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  1.  

    I have no words for this... well maybe I have some words, but none of them are nice ones.

    •  
      CommentAuthorMoldorm
    • CommentTimeSep 27th 2009 edited
     

    Obviously, more school hours are hardly popular among students, but I can see the reasoning behind it. And taking time to “chill with friends after school” is hardly the best possible use.
    Wait, US schools end at 3.00?!

  2.  

    Uh huh. Mine starts at 8:05 and ends at 3:10.

    I think Obama’s making sense here, even if no one wants to spend extra time in school. I think the best idea mentioned in the article was to shorten summer vacation and split those blocks through the entire school year.

  3.  

    @Moldorm
    What time did you think they ended?

    Sticking kids in class longer won’t do much in my opinion. A lot of them make crappy grades because they slack off. Does he think that they’ll be motivated if they’re forced to be there even longer? Besides, kids need time to be kids. I’m a good student (about a 4.024 GPA), and I despise school. If I had to be there longer I’d just be depressed. I know many other good students who would feel the same way.

    @SWQ
    That’s called year-round-school. They have that some places already. I don’t like it, but it’s better than just taking away all of the time off.

  4.  

    A lot of them make crappy grades because they slack off.

    And that annoys me so, so much.

  5.  

    ^^Me too. And more school won’t help them. I think that an optional and free summer schooling program (and maybe some after school stuff) would be okay for the under-priveledged (I blanked on how to spell that) kids would be good. The parents could send them there so that they don’t fall behind and so that they have somewhere safe to be.

  6.  

    Free summer school?

    I’m afraid that’s pretty much impossible in this economic climate.

    •  
      CommentAuthorElanor
    • CommentTimeSep 27th 2009
     

    Nah, I see his point. For the record, I start school at 7:30 and get out at 2:00. I’m exhausted in the morning because my brain simply cannot function that early.

    Personally, I’ve found that we always spend the first couple weeks of class reviewing, especially in language classes. No one voluntarily studies their schoolwork over the summer, and three months is a long time. I’d rather have longer winter and spring breaks, and shorter summer ones.

  7.  

    ^^Well, if they lengthened the school year, I’d assume that that would be free. So, they could have an optional lengthened year, maybe not the whole summer. My point was that it should be optional to make your kids go to the extended school. If your kid does fine with regular school, then they shouldn’t have to go extra.

    • CommentAuthorRocky
    • CommentTimeSep 27th 2009
     
    This is laughable. We need to find a way to put the school hours we have to better use, not add more of them.
  8.  

    I see what Elanor means about wasting time in review. If you spread out vacation days, that won’t be as much of an issue, and you can get more done.

    •  
      CommentAuthorSMARTALIENQT
    • CommentTimeSep 27th 2009 edited
     

    Uh huh. Mine starts at 8:05 and ends at 3:10.

    Mine starts at 7:30 and ends at 2:20. Everyone is always tired and we’ve pushed for later school days. To be fair, sunset can happen as early as 4:15 here, but honestly, it’s not such a big deal if it’s a little dark.

    I’m a good student (about a 4.024 GPA), and I despise school. If I had to be there longer I’d just be depressed.

    Same here – not quite that high of a GPA, but higher than most people in my school (top 30%, last I checked). I hate school. Every moment of my school day is spent waiting for the day to end. Some of my worst memories are of school. I could care less about “hanging out with my friends”, but I do care about my physical and mental well-being, which kind of tanks if you’re tired, depressed, bored, surfing social interactions, and always worried someone is going to bully you. School sucks.

    /rant

  9.  

    This is laughable. We need to find a way to put the school hours we have to better use, not add more of them.

    I agree.

    I know what you mean about review, but I think that most kids would still forget over the shorter summer break. They just can’t seem to retain the information. I’m not sure though, so it might cut down on it at least.

    I could care less about “hanging out with my friends”, but I do care about my physical and mental well-being, which kind of tanks if you’re tired, depressed, bored, surfing social interactions, and always worried someone is going to bully you. School sucks.

    Wow, you must be my twin or something.

    •  
      CommentAuthorElanor
    • CommentTimeSep 27th 2009 edited
     

    Eh. I only started hating school these past year and couple weeks. Before that, I was fine. This year, it’s just making me perpetually cranky because I don’t want to be here any more, I want to go to uni, and rawr. My weighted GPA’s 4.85, not that it means much. It’s not how much school I have that I complain about, it’s when I have utterly incompetent teachers that, frankly, waste the time.

    •  
      CommentAuthorPuppet
    • CommentTimeSep 27th 2009
     

    I don’t have much say about this, seeing how I’m home schooled, but, I find that I enjoy studying and learning things when I’m not forced to.
    I do math for fun, I find it challenging, and I love reading, I love learning… but when learning is forced on me, I hate it.

    • CommentAuthorSlyShy
    • CommentTimeSep 27th 2009 edited
     

    You know, US students have both the shortest school days and shortest school years of the developed world?

