Speaking as a high school mathematics teacher…I think the purpose info education is to teach you how to think critically and how to be a better human. I could care less if anyone knows the quadratic formula but hopefully they know how to recognize patterns, analyze data, and be able to explain their reasoning. So in my mind, yeah, you actually did learn something.
Very beautifully said Brooke. I hope you know that this was just me taking the piss comedically; school is super important of course, and teachers are an incredible breed of humans. Also anyone who can do math impresses the hell out of me.
But the recorder and rope are dumb and I'll die on that hill 😆
Thanks, Robin! And yes, I realize you’re taking the piss 🙂. I’ve read enough of your work to know. I completely agree on the recorder - my elementary school was great with teaching us to actually read music but I don’t remember having to play the recorder. I think my daughter had to, though, but never at home!! And the rope - yeah, never had to do that either. My high school didn’t make us take a gym class, which is shocking considering I grew up in Oklahoma, where everything is about football.
Let's hear it for the teachers. Mine included the good, the bad and the wonderful, and all together they taught me to think -- so I could read & learn my way into a career as a writer that never made me rich but surely made for a rewarding life. (None of my teachers got rich by teaching either . . . maybe there's a message here)
Basic education fundamentally isn't about teaching you "useful skills" - which is almost entirely contextual anyway though I doubt anyone would claim numeracy and literacy aren't - but *cultivating the mind* and prepare you a mental toolbox for understanding the world and processing and absorbing new information and learning with.
Back in the day, schooling was a bit more practicality oriented. Not to say there wasn't plenty of bullshit taught. (Looking at you, parochial school).
I actually did use some of that ruler and protractor work as a student pilot in the ancient days before electronics. It's good to know how to use a paper map (another lost skill) and a protractor to figure out where the hell you're going when the batteries in your electronic navigation handheld die. 😆 Or at least where your crash site will be.
My Dad (RIP) went to something called a technical high school where they taught actual skills like carpentry, tool and die making, and making things with molten metal(!)*. It was sort of like a technical junior college and a high school from what he told me. Might be good to go back to that kind of high school education.
*I still have a set of solid brass bookends he made. Mounted on handles, they'd make great maces. 😆
We have technical high schools up here too, or we did in my time anyway. Very useful for people who are inclined that way. It'll be interesting to see how schooling changes as ai changes the job landscape.
Climbing the rope, I still flinch whenever I see one on TV.
One time in 2nd or 3rd grade, one of the kids suddenly shot up one rope, did a hand over hand across the I Beam and shimmied down the other rope. It is the only time I have seen anyone climb a rope in person, and the 1st time I heard a teacher swear.
Unfortunately, the public education system is mostly designed by politicians who are mostly financially supported by the billionaire class who mostly want to train minions to build and sell the stuff that is making their billions. They don't want people to get smart enough to realize that they are being screwed and to figure out how overthrow the system. It took me a long time to figure that out!
Good to know I'm not the only one who found school utterly ridiculous. As a lefty I was particularly frustrated by those chairs with the tiny desk attached on one side- the WRONG side. Also,did not learn real French until I was old enough to go to bars.
Ooph you poor soul. Thankfully, those were mostly gone by my time. I had to use them once or twice and I would've lost my shit having to do that all the time.
💯%!!! Those fucking ropes! I hated them so much! And, ALL of the other topics you mentioned. I have often used the information about the battles of Assyrian kings in my everyday life. . . Snort 🤣! Robin, you are the best, and you give me joy to offset the otherwise horrible news. ❤️
I'm left handed too. Who needs school when you use both sides of your brain ( unlike righty) ?
Who needs school when your bilateral brain can solve all your problems, others problems, whip up a dress for the dance, make dinner for 12 and get everybody else to clean up?
Wait, wait. If I didn't go to school, would I have to spend all my time with my
What schools should teach is HOW TO THINK and HOW TO LEARN. Teaching us all that other stuff is, or should be, the way they teach us those first two most important lessons.
And basketball ... I became a singer, then a writer, for f...'s sake! I didn't need to know how to run around bouncing a big ball and trying to throw it into a net held up on a high board!
Thanks. I needed an EMC (Early Morning Chuckle)
chickle is chick + chuckle?
or just a mistake?
Fingers flashing’ way too fast!
You made a new word
and I chick, had a chuckle
ooh yes, EMCs are the perfect way to start a day! (it's why I release them in the morning)
Speaking as a high school mathematics teacher…I think the purpose info education is to teach you how to think critically and how to be a better human. I could care less if anyone knows the quadratic formula but hopefully they know how to recognize patterns, analyze data, and be able to explain their reasoning. So in my mind, yeah, you actually did learn something.
Very beautifully said Brooke. I hope you know that this was just me taking the piss comedically; school is super important of course, and teachers are an incredible breed of humans. Also anyone who can do math impresses the hell out of me.
