We've got a similar thing happening here. For example: in my Modern History class (a non-compulsory elective) in year eleven, a girl asked what the Holocaust was. I found that rather alarming. It's because our education system focuses on the Australian perspectives of history - the only history we are required to learn is completely Australia-centric. No mention is made of the Holocaust or of any other significant world event, for that matter; no, instead we have to learn about Australian culture in the sixties, for Christ's sake.
On top of this, most schools now are solely focused on getting the highest marks possible - and due to the system of scaling used to assess students, pretty much all of the students given the highest ATARs are those taking the highest level of maths, chemistry and physics. If you do all humanities, on the other hand, no matter how intelligent you are, due to the scaling system (not to mention the syllabuses) you're destined to get significantly lower marks. The result of this? All the people going to do undergraduate law, for instance, are those who have no knowledge of history or legal studies, but rather those who are highly knowledgeable in maths - which is kind of useless.

I guess it makes sense that Australian students would spend the majority of their history classes learning about Australian history but it's pretty alarming that anyone past about 8th grade wouldn't know what the holocaust was. Do they teach the Magna Carta in Australia? It's definitely going out of style here and I personally think it's extremely important.

I think the quality of teachers (from my experience) is fairly decent. When in public schools I can't remember having a teacher I would rate as bad or terrible. I know they exist. The issue we always had came down to bad books (as stated others) and bad students. The bad books come from either a bad government or lack of money and the bad students come from the bad parents.

Well, it seems I've got it quite good in England. My teachers actually care and we are taught about other religions. They took us to Birmingham to go to a mosque, cathedral, gurdwara and bhuddist temple, because the extent of different culture in my area is arable farmers and livestock farmers

@Narebman: Nope, no Magna Carta. I doubt many people my age here even know what it is.

WHAT? No Magna Carta? That's insane. The historical significance of the Magna Carta is so profound... When we start learning about the Constitution of the United States the Magna Carta ties into things because of all the stuff that is covered on basic rights.

Actually, the area I live in has fairly satisfactory education. I guess that's why my parents chose to live here instead of many other locations.

We learned very little of the Magna Carta at my school. It was just a way of introducing the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We spend half a semester on learning our basic rights and freedoms, as well as learning about how government functions.

It's not like we went into heavy detail but at least we know what it is!

The Magna Carta has important historical significance, yes, but I could easily see it being glossed over in order to focus more on the *current* constitution of a country. Those are the rights that it's most important the student understands - not what rights an older, out of date document gives.

Well learning about where the idea of individual rights came from is quite important. It's not like we spent more than a day or so. In fact, probably less than that. But we learned what it was and why it was important and that's it.

Same here. It's particularly important to the US (and I imagine all non-centralized nations) because our Constitution draws so much from its principles.

@Macman's first post
I'm not sure if this was covered over the several pages of the thread, but I don't think I'd be able to compare what I was interested in middle school to what I'm interested in now. There's a huge difference between the middle schooler and the high school senior. That's why highschool is structured the way it is, with students able to choose, though with certain requirements to be filled.

I think there should be more focus on the "traditional" classes, but that they should be written in an interesting and relevant way. Especially math and science--if your concern is readying the kids for the workforce, well math and science is where we need them most.

...Just for perspective, 40% (or above) of China's college grads have a degree in some sort of science. We have like 14% or something. The future of jobs will be after the boomers of the space race retire.

The World Is Flat offers some great info on that kind of stuff. Good book

We had to read the Magna Carta. It was not fun since it was written in olde English, but it was very interesting. I think there are modernized translations available that aren't so hard to read.

I personal think I did not have a problem with the system, for the most part, I took 3 math classes, 4 English, 4 science, and 4 social studies and English through out high school and I was still able to take metro tech.

For those who Dont know what metro tech is:

here in Oklahoma we have this classes called metro technology development classes which we take in a different campus than our high school. and which are more "hands-on" training than book work. How it works: you sign up for a class you are interested in (me) for example: Auto collision repair/refinish), once you are in if you choose the morning session instead of going to your high school you go there. Then to high school.
This was my senior year schedule:

Auto Collision Refinish at metro tech. 7:40am-11:30am
lunch at high school 11:30am-12:00pm
calculus at high school 12:00pm-12:50
botanics at high school 1:00pm-1:50pm
government at high school 2:00pm-2:50pm

I loved high school!

Wow that's barely any classes. Seems interesting.

I'm in high school now, and my problems with the American education system go beyond the classes I'm required to take. For my senior year (12th grade) I am required to take math, science, government, and english; I get to choose my other three classes. I'm okay with that, as long as budget cuts don't force them to cut the classes I want. My major problem with the system is that it doesn't get enough funding for there to be enough teachers for reasonable class sizes (there's usually thirty people in a class), the building can't be expanded (it's at 95% capacity, and that's with the 9th graders at another campus, there aren't even enough classrooms for every teacher to have their own). No one can learn in that kind of environment.

