OPEN BAR: NO CISNORMATIVE ELVEN PATRIARCHS ALLOWED

[Doktor Howl]

Also, remember sex ed?

Sorry, cancelled on account of Baby Jesus, because kids will only fuck if you teach them how, and STDs/unplanned pregnancy is WHAT YOU GET FOR BEING A SLUT.

I realized this was happening, and told my kids the deal myself.  The real deal, as C Everett Koop would have done it.  They straightened their friends out, and I got a couple of angry phone calls.

The callers were even angrier after the calls, of course.  I don't negotiate with humans.

[Doktor Howl]

I am noting my deep-seated gut reaction of "STAY IN SCHOOOOOL!!!1!!11" and the blatant classist prejudices. High school DOES suck, I ain't gonna defend that shit.

Thing is, it does more harm than good.  I encouraged my kids to stay, on account of the world IS easier if you have stupid pieces of paper.  But I also taught them to check shit for themselves, because anything that CAN be misrepresented in high school IS misrepresented.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Also, remember sex ed?

Sorry, cancelled on account of Baby Jesus, because kids will only fuck if you teach them how, and STDs/unplanned pregnancy is WHAT YOU GET FOR BEING A SLUT.

I realized this was happening, and told my kids the deal myself.  The real deal, as C Everett Koop would have done it.  They straightened their friends out, and I got a couple of angry phone calls.

The callers were even angrier after the calls, of course.  I don't negotiate with humans.

Oh yeah, sex ed.

What the fuck ARE they teaching in high school these days? Besides how to get up early just because, and how to jump through hoops?

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

Also, remember sex ed?

Sorry, cancelled on account of Baby Jesus, because kids will only fuck if you teach them how, and STDs/unplanned pregnancy is WHAT YOU GET FOR BEING A SLUT.

I realized this was happening, and told my kids the deal myself.  The real deal, as C Everett Koop would have done it.  They straightened their friends out, and I got a couple of angry phone calls.

The callers were even angrier after the calls, of course.  I don't negotiate with humans.

Please tell me Arizona is not a two-party state and you can record such things?

[Demolition Squid]

People are freaking the fuck out over here because Labour have said - if they get in - they'll start teaching sex ed from age 5.

What they actually mean by that (and I've only heard them explain this once) is that they intend to start teaching kids what healthy relationships look like, what it means to have friends and so on, and not actually start the 'sex' bit until teenage years.

The other parties have roundly mocked this and favor a continuation of the 'let the little sods figure it out from the internet' programme which is currently in effect.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

People are freaking the fuck out over here because Labour have said - if they get in - they'll start teaching sex ed from age 5.

What they actually mean by that (and I've only heard them explain this once) is that they intend to start teaching kids what healthy relationships look like, what it means to have friends and so on, and not actually start the 'sex' bit until teenage years.

The other parties have roundly mocked this and favor a continuation of the 'let the little sods figure it out from the internet' programme which is currently in effect.

That's constructive. Sounds like America is spreading.

[The Wizard Joseph]

I had well burnt out by high school. Barely attended, made a point of doing the reading and generally passed my tests but homework assignments were beneath me. I was hateful and arrogant about it and other factors in my life in a way that seems surreal to me in hindsight. I only got my diploma by testing out a semester behind with a GPA <1.

I had realized at a very young age, about 3rd grade, that the whole thing was people pretending to give a crap. Kids were pretending to willingly follow the rules but really only wanting to fit in and be accepted. The adults were mostly pretending to give a shit about the kids but ultimately only really wanting total, unquestioning obedience. I didn't even give that to my parents, and was under no impression that even God demanded it of me. Why give it to them? Later in life I realized that the majority were mostly there for a check and as little disruption as possible.  Thankyouverymuch!

This reminds me of much more. I'm gonna get back to my "what I'm doing on your lawn" thread soon here and give a better account when I get a chance.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I think that the most offensive part, to me, is that they harp on this "it's to prepare them for college!" line of bullshit, when in fact it does absolutely the opposite. American students are arriving at college less and less prepared, because it is NOTHING AT ALL like high school. There are no standardized tests, you learn the most through independent study, if you want help you have to seek it out, and if you don't show up for class that's your problem. If you don't learn the material and you don't do the homework, you don't pass the class, and you just spent $2000 for jack shit.

