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> The majority of the public school system has devolved into day-care, not education. I resisted that narrative for years, thinking it was just a media-hyped s

> The majority of the public school system has devolved into day-care, not education. I resisted that narrative for years, thinking it was just a media-hyped scare tactic to get clicks. However, my niece started high school a few weeks ago (in mid-August, which is weird to me); her experience blew my mind. Her new high school is considered one of the better public high schools in the area. When I asked her how it was going, did she like being a high-schooler, I was expecting her to complain about the course load or something like that. However, she told me that after 2 weeks, they haven't spent one minute on actual education. She said they've been going over rules and policies for 2 weeks. Things like no bullying, inclusiveness, fire safety, bring your own water bottle, how to pray (they have a room dedicated to prayer), etc. Best/worst of all, they did an entire day on active shooter drills - the windows are now bullet-proof! So yeah, unfortunately, I'm fully onboard with this narrative now. While kids in Taiwan and Japan are learning calc, kids in the US are doing active shooter drills and staring at the Ten Commandments. USA! USA! USA!

simpaticoder 1y ago
>Things like no bullying, inclusiveness, fire safety, bring your own water bottle, how to pray When great controversy surrounds the curriculum, the safest thing to teach is nothing at all.
- titzer 1y ago
  A lot of controversy is fabricated willfully by ideologues who believe absolutely batshit insane things.
  - linuxftw 1y ago
    [flagged]
  - simpaticoder 1y ago
    True enough, but that has always been true. Something has changed on the institutional side such that it is no longer willing and/or able to simply reject batshit insanity and continue teaching children such that they are as well informed or better informed and capable as the last generation. What results is a positive feedback loop where a poorly educated public puts increasing pressure on an institution who's members are themselves poorly educated. The result is paralysis, and eventually, societal death.
- potato3732842 1y ago
  >When great controversy surrounds the curriculum, the safest way to keep the gravy train rolling to teach is nothing at all. I fixed your verbiage to be more descriptive. They are teaching nothing specifically because they don't want to kill the golden goose. If there wasn't so much money at stake we wouldn't be having this discussion.
staticman2 1y ago
Among other things an entire day on active shooter drills? Is it possible your niece was joking?
- jimt1234 1y ago
  Unfortunately, no. My niece's mom, my sister, called her school to ask wtf was going on. They gave her a lame, lawyer-approved response about their responsibility to protect children and the drills are mandated by the state, blah blah blah. So yeah, my niece said they practice how to respond (call 911, not your parents?), what to do if the teacher is shot (they don't use the word "shot", though), and they talked about tactical gear, like bullet-proof backpacks, which my niece wants now.
  - potato3732842 1y ago
    >call 911, not your parents? What else do you expect government run schools to teach if not "engage the government at any/every opportunity"? Looking back on my own education what a disservice some of those behavior patterns (not specifically that one) they tried to teach us would be in adult life.
    - yepitwas 1y ago
      I don’t think advising kids to make their first and possibly only call to an emergency number where someone’s all but guaranteed to pick up quickly and dispatch help instead of to a parent who might not pick up for any number of reasons and can’t personally dispatch emergency responders (but will surely just themselves turn around and call 911) is, like, a Big Government propaganda conspiracy. Seems more like plain old good advice.
      - potato3732842 1y ago
        While probably appropriate for a shooting, "when shit's going down, call the government first" is generally not a terrible way to handle things as an adult as it tends to reliably turn N-figure problems into much more complicated N+1 or N+2 figure problems. Running your situation by a cooler head not immediately involved is almost always better and the government is always slow enough to show up that you don't lose anything if you do go that route. Likewise, I think it is very ill-advised to cram kid's heads full of "dial 911" at the young vulnerable age where repeated messaging goes into the kind of memory that's all but impossible to overwrite.
jf22 1y ago
I don't like the comparisons to other schools or cultures where memorization is the priority. What kids do with what they learn in school matter more than whether or not they memorized a calc function. Besides, who cares if you know cal functions in a post-phone, post-AI world. You look that shit up now.
- desolate_muffin 1y ago
  Why think when your phone or the AI can do it for you? I imagine there are a few people in this forum who might have some thoughts about that.
  - jf22 1y ago
    Recalling math trivia is not thinking... that's why it's called memorization...
    - blululu 1y ago
