NEW "What is bothering you right now?" Thread. Bonus: Now with 20% more bother!

Not sure there's a whole lot of hope at this point. I've got a sister who holds a PhD at Loyola but lacks any theological clue because the substance of her program was based upon a bunch of BS carefully forged from 313AD on. It largely ignores sound the sound hermeneutics I alluded to above while omitting relevant historical fact and vital Jewish theological precepts. Tisk tisk.

 

Seriously, how much does US school system suck?
While we didn't learn Islam/Buddhism/various versions of Christianity/etc. in depth, their main concepts were explained during History/Geography/Philosophy classes.

Wonder if anything has changed since I graduated school...

 

That statement holds true for many other books as well, be it Quran or Mein Kampf...and yes, I've read both.

 

To no end.

 

I went to Catholic school, but even then we did learn about other religions. Though it seemed like it was covered rather quickly. We learned more about historical Islam and Buddhism and Hinduism, rather than the contemporary religions and beliefs, which I think, would've been helpful. It wasn't until college when I started taking more religious studies classes (I've declared a minor in religious studies now), that I really started covering the more in-depth stuff.

 

But. . . but . . . but. . . , think about how accessible the deterioration has made that useless BS.

 

The "norm" for US school systems is to start learning algebra in 9th grade, geometry in 10th grade, algebra "2" in 11th grade, and "precalculus" in 12th grade. It's really embarrassing. I was already starting basic algebraic systems before middle school, and basic concepts of algebra before 5th grade. I started algebra 2 in 9th grade, precalc in 10th, AP Calculus in 11th, and multi-variable calclulus, differential equations, and AP statistics in 12th grade. I was considered "2" years advanced, but in Asia would just be the norm. It's no wonder US ranks like 35th in the world for math/science scores. That's why we have to outsource high tech jobs to other countries or hire college educated citizens from other countries that are in the US. I don't get why the US doesn't see education as valuable, and eliminate stupid test results for funding. All we are teaching our kids is how to pass tests so the schools get funding. The schools could give 2 craps if the students learn anything, so they get screwed in college when real difficult material is taught.

 

Do you have a tiger mom?

 

This. Perhaps you guys ought to see the GCE 'A' Levels which I just finished. The SAT Subject Tests appear laughably easy in comparison, and the SAT Reasoning Test is absolutely no kick at all. The average SAT score in my school is 2300.

 

The breadth of which you have no idea of. Only foreign students who enter the US at the high school level have any real idea of how far behind American schools are.

I wasn't that far off. We learned basic Algebra in 6th grade. Intermediate Algebra and some Geometry in 7th and 8th grade. My 9th grade was Algebra 2, 10th grade was Geometry, 11th grade was College Algebra/Trigonometry (1 semester on each), and 12th grade was Calculus...not AP Calculus. I had the choice between AP Calculus, Calculus, and AP Statistics. I didn't feel like burdening myself with another AP course since it would not have given me any college credit (California colleges & universities were not accepting AP tests credits for higher math courses at that time).

I'll take that action!