Kids coming out of high school don't fucking get it. They're just lost. And an astonishing proportion of them are flunking or dropping out of college, because they are so utterly unprepared to be self-motivated or to actually engage in the learning process.

One of the things that I find borderline criminal about public secondary school is that they take about a two-year curriculum and stretch it out over SIX YEARS. That's insane. If they were filling that extra time with sports, music, home ec, sex ed, financial advice, and driving school, it would be justifiable... but they don't.

When I found out that going to college with a third-grade education meant that I would need to take three terms of remedial math, I mean just three terms, and that even starting three terms behind I could catch up and have all the math I needed to enter a biology PhD program in less than two years with just one class per term, I just felt like my kids are getting shat all over. No wonder they hate math, if they've essentially been forced to do remedial math, the same remedial math that took me less than nine months to complete, for THEIR ENTIRE LIVES. That is some boring as fuck bullshit, that math is really only fun the FIRST time you do it. Math is like puzzles, and puzzles are like jokes; the joy is in the first time you hear a joke. Sit someone down and tell them the same joke five days a week for twelve years, and no matter how funny it was the first time they heard it, no matter how hard they laughed, they will fucking hate that joke.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

And then there's my daughter, who was in a K-8 school for very bright students. Her Language Arts and Social Studies teacher retired, so for 8th grade they brought in a new teacher, who started the students on a 9th-grade curriculum. The problem was, they had that curriculum in 7th grade, so she was repeating. Rather than adjust her curriculum, she just shrugged and went ahead with it, with the result that kids just disengaged.

It's a fact that kids are bored by repetition. People in general start to drift away when they've seen the show before.

Then my oldest daughter went to high school. Starting with 9th grade. Is it any wonder that she decided to drop out and get her GED? This kid, like her brother, tests in the 99.9th percentile for both math and language... and I don't think she passed a single class in 9th grade, because it was the same material she'd seen the previous two years in a row. Obviously, school didn't give a fuck about her; of course she gave up on it. She even tried some community college high school completion program, and it was the same old bullshit. That was almost the end. Luckily, she decided to give actual college a try, and she's getting excited about learning again because she gets to learn NEW things.

[Chelagoras The Boulder]

I think that the most offensive part, to me, is that they harp on this "it's to prepare them for college!" line of bullshit, when in fact it does absolutely the opposite. American students are arriving at college less and less prepared, because it is NOTHING AT ALL like high school. There are no standardized tests, you learn the most through independent study, if you want help you have to seek it out, and if you don't show up for class that's your problem. If you don't learn the material and you don't do the homework, you don't pass the class, and you just spent $2000 for jack shit.

Kids coming out of high school don't fucking get it. They're just lost. And an astonishing proportion of them are flunking or dropping out of college, because they are so utterly unprepared to be self-motivated or to actually engage in the learning process.

One of the things that I find borderline criminal about public secondary school is that they take about a two-year curriculum and stretch it out over SIX YEARS. That's insane. If they were filling that extra time with sports, music, home ec, sex ed, financial advice, and driving school, it would be justifiable... but they don't.

When I found out that going to college with a third-grade education meant that I would need to take three terms of remedial math, I mean just three terms, and that even starting three terms behind I could catch up and have all the math I needed to enter a biology PhD program in less than two years with just one class per term, I just felt like my kids are getting shat all over. No wonder they hate math, if they've essentially been forced to do remedial math, the same remedial math that took me less than nine months to complete, for THEIR ENTIRE LIVES. That is some boring as fuck bullshit, that math is really only fun the FIRST time you do it. Math is like puzzles, and puzzles are like jokes; the joy is in the first time you hear a joke. Sit someone down and tell them the same joke five days a week for twelve years, and no matter how funny it was the first time they heard it, no matter how hard they laughed, they will fucking hate that joke.

oh god, don't get me started on my program's "college readiness" plan. The idea is to get the kids thinking about college at an earlyage, but this last week was the first lesson that had anything to do with actually preparing for college (we talked about grants and the options for paying tuition and such) all the ones before it involved, I shot you not slideshows of various colleges and facts about their student population and when they were founded and what not. Cuz you know, kids give so much of a shit how many people go to CSUF. They basically handed me a sheet of college facts and asked me to drone on on about it like Ben Stein in Ferris Bueller's day off. Again, last week was the first time weve covered actually paying for college, AND ITS FUCKING FEBRUARY!