    Source: http://www.economist.com/world/unitedstates/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13825184

    “But when it comes to the young the situation is reversed. American children have it easier than most other children in the world, including the supposedly lazy Europeans. They have one of the shortest school years anywhere, a mere 180 days compared with an average of 195 for OECD countries and more than 200 for East Asian countries. German children spend 20 more days in school than American ones, and South Koreans over a month more. Over 12 years, a 15-day deficit means American children lose out on 180 days of school, equivalent to an entire year.”

    “American children also have one of the shortest school days, six-and-a-half hours, adding up to 32 hours a week. By contrast, the school week is 37 hours in Luxembourg, 44 in Belgium, 53 in Denmark and 60 in Sweden. On top of that, American children do only about an hour’s-worth of homework a day, a figure that stuns the Japanese and Chinese.”

    Research is cool, didja know?

    However, I’m all in favor of homeschooling. My dad runs one of the most authoritative sites on the subject.

  10.  

    Just watching my little brother, it’s annoying how little work he has to do. He does a page of fractions, reads the same Harry Potter book for twenty minutes, and then he just mooches around watching the TV all day. (He’s in the fifth grade and can handle more work.)

    For high achieving high school students it might be different, but in the elementary level, I think that most kids can handle more.

    @ Sly: Homeschooling sounds nice, but for most people it’s probably not a possibility. Either their parents have to work, or are not able or willing to teach their children.

    • CommentAuthorSlyShy
    • CommentTimeSep 27th 2009
     

    SWQ, I’m well aware. :P

    •  
      CommentAuthorElanor
    • CommentTimeSep 27th 2009
     

    On top of that, American children do only about an hour’s-worth of homework a day, a figure that stuns the Japanese and Chinese.

    I’ll attest to that. For example, this weekend, I have thus far done absolutely no homework. When we went to Taiwan last year, my cousins had class all day, and then after class they had tutoring sessions for like three, four, five more hours, and then they got to their homework.

  11.  

    The article I read claimed Chinese/Japanese/Korean students actually spent fewer hours per year in the classroom than US kids do now. That said, comparing hours-spent figures is pretty useless anyway, since it’s a pretty apples and oranges metric.

  12.  

    On top of that, American children do only about an hour’s-worth of homework a day, a figure that stuns the Japanese and Chinese.

    That’s a load of crap. In tenth grade, I averaged 5 or more hours per night (and that was mainly in two subjects; if anyone else assigned homework, I was pretty much screwed). I usually didn’t even get to finish before I had to go to bed. It’s better now because I just do my work while the teachers are talking. I used to get yelled at for this, but not anymore. A lot of kids have more than that though. And I do understand that many have less as well.

  13.  

    Comparing hours-spent figures is pretty useless anyway, since it’s a pretty apples and oranges metric.

    True, true.

    But obviously they’re doing something right if they’re beating America on all these education tests or whatever.

    @NP: For highschoolers, that figure is crap, but for elementary school kids, (like my brother) it’s actually pretty realistic.

  14.  

    On top of that, American children do only about an hour’s-worth of homework a day, a figure that stuns the Japanese and Chinese.

    Wait, what? I had three hours of schoolwork every day, a figure which has grown since I joined AP classes. I’ll admit I’m slow, and I could probably handle more (my classmates have complained that reading 12 pages is too long), but taking notes on 30 pages of history is busywork. Carrying about twenty or thirty pounds is hard. Not learning any skills to make homework faster or to space out time until the second to last year of school is insane.

  15.  

    ^^Maybe American kids just have worse test anxiety. Probably not, but it’s possible.

  16.  

    I’d actually like to see the surrounding information on the tests we’re supposedly getting wrecked in, since I’d be willing to bet there’d be some confounding factors.

  17.  

    I will admit that everyone else is beating us at our own game (I’ve met German exchange students who are in AP Spanish), but making us work longer is not the way to do it. Maybe we should give up teaching to the test?

  18.  

    Maybe we should give up teaching to the test?

    SMARTALIENQT for president.

    •  
      CommentAuthorSMARTALIENQT
    • CommentTimeSep 27th 2009 edited
     

    YES! (That actually used to be a possible career path for me, when I was in elementary school.)

    My fellow Americans, I promise you that if I am elected, I will do my best to remove the outdated, old-school notion of teaching to the test. Such tests strip us of individuality, and that is just one step on the slippery slope to COMMUNISM!

    How to Be President, Tip #1: Relate everything to communism, because communism is Teh Evulz.

  19.  

    How to Be President, Tip #1: Relate everything to communism, because communism is Teh Evulz.

    LOL.

    The Impish Party will indeed conquer!

  20.  

    ^^Lol. Though that last part is scarily true. The masses will love anyone who can relate things to Communism.

