I was only allowed to finish the fifth grade in school before my father decided that was enough of an education for any girl. Then at 35, I took the entrance exam for my local college, and I was excepted with high scores. I was even TASP exempt. I was so shocked that I was more advanced than most of the students of the time. I maintained nothing less than a 97% GPA for more than 19 years of a full course schedule. What are they teaching our youth?
Oh God, that is outrageous. How do they not teach fractions, something that we actually use in day-to-day life, but they teach them all sorts of complicated formulas which they will probably only use in one or two exams? I remember when I was at school, I held a grudge against fractions and everything they stood for because I couldn't quite grasp them at first. Then, I realized how much they helped me in life, and I didn't complain anymore. I think that the Chinese, coming from a totally different environment, are probably taught their whole lives that they must respect their teachers and that they should learn. I don't think they beat their children, though.
I would hate to generalise, but I believe that the pampered West takes certain things for granted and is thus complacent about education. I know from my own experiences in sub-Saharan African that there is a great desire to learn, as schooling and further education is not a given. One example (of many) that I can offer is when I held an IT course in Accra in Ghana. I had people coming from rural areas, who would have travelled for three or four hours to get to the capital. In the afternoon, I suggested that we finish at around four o'clock, as I was conscious that people had to get home that evening. Oh no, they insisted, they wanted to stay. Stay they did, and in the end I almost had to drag people out of the building.
That sounds pretty scary to me, Ken. Seems as if we are going towards a basic communistic system and that is not a very good sign.
Most of my Chinese friends tell me that they think education is the one thing that all people must have or they will be dirt farmers for the rest of their lives.
Well, they're not exactly wrong. In this day and age, education is one of the most important things. Without it, we are useless. Society today, at least in my idea, is based on a cogwheel machine: everyone contributes to the mechanism. If you don't have an education, you are a rusted cog, so you're thrown to the bottom of the bucket, having to do some unpleasant jobs.
I am amazed at the fact that fractions aren't taught in schools any longer, but then again I'm not. School these days seems to be all about teaching kids to pass a test given by the government to prove that schools and teachers are performing. So,school has become about teachig a test not about teaching the fundamentals as we were taught while growing up well unless its part of the test. Which is sad, when I was growing up I didn't enjoy learning fractions but as time went on I was grateful that I did because of the fact that went on to learn to sew and measurements have fractions in them.
I was talking to a history lecturer recently and he was talking about subjects taught at schools and universities. Now this chap is far from being an old fogey, but he observed that, never mind things like Latin and Greek, subjects like history and English literature are marginalised now. Economics and IT are the flavours of the month. Sadly, as he suggested, everything (including education) is geared to materialism and consumerism these days.
My feeling is that our public school system is more concerned with producing willing workers than in educating children, and that is unsettling.
Thankfully, our system of education here in our state still values learning and mastery (academics, life and character) very important. We don't shy being called "backwards and primitive". That's how I think, so far. With 'desperate measures', we enjoy our right to teach our children the value of loving learning and contributing productively in our community. Economically, we are of average standing, hard-working tax-paying citizens in our society. Sounds idealistic.
That's horrible. They are determined to make our children and grandchildren really stupid. I feel so sorry for the children whose parents don't have time to teach them everything to schools won't.
Of course fractions are still taught in schools — grades 3-6, Common Core. The last person I would ask whether fractions are still taught in school, would be someone who couldn't handle them.