      I find this attitude to be really frustrating. Based on my experiences teaching math a student is not going to learn how to do the impressive things that you might call thinking if they don't have a solid foundation in how to do the basics. Imagine saying that learning the alphabet or spelling rules is just rote memorization and therefore not worth doing. If a person needs to spend all of their brain power thinking through elementary operations then they will have very little left over for the things that we might call thinking. I have seen too many kids who struggle with Algebra not because they can't understand the concepts but because they cannot do basic things like multiply 3x4 without needing to add 3 to 3 to 3 to 3.
      - jf22 1y ago
        I didn't say learning the basics was a bad thing... I said memorization wasn't important... I find it frustrating people argue against points that were never made.
  - ThrowMeAway1618 1y ago
el_memorioso 1y ago
In what state are public high schools allowed to "how to pray"? It sounds like her new high school isn't that good. I have a daughter at a good public high school in California in a quite liberal area. There was none of what you mentioned. One day of reviewing the syllabi and rules and quizzes in most subjects starting less than a week later.
- estimator7292 1y ago
  The law is extremely specific about this one, and this is constitutional law that overrules all other laws. A government institution cannot promote any one religion. It's fine to have a multi-denominational non-secular common worship area. You can also promote religion as a general concept, but not a specific religion. Whether this rule is followed or enforced properly is an entirely separate problem that we are apparently still grappling with.
  - guelo 1y ago
    Well our insane Supreme Court ruled a few years ago on a case involving a football coach praying at games that schools are forced to allow religious employees to do their weird religious ceremony at school events.
    - ecshafer 1y ago
      Why shouldnt the football coach be able to pray on the field, alone, without forcing their belief on others? That seems extremely reasonable. Making students also pray would be bad,but he didnt do that.
      - guelo 1y ago
        Because he's an employee being paid to do what he's told and the school told him not to because it was causing a disturbance. Why does he have to practice his religion on his employer's time? Let's say he was cussing during school hours, would it violate his 1st amendment rights if the school told him to stop?
yumraj 1y ago
Would you be open to identifying the state where this school is?
- nobody9999 1y ago
  It's Texas.
bjourne 1y ago
[flagged]
WalterBright 1y ago
I went to public high school in the 70s. The honors chemistry class spent an entire semester on what a molar mass was.
Aurornis 1y ago
Either this is a bizarre backwards school, or your niece is exaggerating for effect. > kids in the US are doing active shooter drills and staring at the Ten Commandments. USA! USA! USA! Not a thing at public schools (despite some attempts to force it) Between this and the prayer comment, I suspect this comment is either exaggerated or mixed with internet anecdotes rather than actual experience.
- nobody9999 1y ago
  >> kids in the US are doing active shooter drills and staring at the Ten Commandments. USA! USA! USA! >Not a thing at public schools (despite some attempts to force it) >Between this and the prayer comment, I suspect this comment is either exaggerated or mixed with internet anecdotes rather than actual experience. Actually, it is a thing in Texas. And unfortunately, it's not exaggerated at all. From Wikipedia[0]: "S.B. 10 requires public schools to display the Ten Commandments anywhere clearly visible. The law requires the display to be framed or a poster, and include the exact text of the Ten Commandments provided in the law without alternatives. It must also be at least 16 inches (41 cm) wide and 20 inches (51 cm) tall.[13]" From the office of the Texas Attorney General: “In Texas classrooms, we want the Word of God opened, the Ten Commandments displayed, and prayers lifted up,” said Attorney General Paxton. “Twisted, radical liberals want to erase Truth, dismantle the solid foundation that America’s success and strength were built upon, and erode the moral fabric of our society. Our nation was founded on the rock of Biblical Truth, and I will not stand by while the far-left attempts to push our country into the sinking sand.” Senate Bill 11, passed by the Texas Legislature this past regular session, allows school boards to adopt policies setting aside time for voluntary prayer and the reading of the Bible or other religious texts. The law requires that the board of trustees for each ISD in Texas take a record vote on whether to adopt a policy to implement these periods no later than six months after September 1, 2025. Student participation in these periods requires parental consent." [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Senate_Bill_10 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Senate_Bill_10 [1] https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/news/releases/attorney-general-ken-paxton-encourages-texas-schools-begin-legal-process-putting-prayer-back https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/news/releases/attorney-... Edit: Fixed typo (nor --> not).

