I went to high school just next door to Princeton, actually.

The only reason I survived high school was I had teachers who recognized my learning pace and let me goof off (or straight up told me to skip class if I was bored). I then did undergrad at a well respected university and am now 3 years into my 4 or 5 year PhD program.

I also tutored high school in Cleveland, OH. The experience was very very different. The kids I tutored didn't have the privilege that I had - at all. While it was hypothetically a "pre-college preparedness" program, the honest answer was that college wasn't right for most of those kids. For them, high school was a waste of time because of an education system that was failing them - their teachers couldn't be bothered to show up and one of my students was actually stabbed by her classmates. They learned no life skills (they had no sense of basic accounting/arithmetic/half of them couldn't tell time), but instead were surrounded by people straining to get them to meet the bare minimum of requirements while telling them to go to college.

In general, I feel like the high school curriculum is designed entirely wrong. I could go into details, but it's designed with the idea that EVERYONE goes to college in mind, so everyone's forced to memorize "transitional knowledge" - things that will help them memorize the next thing their professors tell them, rather than learning actual life skills.

My school would raise money by letting the underclass men beat some car they where donated from the scrap yard with baseball bats. Like 10 swings for 5 bucks.

http://t3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT3_YaHlZN-kmLLOm-fTQlTpiG0GWW1-B_9Ozv8UR_gZyTN34F-_A

I couldn't agree more with this observation.

I found this video very helpful:
http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

tl;dw:

We're taught to study for the wrong reasons; schools need to be changed to reflect the importance of creativity. Perhaps if we were given impetus, as you said, rather than strict direction, then these problems could be remedied.

oh shit you also went to phs? i remember like 20+ kids from my fuckin class getting into princeton just because they had connections to the university and that shit was salt-inducing

i also sorta remember that there were physics APs that weren't offered too

I live in Canada and went to a gifted school. High school can be great if your teachers are engaging and you actually have choice over what courses you take. There were 2 required courses in grade 11 and only English in grade 12.

I was bored of school from grade 5 on. It's too bad apprenticeships aren't what they used to be. Now it's all degrees, certs, tickets, hoops, and shit to do some of the most mundane shit that common sense or just a lack of inbreeding, and a week on the job can teach.

Just about all of my education sucked, to be honest; the best advice I've been able to give people who want to be successful is to learn _____ on your own time. I know everything I need for my job from spending countless hours learning on my own.

Same, haha. I personally loved high school, my first year undergrad courses were ridiculously easy because I had the oppourtunity to take classes like sports marketing.

Hey, we did a project on this in AP World History last year. Let me see what I can remember about it.

American students are 27th in math, 23 in reading, 28th in science, the the worst 1st world country in the world, iirc. However, we do excel in one area: our students are more cocky about their intelligence than anywhere else in the world.

Tha United States' education system has a few things that the other world envies - sports integrated into school, caring towards emotional wellness, and the best universities in the world. American education also focuses a lot on group work, something that many countries don't have, and this translates to a population much more able to work together, as well as allow for more creativity compared to students who spent their school time taking notes and memorizing.

But it all goes downhill from there. There are a bunch of problems with American education. The most important, I think, is teachers.

First of all, working a certain amount of years gives you tenure. Once you have tenure, you cannot be fired without a very lengthy procedure that most schools do not bother with. So these parasitic teachers continue to suck money from the system and retard the growth of their students. The vast majority of schools have a significant amount of these poisonous teachers. A bad teacher can teach half of what an average teacher can in a year. A good teacher can teach double of what an average teacher can teach in a year. Many students, taught by multiple years of awful teachers, end up too far behind to comprehend the material of high school, and drop out. The United States has one of the highest high school dropout rates of 1st world countries.

Secondly, teaching is a much more prestigious vocation around the world. In most of the top 10 countries, you need a master's degree in teaching (or maybe it's strongly encouraged, can't remember). In the United States, it's almost optional.

