Is the school system getting harder?

Alright, this needs to be addressed seeing that I see it everywhere on social media about people complaining about how the American school system is getting harder than a guy who just took 5 Viagra pills. Okay, I'm gonna explain a few things:

-"The American school system is becoming more difficult!"

I am currently a 23-year old male who graduated high school 4 years ago. I passed without failing a single class, without much stress, as did my sister who graduated less than 2 years ago. Now either we were really great at school (which we weren't, we both had C-B averages), they've dramatically increased the difficulty curve over the previous 2 years, or the people saying this quote are just little whiners.

Furthermore, if you think high school is hard, wait until you hit university/college where the professors won't hold your hand like your teachers did or the real world where mom and dad won't pay for your bills anymore. This doesn't just mean your cell and internet bill, but also rent, utilities, car, insurance, and everything under the sun that comes with being an adult.

Also, I'd really like to see all of these spoiled little kids stripped of all their technological devices to write a paper. No online databases, no computers, no Wikipedia. See how hard it is to write a topic just by flipping through physical books you have to manually find. I had to do this back in my high school because my teachers forbade me from using any electronic resources and it certainly isn't easy abandoning technology cold turkey.

Finally, the American school system is much easier than a lot of other countries. Try going to schools in S. Korea, Japan, or even some of the Nordic countries. There, they expect you to dedicate EVERYTHING into your studies because of its beyond-competitive environment. In the US, if you get a C, you're satisfied. In South Korea, if you get anything below an A, you feel lover than cow crap, which explains why SK has one of the highest suicide rates in the world.

-"It's so stressful getting all the work done on time!"

I wonder what that could be? I suppose it couldn't be you faffing about with your friends all week, procrastinating on Facebook, or shirking responsibilities until the last minute? Of course not. It's always a gigantic tsunami of schoolwork.

So what is your opinion? Is the American school system becoming more difficult or are the youth of America just becoming more lazy?

 

Harder? Hardly. They're not even teaching kids how to sound words out (making then memorize "sight words") or write in cursive anymore. My school age kids range from kindergarten to high school senior and as far as I can see, they've got an easier curriculum than I did when I was in school.

 

The school district I graduated from increased required high school credits than when I graduated, but the curriculum never got any harder. I was only required to have 25 credits while those that graduated after me were required to have 28. Even with all grades ranked D- were still considered "passable" so it's not really difficult. The only way you could actually fail a class in the school district I graduated from was:

• Ignoring your instructor (not paying attention to the lessons)
• Not doing your school work
• Not paying attention to the tests

Anyone doing all of those is completely lazier than I was. I admit, I was a slacker in school, but I graduated on time (although I do have an interesting story about that).

Also... side note that's a little off topic: don't take "Earth Science" that science class is boring as hell, unless you find rocks, fossils, and other "dirt" related objects interesting. I had really wanted to take a chemistry class, but apparently it was full so I had to take a Earth Science to get my last science credit.

 

@Vashnik fortunately I grew up in an area that offered Agricultural Science. 2 years of it would give 1 science credit plus I learned how to weld in said class.

 

I saw your fb post, which I'm assuming is why you posted this thread. So here's my opinion.

As someone born in 1996, who grew up in a predominantly white neighborhood, and with access to information through means of the internet and my parents paying my bills and all that privileged shit; I think I can safely argue that the issue is both of them, not one or the other.

I have a niece who started doing algebra in 4th grade, whereas I started in 6th grade [Just to give you and idea of how they're trying to accelerate the learning process]. She's a really nice girl who is into art, building things, and just overall being active. But she REALLY struggles with math. I try to help her out with her homework whenever I can [not too much though so she can try it herself] and my younger brother [who is much smarter than me] tries to help her as well. But she just can't retain the information as well as she wants, and she gets bad grades on her math tests. Mind you, her mother [and my mother for that matter] is very active in her life and is fully aware of her struggles with math, and they make sure she does her homework every day as soon as she gets home from school, so they make sure she doesn't procrastinate on her work.

The point I'm trying to make here is that for some students, it really is difficult. I agree that most high school students are just lazy and don't do shit until the last minute, but there are people out there who try but still have problems. I really feel sorry for the elementary school kids who have trouble learning the basics because they're being tested like crazy and teachers are under pressure to teach them what they need to know. For some of those kids, their educational struggles continue on into high school and they fall further and further behind.

