How is it in your school system?

[Deleted54170User]

I have recently discovered I have talents in a field of expertise, because I have been posting at a couple of forums. The resulting study has a wide range of interests in the general field. I thought for a moment I may be going insane, but the truth of the matter is I have a tremendous capacity for learning. I just needed to learn to categorize the subjects so I could keep a good system for recalling information. I would like to have known what I know now back when I was a young boy playing with a rocketry set and how the behavior of another child older then me dampened my desire to further exploit wisdom in that area. Over and over and over.

 

I had a delivery job before I began to realize my mind had been involuntarily inhibited.

 

At that job I was a blunt, to the point, kind of guy. The Dewy decimal system has that same kind of effect on some people. And a degree in Philosophy may well be my goal in the near future. As a hobby though.

[ub3rman123]

Georgia: "Test them suckers 'til they pass!"

[Deleted54170User]

Sounds like public school there is tougher than it was in Montana from 1956-1969.

[ub3rman123]

Georgia loves its tests because they hope that if they make the tests easy enough, it'll raise grades better than actually.. gasp.. giving the school systems money.

[Genzel]

I've gone to small private schools my whole life. I had previously been at a Christian school up until high school when I switched to a more academically oriented high school. At the Christian school I had no class choice (besides choosing between art or music for your elective). I left because I wanted to get a better education, and now I have a multitude of choices. I hear private school is much more challenging than public, and I think it provides for a much more effective education and work ethic. Both schools had under thirty students per grade, and thus a good teacher/student ratio. I know almost nothing of Ohio's public school system though, but if its anything like people say of the rest of America's school system, it probably sucks.

[Vindekarr]

You would do well to add an "other option" mine doesnt fit. :) But yes, I trained as a specialist, I wanted to become a writer and an IT tech, so I studied english and drama extensively, aswell as science, technology, and history. But I had to go to the semi private university elective education/TAFE sector for my education.

 

Ugh.

 

In australia teachers are frequently allowed to verbaly abuse children who fail to meet expectations. Furthermore you have to answer the endless tests in a particular way, instead of simply giving the correct answer. I got an F for my science exam once for using string theory not newtonian physics, despite being 100% correct as I often was, being a straight A / A+ student.

 

In primary school, via an extremely well funded public school, I was bullied often by teachers either on religious or ethnic grounds. Or for simply being too golod compared to the other fools. Simple fact of the matter was the curriculum was intended for children half the age of those actualy taking the tests. Incredibly dumbed down. With "spelling" still being taught in the last year of primary, and 13 year olds being applauded and given A+s for being able to spell three letter words.

 

In high school it was even worse. Public again, very severe verbal abuse from many teachers, nazi-esque rules. Dress Code was rigidly enforced, and expulsion wasnt a set punishment for certain offences, but a "use at will" power. I saw a girl expelled for wearing a short skirt because her uniform had been rendered unwearable in a rain storm. But according to the masters, she was "dressed like a common prostitute" and "disgraced this honourable school's reputation".l Instant expulsion for "obcene dress code violation" likewise you could and would be expelled for homosexuality (3 expelled in my time) talking back to teachers (2 expelled in my time), or simply failing to meet set grades (8 expelled in my time)

 

The curriculum was... medieval. Again, just like in primary, despite being secular, all students regardless of faith were expected to pray to the christian's god at assembly and sit through an hour long, sometimes daily speach by the chaplain. I once was suspended for muttering half joking a prayer to Hel during one such prayer session. Hel, being norse godess, was considered heathen, despite my half danish ancestory, and I was banned from showing up for a week for my little joke.

 

Biology was a farce. You got three weeks of it and all it consisted of was being told what not to do. No premarital sex or god would strike you down with an STD(thats the lesson, I swear by the gods it is, lol.) No taking drugs or you would be left below, likewise for beer. They also raved against video games, and television, for "inciting obcene laziness" You also got no sex ed either. One poor girl got expelled for being caught reading the wikipedia article "human reproductive system" at which point it was decreed that wikipedia was a banend site, and that anyone who "accessed such obcene pornography" would be instantly removed.

 

Science was virtualy non existant. It was all maths and physics. Nothing to do with evolution, biology, or thermodynamics. No chemsitry or mechanics. Just maths and physics. And only einsteinian physics too, I used string theory once and got an F-.

 

I left that school before my first year ended. And I did not come back to mainstream education. After being verbaly abused infront of the class countless times, and seeing freinds physicaly abused for failure, I got so sick of the australian education system that I left mid year 8 and went to the university sector.

 

Here I finaly found civility. Here I finaly found a group who respected man's right to be himself, and respected the wonders of sciene in ALL it's many forms. I took biology, REAL biology, basic vetinary biology, and did the most study of english, language, WORLD history, drama, and the arts that I could, and came out vastly better for it. I also came out having been taught how to assemble computer, fix cars, and work sheet metal, discovering a new passion in the process: fixing broken dead cars. This was an inspiring few years, not a degrading one. I was always treated with respect for my grades, and the class was much more likeable too. We were allowed to help eachother, and it was a genuinely enjoyable time.