    •  
      CommentAuthorElanor
    • CommentTimeSep 27th 2009
     

    That’s a load of crap. In tenth grade, I averaged 5 or more hours per night (and that was mainly in two subjects; if anyone else assigned homework, I was pretty much screwed). I usually didn’t even get to finish before I had to go to bed. It’s better now because I just do my work while the teachers are talking. I used to get yelled at for this, but not anymore. A lot of kids have more than that though. And I do understand that many have less as well.

    Eh. I think that really depends on the person and the ability of aforementioned person to do homework, really. My school has an excellent reputation, and I usually spend like two hours, tops, doing homework. Most days, far less than that. I get homework in each class, and they’re all IB classes. And I took a shitload of AP tests last year on my own, and studied for those on my own, and still managed my homework. This differs, of course, across schools everywhere (I’m sure there are also extremely lax schools in Japan and China), but that’s just my personal experience.

  21.  

    ^^I know. I wasn’t critisizing you or anything. I just don’t like generalizing like that quote. I always started early (I didn’t get out of school until 3:45, and I didn’t get home until a little after 4), but I still had hours of it. They just look at the data that helps their case, and that annoys me. I’m more like you this year and last. It’s because I have better teachers really, I think.

    • CommentAuthorWiseWillow
    • CommentTimeSep 27th 2009
     

    See, I say screw all those tests that say China/Japan are beating us. Sure, they may be, but… students in Japan study way, way harder than is physically healthy. They have multiple suicides every year of kids who don’t get into the right schools. Also, they really do underload students in a large number of public schools in the US because they tend to teach to the slowest kid in the class. And everyone else gets very bored and loses interest.

  22.  

    The more I read about this on the internet, the more I roll my eyes. Anybody holding up the Japanese educational system as any kind of model really doesn’t know much about it.

  23.  

    Also, they really do underload students in a large number of public schools in the US because they tend to teach to the slowest kid in the class. And everyone else gets very bored and loses interest.

    This is very true.

    But if other countries produce better educated kids, then what’s the incentive to hire potential employees who aren’t as skilled?

    • CommentAuthorSlyShy
    • CommentTimeSep 27th 2009
     

    But if other countries produce better educated kids, then what’s the incentive to hire potential employees who aren’t as skilled?

    Cough. If you haven’t noticed, this is exactly what employers are thinking. Which is why outsourcing is a problem in the US now.

  24.  

    Yes, exactly. Obviously something needs to change.

  25.  
    Eh, I just recommend you homeschool. Worked for me. More fun anyway. You get to learn AND you can take the odd day off if you just need to do something else (normally housecleaning or Christmas baking or what have you.)

    That's my take on it.
  26.  

    Cough. If you haven’t noticed, this is exactly what employers are thinking. Which is why outsourcing is a problem in the US now.

    That’s not the entire reason, but it is a reason. One could argue that US labor laws are just as relevant for encouraging outsourcing.

  27.  

    Which is why outsourcing is a problem in the US now.

    And there’s cheap labor…

    •  
      CommentAuthorRand
    • CommentTimeSep 27th 2009
     

    What if there were longer school days, but fewer of them? As in a four-day workweek? It would definitely save a lot of energy and I think people would be happier. But who knows.

    •  
      CommentAuthorElanor
    • CommentTimeSep 27th 2009
     

    just don’t like generalizing like that quote. [...] They just look at the data that helps their case, and that annoys me

    Eh. It’s from the Economist. It’s an excellent, neutral source of news. If they have opinions, it’ll be clear it’s an opinion and not a hard fact. Besides, you’re basing your own opinion solely on your own school experience, so I’d say it’s more biased than the Economist. Er, that wasn’t meant to sound accusatory.

  28.  

    ^^Sorry, I always assume that news sources aren’t neutral until proven otherwise. I wasn’t trying to not be neutral. You’re right; I was just basing it on my experience. I would, however, like to know how they determine the average amount of homework.

    What if there were longer school days, but fewer of them? As in a four-day workweek?

    I might be able to get on board with this.

    •  
      CommentAuthorElanor
    • CommentTimeSep 27th 2009
     

    Mostly what bores me about school is the freaking monotony. I have the same six classes every single day. I’d rather have them alternate, and have them be longer each day.

  29.  

    I have the same four classes everyday for 1.5 hours, and then halfway through the year, I switch to another four classes. (Except this year, I’m taking two APs and choir, which is yearlong, so those I’ll be in the entire year)

    I like this ‘4X4’ schedule than just taking the same eight classes for fifty minutes a day all year long.

  30.  

    I have 7 classes. My school has a very poor selection also. Then they make us choose alternates, but I’ve already put down all the classes I can actually stand to take. I’m so glad I’ll be graduating.

  31.  

    Weird, I was just in a conversation about this on the other board I follow. I have six classes, three each day.

    What I would like to see is more specialization in schools. I hate that I have to take more and more math classes when I would perform better and learn more in humanities classes.

