Yes, the scores have been increasing because the grade boundaries are being lowered.

Huh....

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Actually, now that you mention that, it did slip my thought process. However, I wouldn't just put it down to that, my teachers have noticed that a lot more pupils are motivated and willing to learn compared to say... 10-15 years ago. Surely, that would have a pretty large impact on the grades that pupils would be achieving.

That is possible. What I've noticed even in thefive years since I left school, is that the way grades are gained has changed. Coursework is far more common, graduated assessments and competencies are tested, whereas when I was there it was mostly just timed examinations. It's harder to fail when things are like that. Of course, bright pupils will do well under any system, but the ones int he middle and bottom are being given qualifications that bear no relation to what they actually know.

I don't see the problem with that. It's a different approach to history, but it's no less valuable. Okay, I think there should be balance between the two - but to a great extent there is. It's not like you don't learn any of the factors behind it... That said, I think we did WWII relatively early on in highschool so I don't remember much of what it involved. We definitely looked at a lot of the complexities behind WWI though, that must have been in year 9...

Not that there aren't any problems with the national curriculum - and of course we have sloppy teaching, overlarge classrooms, underfunded schools and all the rest. I just think that some of the complaints that come out about education are ungrounded or based on backwards ideas of what (in this case, history) lessons should actually entail...

I can't say I agree OP, my schooling experience was sub par personally, after about 1st grade, maybe second, I wasn't motivated by teachers, I got those empty words of 'so much promise' and et cetera. So I never applied myself to schooling, yet I could if I tried. When I got my GED, the woman told that I should be proud because you can pass High School by doing homework and classwork without studying, but to get a GED, you actually have to study.

Plus, the school systems I went to (In the Memphis, TN area) it's pretty much a clear ringer that our education system is on par with English schools (From what most English I've known tell me, public schooling isn't to great.)

In reverse, while we can blame school systems, you can easily blame the parents, and the student for not proceeding well in the education system. :shrug:

There's a risk of oversimplifying history though, if you make it solely about personal feeling. If you don't understand the origins of movements, wars and events, you risk being easily led by those who do understand.

It's not just history either. When you have employers complaining that English graduates can't use correct grammar, but 20 years ago they could, there has to have been a decline in academic rigour somehwere, or these people would have been weeded out at high school.

I did make the point that I'd looked at more recent GCSE maths papers, for example. You can do so yourself if you pick out a 30-year-old O-level maths paper and compare it side-by-side with a GCSE maths exam from the past 10 years. With regard to motivation, pupils in the 1980s were also very motivated and often incredibly competitive: it's not a new phenomenon.

Edit: to look at my example, I completed the GCSE maths papers that I looked at to see how I did. They took around two minutes each and my scores were 100%. When I actually sat my exams, my knowledge was only good enough for a grade B--which seems fair enough since I'm okay at maths but not amazingly outstanding or anything.

Which is why, like I said, there should be a balance...


One thing I've never understood is why people are so unwilling to attribute the improving grades in GCSE's and A Levels to the teaching. At least teaching towards the exams, which is the main - if not exclusive - focus forced upon most teachers these days. Rather than blaming the poor results of the education system (grammar or whatever else) on the exams being too easy I'd blame them on the exams having too much weight on the teachers' agendas. Which is hardly their fault.

If you're teaching students to pass exams, you're not giving them transferable skills and you don't have time to address the individual students/issues in lieu of the statistics...

I often lose all faith in the education system upon hearing about stuff like this. *cough*http://28.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lic8vpWguM1qd0quuo1_r2_500.png*coughcough*

To be honest, I think you just grew up in a small school where everyone, for the most part knew each other. I could literally go on for pages about the problems with high schools (not just in America, but Canada as well) but I'll just give a quick summary.