simpaticoder 1y ago

>Things like no bullying, inclusiveness, fire safety, bring your own water bottle, how to pray When great controversy surrounds the curriculum, the safest thing to teach is nothing at all.

titzer 1y ago
A lot of controversy is fabricated willfully by ideologues who believe absolutely batshit insane things.
- linuxftw 1y ago
  [flagged]
- simpaticoder 1y ago
  True enough, but that has always been true. Something has changed on the institutional side such that it is no longer willing and/or able to simply reject batshit insanity and continue teaching children such that they are as well informed or better informed and capable as the last generation. What results is a positive feedback loop where a poorly educated public puts increasing pressure on an institution who's members are themselves poorly educated. The result is paralysis, and eventually, societal death.
potato3732842 1y ago
>When great controversy surrounds the curriculum, the safest way to keep the gravy train rolling to teach is nothing at all. I fixed your verbiage to be more descriptive. They are teaching nothing specifically because they don't want to kill the golden goose. If there wasn't so much money at stake we wouldn't be having this discussion.

staticman2 1y ago

Among other things an entire day on active shooter drills? Is it possible your niece was joking?

jimt1234 1y ago
Unfortunately, no. My niece's mom, my sister, called her school to ask wtf was going on. They gave her a lame, lawyer-approved response about their responsibility to protect children and the drills are mandated by the state, blah blah blah. So yeah, my niece said they practice how to respond (call 911, not your parents?), what to do if the teacher is shot (they don't use the word "shot", though), and they talked about tactical gear, like bullet-proof backpacks, which my niece wants now.
- potato3732842 1y ago
  >call 911, not your parents? What else do you expect government run schools to teach if not "engage the government at any/every opportunity"? Looking back on my own education what a disservice some of those behavior patterns (not specifically that one) they tried to teach us would be in adult life.
  - yepitwas 1y ago
    I don’t think advising kids to make their first and possibly only call to an emergency number where someone’s all but guaranteed to pick up quickly and dispatch help instead of to a parent who might not pick up for any number of reasons and can’t personally dispatch emergency responders (but will surely just themselves turn around and call 911) is, like, a Big Government propaganda conspiracy. Seems more like plain old good advice.
    - potato3732842 1y ago
      While probably appropriate for a shooting, "when shit's going down, call the government first" is generally not a terrible way to handle things as an adult as it tends to reliably turn N-figure problems into much more complicated N+1 or N+2 figure problems. Running your situation by a cooler head not immediately involved is almost always better and the government is always slow enough to show up that you don't lose anything if you do go that route. Likewise, I think it is very ill-advised to cram kid's heads full of "dial 911" at the young vulnerable age where repeated messaging goes into the kind of memory that's all but impossible to overwrite.

jf22 1y ago

I don't like the comparisons to other schools or cultures where memorization is the priority. What kids do with what they learn in school matter more than whether or not they memorized a calc function. Besides, who cares if you know cal functions in a post-phone, post-AI world. You look that shit up now.

