Re: Parents, kids don't see need for math, science skills

One other thing we had were "advanced" or "accellerated" classes where
they put the brighter kids (eg. me),

I recall there were a few "accelerated" courses in grade 9 and 10 for
some subjects like english and math, when I was high school. Though
it wasn't particularly widespread.

For the really smart kids, there was a seperate program at a different
nearby high school which was "accelerated" in more subjects.
Basically in the accelerated program, the year long "academic" courses
were crammed into a half-year semester, but the students still took 7
or 8 courses each term. For example in their accelerated freshman
year of high school, the accelerated kids took grade 9 english, math,
science, etc ... in the first semester, and grade 10 english, math,
science, etc ... in the second semester. The other 4 or 5 courses per
semester was stuff like geography, history, art, social sciences,
etc ... Essentially it was almost literally double the workload at
this special accelerated school. My parents originally wanted me to
attend this special accelerated program, but I decided against it for
the reason that it was double the workload. In those days I was more
interested in doing other things like hanging out with friends,
playing guitar in a rock band, shooting hoops at a basketball court,
etc ... I was very undisciplined and somewhat lazy in those days,
with respect to school work.

From what I recall, the only classes I had in high school which were
really time consuming were courses like english (ie. reading books I
had no interest in). For some folks, math was also time consuming for
them. (It wasn't for me). For most of the other courses, they were
not particularly hard nor time consuming. Some classes had no
homework or exams at all (ie. gym, drama, visual arts, typing,
etc ...), while other classes had moderate to very little homework
(ie. science, geography, history, social sciences, etc ...). For many
of the mandatory courses I had in high school, the classes didn't even
have any assigned textbooks (ie. general science, geography, history,
social sciences, etc ...). In these particular classes, the homework
was typically in the form of essays, short projects, or lab writeups.

In the end, I ended up doing sort of a "DIY" accelerated program on my
own initiative within the regular high school program. In my freshman
year of high school, I came to the realization that I was largely
bored in most of my classes and wanted to do more advanced stuff.
They let me enroll in the upper level math and science classes (ie.
chemistry, physics, advanced algebra, etc ...) in my sophomore year.
I was largely finished most of the senior year courses by the time it
was the end of my junior year of high school. In my senior year of
high school, the school board was willing to pay my way to take some
courses at a local university or community college. So I ended up
taking the freshman university sequence of calculus and linear algebra
courses, in my senior year of high school.

One retired teacher that I
talked to extensively told me the whole history of how, in his school
district, the authority structure was, over his career, totally
dismantled.

It seems like the public school system isn't much more than the
equivalent of a free babysitting service for kids and young people.

And, so, we have some fairly large fraction of kids coming
out, totally unprepared, unadjusted, uneducated, and unready for work,
citizenship, and life in general.

So many kids who try to pursue the rock/rap star, movie star, sports
star, etc ... dream. Some of the badasses end up pursuing a life of
gangs, drugs, etc ... or organized crime. (They think they're John
Gotti or Al Capone).

.

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