20070305

Why I hate American schooling.

Some teachers are great. Some schools are great. Generally, most are not. In the case of America's schooling, we students are typically force-fed a ton of information and expected to process it at the same rate as our classmates. This is usually not a good idea; students struggle more than professors know. You know those times when one kid is brave enough to ask the professor a question and you find yourself thinking, "Thankfully someone else asked because I really have no idea what the crap I'm doing,"? Yeah... those kids don't always ask.

But in the case of assumption, it's even more frustrating. It is really frustrating going into my structures course and hearing the professor say, "I'm assuming you all learned how to use the Law of Sines in your trigonometry classes, so here's what you plug in and here's the answer." They do that and skip virtually every helpful step in between that is critical to knowing how to do the problem. Then you have me, who is way too shy to say, "I don't get it," in the middle of a class. I've never been comfortable with saying that - especially when you're in a class of kids that will scoff at you for doing so. Not to mention it sets the class back. I worry too much.

But still the point remains that we're all expected to learn at the same rate and, last time I checked, everyone learns differently.

The Law of Sines is now on my hit list. You've been warned Law of Sines, you've been warned.

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