Education in the U.S.

[Miles]

The general discussion about educational success is not only a discussion in 
the US, I know it from Germany as well, and I'll bet it is the same in the 
UK, France etc.

The problems of the US educational system might be more severe, I can't tell 
it. The general problem seems to be the same in all "developed" countries: 
There is much more knowledge than only decades before, and much more skills 
to learn for the students.

When my parents attended school, nobody learnt anything about genetics. DNA 
was not yet known. I remember three different atom models I learnt about in 
chemistry - my parents maybe learnt that atoms exist, but not more.

When I attended school (I'm 39), using a computer was something for the 
freaks, a very small minority. Today, all students must learn to use a 
computer. We all would think any school who wouldn't teach its students to 
use a computer would be a desaster.

So, anybody would agree that students of today have to learn things we 
didn't learn. If we further agree that they cannot learn much more than we 
did - what is the logical result?

What we call "general knowlege" is more or less a result of what "we all" 
know - what we learnt at school and later in life. It would not even be fair 
to ask that from students who haven't had any "later in life" yet. And it's 
totally unfair to ask that from students who have to learn things at school 
that we never heard of when we were students - and maybe still never learnt 
in our "later life".

I do not want to excuse the examples I read upthread. Well, I do not know 
the 50 states or the lakes, but I'm not a US citizen ;), but to know about 
the days of a year, of basic geographics (not only in one's own country) 
and, last but not least, knowledge of at least the own language is necessary 
for everyone and will be in future. But every time we wonder what a young 
boy or girl does not know, we should think about what s/he knows we never 
heard of at their age.

Miles