But the recorder and rope are dumb and I'll die on that hill 😆
Thanks, Robin! And yes, I realize you’re taking the piss 🙂. I’ve read enough of your work to know. I completely agree on the recorder - my elementary school was great with teaching us to actually read music but I don’t remember having to play the recorder. I think my daughter had to, though, but never at home!! And the rope - yeah, never had to do that either. My high school didn’t make us take a gym class, which is shocking considering I grew up in Oklahoma, where everything is about football.
Let's hear it for the teachers. Mine included the good, the bad and the wonderful, and all together they taught me to think -- so I could read & learn my way into a career as a writer that never made me rich but surely made for a rewarding life. (None of my teachers got rich by teaching either . . . maybe there's a message here)
This. All this.
Basic education fundamentally isn't about teaching you "useful skills" - which is almost entirely contextual anyway though I doubt anyone would claim numeracy and literacy aren't - but *cultivating the mind* and prepare you a mental toolbox for understanding the world and processing and absorbing new information and learning with.
Back in the day, schooling was a bit more practicality oriented. Not to say there wasn't plenty of bullshit taught. (Looking at you, parochial school).
I actually did use some of that ruler and protractor work as a student pilot in the ancient days before electronics. It's good to know how to use a paper map (another lost skill) and a protractor to figure out where the hell you're going when the batteries in your electronic navigation handheld die. 😆 Or at least where your crash site will be.
My Dad (RIP) went to something called a technical high school where they taught actual skills like carpentry, tool and die making, and making things with molten metal(!)*. It was sort of like a technical junior college and a high school from what he told me. Might be good to go back to that kind of high school education.
*I still have a set of solid brass bookends he made. Mounted on handles, they'd make great maces. 😆
We have technical high schools up here too, or we did in my time anyway. Very useful for people who are inclined that way. It'll be interesting to see how schooling changes as ai changes the job landscape.
😆😆😆 brass bookend maces
Climbing the rope, I still flinch whenever I see one on TV.
One time in 2nd or 3rd grade, one of the kids suddenly shot up one rope, did a hand over hand across the I Beam and shimmied down the other rope. It is the only time I have seen anyone climb a rope in person, and the 1st time I heard a teacher swear.
Was this kid checked for meth or PCP? 😆 Otherwise it sounds impossible.
Well, it was Wyoming in the middle 1970s, it was a different time. 🤣
Thanks for the humor. Always appreciate it. 😂
I find that water buffalo are typically in angry mode. Maybe they know something.
😆😆 Maybe they do.
We're just now catching up to them.
Unfortunately, the public education system is mostly designed by politicians who are mostly financially supported by the billionaire class who mostly want to train minions to build and sell the stuff that is making their billions. They don't want people to get smart enough to realize that they are being screwed and to figure out how overthrow the system. It took me a long time to figure that out!
Well said. I wonder if it will change when the beep boops are doing all the jobs.
Good to know I'm not the only one who found school utterly ridiculous. As a lefty I was particularly frustrated by those chairs with the tiny desk attached on one side- the WRONG side. Also,did not learn real French until I was old enough to go to bars.
Ooph you poor soul. Thankfully, those were mostly gone by my time. I had to use them once or twice and I would've lost my shit having to do that all the time.
💯%!!! Those fucking ropes! I hated them so much! And, ALL of the other topics you mentioned. I have often used the information about the battles of Assyrian kings in my everyday life. . . Snort 🤣! Robin, you are the best, and you give me joy to offset the otherwise horrible news. ❤️
I'm with you on the ropes. Whenever I see one I want to light a match under them haha.
What's more fucked up is my girlfriend is working on getting her HiSet and she is learning about shit that I never heard of before and I am in Uni..
That's wild!
Don't EVEN get me started on Algebra...
geometry, trig, logic,
statistics, physics?
I'm left handed too. Who needs school when you use both sides of your brain ( unlike righty) ?
Who needs school when your bilateral brain can solve all your problems, others problems, whip up a dress for the dance, make dinner for 12 and get everybody else to clean up?
Wait, wait. If I didn't go to school, would I have to spend all my time with my
parents 🫤 ? Never mind.
😆 I love how you resolved that on your own there
What schools should teach is HOW TO THINK and HOW TO LEARN. Teaching us all that other stuff is, or should be, the way they teach us those first two most important lessons.
Nicely said Burt.
I did have at least one French instructor who explained some Quebecois slang to me....
Sweet. That would've been helpful in the curriculum so we could understand Quebecois in the slightest haha
Yeah, well ... I'm freezing sliced, boiled beets.
And basketball ... I became a singer, then a writer, for f...'s sake! I didn't need to know how to run around bouncing a big ball and trying to throw it into a net held up on a high board!