Constantly complaining high school kids can suck a dick. That's all I'm gonna say. Where I went to school, you have every means to succeed and not whine about it, but kids still fucking whined about it. I complained about it too sometimes; 'cause I was a high school kid, and sometimes you just have to vent your frustrations. Sometimes life schedules a track meet on the same day as your senior project, and you wanna vent for a bit. No big deal. Everyone complains sometimes, no matter how privileged they are. But the kids who day in and day out complained about every little assignment can go suck a dick. I did my work in high school. I took the easy route and didn't take AP classes, but it was still work. Boring, useless, never-gonna-impact-my-life-in-any-way-work. I didn't complain about that shit, 'cause that's life. From my experience, most of the kids at my high school were lazy whiners who used school as a way to preach their "victim mentality" even though there's someone out there who is less privileged than you who would be happy to do that essay if it meant getting an education. Nowadays everyone takes their education for granted; or rather, they take fucking everything for granted. High school is NOT getting harder. People are just ungrateful.

tl;dr I don't really have a lot of faith in the American Educational system or the next generation right now. Sorry about the mini-rant.

 

I do agree. Most kids nowadays take their education for granted. A few examples of this:

1. During my junior year of university, I was assigned an anthropology class, which is kind of like sociology. Now, in this class, we were required to visit a school to study how a kid spends their days, what the education system is like in that school, etc. etc. If you've ever seen the movie Lean On Me with Morgan Freeman, it's that school. That EXACT school. Now, the school on the inside was decent. Wasn't a rundown hellhole with hoodrats everywhere, but the outside of the building and the surrounding area was atrocious with beaten up buildings everywhere. Both me and my classmates were a bit afraid to even leave my car parked. I learned that the student-to-teacher gap was large among that school and that a vast majority of students there either had a reduced cost or free lunch.

2. After I decided to leave my homestate bound for West Virginia, I asked chatted with some of my coworkers about how the school system back in my hometown was going downhill like a car with broken brakes. They then told me that my school system was actually much BETTER than what they had experienced out here due to WV being a highly impoverished state (with the exception of a few cities like Charleston, Wheeling, Morgantown, etc.)

 

Neither. If by difficult, you mean the complexity of the content. The only instance of school becoming more difficult is in the school system making it more difficult for students to learn.

As far as youth being lazy, that's just a load of bullshit that every previous generation likes to spew about the current generation. Just because we're not all out working the fields like our forefathers does not make us lazy. It just means that society is evolving, and people are evolving with it.

As far as my actual answer, I could just say "basically, this ^." But I'll try to put forth some effort on this. =P

The American school system is, in short, underfunded, overcrowded, inconsistent, and inefficient. The reason we lag so far behind our international peers is less to do with how long they study or how "hard" they work, and more to do with how we learn.

Our current approach to education is, to put it simply, archaic. We take a "one size fits all" approach to education in which every single student is taught the exact same content, en mass, the exact same way, day in and day out. The current system doesn't take into consideration the individual needs of each student when, realistically, no two students learn alike. It is less concerned with making students invested in their education and actually wanting to learn and much more concerned with trying to force them to learn. The notion of education being a team effort between the students and the teacher, and being entertaining or, at least, interesting and captivating for students, is completely lost on government officials and many educators.

And that's not even taking into account the student to teacher ratio and education funding. Teachers are often overworked and underpaid. With many school systems in impoverished or rural areas making due with under-qualified teachers attempting to educate such an overwhelming quantity of students as to make it near impossible to give them the individual attention that is required in order for everyone to obtain a equal and well-rounded education. Even schools which can afford enough staff and, hopefully, enough qualified staff, find themselves having to ask the community and parents for monetary and supplies donations, leaving students without adequate books, utensils, and other supplies needed to supplement their day-to-day in-class activities.

We simply must reduce the student to teacher ratio, ensure that schools are adequately staffed and equipped, and that teachers are adequately paid and trained in how to tailor content to students' individual needs and in making education engaging and captivating, thus motivating students to further their education through their own interest rather than a necessity to get a passing grade.

Oh, and fuck standardized testing. All it does is serve as a hindrance to both students and teachers by creating a "quota" of sorts, encouraging a rushed and poorly planned approach to learning. In truth, it has merely helped to create a system in which students are taught to test rather than to learn and succeed.

That's not to say that tests have no place in education, but their current state is nothing less than detrimental to our students and our school systems.

Finally, I'll touch on homework, briefly. Homework, in general, is dumb. Why? Because it is, in most cases, nothing more than busy work. It serves as a grading point for teachers and a means by which to show parents and administrators that students are being "taught." In truth, homework only serves to add to the never-ending grinding match that is modern school life.

Homework, instead, should be used on a supplemental basis, in order to give extra practice to students who need or request it. As far as studying at home, teachers simply cannot hand students a textbook and say "figure it out." Guidance from educators should continue, even at home. There are many ways to go about this, and teachers will, on occasion, need to get creative. But the recent surge in online education, with systems such as Blackboard, provides an excellent means by which to provide students guidance at home. This, of course, relies on the students' access to internet (internet infrastructure could be its own topic), but internet access is much more common than it was a decade ago and, failing that, there are still physical means by which teachers and instructors can send home written information or guidance with their students.

