I feel sorry for American School Students

[TheYellowCellPhone]

easy to answer

You fukn take eveything as an attack, even if i farted in the general direction of the USA it would be considered an attack. As a country in which i have much admiration, it stills amazes me by the sheer precious self importance of on a small amount people who don't think any other country exists outside of youe shores

I was curious, so I took at look at your profile and saw you aren't from America, which leads me to believe that you are relying entirely on stereotypes and Americans you found on the Internet to base your opinion on.

 

[AndyFromMonday]

Frankly, I feel sorry for students all over the world. Forcing them to attend schools which employ an outdated system that stumbles creativity in favour of rigidity is absolutely disgusting. The teachers are also a big part of the problem, especially older ones which employ outdated teaching methods whilst at the same time refusing to accept new ideas, choosing instead to berate and mock students that could very well be brilliant. School does nothing for you. It does not prepare you for life, it does not help you as a person and it sure as hell does not prepare you for higher education.

 

[LostintheWick]

Le snip.

NO i'm not in anyway trying to dictate peoples lives and just think schools should take more responsibility in teaching their students about being healthy. A 600ml coke bottle contains 65g of sugar which quickly becomes fat when you sit down all day at school. Now you might enjoy not being able to see your feet but its such an easy problem to fix but due to an immense amount of ignorant people its becoming more unlikely by the minute

It's not the schools responsibility, it's the responsibility of the individual. In lower age groups, it's different, but in teens people are responsible for their own diet. If people are too stupid to look after their bodies, that's their own issue, but it shouldn't be handled with such sweeping actions that affect perfectly sensible healthy people.

To the bolded part, yes, yes you are.

I disagree that most teenagers have the knowledge and ability to take care of themselves. Yes, they have that potential if they have all the proper information, but the problem here is that THEY ARE NOT getting that information from their schools or parents.

Hell, MOST American adults STILL don't know how to take care of themselves. I think that has a lot to do with the LACK of education on the subject. And isn't that the real point of the school system? To teach us how to grow as informed individuals so that we have more power over our life's choices?

And the ability to choose should always remain in the individuals hands. Schools should provide the best food available and if kids want to eat junk, then they can bring the garbage they want in their paper bags. It shouldn't be the other way around.

 

[TheLaofKazi]

http://awesome.good.is/transparency/web/1105/lunch/flat.html

Public education makes me .

I disagree that most teenagers have the knowledge and ability to take care of themselves. Yes, they have that potential if they have all the proper information, but the problem here is that THEY ARE NOT getting that information from their schools or parents.

Hell, MOST American adults STILL don't know how to take care of themselves. I think that has a lot to do with the LACK of education on the subject. And isn't that the real point of the school system? To teach us how to grow as informed individuals so that we have more power over our life's choices?

And the ability to choose should always remain in the individuals hands. Schools should provide the best food available and if kids want to eat junk, then they can bring the garbage they want in their paper bags. It shouldn't be the other way around.

I agree, mostly.

I really think people should know how to live a healthy lifestyle, but it's my belief that the public education system is largely ineffective for teaching people anything really useful for life. I've lost faith in politics to get things done, there's too much bullshit. Yes, schools should educate people effectively on how they can make good, healthy decisions, and give them the ability to do so. But the grim fact I think is that is that just won't happen. Really, I think I create more positive change by being the change I want to see in the world by changing my lifestyle and improving my health in so many ways (I've lost about 75 pounds over the past year) and showing others how much more enriched my life has become, and encouraging others that used to be in my position to do the same, then to focus my energy on changing the government or school.

 

[PatSilverFox]

Out of all the things that are a problem, the food is the least important thing to worry about, trust me.
This 'you must go to college' mentality is so pointless. The US needs better internship opportunities imo.

 

[Jakub324]

My school (I live in the UK) is making people scan their fingers to pay for food in a COMPLETE dick move. I'm just glad I got into 6th form in time, because now I can hop off to Tesco if I get hungry.

Holy shit, I've never heard of that. But then I live in the north, and we probably couldn't afford finger scanners, let alone have the intelligence to operate them.

What are they scanning fingers for?

I'm from the north, originally. They're doing it so now they can make sure kids buy whatever the parents think is best, because it's all on the system and they know if the kid bought something else or nothing. Like, I said, they pulled a dick move.