Third, American education is stagnant because there is no incentive for teachers for excelling. There is no incentive for innovation or improvement because teachers are paid, not on a merit-based system where a higher amount of success in their students results in higher pay, but with a flat salary that is increased the longer teachers are employed by the school. In other systems, teachers are encouraged to try new ideas and methods on teaching and share their successes with their colleagues. Here, teachers are rigidly bound to the curriculum and rarely deviate.

Lastly, the teacher's union makes all of this basically impossible to change. They throw fits whenever a teacher is fired, whenever higher requirement are needed. They felt so threatened by the concept of merit-based pay that they did not even put it to a vote. They pay large amounts of money to politicians to look the other way.

Also, the top country academically, Finland, does something really nice that America doesn't, and that is cater to students on an individual basis. Teachers take time for each student separately and help them to understand the material personally. In America, this isn't a a thing. Everything is standardized and people who don't mesh well with standardized testing are marked as failures. I...don't really remember if other countries do this. But Finland is awesome. They also don't have homework. Which I totally agree with.

Then there's the issue of how our universities are privately-owned and outrageously expensive, growing more expensive by the year, so that anyone who attempts them winds up with huge amounts of crippling debt. But we kinda focused on high schools, so I don't have as much to say about that.

Some of this is wrong because I'm mostly going by memory and casual google searches. Sorry.

Honestly the means are out there for "elite" students to get their way through the system, there are competitive enrollment high schools that have great teacher, just as there are a select few college's that actually have great professors(not just filler professors, but ones that are actually on the forefront of their subject.).

And well for everyone below the "elite" it's kind of just filler, you have to realize you're one of 300 million, individualized special education just isn't practical. And hell for some people all that a "proper" education would do for them is push them a bit farther and let the comprehend differential equations in stead of Business calc or whatever. And it just doesn't matter that much since you can probably find millions of others who can grasp differential equations withing the education system we hav. You could argue they could go farther, with a more specialized education system, but apparently the goal is to push your very best as far as they can go, not push a large amount of mediocre and semi smart people as far as they can go.

If you ever read "Surly you're joking Mr. Feynmen " he kind of talks about how within the physics field which is an insanely small percentage of the population, there's even a smaller group of the truly elite physicists and how they were assembled at los alamos together and what not, and how it's like an insanely small amount of physicists that are actually "progressive" and the rest just kind of filler who can comprehend the subject but for whatever reason can't extend it.

Yeah, that's true. Most of the top 10 countries have a comparatively tiny population. Finland, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, the UK, they all have a much smaller pool of students to divide between them. Also, most of the Asian countries are the opposite really, where they just take notes all day and go home and study more with tutors.

...actually, googling this, it seems like a faulty argument? Apparently Finland and the United States have the same amount of students per teacher on average. It doesn't make sense that American teachers would be so overwhelmed by sheer population that they wouldn't be able to find the time for each of their students.

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SE.PRM.ENRL.TC.ZS

But you also have to consider the demographics and the relative environment of the schools in order to make a complete judgement. I highly doubt there are cities like Detroit, Compton, Camden, Stockton in Finland. When you have students who has to worry about whether they will get stabbed or not on the way to school, having a better student to teacher ratio isn't going to change anything.

And when it comes to education, the problem doesn't just stop at the teachers even though it is definitely a big part of the problem. Many people talk about our fall in education level for a first world country, but how can you possibly compare the success of of two individuals in different countries when they grow up in completely different environments? If I was a kid who grew up in a place where violent crimes are high, single parents rates are high, how can you possibly argue that I should be put on the same level of comparison as some kid who went to a highly funded high school in London? Ind the end, its essentially like comparing apples and oranges.

My freshman year of highschool, I was in a rough state emotionally. My plan was to kill myself after highschool, so I didn't do shit on the basis that I would be gone afterwards so there was no point.

Near the end of the year, my English teacher calls me into his room to talk to me, and he shows me my grade on the computer. I didn't even try to feign like I cared when I read it, my grade for the entire year was 16.4%.