    •  
      CommentAuthorswenson
    • CommentTimeSep 27th 2009
     

    Urgh. I’d hate having more school! If it was “have an extra hour of school a day, get Friday off”, I’d be willing to consider that, but I’ve got enough work to do already without having another class to take. Besides, schools (especially small ones) would have to hire more teachers, and what with money being tight already… I doubt the quality of schooling would go up any. And if they kept the same amount of classes, well… what are the kids who do advanced classes going to do? I’m already taking one “throwaway” class this year because my school has nothing to offer!

    And getting rid of summer?! That’d be terrible! Having a cut-down summer, even if it meant you got to have more breaks during the school year, would be so depressing. I need a break! If you’re going to cut down summer at all, make it be like two months, with the extra month spread throughout the schoolyear (if you have three months, that is- in Michigan, we don’t go back until after Labor Day, but my school still gets out the first week of June), but don’t cut it out altogether.

    Anyway, I’m glad I graduate this year and don’t have to deal with it.

    @Devin – specialization would be lovely, but it’s the same problem with adding another class to the day. Small schools just can’t afford it. Big schools should definitely have specialized programs, though.

  32.  

    I’d hate having more school! If it was “have an extra hour of school a day, get Friday off”

    That’s basically what it is in France, except it’s Wednesdays, not Fridays. ;) And I think that if I could, and if I were to have kids, I would most definitely home school them.

    •  
      CommentAuthorPuppet
    • CommentTimeSep 28th 2009 edited
     

    Eh, I just recommend you homeschool. Worked for me. More fun anyway. You get to learn AND you can take the odd day off if you just need to do something else (normally housecleaning or Christmas baking or what have you.)

    Everything above.^^ I learned a lot about cooking from homeschooling.

    Mostly what bores me about school is the freaking monotony.

    This is probably another reason why I like homeschooling, every day I do something a little different. Its interesting that way.

    •  
      CommentAuthorEmil 1.4021
    • CommentTimeSep 28th 2009 edited
     
    ..... Mine certainly won't, for sure. The town I go to school in gives the students personal computers (I go to a test-school, so I'm one of the lucky ones (MacBooks, BTW)). On the other hand, I'm a blonde, dumb Sweede, so those extra hours in school they mentioned in SlyShy's input were probably needed, or at least in my case....
    •  
      CommentAuthorTakuGifian
    • CommentTimeSep 28th 2009
     

    Wow, you have three months of summer vacation? Here in Australia, public schools only have 6 weeks of it, and 6 more weeks of holidays spread out through the year. You Americans have our entire year’s worth of holidays in one go? And nthen you have more on top of that.

    That’s crazy. However, we only go from 9:00 to 3:00 or 3:30

    • CommentAuthorUn-Dante'd
    • CommentTimeSep 28th 2009
     

    I agree with Obama’s idea, not just because I’m Canadian and not have to live with it, but because it’s true: South Korea’s average schoolkid goes to school for 8 hours and then studies with a tutor for roughly 2 hours after that, EACH DAY. I’m not sure that American families will be willing to pay for the tutors, so they could take the next best thing by lengthening the year.

  33.  

    Only problem is that all this reform sounds good, but who has the money to implement such sweeping changes in the educational system?

    •  
      CommentAuthorKyllorac
    • CommentTimeSep 28th 2009 edited
     

    Not to mention that the hours schoolkids spend in school is not the real issue. I’m sure we’ve all come across our fair share of teachers who know diddly squat about the subject they’re supposed to teach. How can you teach something when you do not know or understand it? I’ve personally encountered dozens of such teachers in addition to students who have just graduated high school that cannot do basic addition or subtraction much less multiplication or division, and the level of illiteracy is just mind-boggling.

    On the one hand, being a college tutor, I make a living off of teaching these people how to read, write, do basic arithmetic, etc. so they can pass their classes. On the other hand, I should not have to be doing this in the first place.

    And so, while longer hours may seem like a good idea, it’s not going to do any good if the teachers cannot teach in the first place. If anything, I think it would do more harm to the children than help since [a] they have no choice in whether or not to attend, [b] those children who are eager to learn would be hindered by the ignorance of their teachers, and© they would have no time to be just children.

    In my case, my mother is Japanese, and as such, she did not believe in summer vacations or weekends or playtime. My mother forced me to learn how to read and write when I was four. Every spare hour I had once I started school was spent studying, regardless of whether or not school was in session. I didn’t realize it then, but looking back on it now, I was so damn miserable and depressed, it’s no wonder my teachers (of which I was fortunate enough to have excellent ones) were constantly worried about how I was doing. Now that I have a level of autonomy, a choice in what I want to do in my spare time, I have this irresistible urge to just have fun for fun’s sake, to act like a child because I rarely had the chance to when I was a child. Not the most constructive thing to do, and I’ve been stupid and let great chances pass me by because I didn’t want to work for them, but I want my carefree moments of childishness while I’m still young enough to get away with them, damn it!

    Kinda veered off topic, but yeah, I’m not very supportive of the increased school hours.

