for a man who can spell a word only one way"........Mark Twain

 

[CAJUNLAWYER]

Well they didn't pick up their fluency in he metric ststem from school you can bet that! Hell I didn't get fluent in the metric system until I started listening to my clients.

 

[ladder13]

Well they didn't pick up their fluency in he metric ststem from school you can bet that! Hell I didn't get fluent in the metric system until I started listening to my clients.

As in grams and kilos?

 

[dcxplant]

This may make some people mad, but that is not my intention, and I hope my remark is taken for the talking point it is meant to be.

If anyone has a recent HS graduate or teenager that doesn't know many of the basic things we learned in school, it's not the school's fault…

Having said that, teens these days may not read an analog clock, but they can navigate around a computer and lots of other really amazing things that old guys like me could only dream about.

It's up to us as parents to fill in the gaps. The biggest gaps I see so far as a parent are

-How various governments function
-Bill of Rights, and the Constitution
-How the US Government functions
-Macro and micro economic basics
-Personal finance
-Reading maps
-Being savvy about how marketing/advertising manipulates consumers

to name a few. There are plenty more, and teaching children is an exhausting race against time before they fly the coop.