 

[emeraldrafael]

What, that the superindendant gets to decide what we eat? You know that goes through a school board, and the PTA also gets in on that a bit and that if the guy/girl chooses something like cakes and ice cream, they can have him removed. Thats not really a fail, though I'm curious how it works in other countries that our (American) school food system are so horrible.

Its not like we're fed rats.


... But anyway, meh. On the whole, its pretty bad, but you have good nuggets and bad nuggets. Its like the Health Care and government programs, they need revamps to bring it up to the 21st century.

 

[Evil Top Hat]

Your an idiot.

The irony, it is delicious!

OT: America's education system is flawed, but the there isn't a single education system (that I know of) in the western world I would describe as good.

 

[keve4433]

Lunches are just the start. At my school we had to take extra days off because they couldn't afford to pay teachers for everyday this year. Of course we could still afford to put 1080i HD tv's in every hall and three more in the lunch room so they could televise the morning announcements...and for the love of fuck don't get me started on the teachers. >.>

Thankfully this was my last year! =3

 

[Kryzantine]

First, we would have to change our education paradigm:


Second, there's plenty of ways to change education for the betterment of society. The problem is all of the money that goes into it, and how we have politicians messing it up. That's a rant for another time. My view, based on how our educational system is lacking is to adapt our students to different standards, similar to Montessori. We lose a lot of divergent thinking, and the public system spits out people for factory jobs.

There's more ways, it's just incredibly difficult to get anything new into the system that allows a smarter population in general.

I... must vehemently disagree with both the video and your post, which is basically an extension of the video.

I mean, the video seemed pretty good, and I was waiting for the big reveal at the end, only for that reveal to be the belief that kids think much less creatively the further they advance in the school system. It was carefully worded to imply this, when the only comparison was kids between kindergarten and 2nd grade, I think, it's been a bit since I saw the video. But we have a biological explanation for that, which is the loss of about 2/3rds of synapses in brain neurons between the ages of 4 and 6. In fact, very young children are the most creative people on the planet. It has nothing to do with a repressive education system, merely biology. And I can say that in my high school, I was doing a lot of creative work and not only encouraged, but required to connect multiple points that had seemingly little connection, and to create a convincing message about the connection. For instance, I had a geopolitics teacher that asked his freshmen world history students to compare the Mongols to Al-Qaeda, to teach them about terrorism as a military strategy; never mind the crazy papers he asked us to write. A geology teacher asked me to use prospect theory to figure out mining investment riskiness. Most English classes do this all the damned time.

No, the problem with education in America is not just the overall lack of funding, but where that money is going. I don't know which idiot decided it was a good idea to fund public schooling based on the taxes collected of the area that the school covers. It creates good public schools in high wealth areas, where the wealthy can afford private schooling, and creates bad public schools in poor areas, which rely on public education to get their youth out of said area and move on to better things in life. That story of the woman in Ohio who defrauded a neighbouring school district (which was a very wealthy area, btw) by sending her kids to the school there illegally (she lived in a neighbouring district, one of the poorest in Ohio and known to have a much worse school)? That's common across America. It's one of the saddest realities we face. Thankfully, I went to an inner city school that received a lot of extra funding from the city and preferential treatment, while admitting kids from across the entire city (of course, they had to be tested in 8th grade to be allowed admission). But this isn't everywhere, and in areas where the infrastructure is relatively poorer, and which relies on taxes collected from a small, economically poor area, the schools suck. There is no advancement there. The only advancement is in areas of high economic growth, areas which need this public advancement less.

So in a way, it's about preparing most people for the factory (or in this case, office) workforce, but it's more because the places that can even prepare people for the top positions are unavailable for most people geographically.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Le snip.

NO i'm not in anyway trying to dictate peoples lives and just think schools should take more responsibility in teaching their students about being healthy. A 600ml coke bottle contains 65g of sugar which quickly becomes fat when you sit down all day at school. Now you might enjoy not being able to see your feet but its such an easy problem to fix but due to an immense amount of ignorant people its becoming more unlikely by the minute

It's not the schools responsibility, it's the responsibility of the individual. In lower age groups, it's different, but in teens people are responsible for their own diet. If people are too stupid to look after their bodies, that's their own issue, but it shouldn't be handled with such sweeping actions that affect perfectly sensible healthy people.