 

This wasnt schooling as you knw it, no year format, merely a bunch of individuals not able to get a regular education, or wanting more, allowed to come and take night classes with respect and dignity. It wasnt put acorss as remedial-far from it, most of us there had either had to leave school early, for a vast array of reasons, or were there wanting to do the subjects they'd had to miss prior to uni.

[ub3rman123]

Wow, Australia sounds worse than I thought. I was under the impression it was all shooting harpoons from handbuilt cars and whatnot, Mad Max-style.

[Genzel]

Australia sounds pretty bad now. I had a math teacher last year, and he spent maybe about 10 years in Australia. He was fired near the end of the year and was the worst teacher I had ever witnessed. EVERYONE including teachers hated him except the principal. It took him getting drunk at a school function to fire him, and about two months following the incident even. All the students who had him as a teacher are pretty much set back a year in math, and I'm worried about physics and pre-calculus now.

[Vindekarr]

It is bad UberMan.

 

Most people think australians are too idiotic to really properly create an orwellian nightmare state, but as a matter of fact, our nation stupidity has simply accelerated the process. Through amoral actions and corruption our heads of state are not democraticaly ellected. Rather, they saw to the removal of the legaly ellected head of state via political machinations and took power themselves, a velvet coup de'ta.

 

Problem is that the winners of the sickening political game simply became politicians because they enjoyed power, neither tony abbet or julia gillard knows the slightest thing about ruling a lagre and sparsely populated nation, let alone one in such a crisis state.

 

Schooling is entirely unfunded. Only private schools receive any sort of government funding whatsoever. They are privately funded, but also recieve large government stipends and are encouraged to have vast entry fees. The public schooling system, all that a lot of the often impoverished worker class populace can afford, are expensive, and grant absolutely no educational value.

 

Public health care, and health care in general is in ruins, hospitals are slowly collapsing derelicts, barely able to maintain structural integrity let alone basic hygene. In one, raw sewage and faeces were soaking through the sealing in the isolation ward. They are in a state of filth, and more close every week, with none build to replace them. And the hospitals themselves only exist in major cities. And those are on the cost, country people often have to drive hundreds or thousands of kilometres to get non emergancy medical care and the waiting list for emergancy surgery is days long. Worse, the waiting list for non emergency surgery is well over a year long in some places, and prohibitively expensive.

 

Roads are falling to pieces, the internet is so old that it barely functions in some regions and does not exist in others, and over a decade of mismanagement has seen what was once a nation that made most of it's own goods become 100% import dependant on everything except minerals, uranium and food. Industrial mismanagment has seen an entire population of a city exposed to near lethal lead bloodpoisoning. And another city with it's water supply infected by an extremely toxic agent that continues to spread from the docks.

 

But worst of all is the hyperconformist culture. Women are expected to be seen and not heard, domestic houseslaves who do not speak, do not make decisions for themselves, and sit passively by while doing anything demanded of them. Men are expected to be agressive, bullying, and to destroy anything not conforming to the stereotype. Like women they are expected to be zealous catholics, and often when the simmering hatred culturaly instilled in them reaches a violent bioling point, it goes unreported because the legal system is a bloodied mess.

 

Its a mess. A filthy mess that looks more like an african or asian third world nation than a major part of the western powerbloc.

 

As it stands I'll likely have to move to america or englad to find a job. My special skills that are my grasp of language, my writing ability, my schooling in the arts and my ability to work equaly well as either an artist or engineer on software projects makes me completely unemployable here.

[brokenergy]

You are really making things sound more dire than they are Vin. Yes the hospital problem has not gone away (but that's a different topic all together), and education is bad in most states but you can't really state that what happened in your past experience is what's happening in reality. Like the teachers who "verbally abuse children" for any reason will be saying goodbye to their jobs, I should know because I saw people who have destroyed two teachers careers. One because of he sexual harassed the girls (he stared at their blouse) and another for non-professionalism (i.e swearing at kids). If you experienced them, then you have all the right to go to the board of education and complain and if they do nothing then tell a news broadcaster and make big enough deal to cause the board of education to act.

 

I don't know what schools you went to in Queensland but I have never experienced it in my life during my time in Australia. Teachers may joke around and be sarcastic at times (especially the maths teachers) but when it comes to educaton and professionalism, they are top class and they are willing to help the students (like me) if they are having difficulty rather than shun them in the dark. If you want to know what type of school I went to, it was public and not selective. Yes a run of a mill school, where the students disrespect the teachers and elders, fight and truant at times. Yes my school was bad but I can't say that all NSW's school are like that as their are public schools which have better students than my school and they don't have to be selective either. So I can't state for all school and either can Vin as we have personal experiences and once person's experience and equate to all schools nationally.

 

That's my two cents