    • CommentAuthorUn-Dante'd
    • CommentTimeSep 28th 2009 edited
     

    I learn from great minds here at II.
    New catchphrase: “Impish Idea: the Ignorance Annihilators!”
    EDIT
    I said that because I have nothing really to comment on with that post. It explained in depth, and I choose to step down.

  34.  

    Go, K!

    That’s basically what it is in France, except it’s Wednesdays, not Fridays. ;) And I think that if I could, and if I were to have kids, I would most definitely home school them.

    But seriously, if your kids have absolutely no social skills, send them to school. I’m so grateful that my parents did instead of bringing me up to be a freakish person.

    And I get Wednesdays off, too! School for me begins at 8:05 and ends at 3:00.

    •  
      CommentAuthorPuppet
    • CommentTimeSep 28th 2009
     

    But seriously, if your kids have absolutely no social skills, send them to school. I’m so grateful that my parents did instead of bringing me up to be a freakish person.

    Eh, I find most school kids my age kinda annoying and immature. =/

    • CommentAuthorWiseWillow
    • CommentTimeSep 28th 2009
     

    See, my social skills used to be damn minimal, and going to school did not help. Classes were way too slow, plus I got picked on by everyone, so…. homeschooling fan here. When I got to college however, I suddenly started having social skills. No clue how/why, but going through K-12 in public school was not worth it.

    •  
      CommentAuthorPuppet
    • CommentTimeSep 28th 2009
     

    I don’t feel comfortable around most kids (schoolkids) my age because they talk about a lot of TV shows, I just watch the news, I find it interesting. ._.
    And personally… I’m a book person, most of my homeschool day is reading, when I talked to some kids my age about reading, they thought 70 words on a page was a lot. And they read for about 30 minutes per-day., I used to read 5-6 hours a day.

    • CommentAuthorJinx
    • CommentTimeSep 28th 2009
     
    I personally think that an easier way to improve the education system is to stop wasting money on teachers that don't know how to transfer from what they know to the student and use that money to hire teachers that do. Another thing to consider is the fact that many students juggle multiple sports and clubs in addition to homework. Sports are a good motivational tool to poor students, I would say raising the standards for student-athletes from one failing class to all classes have to be a C or better. That seems like any easy way to help out the student -athletes that only go to school for the sports.
    •  
      CommentAuthorElanor
    • CommentTimeSep 28th 2009
     

    ...just to play the slight devil’s advocate for a moment, there are plenty of things (depending on the class) that I’m sure I could’ve learned more about had classes been longer. Just today, for example, we ran out of time halfway through a lesson in Calculus, and ran out of time again in Biology.

  35.  

    Eh, I find most school kids my age kinda annoying and immature. =/

    ^^This, and I’m pretty sure I’m older than you, Puppet. Most people my age annoy the crap out of me.

    Then again, I have very little social skills. :P

    ^^This too, and I’m a public school student. Though I do have a theory about why I have no social skills…

    •  
      CommentAuthorswenson
    • CommentTimeSep 28th 2009
     

    Meh, I know people who were homeschooled who went both ways- really socially awkward and complete social butterflies. I think it depends a lot more on how a person is homeschooled than on if they are homeschooled in general.

    • CommentAuthorRocky
    • CommentTimeSep 28th 2009
     
    bq. I should not have to be doing this in the first place.

    This is evidence enough that elementary, junior, and high school levels of education aren't up to snuff. But it goes beyond that. You know how many times Youtube users try to brush off their atrocious grammar and spelling with arrogant nonchalance? It's not just that the education system is horribly subpar, but that students simply *don't care*.
  36.  

    It’s not just that the education system is horribly subpar, but that students simply don’t care.

    I think that not caring is a slightly larger part than a subpar education system. I think that our education system needs to be tweaked (as in, no more “teaching to the test”), but the apathy of students is the main reason that we all seem so stupid. Of course, they might try harder if their classes weren’t simply preparing them to take a test that they don’t want to take.

    • CommentAuthorRocky
    • CommentTimeSep 28th 2009
     
    Well, after watching my sister spend years struggling to learn how to read after the school system tried to teach her using a method developed to teach _deaf_ children to read, I generally have little nice to say about that aspect.

    On the whole, however, I totally agree.
  37.  
    As far as homeschoolers and social skills...do we really find the standard for "having social skills" to be the tweeny teens I see waltz into the shop where I work with their mothers and proceed to do nothing more than scowl at, shun, and demean their kind mothers. Texting the whole time only to crack a :| once their mums agree to break out the credit card?

    I mean, these are the "normal" girls. I think it is disgusting, personally.
    More often than not, I see homeschoolers as the ones who are more willing to break out of their peer group and speak to *gasp* children younger or older than themselves.

    </undirected rant> I would be more in favour of public schooling if I saw more mature kids coming out of it. (And there are mature kids there....I've met them! And there are some homeschoolers I know who are complete brats...but just population-wise)
  38.  