I am leaning towards agreement with the original post, although I think we should still observe basic math and english for 2 years. Science I find less important to waste on people who are going into low end automotive or business, etc. unless they want to take it. When I was in high school before my leave of the country, I had a normal 1st year, and then 3 years of dual enrollment, with roughly 32 credits a semester, and 16 during summer semesters. A highly intense schedule, but ultimately a very well rounded education. During my junior year I had a class back at the high school and was astounded at the number of people who simply weren't getting anything and didn't want to be there, therefore emphasizing that our system needs some change. Personally, I think it needs to start before highschool, perhaps a more intensive earlier years. I do believe it should be a split system though, where through outstanding performance or teacher recommendation a student is moved into a far more intensive system training them for high level work, while the rest receive normal education up until roughly what is currently 10th grade or so.

I had a drafting class my junior year, coupled with an anatomy class the same year. Both the teachers were Vietnam vets, so they really had no issue speaking their minds. The drafting teacher always encouraged us to have healthy discussions while working and one day we got on the subject of the school system in America.

Mr. Smith, the drafting teacher, was known for vehemently defending his ideas. Which happened to include opinions on alien abductions, big foot, the supernatural, the afterlife. It was no surprise that when the class brought up the school system Mr. Smith introduced us to a revolutionary idea - What if every high school was unique?

His idea, which he had refined over several years (and I'm certainly going to leave a few parts out by mistake), would be to drop 9th grade back to middle school, leaving only 10th, 11th and 12th. Upon entry into High School, before the 10th grade year, a student would take a battery of tests determining what field they wanted to go into. You'd have a school for business, more math focused. A school for athletes (He said one big school for each sport, where the students compete amongst each other ((Like Ender's Game)) but that concept is, to me, outlandish) and a school for those students interested in the military. The schools would be so specialized that indeed even the teachers would be subject to the placement tests to see which should they would be best used at.

This idea reminds me of sort of a pre-college concept. And I loved it. It would be totally impractical, considering in a state like Florida the school for Cross Country might be 6 hours away from the school for Track and Field, so travel would be a major issue. And the funding! Where to begin? (Although, for the sake of embarrassing the state, Florida IS 47th in the nation in teacher pay)

My anatomy teacher, Mr. Gibson, felt that the system was flawed as well. But his idea of fixing it was much different. You see, to really understand Gibson you have to know him. I spent extra time getting to know him. He played full back and middle line backer on a D1 football team. He played point guard on that same school's basketball team. He also happened to catch for that school's baseball team. When he was done with his BA in one field or another, he enlisted in the US Army in the heat of the Vietnam war. He volunteered for two additional tours before, finally, he wound up in a field hospital following a grenade explosion. But, he did win the Vietnamese version of the Medal of Honor. Following his experience in Vietnam, he worked as an autopsy technician for the local morgue to help repay student loans. He was friendly with the local sheriff and was offered a job. Finally he ended up coaching our Wrestling and Weightlifting teams here, and from there took a job as a teacher.

The man isn't human, he's a machine made by the government for the sole purpose of expressing the American Way, all day, everyday. And he does his job. So when Gibson openly criticized anything American, I listened. His idea of how high school should change would be to remove the grades entirely. Currently my school requires 24 credits to graduate - 4 math, 4 English, 3 Science, 2 PE, 3 Social Studies, 2 Arts and the rest general electives. You can attempt up to 7 credits a year. There is little margin for error. Gibson supposed if a kid really wanted to take 3 English classes and 4 math classes a year, let him. If that same kid was so inclined to do extra after school and through the summer, let him. If he was ready to graduate by why would be the middle of his sophomore year, so be it. He saw no purpose for forcing a student to pace.

Neither did I. I failed English 1 my freshman year due to a lack of effort. I took English 4 Honors my senior year and passed pretty easily. If chose to focus and do work and I produced great results. Gibson feels that's how high school should be, instead of punishing those who do buckle down and work hard by forcing them to take 4 years of classes, let them knock it out ASAP. I didn't really see an issue with that.

My ideas are very similar to Gibson's. I feel that all courses should have an entry exam, if a student scores high enough on the entry exam, they should receive credit for the class. But I suppose the obvious counter to this would be to say "that would only punish poor test-takers," which is somewhat true. But if that was the way it went, you better believe every student would work hard on test taking skills. I know I would.

Anyway, that's my rant for the night.

