Quote Originally Posted by tessa View Post
Dorkalicious, I'll pm you my rant. And if you want to move, move to Belgium. They have the most excellent schools in the world. Probably would be a great place to live as well. As long as you can still find us in the Forums...
Thank you again! Hehe...And as for moving? It seems so impossible right now anyway. If I do move out of this country, in most cases I would have a third (or fourth, because I know a little French) language to learn. I'm not against learning another language, at all...It just takes a LOT of work. And as for finding you on the forums? You betcha! =D


Quote Originally Posted by Timberwolf View Post
I'd also like to point out that western education, as a whole, needs a massive cirriculum revamp (I'm Canadian but by all accounts this also applies to Americans, England, and Australia from what I can gather from friends). Being 25, I feel like when I came out of high school in my late teens, I realistically learned very little in terms of "usefull skills" that put me in any position to do much out in the real world. The entire system has become totally about "preparing you for university". Well guess what. Not all of us can afford university first of all, secondly not all of us want to go. And as lily said thirdly frankly not all kids are qualified to do so.

Prime example of where revamping is needed is in mathematics. We teach all sorts of basic "higher match", the basis of algebra, finding the volume of a pyramid, and all those highly useful things. But where's the accounting math in high school? I literally can't fill out a tax form on my own, because I don't understand what I'm reading. How about teaching young people to manage their money instead of figuring out how much water the great pyramids would hold, if they were hollow. Which they are not. Especailly in this age of debit/credit cards to literally anyone that wants it, money management is probably more essential than ever. And it's almost a seming afterthought in the race to meet "standards" and prepare kids for higher level university math - things that frankly would not be nearly as useful to Joe Average in day to day life as basic accounting knowledge.

I (and my generation) came out of high school with virtually nothing in terms of "useful skills" with which to impress an employer. There's something wrong with that.

This right here makes a TON of sense. I agree, curriculum does need a HUGE revamp. Perhaps not only for those reasons though. I found myself each year -- as far as math was concerned -- taking another step, but not looking back on the ones that came before it at all, or if so very very little. Instead of taking steps, it actually seems like I was going through a series of rooms and simply closing the door behind me each time I entered a new one. The system now doesn't allow us to build on what we already know, it expects us to just keep marching forward, which is insane!

Math itself is a huge problem anyway. A lot of people that learn what Timberwolf stated above know they won't need it in the future, or if they do? Well, in most cases it won't be very much. I went through math, constantly fighting it mentally, because what the hell would I use it for if I was an English major? Parts of it? Yes, I would need it...but as Timberwolf, I have a hard time doing tax returns, my school offered an accounting class, but with all the other requirements needed to graduate, I could never fit it into my schedule...I know I am not the only one in my position.