    ...just to play the slight devil’s advocate for a moment, there are plenty of things (depending on the class) that I’m sure I could’ve learned more about had classes been longer. Just today, for example, we ran out of time halfway through a lesson in Calculus, and ran out of time again in Biology.

    Well, I think the teachers should just plan more carefully. We never run out of time.

    (how long are your classes, Elanor?)

    But then again, I can’t really say anything because I don’t know what it’s like in the US schooling system.

  39.  
    I would also have to say that from what I've heard the social climate in american schools is much harsher than the one in European schools (In my case, the Swedish). If peer pressure is eased, then perhaps it would be easier for students to be motivated in school (And to feel accepted for it by their classmates.)
  40.  

    Yeah, I keep seeing American highschool portrayed as cliquey. Is it really like that? With jocks and cheerleaders and ‘popular’ kids and stuff?

  41.  
    I sincerely hope not, but I suspect reallity is just a slightly more hopeless version of it.

  42.  

    Yeah, I keep seeing American highschool portrayed as cliquey. Is it really like that? With jocks and cheerleaders and ‘popular’ kids and stuff?

    I would say in most schools cliques are more nebulous and indistinct than they are portrayed as being on TV, which generally categorizes for ease of consumption.

    I’ll just say I was one of the captains of my football team my senior year in spite of openly playing Magic: The Gathering during lunch most days. There are probably a number of confounding factors, but if things were as cut and dry as TV would have you believe, I’d have been shunned like crazy.

  43.  
    I meant that it is often unaccepted by your peers to actually be interested in what's being taught. Those who try often get the harsh end of things. I'm not suggesting the cliques are as firm as in the movies, but for instance bullying is by far more common in american schools, and usually go much further.

    It's important for students to feel safe with their class to take on their studies, otherwise that can work as a sort of blockade. This is most probably an initiative that needs to be taken all the way from preschool, since you learn much of how to interact socially very early on.
  44.  

    I meant that it is often unaccepted by your peers to actually be interested in what’s being taught. Those who try often get the harsh end of things. I’m not suggesting the cliques are as firm as in the movies, but for instance bullying is by far more common in american schools, and usually go much further.

    Bullying is a hundred times worse in Japan despite the pressure on the students to actually learn and participate. It’s not a simple cause and effect problem.

  45.  
    I know, I know, and I wasn't suggesting that you solve the issues of peer pressure through pressure on academical acheivements. What I meant was that it can be a vital tool to create a secure social climate for individuals early on in life. I'm not saying it's foolproof, neither am I saying you can't succeed in other ways.
    •  
      CommentAuthorPuppet
    • CommentTimeSep 29th 2009
     

    Schools seem a little controlling to me… I saw one National News that some schools ban hugging, this was before the H1N1.

  46.  

    Most people my age annoy the crap out of me.

    Most people annoy the crap out of me. I think it’s safe to say that I’m a pretty anti-social person. ;)

    I saw one National News that some schools ban hugging

    Yeah, I saw that too. I’m not saying that people should be allowed to make out in class, but come on! No hugging?

    •  
      CommentAuthorKyllorac
    • CommentTimeSep 29th 2009
     

    Most people annoy the crap out of me. I think it’s safe to say that I’m a pretty anti-social person. ;)

    Asocial. Difference. Unless you have this driving urge to destroy society and all it means because you hate it all, you’re not anti-social.

    Anyway, ditto with the people are annoying bit. I need my hermit days, I do.

  47.  

    Ah, thanks for the correction there. :D

  48.  

    Most of the time, I’m relatively neutral towards people as a whole, but whiny kids who don’t try and just complain all the time are so annoying.

    I’ve never personally met any kids that were homeschooled, so I can’t really attest to anything on that front, but in terms of public school, yeah, the maturity’s not all there.

    •  
      CommentAuthorElanor
    • CommentTimeSep 29th 2009
     

    (how long are your classes, Elanor?)

    They’re 51 minutes long.

  49.  

    Come on, guys. If summer breaks were the problem, how come homeschoolers – who by and large have summer breaks – still outperform public schoolers?

    It’s because of the teachers’ unions and the tenure system. Teachers in the teachers’ unions are never fired, and their pay rates increase every year regardless of merit. With no motivation to be good at what they do, they often become mediocre. By contrast, homeschooling parents tend to be very concerned about the quality of their children’s education, and have a very strong motivation to do a good job.

    I’m not saying that everyone should be homeschooled, as it’s a completely unworkable idea, but the school system itself is by and large broken. And don’t forget the watered-down curricula that schools use today. As an example, “Whole Language” is one of the worst pedagogical systems ever devised, yet it has widespread use in American schools.

  50.  

    Teachers unions can be a real PITA, or so I’ve heard. My folks are both teachers, and they hated the shit out of the union for the few years we lived in MN. Despite having ~2 decades of experience each, the union would only honor two years worth of out of state experience when determining a teacher’s pay grade. On top of that, you were forced to pay union dues even if you didn’t want to be in the union.