He gives me a vocab sheet, has like 10 words on it that I already knew, tells me to write down the definition of the words and bring it back to him. I don't know exactly what made me do it, but I sat down there and wrote what I thought each word meant in about a minute, then handed it back to him. He told me to go back to lunch, and I did.

Later on in the week, we get to know how our grade is going with this kind of informal talk each teacher gives. When I get to my English teacher, he shows me my grade on the computer, and I almost had to stop myself from laughing.

He had given me around 1500 bonus points that brought my grade up to a 65%, which is about the lowest D you can have. I passed freshman English and have since handled the depression fairly well. I like to think that the only reason he did this is because he knew I was fairly smart, and that it was mostly the depression causing this. However, when I look back and think on it, he did give extra credit to anyone who brought him cake/jerky...

God knows why I read this as "WNBA ruined the school district where I live." but I laughed.

My mom was a teacher for a long time before she switched jobs. She constantly tells me even now that the Teacher's Union is one of the worst things to exist in the United States, always repeating one line over and over again no matter how she rephrases the commentary: "Unions work until they don't". The TU has gone from making sure teachers are paid and protected from corruption to being the engine of corruption.

we rely in technology so much to create a lesson plan....whatever happened to critical thinking

just my experience as a sub

You may want to look into John Taylor Gatto. He's written some very interesting things about (most) current school system(s). A handful random quotes I quickly copied here, they get the basic idea he's trying to explain across I hope:
(I think back when I did a presentation about this I put these together from multiple sources of his, don't think they're part of the same text. Felt like I should point this out)

By narrowing down what the currently prevalent school system actually teaches i.e. all sorts of bad habits and dependencies - most of the incoherent trivia doesn't matter at all and is forgotten again right after each test - I think he manages to really get to the bottom of the issue. Going to school is not the same as truly learning, and having a job as a teacher is far from the same as simply teaching people what they're interested in or need to know.

This sounds like a good idea, and it's a tradition we've had for a long time, but it's extremely inefficient and I wish they were separate.

I'm sure other people had regular HS teachers try and coach their sport.

I'm pretty sure I heard this story here, but there was an article about a school principal in Texas who slashed the ever loving shit out of his high school's football and athletics program budget. Not only was the money reallocated to more useful and productive ventures, but since there was no longer any pressure from football, grades at that school went up a fair amount over the course of a year.

Well that's a problem on the sports side too because that football team that had their budget tied into the school budget has been killed by mechanisms beyond their control.

I'm terrible at school.

Some more interesting quotes from Richard Feynman, one of the brightest scientists in recent history:

http://www.wanliss.com/2011/10/surely-youre-joking-mr-feynman/

I would post a Ralph Waldo Emerson essay/paper if I had one one hand, unfortunately I don't.
Half relevant video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uq-FOOQ1TpE

Talks about interpreting things from your own perspective rather than just learning something...

my high school was pretty much segregated since all the asians were in ap/pre-ap classes and all the blacks/mexicans were in regular classes. dunno why there should be multiple difficulties of school to begin w/.

public college admissions are also retarded, how some of them prioritize being top 10% more highly than SAT, when one is relative to the other students in a school and the other is standardized across the nation.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51qw8BpfDZL._SY344_PJlook-inside-v2,TopRight,1,0_SH20_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

False.

From my experience it's usually 20-30 students per teacher here.

In the US, teaching is a "backup profession". The saying goes "those that can't do, teach". That is, if you can't get a GOOD job, you decide to teach. In reflection of this, teachers make a godawful salary and often can't afford basic components of the American dream, such as houses remotely near the schools they teach at or cars that are less than 10 years old.

So, while many teachers are hard working, caring individuals, they're generally NOT the cream of the crop.

Some other countries 1) compensate their teachers enough that teaching is a comfortable profession and 2) respect teaching enough as a profession that even high-achieving students view it as viable career option. The result is that these countries simply have better teachers, which in many cases results in a better education system.

Well that's a gross generalization.

I did say "generally". I am aware there are stunning exceptions to this "rule".

rip the dream