"John Bachman" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 01 Apr 2006 03:03:47 +1100, Bob Parker
wrote:

Pretty scary in a way. These days it seems that almost no-one can
spell properly and they're dependent on calculators for the simplest
arithmetic, and slackness is creeping in everywhere. Sorta makes you
wonder how it'll be in another 30 years or so.

Being an uncontrollable optimist I see this a bit differently. Yes,
many, maybe even a majority of young people slide by not learning very
much, just what they have to do to graduate from high school.

That presents a golden opportunity for those who chose the harder
path. I do some work with young people in several high schools. The
honors programs in all of them are jammed with students, eager to
learn.

When I was in high school, back in the dark ages BD (that's Before
Digital), a sophomore in the "college prep" track took Algebra for
half the year and triginometry for the other half.

In a local high school, the sophomore honors track has a full year of
Algebra and a half year of trig. Options include the second year of
engineering prep for those so inclined. A bit tougher than my time I
would say.

So today's kids who are the go getters will stand head and shoulders
over the others, be the leaders of their generation and will do well.
The others will grumble about how society never gave them a chance and
the "college kids" get all the breaks. Some things never change.

JMHO

John

If only it were like that here in the UK. Education has been getting worse
and worse, since the selective ability schooling system was scrapped in
about 1970, in favour of the comprehensive system, intended to be a leveller
of ability. All state schools are basically now of mixed ability, and there
is little incentive for clever kids to shine. There is no official streaming
within year groups, so kids of all abilities end up in the same classes.
This makes it difficult for teachers to go at anything greater than the rate
at which the least able can proceed. I know this intimately, because I have
put three kids through two of the better schools in recent years.

I would actually doubt that most kids here would even know what algebra and
trig are, let alone want to take them as subjects.

The other thing that has happened over here, is that parents have become
lazy, or just lacking in parenting skills, so expect the schools to teach
their kids absolutely everything that they need for life, and of course,
there is not enough time in the school day for them to do this. It has,
however, spawned *nonsense* time wasting subjects like "personal and social
development". I say time wasting because parents should be teaching their
kids this stuff, and the time spent by the school on doing it, would be put
to better use teaching maths or English. The reason that the girl I
mentioned cannot read a clock, is because her parents never taught her, and
her school didn't have time. So yes, we have let education go, by not doing
any of it ourselves, and allowing a clearly flawed education system, to be
perpetuated by the "PC-everyone's-equal" brigade.

Arfa