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I actually don't think that's true. Sure, our curriculum doesn't cover each of these mechanics. But they do cover the basic properties of levers, pendulums, pu

by lukev 11y ago

I actually don't think that's true. Sure, our curriculum doesn't cover each of these mechanics. But they do cover the basic properties of levers, pendulums, pulleys, gears, cams, chains/belts, levers, etc. Every single one of these mechanisms is a recombination of those ideas. I would argue that for fields that don't actually require designing or building mechanical objects, an understanding of what the primitives are is enough. The analogous features in computer science would be things like functions, values, loops, etc, that it's certainly possible to understand without being a good programmer. You can know (at a high level) what sausage is made of, without actually being a sausage-maker.

douche 11y ago
Maybe I just had some substandard science curriculum. We got pretty much the 10000, or 100000 foot view of most topics. I think the bigger problem is that US education is so overwhelmingly aligned with teaching to what is on the SAT. There are a hundred basic life skills that are scandalously neglected in favor of pushing everybody up to calculus (ignoring a lot of the geometry and trig that is useful to know if you end up working in trades) and finely tuning our abilities to churn out five paragraph SAT essays. Shop and Home-ec classes have been slashed. Everybody should be able to bake a cake, hem a pair of pants, balance a checkbook, change their oil, replace a lawn-mower belt, understand a loan agreement or lease, hang a shelf, etc.