Once again, why I hate the state of American education.

[crimson5pheonix]

In this case, pertaining to English.

I was googleing the difference between poisonous and venomous (which I found out) and as I typed in my question the auto fill took over. The first suggestion by google after typing in "what is the difference between" was "what is the difference between effect and affect".

Sorry if this seems like over tread ground, but I have to release some bile. This bile stems from my experience in English class. My English classes were nothing more than exercises in multicolored pen use and drilling in white guilt. We didn't read ANY classic literature. The closest we got was 100 pages into Frankenstein, the teacher gave up and moved to.... multicolored pen use. I think I may have learned 3 new words in 4 years of High school. 2 of those words I learned in economics.

Back to the books, we didn't read anything memorable, thought provoking, or challenging. We tried Frankenstein in my Senior year and, like I said, the teacher gave up. He gave up because it was too difficult for most of the class. A book I read on my own in 6th grade was too hard for 12th graders... I'm just beyond happy that Twilight hadn't made it to my school while I was there, we would have read it had it been popular. We didn't need to read the Mars trilogy, but we could have at least finished Frankenstein. Maybe a part of the problem was that all of my high school English teachers almost exclusively used Ebonics...

 

[grimsprice]

I had to prove to my 11th grade English teacher that disorientated was a word. Sad day...

After that, he deferred to my vocabulary in times of duress.

 

[shadowstriker86]

this is why im going to be an english teacher.....in japan. at least there teachers have a choice in their curriculum, as long as the students arent dumbasses. at least thats what my friend told me who is actually from japan

 

[000Ronald]

Frankenstein was a good book. It dealt with a lot of the worst parts of humanity, and where they came from. I liked it, at least.

Back on topic, what you have to remember about most of these high-school teachers is that they're only high-school teachers because they're not competent enough to teach college. A lot of them have delusions of grandeur, and more than one likely has a god complex. We actually had a sub in who had taught in college, and he was a lot more laid back (and competent) than our regular teacher. She (the regular teacher) actually got really angry because of how well he did. Of course, there wasn't a lot she could do, since he was on the school board. Things like that make me feel good.

If it helps, college is actually a lot better, if you let it be. Apologies n' stuff.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

Frankenstein was a good book. It dealt with a lot of the worst parts of humanity, and where they came from. I liked it, at least.

Back on topic, what you have to remember about most of these high-school teachers is that they're only high-school teachers because they're not competent enough to teach college. A lot of them have delusions of grandeur, and more than one likely has a god complex. We actually had a sub in who had taught in college, and he was a lot more laid back (and competent) than our regular teacher. She (the regular teacher) actually got really angry because of how well he did. Of course, there wasn't a lot she could do, since he was on the school board. Things like that make me feel good.

If it helps, college is actually a lot better, if you let it be. Apologies n' stuff.

It's good for me, but nobody else in my English class will like it because they won't know how to function in a college level English class.

 

[000Ronald]

Frankenstein was a good book. It dealt with a lot of the worst parts of humanity, and where they came from. I liked it, at least.

Back on topic, what you have to remember about most of these high-school teachers is that they're only high-school teachers because they're not competent enough to teach college. A lot of them have delusions of grandeur, and more than one likely has a god complex. We actually had a sub in who had taught in college, and he was a lot more laid back (and competent) than our regular teacher. She (the regular teacher) actually got really angry because of how well he did. Of course, there wasn't a lot she could do, since he was on the school board. Things like that make me feel good.

If it helps, college is actually a lot better, if you let it be. Apologies n' stuff.

It's good for me, but nobody else in my English class will like it because they won't know how to function in a college level English class.

Having concern for other people changes the issue entirely. I may be able to give advice, but you probably wouldn't like it.

 

[Skeleon]

We read Bonfire of the Vanities, Brave New World and MacBeth.
At least those are the ones I can remember.
And, yeah, I'm not American.
And we don't have colleges.
It seems that, now that I think about it, my post was unnecessary.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

Personally, my entire problem with my k-12 education can be summed up fairly succintly: No one was able or willing to explain WHY. Rules in math or physics are seemingly arbitrary and come from nowhere. Rules of english are simply set in stone yet contradictary. I suspect many of the users of this board suffer from a similar personality disorder as me: they like to ask questions.

In college, I've found that the education experience that I fought very hard to avoid didn't always need to be unpleasant. Indeed, I have enjoyed every one of my classes thus far and it's all because when pressed the instructor/professor can explain (or at least tell you where to find) the reason something is said to be true. In Physics, by virtue of holding a dictorate in the subject, my professor is fully capable of showing us how an equation was derived from experiment. Much of the time, the labs consist of doing this very thing. During my time in higher education, I have run into a great many people hoping to one day be teachers somewhere in the k-12 range and they generally all have the same reasons for wanting to stay in that range - they don't want to put forth the effort required to teach at the higher levels. This is most true because of the math classes. While I'll never stand up and say (without at least a degree of sarcasm) that math is fun, I do know that each time I've moved up to a higher level of math, my understanding of the reasons governing the math conventions at the lower levels increases. Few people opt to teach math in high school because it requires several levels of math beyond calculus. Yet, it is only now that I'm in my third semester of calculus that I can actually say that I have a nearly perfect grasp of algebra - a subject I first studied more than a decade ago.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

Frankenstein was a good book. It dealt with a lot of the worst parts of humanity, and where they came from. I liked it, at least.

