I hate homework too, but the post and title really got me amped to say:
Think back to what your teachers taught. Maybe not 100% universal, but teachers #1 job is to get you to question. Why do most people end up reading Steinbeck? Mice and men, Huck Finn, Gatsby maybe. Frigging to kill a mocking bird pushed on them by a high school teacher. They got yelled at for letting kids read Harry Potter.
The good ones pushed you to be better and realize self worth. Hell, in the US, teachers for a decade have been putting up with parents that are so. pissed. off. because your math is too hard for them (math is math!!). And the bullshit “all I learned was mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell!” Science is blasphemy at its finest. You weren’t supposed to memorize content, nobody remembers the content from middle school. You remember the processes. Here’s how to explore the unknown.
If this wasn’t your experience, I’m sorry. There’s more but this is too long now
Schooling in the 80s was still very much training us to sit still and follow the routine. Because we were all going to be happy worker bees for a living. And our classes had 30+ kids and one teacher for most of elementary school.
I’m not sure it has really changed much in most of America, especially since standardized testing became the norm and led to “teaching to the test” in many classroooms. I have since realized I had a couple teachers along the way who encouraged questioning your preconceived notions, 7 and 8 grade jr high science teachers specifically, and a metal shop teacher who they eliminated the year I would have taken it in exchange for a computer based “synergy” class.
This was pretty much my answer to a German expat who candidly asked: “WTF is up with the schools here?” I angrily answered in line with the above.
GP is correct in that school should be about learning how to learn and think critically. And there are elements of that still in play, but it’s not the focus, and it’s not evenly distributed.
Teachers are still in and ruled over by the system. Still waiting for a better way to feed information to (now 40 per teacher) middle school kids. I dunno if you’ve asked any teachers, but they DESPISE standardized testing and having 40 kids and zero parent support. They don’t control any of that.
I hate homework too, but the post and title really got me amped to say:
Think back to what your teachers taught. Maybe not 100% universal, but teachers #1 job is to get you to question. Why do most people end up reading Steinbeck? Mice and men, Huck Finn, Gatsby maybe. Frigging to kill a mocking bird pushed on them by a high school teacher. They got yelled at for letting kids read Harry Potter.
The good ones pushed you to be better and realize self worth. Hell, in the US, teachers for a decade have been putting up with parents that are so. pissed. off. because your math is too hard for them (math is math!!). And the bullshit “all I learned was mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell!” Science is blasphemy at its finest. You weren’t supposed to memorize content, nobody remembers the content from middle school. You remember the processes. Here’s how to explore the unknown.
If this wasn’t your experience, I’m sorry. There’s more but this is too long now
Schooling in the 80s was still very much training us to sit still and follow the routine. Because we were all going to be happy worker bees for a living. And our classes had 30+ kids and one teacher for most of elementary school.
I’m not sure it has really changed much in most of America, especially since standardized testing became the norm and led to “teaching to the test” in many classroooms. I have since realized I had a couple teachers along the way who encouraged questioning your preconceived notions, 7 and 8 grade jr high science teachers specifically, and a metal shop teacher who they eliminated the year I would have taken it in exchange for a computer based “synergy” class.
This was pretty much my answer to a German expat who candidly asked: “WTF is up with the schools here?” I angrily answered in line with the above.
GP is correct in that school should be about learning how to learn and think critically. And there are elements of that still in play, but it’s not the focus, and it’s not evenly distributed.
Teachers are still in and ruled over by the system. Still waiting for a better way to feed information to (now 40 per teacher) middle school kids. I dunno if you’ve asked any teachers, but they DESPISE standardized testing and having 40 kids and zero parent support. They don’t control any of that.
(The Adventures of) Huckleberry Finn was Samuel Clemons, AKA Mark Twain, and is the sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.NM just realized that none of the later books you listed were Steinbeck