-Canada's not too bad for this, but US is awful... knowing other ways of life besides your own, do you even learn geography or cultural studies outside of the US?
-Standardized testing... I don't think I have to say much more
-While I was never bullied past grade 10, there is a major problem all around North America with it
-Drugs... I don't have a problem with this, teenagers experiment, my problem is how terribly informed most people are. Luckily in Canada we don't have such a huge script problem, but there are literally drugs at every high school party. You're just ignorant if you're pretending people only dranked and smoked.



No, it's wrong. It's easy as advlts to sit here and say oh yeah we should just be able to use force because that will make them more submissive and less of little [censored] heads. When you use force like that it messes with kids mentally, they're afraid all the time, you don't remember what its like to be a kid and have that feeling of helpless terror.

Geography is taught as part of social studies and world history. In depth cultural studies generally occur as part of high school foreign language classes or college level courses. We are taught about the the histories of various different dead and existing nations and countries as part of world history and social studies courses.

The education system is a system because it is designed to teach a large number of children, not just one. Ideally ALL of the children in the country, but that's not realistically possible due to various factors. Simply because a few students go through the pipeline just fine and had no problems doesn't mean the system isn't still broken and leaking. There are high schools with 40% and greater dropout rates all over the country. That's not "fine" by any standards.

You talked about the social aspects quite a lot, but didn't mention the atrocious reading level many teenagers possess in high school, or the equally bad math proficiency. It's not "fine" when a grown man can barely labor through a paragraph of reading.

I just got back from dragon riding a couple days ago. Oh lord the vomiting, the uncontrollable vomiting!

On topic: I'm a rich whitie, the school system is fine, l2play. I was doing algebra in 5th grade. I was even learning about... wait, I forgot. Computer labs in middle school were awesome. My only problem with US education is that I didn't get beaten enough. Or ever. :hubbahubba:

Praise Mozilla for spell-check; it corrected 5 words for me.

Back when I was in secondary school history lessons where only about Malta's past. We never did ANYTHING about the world wars, even though Malta was quite important (well, it was a major event for us ). Up to this day I can at best write out one short paragraph about WW2.

tl; dr

But I've got the general 'America's School System is good' from people quoting you. Unless you've actually done a study on the school system as opposed to just, you know, going to a single school and basing your experience on that I'm not sure it's really a sufficient argument.

Also that chart didn't say England anywhere. It said UK. That drives me nuts... :rolleyes:

Wow, this went on for 3 pages guys.

Well it was an interesting 'argument' for the American school system.

All through high school, English classes were constantly having people read segments aloud. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaKxRN2LdEI is what it sounded like, every single time. If that had been my entire experience with people interacting with words, I would have come away with the impression that literally about 80% of people were illiterate.

Dont need to read the op to know the system aint fine.. I know, I went through it, if I could change it I would. I'm a read it anyways.



lmfao



You musta went to a high school of the future, if there is no bullying in the future.



fixed



I remember 2 groups fighting with each other, one on one side of the caf, the other on the other side, chairs and tables being thrown, people screaming, cops pepper spraying and tackling people left and right, was jokes



I doubt that



See I was the video game playing geek with practically no friends.



See I was the video game playing geek with practically no friends.

Is that supposed to be a good thing about it? Because it's not.



USA: 500+487+502 = 1489
UK: 494+492+514 = 1500

How is that "above"?

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2010/12/7/1291740184391/PISA-rankings-within-OECD-001.jpg

Korea and Japan on top, makes sense lolo

What makes sense? The total score is reading score + maths score + science score (wherein maths is apparently not science, but whatever), not just reading score.

Korea is 3rd? Its at the top, makes sense, because at my school koreans are at the top of most/all science courses. Most med students need a undergrad degree to be considered for med school, the last person to get into med without an undergrad here did it after completing 2 years of an undergrad, was a korean person, I found out through my korean friend who is at the top of our class lol. I remember he told me how his dad found out he diddnt get an A in a math class on Christmas and the next day he couldnt stay at home he had to go to school and study. Can you believe that, day after Christmas you gotta be at school studying.

Also there is alota yalk here in Ontario about Asians in post secondary school. Apparently, people are complaining that Asians are making it too competitive.