Back on topic, what you have to remember about most of these high-school teachers is that they're only high-school teachers because they're not competent enough to teach college. A lot of them have delusions of grandeur, and more than one likely has a god complex. We actually had a sub in who had taught in college, and he was a lot more laid back (and competent) than our regular teacher. She (the regular teacher) actually got really angry because of how well he did. Of course, there wasn't a lot she could do, since he was on the school board. Things like that make me feel good.

If it helps, college is actually a lot better, if you let it be. Apologies n' stuff.

It's good for me, but nobody else in my English class will like it because they won't know how to function in a college level English class.

Having concern for other people changes the issue entirely. I may be able to give advice, but you probably wouldn't like it.

What, that I shouldn't care about other people? I already don't, but it's still not fair for them.

Edit:

Personally, my entire problem with my k-12 education can be summed up fairly succintly: No one was able or willing to explain WHY. Rules in math or physics are seemingly arbitrary and come from nowhere. Rules of english are simply set in stone yet contradictary. I suspect many of the users of this board suffer from a similar personality disorder as me: they like to ask questions.

In college, I've found that the education experience that I fought very hard to avoid didn't always need to be unpleasant. Indeed, I have enjoyed every one of my classes thus far and it's all because when pressed the instructor/professor can explain (or at least tell you where to find) the reason something is said to be true. In Physics, by virtue of holding a dictorate in the subject, my professor is fully capable of showing us how an equation was derived from experiment. Much of the time, the labs consist of doing this very thing. During my time in higher education, I have run into a great many people hoping to one day be teachers somewhere in the k-12 range and they generally all have the same reasons for wanting to stay in that range - they don't want to put forth the effort required to teach at the higher levels. This is most true because of the math classes. While I'll never stand up and say (without at least a degree of sarcasm) that math is fun, I do know that each time I've moved up to a higher level of math, my understanding of the reasons governing the math conventions at the lower levels increases. Few people opt to teach math in high school because it requires several levels of math beyond calculus. Yet, it is only now that I'm in my third semester of calculus that I can actually say that I have a nearly perfect grasp of algebra - a subject I first studied more than a decade ago.

I love math.

 

[Good morning blues]

I had to prove to my 11th grade English teacher that disorientated was a word. Sad day...

After that, he differed to my vocabulary in times of duress.

Do you perhaps mean that he "deferred" to your vocabulary?

 

[4fromK]

I had to prove to my 11th grade English teacher that disorientated was a word. Sad day...

After that, he differed to my vocabulary in times of duress.

surely you mean "deferred", boffin boy

Edit: ninja'd....
yeah, OT, Im an ausfag, so my school system is fairly adequate. I also go to a semi private school (kinda complicated) so its even better. read probably half of shakespeare n shit, yo.

 

[NeutralDrow]

Huh. I feel downright lucky, now. 'Course, taking the specifically English Literature course senior year may have had something to do with it.

That said, my favorite book was kind of a surprise. How many people hear "literary classics" and think Bless Me, Ultima at any point?

Personally, my entire problem with my k-12 education can be summed up fairly succintly: No one was able or willing to explain WHY. Rules in math or physics are seemingly arbitrary and come from nowhere. Rules of english are simply set in stone yet contradictary. I suspect many of the users of this board suffer from a similar personality disorder as me: they like to ask questions.

Sadly, until you get to college, it seems only the highest high school courses actually teach the Socratic method...

 

[Thedutchjelle]

I would feel sorry for you if my Dutch (first language here) class wouldn't be so brutally hard. Yeah, here we do have to read old Dutch literature, learn literature history, understand poems, write big ass essays etc.
In the lower grades you also get a book with 'difficult' or not-as-often-used Dutch words and you got to learn them. That wasn't as hard though, and it felt more useful than the first things I listed >_>

 

[Emilin_Rose]

this is what happens when you let a school system be run by the retarded.

 

[Vuzzmop]

Don't mean to grammar nazi, but I'm pretty sure the word is "disoriented" not "disorientated."
A lot of people get mixed up because of the difference between the adjective disoriented, and the noun "disorientation."

But seriously, wow. Just Frankenstein? God I've been lucky.

 

[lostclause]

Streaming the classes solves a lot of this problem. It's the lower people dragging you down so by placing you in a class surrounded by similar people will help immensely.

I may dislike my school for many things but that's one I'm grateful for.

 

[Abedeus]

I had to prove to my 11th grade English teacher that disorientated was a word. Sad day...

After that, he differed to my vocabulary in times of duress.

Do you perhaps mean that he "deferred" to your vocabulary?

I beg to differ.

 

[Smudge91]

My secondry school's english dept was fairly hopeless apart from the one teacher who basically saved my english GCSE and the fact i liked to read. However when we went over to the science block it was filled with teachers that either had a god complex or just didn't want to be there.
Sixth form college and university are so wonderful with teachers/lectures knowing their stuff.

 

[Good morning blues]

I had to prove to my 11th grade English teacher that disorientated was a word. Sad day...

After that, he differed to my vocabulary in times of duress.

Do you perhaps mean that he "deferred" to your vocabulary?

I beg to differ.

Not in that sentence you don't.

 

[azukar]

After that, he differed to my vocabulary in times of duress.

*Deferred*

Sorry, couldn't resist

edit: Hah, everyone else got to it before me! It really is deferred, from "defer" - to put off something, or pass it on to someone with greater knowledge.