To the bolded part, yes, yes you are.

agreed, by high school time it's your own damn body, if you want ot fuck it up i see as to no reason why you can't have a coke at school or whatnot, hell i drink pop all the time but if you have a decent workout throughout the week you stay perfectly in shape.

and i see you're aware of what to do with the extra amounts of sugar however alot of people don't and that is my point. Drink as much black fluid as you like, i really don't care. Fuck have one on me.

oh i get that, i'm just saying by then if the parents/system hasn't beaten it into your head already about watching what you do/eat, i think the person should be more than welcome to be a fat pile of shit, it's their body and we allow people to smoke/drink/etc.. so why can't they eat what they want? at most it makes the person coming in after you in the bathroom smell stinkier poo gases.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

First, we would have to change our education paradigm:


Second, there's plenty of ways to change education for the betterment of society. The problem is all of the money that goes into it, and how we have politicians messing it up. That's a rant for another time. My view, based on how our educational system is lacking is to adapt our students to different standards, similar to Montessori. We lose a lot of divergent thinking, and the public system spits out people for factory jobs.

There's more ways, it's just incredibly difficult to get anything new into the system that allows a smarter population in general.

I... must vehemently disagree with both the video and your post, which is basically an extension of the video.

I mean, the video seemed pretty good, and I was waiting for the big reveal at the end, only for that reveal to be the belief that kids think much less creatively the further they advance in the school system. It was carefully worded to imply this, when the only comparison was kids between kindergarten and 2nd grade, I think, it's been a bit since I saw the video. But we have a biological explanation for that, which is the loss of about 2/3rds of synapses in brain neurons between the ages of 4 and 6. In fact, very young children are the most creative people on the planet. It has nothing to do with a repressive education system, merely biology. And I can say that in my high school, I was doing a lot of creative work and not only encouraged, but required to connect multiple points that had seemingly little connection, and to create a convincing message about the connection. For instance, I had a geopolitics teacher that asked his freshmen world history students to compare the Mongols to Al-Qaeda, to teach them about terrorism as a military strategy; never mind the crazy papers he asked us to write. A geology teacher asked me to use prospect theory to figure out mining investment riskiness. Most English classes do this all the damned time.

No, the problem with education in America is not just the overall lack of funding, but where that money is going. I don't know which idiot decided it was a good idea to fund public schooling based on the taxes collected of the area that the school covers. It creates good public schools in high wealth areas, where the wealthy can afford private schooling, and creates bad public schools in poor areas, which rely on public education to get their youth out of said area and move on to better things in life. That story of the woman in Ohio who defrauded a neighbouring school district (which was a very wealthy area, btw) by sending her kids to the school there illegally (she lived in a neighbouring district, one of the poorest in Ohio and known to have a much worse school)? That's common across America. It's one of the saddest realities we face. Thankfully, I went to an inner city school that received a lot of extra funding from the city and preferential treatment, while admitting kids from across the entire city (of course, they had to be tested in 8th grade to be allowed admission). But this isn't everywhere, and in areas where the infrastructure is relatively poorer, and which relies on taxes collected from a small, economically poor area, the schools suck. There is no advancement there. The only advancement is in areas of high economic growth, areas which need this public advancement less.

So in a way, it's about preparing most people for the factory (or in this case, office) workforce, but it's more because the places that can even prepare people for the top positions are unavailable for most people geographically.

well written post but i must say in my area, in our district, it was near complete opposite, my school was one of the "richer" and more nicer areas of town, however we had the worst funding by far publicly and the only thing we had going for us was a nice track, which besides that we had near shit for everything else, but still somehow we had the best grades in our section of the state and weour academic decathlon team went to nationals 3 years in a row and got in the top 10 each time, while all the other public schools in our area were all remodeled with new equipment/rooms/etc.. and failed to hold anything against us, which shows that no matter how much funding you have in a certain area, if a kid is a lazy shit who doesn't have his heart set on education, he/she ain't gonna give a fuck and is gonna do what he has set out in his mind to do. (we roughly have a good..10-12 schools in our single district, let alone the 3 "suburb" districts in our city limits that have a good 8 other schools, so it's pretty blatantly obvious that no matter the funding if the students don't care, then they don't care)

 

[Vault101]

You don't watch the Simpsons do you?