desolate_muffin 1y ago
Why think when your phone or the AI can do it for you? I imagine there are a few people in this forum who might have some thoughts about that.
- jf22 1y ago
  Recalling math trivia is not thinking... that's why it's called memorization...
  - blululu 1y ago
    I find this attitude to be really frustrating. Based on my experiences teaching math a student is not going to learn how to do the impressive things that you might call thinking if they don't have a solid foundation in how to do the basics. Imagine saying that learning the alphabet or spelling rules is just rote memorization and therefore not worth doing. If a person needs to spend all of their brain power thinking through elementary operations then they will have very little left over for the things that we might call thinking. I have seen too many kids who struggle with Algebra not because they can't understand the concepts but because they cannot do basic things like multiply 3x4 without needing to add 3 to 3 to 3 to 3.
    - jf22 1y ago
      I didn't say learning the basics was a bad thing... I said memorization wasn't important... I find it frustrating people argue against points that were never made.
- ThrowMeAway1618 1y ago

el_memorioso 1y ago

In what state are public high schools allowed to "how to pray"? It sounds like her new high school isn't that good. I have a daughter at a good public high school in California in a quite liberal area. There was none of what you mentioned. One day of reviewing the syllabi and rules and quizzes in most subjects starting less than a week later.

estimator7292 1y ago
The law is extremely specific about this one, and this is constitutional law that overrules all other laws. A government institution cannot promote any one religion. It's fine to have a multi-denominational non-secular common worship area. You can also promote religion as a general concept, but not a specific religion. Whether this rule is followed or enforced properly is an entirely separate problem that we are apparently still grappling with.
- guelo 1y ago
  Well our insane Supreme Court ruled a few years ago on a case involving a football coach praying at games that schools are forced to allow religious employees to do their weird religious ceremony at school events.
  - ecshafer 1y ago
    Why shouldnt the football coach be able to pray on the field, alone, without forcing their belief on others? That seems extremely reasonable. Making students also pray would be bad,but he didnt do that.
    - guelo 1y ago
      Because he's an employee being paid to do what he's told and the school told him not to because it was causing a disturbance. Why does he have to practice his religion on his employer's time? Let's say he was cussing during school hours, would it violate his 1st amendment rights if the school told him to stop?

yumraj 1y ago

Would you be open to identifying the state where this school is?

nobody9999 1y ago
It's Texas.

bjourne 1y ago

[flagged]

WalterBright 1y ago

I went to public high school in the 70s. The honors chemistry class spent an entire semester on what a molar mass was.

Aurornis 1y ago

Either this is a bizarre backwards school, or your niece is exaggerating for effect. > kids in the US are doing active shooter drills and staring at the Ten Commandments. USA! USA! USA! Not a thing at public schools (despite some attempts to force it) Between this and the prayer comment, I suspect this comment is either exaggerated or mixed with internet anecdotes rather than actual experience.

nobody9999 1y ago
>> kids in the US are doing active shooter drills and staring at the Ten Commandments. USA! USA! USA! >Not a thing at public schools (despite some attempts to force it) >Between this and the prayer comment, I suspect this comment is either exaggerated or mixed with internet anecdotes rather than actual experience. Actually, it is a thing in Texas. And unfortunately, it's not exaggerated at all. From Wikipedia[0]: "S.B. 10 requires public schools to display the Ten Commandments anywhere clearly visible. The law requires the display to be framed or a poster, and include the exact text of the Ten Commandments provided in the law without alternatives. It must also be at least 16 inches (41 cm) wide and 20 inches (51 cm) tall.[13]" From the office of the Texas Attorney General: “In Texas classrooms, we want the Word of God opened, the Ten Commandments displayed, and prayers lifted up,” said Attorney General Paxton. “Twisted, radical liberals want to erase Truth, dismantle the solid foundation that America’s success and strength were built upon, and erode the moral fabric of our society. Our nation was founded on the rock of Biblical Truth, and I will not stand by while the far-left attempts to push our country into the sinking sand.” Senate Bill 11, passed by the Texas Legislature this past regular session, allows school boards to adopt policies setting aside time for voluntary prayer and the reading of the Bible or other religious texts. The law requires that the board of trustees for each ISD in Texas take a record vote on whether to adopt a policy to implement these periods no later than six months after September 1, 2025. Student participation in these periods requires parental consent." [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Senate_Bill_10 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_Senate_Bill_10 [1] https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/news/releases/attorney-general-ken-paxton-encourages-texas-schools-begin-legal-process-putting-prayer-back https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/news/releases/attorney-... Edit: Fixed typo (nor --> not).