    Down here, I think there are two unions, but membership is optional. The state government determines the salary floor, but districts can go beyond that to increase teacher pay on an individual basis.

    However, the teachers unions are the reason I doubt this sort of thing is going to fly, since this is an initiative from a Democratic president with a Democratic congress, and I don’t think they’ll act on it if the unions put their collective foot down. They’re still politicians, after all, and they’d have to be pretty arrogant to piss off a party stalwart like that.

  51.  

    speak to gasp children younger or older than themselves.

    I do this. I am friends with adults/young adults and one of my best friends is four and half years younger than I am, and she is more mature than most people at my school.

    I hate when people at my school call kids a year younger than they are “little kids.” They aren’t little kids! You were them last year!

    Asocial. Difference.

    I’m glad you posted this. I used to call myself anti-social, and then I found out what it meant, and I didn’t know what word to use anymore. I used “socially awkward” for a bit. I can now say that I am asocial.

  52.  

    Then again, I have very little social skills. :P

    ^^This too, and I’m a public school student. Though I do have a theory about why I have no social skills…

    I have a theory, too. My parents refuse to believe it. But the whole “homeschoolers are more mature thing” is… strongly contested by personal experience. I am a public school student. I was picked on, bullied, and shunned until I gave up and went to Catholic school until I went back to public high school (private high schools are as expensive as colleges around here). Changing schools really forced me to come out of my shell and forcibly learn social skills. Now, I’m still marginally ignored, but I’ve risen in rank from “bookworm: bully bait” to “quirky person.”

    To contrast, my boyfriend is homeschooled. He’s exactly like me, except that he went back to homeschooling after trying public high school. On the social skills scale, I am hugely ahead of him. Keep in mind I have trouble reading facial expressions and I often blurt out really embarrassing stuff. Now, is he smarter than me? Yes. Is he doing more advanced testing and classes? Yes. Is he interacting with anyone else except his family and friends? No.

    More often than not, I see homeschoolers as the ones who are more willing to break out of their peer group and speak to gasp children younger or older than themselves.

    I spend most of my time at parties with mixed age groups talking to the parents or the young children of the parents. I take great pride in the fact that I am one of the only people I know in my age group who has patience with kids and understands them. I have a much harder time talking to peers.

    Yeah, I keep seeing American highschool portrayed as cliquey. Is it really like that? With jocks and cheerleaders and ‘popular’ kids and stuff?

    Yes, but it’s a little more complicated. There are jocks, cheerleaders, and popular kids, and they mix with the smart-but-attractive people, the preps. Mixed in with the preppy people are geeks and nerds, who are the ugly duckling versions of the preps, and the wannabes, who are the ugly duckling versions of the popular people. The geeks often mix with the goths/emos/exciting people, and the GEEs mix with the druggies and flunkies.*

    I, as a geek, mix with the preps for classes and sit with the GEEs at lunch. Think of cliques as a salad dressing – there’s some mixing going on, and nothing is completely homogenous nor completely separated. Also, some things like Drama Club or Band mixes everyone. So it’s very, very complicated, and the movies are simplifying this.

    *Note that this is just my school. I have yet to go to a different high school, so this is how mine operates.

  53.  

    ^^That sounds similar to my school.

    Most of the preppy/popular/jock/cheerleader people are the smart people in my school though. They are also very immature, and by smart I mean they are smarter than most of the other kids. So even when I take smart classes, I can’t escape them. I do tend to get along better with “quirky” people. A lot of them are smart as well, more mature too.
    It’s just that at my school, it seems like most of the people are not that bright (at least common sense and maturity-wise), but the ones who are more bright are considered smart.
    There are some really intelligent people at my school; they are just few and far between.

  54.  

    It’s just that at my school, it seems like most of the people are not that bright (at least common sense and maturity-wise), but the ones who are more bright are considered smart.
    There are some really intelligent people at my school; they are just few and far between.

    I know. People mistake me as being ‘smart’, and I know that’s really not the case.

  55.  

    Most of the preppy/popular/jock/cheerleader people are the smart people in my school though.

    Blasphemy! Everybody knows these people can’t be smart! You need to study your stereotypes more diligently, miss.

  56.  

    ^^I know that they can be smart, sansafro. Except it’s like they are smart, but then they’re not. It’s hard to explain. I just know that I can’t escape the annoyingness of them. No matter what classes I take, there they are. They’re the people who don’t know what adverbs are, but they can recite all the state capitals. They’re the people who can do complex math problems that make my head hurt, but they are in love with Edward Cullen and believe that Stephenie Meyer is the best writer ever. It’s a paradox.

  57.  

    I was kidding. I was a jock in HS and dumb jock stereotypes make me indignant.

