Education in the USA

Hog

Know it all...according to wife
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I sat around Thursday with my brother in law and we started discussing how middle and high school just doesn’t seem very helpful anymore.. when we were in school we had auto mechanics, welding, construction, home ec. Just to name a few and it seemed as the school system was trying to help kids be prepared for the future. Now all or most of the trade classes are replaced with videography and whatever which is fine but what happen to trying to being diverse and helping several children. They aren’t even learning cursive anymore, how are you suppose to sign a document. Shouldn’t they learn how to save money and learn how to use a credit card correctly?? I feel the system is all about forcing a curriculum down their throats and the teachers making sure the kids get a good grade so they can keep their jobs, idk.. I just feel something has gone wrong with the schools both at HS level as well as the college level. So I wondered if anyone else feels this way or you think it’s gotten better?
 
I agree 100%. They ought to be teaching useful things in high school such as how to build and maintain credit, invest, find things on the internet, pay bills, etc.

In other words they should be setting you up for life as oppose to teaching useless bullshit such as advanced math, social studies, etc. if someone wants to learn about something specific, that’s what college is for in my mind.

There is a growing trend among parents who feel this way as well. It’s hard to believe that I graduated high school and never learned how to write a check, or the importance of good credit, let alone how to get and maintain it.
 
I sat around Thursday with my brother in law and we started discussing how middle and high school just doesn’t seem very helpful anymore.. when we were in school we had auto mechanics, welding, construction, home ec. Just to name a few and it seemed as the school system was trying to help kids be prepared for the future. Now all or most of the trade classes are replaced with videography and whatever which is fine but what happen to trying to being diverse and helping several children. They aren’t even learning cursive anymore, how are you suppose to sign a document. Shouldn’t they learn how to save money and learn how to use a credit card correctly?? I feel the system is all about forcing a curriculum down their throats and the teachers making sure the kids get a good grade so they can keep their jobs, idk.. I just feel something has gone wrong with the schools both at HS level as well as the college level. So I wondered if anyone else feels this way or you think it’s gotten better?
It is called "No Child Left Behind" when was the last time you saw or heard of a kid being left back? When my son was a senior 4 years ago, one of his friends decided he did not want to go to school anymore. Despite his parents, guidance counselor and school physiologists trying to get him to go, he would not. By March of his senior year they said if you can get him to school for 1 hour, twice a week we can get him graduated????...BTW he never did it and probably blew a hockey scholarship to at least a division 2 college....point is, all they do is teach to the tests and move them along to the next year!
 
Ya I totally agree with ya @Chris and @cliffish. The kids are learning how to avoid any sort of responsibility and mommy and daddy are stuck with raising them til they are 30. One kid the other day said he wanted to go ahead and call out sick a few days cause he gets 6 sick days a year😳
 
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Ya I totally agree with ya @Chris and @cliffish. The kids are learning how to avoid any sort of responsibility and mommy and daddy are stuck with raising them til they are 30. One kid the other day said he wanted to go ahead and call out sick a few days cause he gets 6 sick days a year😳

I asked my neighbors son who is 10 what he wants to do when he grows up, and he told me he wants to be a YouTube star. That’s a very common answer apparently for most young kids 🙄
 
I have a son, senior in college (physical ed major) saved most all his own working money, gives us a call every time he wants to to charge something (school related) on our credit card.

My daughter is a senior in HS, spends every penny she makes and more on coffee, going out and still complains she needs more. Both were raised similar IE..no divorce or difference in economic impact...I, for the life of me, struggle why they are so different financially? what did we do wrong?
 
I have a son, senior in college (physical ed major) saved most all his own working money, gives us a call every time he wants to to charge something (school related) on our credit card.

My daughter is a senior in HS, spends every penny she makes and more on coffee, going out and still complains she needs more. Both were raised similar IE..no divorce or difference in economic impact...I, for the life of me, struggle why they are so different financially? what did we do wrong?
Schools have turns into a social gathering rather then a school. I was afraid to be late, didn’t wanted to be called out in class, nor goto principal, or get a bad report card...and never would talk back to a teacher.!!
 
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My wife is retired from the local school district. She was a Principals Secretary, not a Teacher, so she saw what went on behind the scenes. It's a very ugly bureaucratic nightmare with too many egos. cliffish is on the mark, education went down the tubes with 'No Child Left Behind', but the downfall started with 'Why Can't Johnny Read?' during the Reagan administration. Teachers hands are tied and are required to teach to the test, not what the older teachers were trained to do.
My wife retired early because she wasn't going to deal with the upcoming changes and she had her time in.

Trevor State Graded School spent years trying to teach me cursive. I outlasted them. ;)
 
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I asked my neighbors son who is 10 what he wants to do when he grows up, and he told me he wants to be a YouTube star. That’s a very common answer apparently for most young kids 🙄
Funny, that's the same answer the 12yo boy next door said. They see these YT idiots doing stupid pranks in some mansion and think they can live the same way. Had to burst his bubble on that one.
 
Funny, that's the same answer the 12yo boy next door said. They see these YT idiots doing stupid pranks in some mansion and think they can live the same way. Had to burst his bubble on that one.

Yep, I'm not kidding either when I say it's a common theme. They did a thing in my daughters school where each kid had to write what they wanted to be when they grow up, and I would say 6-7 out of every 10 wrote "YouTube star".