My school system has something that's like that. Each high school has a 'speciality center' that's focused on one thing. There's fine and performing arts, humanities, math and science, engineering, health, and four others. The schools also have a section that's not specialised. The problem with that is the speciality center students can't always get into the right required classes. My friend who's in the theatre program couldn't take pre-calculus because she had to take a theatre class that period. Also the programs are losing funding, so they might get cut soon.

I really liked the system my high school had, in which there were two mandatory tracks - academic and technical. Each student takes the standard academic subjects - math, English, science, social studies - but also chooses a "technical area", including electronics, carpentry, cosmetology, computer information and business systems, health professions, et. al. These classes entailed taking a double-credit class from the technical teacher or teachers in your area as well as several credits from related technical courses. Freshmen spend the first three-quarters of the year taking exploratory classes to find out what they're good at and interested in. Then they stick with that class for 3.25 years, culminating in an "exhibition of mastery" project.

The only disadvantage to this program that I see is that it's lacking in the arts. But I don't see why, in principle, these couldn't be easily added to such a program.

It sounds like they are expecting you to know a lot about your future plans at a young age. I knew what area I wanted to be involved in when I was in grade nine, but most of my friends had no idea.

It's not as though a student's choice of technical area determines what they will do with their lives, or anything like that. It's more an opportunity to see what fields are out there and to become competent at a specific field, whether that field becomes your career or not. One of my tech areas (I had two because I didn't take math or English there and needed the credit) was electronics. I'm now majoring in computer science and math, neither of which are closely related to electronics. Yet the skills and knowledge I gained working for three years in that field were not only interesting to learn at the time, but now continue to serve me in my everyday life. You can always find a use for having a greater understanding of circuitry, or fixing cars, or giving first-aid, even if that's not what you do for a living.

I don't see an issue with early specialization, even if the person decides differently later, at least they have 1 solid base, unlike getting a generalized education in the current system, which leaves you working at wal-mart while trying to pay for a specialized education.

That sounds pretty cool I gotta say. I'm in favor of letting kids specialize early on as long as they can get the basics down. Being able to read, write a coherent thought down and do simple math are pretty much necessary to function in society today. I also think kids need to learn a lot more history than what is required now, but being able to take a series of electives that focus around one field of interest would be a much better use of the student's time than making them sit through classes they don't care about.

On a personal note, I would say that choosing the wrong specialty can be overcome though it happens at a price. I really enjoyed physics in high school and decided to major in it at college. I also ended up getting a math degree. I graduated with a BS in each. Seems logical that I would go into some kind of engineering field right? Eventually I did. I was a nuclear engineer in the Navy. Truth be told, I was an adequate engineer at best but I was an excellent division officer. It turned out I am much better with people than particles. So when I got out I went into business management and have been much happier since then. I guess all I can say is there is no substitute for experience and if there were a way for school to give that to students we'd all be better off.

I am currently a high school student, and I go to a somewhat-experimental charter high school. My school focuses entirely on math, science, and emerging technology, and I am very gad to be there. Last semester, I took a year-long course in Language Arts (a year long course in a single semester), a year's worth of Advanced Chemistry, in addition to Band, Chinese, Geometry (a year's course), and programming. This semester I am taking Engineering concepts (year's course), Advanced Physics (year's worth), Pre-Calculus (year's course), in addition to Chinese, Band, and Programming. I am in the ninth grade.

I absolutely love the way my classes work out. The science, math, Language Arts, and engineering are all mandatory, as well as two years of foreign language. If it were up to me, I would totally screw the Language Arts and Band and just take classes that I deem important to me. Programming is an elective so I could have taken something stupid like art, but since I see no important career in art, I stay away from it. Sure I'd love to get better at drawing, but isn't it more important to start your own business or get into college?

I agree with the previous ideas discussed in this thread about having a test to separate the sheep (liberal arts folks) from the goats (real subjects people). That would eliminate a lot of inefficiencies from the system in that students would be offered classes that interest them and make them passionate about learning again. My school is a charter school, so if you decide that it's not right for you, you can drop out and go back to your regular high school. All of the people I know who dropped out lacked t he passion and drive to do Physics homework, and therefore failed. I think that there should be more technical high schools for the kids like this who aren't self-motivated and have borne the mindset of a minimum-wage worker so that they are out of the way for more passionate kids to soar in.


My school has a 100% graduation rate, and every person has gotten accepted into a nationally recognized college. I think this is because the entire school is made up of goats, and when you trim off the useless, unmotivated students, then the statistics look much better. America needs to shift away from the mentality of "Everyone can be President," or "You can be an astronaut even though your legs are crippled and you have no motor control of your eyes." People need to realize that not everyone is a genius, and adapt the system to that.