So, yeah. We need an overhaul.

 

I hope there is a hidden "That's not to say that there aren't any lazy youths (cause everyone should know better that there are most definitely lazy people that's not exclusive to one generation)" type message in there, cause that would just be naivety if there isn't.

 

(Edit: There was another GIF here. But I liked this one better.)

I think it's naive to make sweeping statements such as "youth are lazy." Such extremes are unrealistic and uninformed. That's what I was addressing.

I shouldn't have to point out "by the way, there ARE lazy people in the world." Yes, we all know and can take it as read.

 

By "lazy", I don't mean that they have to do manual work every single day and work in the fields as if it was the 19th century.

By "lazy" I mean that most of the youth of America are more spending their time on social media, faffing about with their friends, playing video games, and shirking responsibilities. Then when time comes around to either turn in their research paper, homework, or even do their bloody chores, they blame the school system for being "too stressful" or "hard" when in actuality it's just them wasting time.

I'm from THIS generation of people and I still say that people in high school who are griping about the system being hard are just a bunch of whiners who would rather spend their time partying, drinking, smoking, and dicking around than do what is asked of them.

"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy."
"All play and no work makes Jack a mere toy."

Find a balance between these two and you have an ideal American youth. Sadly, most of the youth of this country would rather stick to the former. Then, when high time comes to answer as to why their work isn't finished?

"My parents/teachers give me too much work at school/home. I can't keep up with it."

I'm sure you'd be able to keep up with it if you didn't spend 7 hours on Tumblr/Twitter/Facebook/Call of Duty/etc.

 

That's kind of a gross generalization.

In truth, the majority of students who struggle with school work being too "hard", as you put it, have actually been desensitized by or struggle within the current system.

It's easy to call them "whiners" and write off the massive flaws with how our country handles education, but that solves nothing.

No, the reality is that children are not inherently lazy. They're molded by their parents, community leaders, and educators. They are subjected to a system which, as I said, attempts to force them to learn, rather than encourage them. School, and education, are made to be a chore. An exercise in daily monotony in which they are not intellectually engaged, encouraged, or in any way made to be interested in learning. Instead they merely have information thrown at them, all of them, all at once. For some it will stick, for most it will take a little more.

And that's not even considering the social issues that kids face in what is, practically, their first real social interaction with the public at large. Who, then, could blame them for seeking out as much escapism as they can find?

It's a lot easier to blame the students. Tell them to suck it up and be like the very, very small percentage of their peers that actually thrive under this system. But that's not helpful nor in the least effective at resolving any issues that there is with educating youth or with students' enthusiasm or, at least, willful participation.

Fix the system, you fix the attitude toward the system.

 

Someone needs to brush up on their English

Also, I hope that 'new method' thing was a joke that went over my head as a Brit, what the heck >.>

I will say, at times I've had something like the opposite debate over education in England - with test results improving year-on-year, were tests getting easier, or were kids getting smarter?

Now, there is an observed trend that the average IQ increases by around 1 point each generation (though as IQ measurement is standardised, you wouldn't actually see that difference in tests- the average is always forced to be 100), but that's really too slow of an increase to account for a noticeable improvement in test scores, I think. On the other hand, I don't think that either teaching methods, nor the nature and content of tests, have changed so drastically in recent years to account for it either. If we were to compare the content of courses from several decades ago to their current equivalents, we might see a big difference for a variety of reasons, but whether this would be useful in explaining the trend is another story.

I do wonder if there's an element of cultural influence at play here, with more parents emphasizing the importance of doing well in school. Though I do seem to remember the majority of my classmates not being interested in doing well, and some even actively boasting about their poor test results, so it warrants close examination.

What it could be is an increase in the quality of teachers, not as a result of systemic changes, but heightened competition for teaching jobs around England - jobs are in short supply, it would make sense if schools had quite a number of options to choose from.

As for the American system- I'm not at all familiar with how it works, but I've been curious about it since the last time it came up here. Some of you mentioned that the system is inconsistent- if so, is making blanket statements really usefull? I've seen some statements online by parents describing their children spending 4 hours or more per night on homework, which seems excessive to me. Other schools must be far more lenient, surely?

 

Out of curiosity, how old is a 3rd grader? I honestly have no clue!

You raise a valid point about teaching life skills, i.e. budget management, home ec, CVs etc. Home ec related courses were on offer at my school, but honestly it wasn't something that, as a 12-14 year old at the time, I took any interest in. Certainly for older teens though, learning to manage money, pay bills, apply for jobs, etc. are the sorts of things that aren't particularly emphasised as they ought to be. It's possible the schools are aiming to get as many kids into universities as they can, and as such are investing less resources into more practical lessons. I finished High school 7 years ago, and it was an issue then. I mean, these things were brushed on, but briefly.