BTW You know who has the final say in the content of the majority of school textbooks?
The Texas School Board. I think that says it all right there.

but theirs soo little meat in thease gym matts.....:/

 

[GodofCider]

The reason why i bring this subject up is because i have recently been watching Jamie Oliver's food revolution. I was completely stunned by the reaction of the superintendent (i'm not really sure how important this position is) and how he is allowed to make a universal decision in regard to what children eat.

This just proves to me that the American education system fails at the most basic fundementals.

Please do NOT take this as an attack!!!

See...maybe you should reword things so it doesn't sound like an attack. This superintendent is only in charge of one school district, not all school districts. So saying you feel bad for American students. So you should really say you feel sorry for these students because of this case. And this is one example and not necessarily indicative of the entire school system across all of America. This one case proves only that school district in question has problems and highlights possible problems that could be nation wide.

Also, I do believe you that you weren't trying to attack, merely showing your out rage and sympathy for the students you saw. But there will be others that will use this as another launch point for an verbal attack on America.

Also lastly, I agree there are problems with the American education system but it isn't the food...well not just the food, sometimes the food was good and healthy. But the problem is underfunding and won't be solved with tv chefs coming in and making a salad.

Thankyou for giving me a little more insight into the subject, i understand that a TV chef such as Jamie Oliver can't fix everything. Our Schools (public) aren't great either but i was hoping for a much more mature response and that is why i mentioned it wasn't an attack. Perhaps i could of constructed my wording in a less offensive manner, nevertheless i do believe that all education systems can learn from each other rather than aggresively blocking them out.

Yeah, don't get me wrong, their are problems with the school system in America, but the problems for one district are vastly different that the problems in another. In the case of laws and schools, America shouldn't be looked at as a unified Nation or Country but rather a continent of different States with an over arching Federal Interstate Business government because that is what we have. So the problem in urban California are going to be vastly different than the problem in suburban Indiana and rural Kansas.

And with that eloquent statement you've resolved a majority of these kinds of complaints.

Native Vermonter here. Generally speaking, teachers are paid well, school lunches are buffet style(I often made a salad), economic assistance was available to low income families, and the overall education...was pretty good.

The only thing I can offhandedly think of that could have used improving were the musically inclined classes. You never really got into them unless you openly expressed interest in learning to play an instrument.

 

[GraveeKing]

Oh I agree... Then again, I feel sorry for ALL Americans, their country is.... a lot of things less than positive. Though it seems the people themselves are really nice, it's typical that only the worse people get in power and ruin it for the rest.

 

[Vault101]

Out of all the things that are a problem, the food is the least important thing to worry about, trust me.
This 'you must go to college' mentality is so pointless. The US needs better internship opportunities imo.

yeah Ive always wondered about this

I mean is there some kind of shame in being like...a plumber or a carpenter? I dont know how much they earn in the US but here in Australia its not bad pay wise...hell people working on the mines earn LOTS just for drving a truck

I mean you could argue that my job is no less tedious/boring than say...working in a supermarket, but because I go to a nice office everyday its not considered shameful

(just to be clear I dont hate my job, or find it tedious or boring, in fact its pretty good)

anyway no education systm is perfect but Ive alwyas found it interesting that in America its no college = no life where as here there isnt that ingrained push to get into university if its pretty obvious its not for you

 

[Nyaliva]

You think that's bad? Teachers NEVER get fired here even if they are friggin sex offenders!

Guess what! We have the same problem here (Australia)!!!!11 we have sickos that pull their wiener out in front of young children and get let off but if you don't pay a parking fine then jail awaits you....

...That shouldn't be the case, you need a blue card to be a teacher in Australia (I live there too) which is checked every year and if you are a sex offender involving children you are immediately disqualified from having one (even if it's just having child pornography on your computer). However, I do believe that there are about a million things in both our's and America's education systems that need to be changed.

Extra point: Teachers get paid bugger all and have to work extra, marking homework and stuff outside of class time and not get paid, so if someone doesn't like working with children WHY THE HELL BECOME A TEACHER!!! And by not liking working with children you're only hurting them and their education, so again, why? Just something I've wondered for a long time.

 

[redspud]

We may have a crappy education system but we are number 1 in confidence.

You know what that means!?!

Spoiler

[youtube]T4AnrwSdmLc[/youtube]This happens :/

EDIT: video isn't working here is the link. Click Me [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4AnrwSdmLc]