    That said, I don’t tend to like any shots at the actual intelligence of others no matter the sort of person they are, mostly for the reasons you’ve just listed. Intelligence is more nebulous than most people want to admit.

  58.  

    Ex: I might be booksmart, but toss me out into the real world and I’ll be dead within maybe a day or so.

    XP

  59.  

    I don’t think that jocks are dumb, and I understand. There are a lot of stereotypes that annoy me because I’m the exception to the rule or because there are soooo many people who are exceptions that the rule shouldn’t even exist.

    • CommentAuthorWiseWillow
    • CommentTimeOct 2nd 2009 edited
     

    They (referring to Neurotic’s post on smart/stupdi people) are pseudo-intellectual dumbasses.

    See? Simple! One kid in my sophomore honors english class said Tess of the D’Urbervilles was “devirginized”...

    Headdesk

    Same kid said Lady Macbeth was a transvestite. He had the eleventh highest GPA in our class…

  60.  

    ^^Those people! Exactly!

    Oh, and I don’t know what the D-Ubervilles is, so I will have to go and look it up now to be properly horrified.

    EDIT:
    I skimmed some stuff on it on Wikipedia. It sounds different… I’m pretty sure that the kid in your English class is a moron.

  61.  

    Yeah, moron. I know the plot of Tess of D’Ubervilles from my mom (who told me exactly how depressing it is), and I watched the BBC version on PBS.

    As to the jock stereotype, I am continually surprised by the amount of jocks in my AP classes. At my school, sure, they’re “smart”, but the geeky kids yelled at the jocks while we were taking a test because they were talking during it and wouldn’t sit still.

    And at my school, because the cheerleaders are hated by virtue of being cheerleaders, they tend to be of average intelligence, in average classes, and basically being wannabes because the cheerleader’s aren’t popular here. They tend to date jocks, though, but that’s probably because they have classes with them. The people who act like cheerleaders (flirting with lots of people but not having boyfriends, acting as if they are better than you, wearing designer clothes and generally being gorgeous) are the preppy people.

  62.  

    but the geeky kids yelled at the jocks while we were taking a test because they were talking during it and wouldn’t sit still.

    This is what happens at my school. The people who ooze popularity are in my AP classes, and the never shut up! Sadly, I am one of the only “geeky” people in these classes. There are a few others, but we’re not the yelling type; we’re the mumbling curses under our breath type.

    At my school, most of the preppy people are cheerleaders and jocks. There are a few preppy people who aren’t, but they are still allowed in the cheer/jock group. They are also the people who think that going to church automatically makes you a good person. Then there are a few people who are not very smart and don’t seem to have the same values as the preppy people, but still end up being in their popular group.

    •  
      CommentAuthorAdamPottle
    • CommentTimeOct 3rd 2009
     
    Things seem pretty much the same where I am, NP and QT, but the nerdy-types are split into two plain categories: the keeners (yearbook, stage crew, reach for the top, all AP, etc) and the dorks, who smell like old people and whatever the cafeteria's serving on a given day. The latter has a designated hall to squat in and play runescape.

    Above the geeks, and well below most keeners, sit the kind of sad, awkward people that are in robotics and such. They for the most part seem genuinely nice but can't really express themselves that well. Like the keeners some of them are involved in individual sports.

    Then there are the committees- Key Club, charity-nerds, that type. They're all earnest, isolationist and holier-than-thou. Rarely involved in anything besides the annual musical. Thy are not liked. Most are unemployed.

    Then there sits the vast, apathetic masses who show up, get mediocre marks and go home. Lots of unspectacular athletes here, most foreign-exchange students, stoners and pretty much everyone else.

    The previously mentioned keeners sit above them, on the same tier as the student council, grad class, and the more talented athletes and the dedicated musical people. This is a nice bunch for the most part, well-adjusted, only slightly cynical, and willing to associate with most others. This is the top tier for any real social levelings, and any others are too off to the side to play a real role.

    The resident douchebags, most on the baseball team by coincidence, think they're utterly grand. No one else does.

    The part-timers rarely return after lunch and smoke a variety of things in the square or behind the theatre.

    The tag-a-longs never actually do anything- they're utterly uninvolved. However, they attempt to obtain social standing by following others around and laughing at their jokes.

    Otherwise, the rest of us just go on with our days.
  63.  

    ^^Cliques are quite a complex system…

    •  
      CommentAuthorSMARTALIENQT
    • CommentTimeOct 3rd 2009 edited
     

    ^^They are indeed,

    At my school, most of the preppy people are cheerleaders and jocks. There are a few preppy people who aren’t, but they are still allowed in the cheer/jock group.

    True here, as well. These people tend to be both smart and rich, as opposed to just rich or just smart. Actually, you can guess a person’s economic status by their group – if they’re in upper classes, then they are upper class. Poorer people drink, smoke, and have problems at home, and they are also in the lower-level classes. People like me who can interact with both are middle class. There are a couple rich goths, but not a lot, and they don’t flaunt it like the preps do.