As far as CV writing goes, no one seems to be an expert. You get mixed messages from different sources- some suggest keeping it short and sweet at a single side of A4, others have told me just to put everything in there (which would make it pretty damned long), and I've even had people claim putting in pictures is a good plan...

About the common core video- the way the narrator describes it makes sense, and that diagram with the arcs between sets of numbers reminded me a lot of how we were taught quadratic and cubic equations. In fact, the way she described the method sounds an awful lot how I figured out how to simplify sums in my head- but no one taught it to me. It should be common sense that 'numbers are flexible things, made up of other numbers' as she put it. Breaking down numbers into smaller, easier numbers to solve sums, is something I always thought was fairly intuitive.
I still can't see how it relates to that image you put up though, and I did look to see if they were simplifying it the way I do, it just looks like nonsense!

*Edit* I literally just spotted it. That is far too fucking convoluted. They're taking an elaborate method and using it to try to simplify a simple sum. I hope they don't actually use examples like this in classes...

 

My schooling seemed hard, but my school was a private school owned by a church (since public school was "filled with sinful people"), and the school did not have much resources. Several teachers did not go to college (fortunately, they taught lower grades and had the knack for actually teaching). No chem lab, save a few corners in the building used for vinegar/baking soda experiments. The actual curriculum, by Beka Book, was supposedly harder. Computer lab was a room with computers no newer than Windows XP. I guess it may not have been too bad, though I had to take Algebra 1 twice. First half of the book one year, second half the next. My class was cluttered with a lot of held back people, so I think that is what slowed down the teaching speed of the teacher. Furthermore, I missed out on Algebra 2, but on my high school transcript, the second half of Algebra 1 took the place of Algebra 2.

 

In my experience School was Easy, However I was hard to motivate. that being said I was stuck inside of a public school for my entire life, I never once had the opportunity to go to a private school. In fact the only time I did anything private was when I got kicked out of my high school for the lack there of productivity. Now when I got removed I was later put into private tutoring and I still got my High School Diploma. Just took a little extra time but it was well worth it. When it comes down to it my opinion on the Public School system is as follows

1. The budgets for school are generally well below the point of a teacher to care or even try to help an individual student much more the majority of students they study and do their work but learn nothing, Everyone i know from high school has no recollection of high school equations or vocabulary.
2. The students are always generally disruptive (I was until i stopped showing up.)
3. A majority of the students would not want to show up to class or would just flat out cut class. which was never a good thing considering it was to smoke weed or be a hooligan.
4. My biggest issue is, You cannot trust a single teacher with any secret as they will tell everyone of the other staff members or other students regardless if you say something in confidence.

That was basically my experience in school, as you can see it was less than desirable. The American schooling system is pretty bad, and the collegiate system is far worse, because of the extreme debt that is almost always guaranteed, None the less they're much more strict and no High School actually prepares you for any of the work that you have to do. on top of that to make ends meet to just get an education you basically need to have 2 jobs, eat ramen everyday, and be able to function off of less than 5 hours of sleep, With the exceptions of affordable community colleges. but no one wants to go to a CC they want to go to a Ivy League school.

 

Here's my take on school here in Canada The Great White Tundra,

I don't think the material is any harder I mean math is math 1+1 will always equal 2 or is that 3 I forget
French is French Bonjour will always be written Bonjour.

Firstly:
What I do believe that is a problem now is that Students are treated like numbers and just peddled through the system so they can just move on from high school and stop being a burden to society. I mean they actually fired a teacher over here for grading a student 0 because he skipped all his class didn't take any tests, but no you cant give him a zero...

Secondly:
Not every student will excel on every subject. I was a wiz in Math, Physics and Chemistry. But French class and art class might as well have been taught in Chinese cause I had no interests I just didn't care about it so I did poorly not from a lack of trying I did try it just was not interesting enough to keep me engaged.

Thirdly:
I do believe that the curriculum and the way of teaching kids has changed and not for the better. Like Miss Elegent Serenity pointed out what the F is that type of math I mean COMMON its a simple subtraction why the hell would I need to show how you get to that answer is ridiculous. hmmm I calculated it in my head ya Franking IDIOT.

Fourthly:
I think the reason we do see more students complain is because that is the evolution of social media & the society we now live in. The material may not be any harder but the ability to complain about it to the mass is a lot more broad and available now then what it was years ago. Also Its not just students that complains either, I mean grown adults complain on facebook/twitter all the time. Perfect example that sticks out to me was a lady complaining on facebook that the power was out and that she only had 1h left of battery on her phone. Well Jesus if you only have an hour left on your phone stop using it for facebook to complain about it. Facebook is a wonderful tool but it can also work against people who don't have an online filter.


Anyways that's just my thoughts I have more but I have to work.