[rong]

I've always interpreted diplomas as a certificate that proves you are trainable.  In my experience, employers don't really want educated employees, they want dumb employees - that are trainable.

My biggest beef with my education experience is that there were no classes teaching you how to deal with real life things like- how does insurance work? what are premiums and deductibles?  how to mortgages work?  what is escrow and PMI?  what are the pros and cons of buying a new car with a warranty vs paying cash for a clunker and budgeting a certain amount of money for repairs?  how do you figure out how much taxes will be taken out of your paycheck? 

you know, how do you deal with The Machine^tm type shit 

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I think that the most offensive part, to me, is that they harp on this "it's to prepare them for college!" line of bullshit, when in fact it does absolutely the opposite. American students are arriving at college less and less prepared, because it is NOTHING AT ALL like high school. There are no standardized tests, you learn the most through independent study, if you want help you have to seek it out, and if you don't show up for class that's your problem. If you don't learn the material and you don't do the homework, you don't pass the class, and you just spent $2000 for jack shit.

Kids coming out of high school don't fucking get it. They're just lost. And an astonishing proportion of them are flunking or dropping out of college, because they are so utterly unprepared to be self-motivated or to actually engage in the learning process.

One of the things that I find borderline criminal about public secondary school is that they take about a two-year curriculum and stretch it out over SIX YEARS. That's insane. If they were filling that extra time with sports, music, home ec, sex ed, financial advice, and driving school, it would be justifiable... but they don't.

When I found out that going to college with a third-grade education meant that I would need to take three terms of remedial math, I mean just three terms, and that even starting three terms behind I could catch up and have all the math I needed to enter a biology PhD program in less than two years with just one class per term, I just felt like my kids are getting shat all over. No wonder they hate math, if they've essentially been forced to do remedial math, the same remedial math that took me less than nine months to complete, for THEIR ENTIRE LIVES. That is some boring as fuck bullshit, that math is really only fun the FIRST time you do it. Math is like puzzles, and puzzles are like jokes; the joy is in the first time you hear a joke. Sit someone down and tell them the same joke five days a week for twelve years, and no matter how funny it was the first time they heard it, no matter how hard they laughed, they will fucking hate that joke.

oh god, don't get me started on my program's "college readiness" plan. The idea is to get the kids thinking about college at an earlyage, but this last week was the first lesson that had anything to do with actually preparing for college (we talked about grants and the options for paying tuition and such) all the ones before it involved, I shot you not slideshows of various colleges and facts about their student population and when they were founded and what not. Cuz you know, kids give so much of a shit how many people go to CSUF. They basically handed me a sheet of college facts and asked me to drone on on about it like Ben Stein in Ferris Bueller's day off. Again, last week was the first time weve covered actually paying for college, AND ITS FUCKING FEBRUARY!

Jesus fucking christ.  That's terrible. That's like a traveling prep course that just drones on about the gross national product and economic statistics of various countries.

Most kids aren't going to get to pick and choose colleges like changing shoes, and if they're in a position to do so, the Internet exists.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I've always interpreted diplomas as a certificate that proves you are trainable.  In my experience, employers don't really want educated employees, they want dumb employees - that are trainable.

My biggest beef with my education experience is that there were no classes teaching you how to deal with real life things like- how does insurance work? what are premiums and deductibles?  how to mortgages work?  what is escrow and PMI?  what are the pros and cons of buying a new car with a warranty vs paying cash for a clunker and budgeting a certain amount of money for repairs?  how do you figure out how much taxes will be taken out of your paycheck? 

you know, how do you deal with The Machine^tm type shit

That's because they cut all those classes to make room to show you how to solve for x for the 4,001st time because they need to get those standardized test scores up and they figure the best way to do that is to bore you to death.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Seriously. All that stuff was covered in Home Ec when I was a kid.

[Reginald Ret]

People are freaking the fuck out over here because Labour have said - if they get in - they'll start teaching sex ed from age 5.

What they actually mean by that (and I've only heard them explain this once) is that they intend to start teaching kids what healthy relationships look like, what it means to have friends and so on, and not actually start the 'sex' bit until teenage years.

The other parties have roundly mocked this and favor a continuation of the 'let the little sods figure it out from the internet' programme which is currently in effect.

That's constructive. Sounds like America is spreading.

It sounds like you think you are joking. You are not, you speak the truth.
European policy is USA policy a decade late.