So in other words, no one wants to actually work anymore. It's no wonder service industries are at such an all time high demand to fill positions. My brother-in-law makes 120k a year (and gets damn good benefits) as a union plumber, and he is always telling me how plumbing pays such big money, but no one wants to do it these days.
 
My wife retired early because she wasn't going to deal with the upcoming changes and she had her time in.

Lucky her. I have nothing but sympathy for teachers these days. Every time I see them on strike, I am in the camp who 100% believes they deserve to be paid more. The things they have to put up with these days are just nuts.
 
When my daughter was in third grade, I thought she should be held back a year due to her grades. I was overruled by the school counselor because they didn't want to stifle her social development. I pulled her out and enrolled her in a private school. Best decision I've ever made.
 
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I graduated high school in 1981, in a small town in Minnesota. We had Metal Shop, Wood Shop, Auto Mech, and Carpentry. We built a house every year at school, and auctioned it off . Most, if not all off these classes are gone from most schools today. I wish more people would realize there's alot of money to be made in the trades. Every kid does not need to go to college. Most colleges are screwing over the kids today, and the parents blindly go along with it! The last thing we need is free college. If anything, do 2 years of free trade school. But then again, most kids today don't have the work ethic to make it in the trades anyway....oh crap don't get me started!
 
I graduated high school in 1981, in a small town in Minnesota. We had Metal Shop, Wood Shop, Auto Mech, and Carpentry. We built a house every year at school, and auctioned it off . Most, if not all off these classes are gone from most schools today. I wish more people would realize there's alot of money to be made in the trades. Every kid does not need to go to college. Most colleges are screwing over the kids today, and the parents blindly go along with it! The last thing we need is free college. If anything, do 2 years of free trade school. But then again, most kids today don't have the work ethic to make it in the trades anyway....oh crap don't get me started!

You said it man, and I agree 100%. There's a lot of money to be made in the trades, and I see those as jobs that aren't going anywhere. The competition for some foo-foo desk job is stiff. Everyone has a Bachelor's Degree in Business, which is essentially useless in this day and age. I know plumbers, electricians, and other people in the trade industry, and those guys all make really, really good money. Not to mention they get their school paid for, and usually very good benefits.
 
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We home school for many of these reasons. Three of them get up on their own about 7am and get straight to their work before breakfast. My kids are fun, smart and look people in the eye when they talk to them. They engage in sports or music outside as well as our normal social life. They are very well adjusted to real world, though they are naive about certain things and we like it that way for now. They can be introduced when they are mature enough to handle those aspects of our society. We do this gradually. They think that playing video games is stupid and watching football games is boring. They would rather be outside building a fort, shoveling snow or just riding their bikes. They are 15, 14, 14, 11 and 8. Older people tell us they remind them of themselves and the past generation. I am good with that. We‘re more interested in them being hard working, great people who are WELL READ and ROUNDED than completing some CORE curriculum or prepping for some stupid test. I wouldn’t give my kids to the public education system to raise them for a million dollars. That’s just my .02 cents.
 
It's hard to fault the public education system entirely. I grew up in the public education system, though I dropped out of high school in my freshman year and got my GED and went to college when I was 17.

However, most of the people I know went to public schools and they are fine. So that's not to say someone can't go through the public education system and end up fine. However, I do think that high school in general is a complete waste of time. Grade school and middle school ought to be spent teaching you the basics (reading, writing, etc.), and then in middle school and high school they should start teaching kids about real life skills. Working on cars, home repairs, cooking, how to build and maintain credit, investing, etc. Things that actually have a purpose in life.

Spending time in social studies class learning about American history (or whatever else) has absolutely no value in the real world whatsoever. If you want to learn about that, do it on your own, or go to college and take a class on it.

I wish they would set kids up better for the real world by the time they graduate high school. I'm not saying none of this is the responsibility of the parents (a large part of it is), but knowing my kids are going to school to learn things that have no real world value, it just makes me think that the schools are in desperate need of a reform.
 
Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it....George Santayana. (Not a direct quote, a loose quote)

I hope they learn American History. People need to know where they are in the stream of history and how things were in the stream before them so they understand the principles that brought them to where they are.
 
I graduated high school in 1981, in a small town in Minnesota. We had Metal Shop, Wood Shop, Auto Mech, and Carpentry. We built a house every year at school, and auctioned it off . Most, if not all off these classes are gone from most schools today. I wish more people would realize there's alot of money to be made in the trades. Every kid does not need to go to college. Most colleges are screwing over the kids today, and the parents blindly go along with it! The last thing we need is free college. If anything, do 2 years of free trade school. But then again, most kids today don't have the work ethic to make it in the trades anyway....oh crap don't get me started!

I graduated (barely) highschool in the mid 90's and got in on the tail end of the trade programs. Autoshop and metal shop were on their way out around that time. In my sophomore year I got in on a vocational program where I got to leave school early a few days a week to go work, and that almost spelled the end of my highschool career. I started working at a Honda dealership and was making amazing money for a 16 year old, so I started skipping school and just going to work. I think my final GPA was somewhere around a 2.0 but at that point I was already halfway through my ASE certifications so I didn't really care.
 
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Teachers absolutely deserve a hell a lot more pay for what they have to endure. Not only from the school system but from the kids themselves.. Teachers aren’t able to do anything anymore and the kids know that, and the kids watch to much tv so they think”. If they teacher messes with me, I’ll sue”..
 
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