On Mon, 04 Oct 2010 19:21:39 -0700, Larry Jaques wrote:

It just appears that things are different now than when we went to
school.
Pocket knives were OK then.

Most of the guys in my high school had switchblades :-). Not to mention
the occasional zip gun. And I remember one football player who carried
brass knuckles.

Surprisingly, the only kid I remember ever getting hurt by all this
weaponry was one knucklehead who put smokeless powder in his black powder
muzzleloading pistol. Blew his thumb off. He didn't get a lot of
sympathy.

--
Intelligence is an experiment that failed - G. B. Shaw

On Mon, 04 Oct 2010 23:41:56 +0000, Drew Lawson wrote:

I've had terrible teachers. I've had wonderful teachers. And I've had
teachers who may have been marking time until retirement. I learned the
most from the wonderful, the second most from the terrible ("No man is
useless, he can always serve as a counter-example.") and I learned the
least from the uninvolved space fillers.

That's a pretty good summary. I'll add that I also had a couple of very
good teachers in high school that were past retirement age but kept on
teaching because they loved it.

--
Intelligence is an experiment that failed - G. B. Shaw

On Tue, 05 Oct 2010 05:41:35 -0700, wrote:

Are you saying that rote memorization has no place in the education
system?

"What value of 2+2 would make you feel good about yourself today."

I wish you wouldn't do that when I'm drinking coffee :-).

--
Intelligence is an experiment that failed - G. B. Shaw

On 10/5/2010 12:25 PM, Larry Blanchard wrote:
On Tue, 05 Oct 2010 05:41:35 -0700, wrote:

Are you saying that rote memorization has no place in the education
system?

"What value of 2+2 would make you feel good about yourself today."

I wish you wouldn't do that when I'm drinking coffee :-).


A popular (more general) answer to the question is that "my calculator
will tell me"--I should expend my precious time and energy on more
productive pursuits...why would I ever need to know the value of 2+2
anyway? Give me one good reason! I'd rather argue than think! : )

Bill

Bill wrote:
Larry Jaques wrote:
On Mon, 04 Oct 2010 19:19:55 -0400, wrote:

Larry Jaques wrote:

Yeah, back when I was in school, I may not have liked all my
teachers, but I respected and obeyed all of them. Kids nowadays
don't seem to do that at all.

Lots of them don't even respect and obey their parent (s).
But that's only half the story. There are lots of good kids out
there too. Everybody can probably name a few.

It just appears that things are different now than when we went to
school. Pocket knives were OK then.

Now I read about some schools where metal detectors are being
installed at all school entrances, armed guards man the hallways--and
sometimes in the classrooms.


Yep, kids today seem to be better armed... The prospect of being cut
or shot did not seem like a possibility when we went to high school.

really? my mom retired from teaching after putting in 25 years in 1985
because someone pulled a pistol on her in class, and who was back in school
after a 2 week suspension.

chaniarts wrote:
Bill wrote:

Yep, kids today seem to be better armed... The prospect of being cut
or shot did not seem like a possibility when we went to high school.

really? my mom retired from teaching after putting in 25 years in 1985
because someone pulled a pistol on her in class, and who was back in school
after a 2 week suspension.


Sorry, I generalized too fast. Location, location, location... We had
3 sides of town and 3 high schools. I went to the one in the middle, it
was on the west end. Attending the school on the east end would have
been scary 30 years ago. As I recall, the kids at the 3rd h.s. had a
reputation for spending a lot of money on drugs (KO).

Bill

"J. Clarke" wrote:
Are you saying that rote memorization has no place in the education
system?
--------------
Try again.

That"s to obvious fluff a ball.

Lew

In article om,
says...

"J. Clarke" wrote:
Are you saying that rote memorization has no place in the education
system?
--------------
Try again.

That"s to obvious fluff a ball.

Nonresponsive.

On Mon, 4 Oct 2010 12:28:42 -0700, "Lew Hodgett"
wrote:

Must have worked, passed the tests.

My math teacher never understood me, show your work. What the hell did
they want me to do split my head. Ah typical teenage thinking. One
teacher asked me one day about how I saw math problem and had explain
the workings in my skull.

So I was given a 12 digit number to multiply what I did in my head,
it took me longer to explain but I had the right answer.

largest 3

AxY

next lowest

BxY

next lowest 3

CxY

lowest 3

DxY

Y being the common multiplier

stack them all together and you have the answer.

This got an "oh never thought about it like that".

I still had to show my work though.

Mark

On 2010-10-05 06:54:16 -0400, "J. Clarke" said:

The horrible examples -- like the girl who walked back into my wife's
classroom after having been called to the office and announced to the
room as she pointed at Jane, "That bitch wrote me up" -- are the easy
proof that bad get more notice than good. But she should have checked
behind her. The Vice Principal was there, and the girl's no longer
going to be attending school.

What state is this? The only way to remove a kid from school around
here is to get them sent to jail. Technically they can be expelled,
however they are still owed an education, so the district has to
provide tutors for them, which costs a lot more than letting them back
into school.

And no, that apple did not fall far from the tree.

That would be metro Indianapolis (MSD Lawrence Twp).

Today's adventure was the e-mail the girl sent to Jane -- "Just
continue to be a bitch..." And that got her bounced from the next
school where she lasted one day. Sad thing is, the student had been
doing well in the subject.