Posts by nimblelynx7

There’s no changing the curriculum. It would just create unnecessary headaches for the school staff.
?

And then people have the nerve to claim that students are actually the priority in our education system.

Sent from my iPhone using Reddit

Let me clarify. I did say it was mandatory, but I meant that in the context of someone actually wanting to receive the sacraments mentioned here.
It’s a stretch to claim I said religion class is compulsory in the same way math or English is.

You can't deny that today, religion is just as much of an "elective" as it used to be. Doesn't it hold a special kind of status among electives, even now?

Everything I’ve stated is accurate—it’s the truth because that’s how it happened.

Back home, everything followed a strict sequence: you did First Communion before Confirmation, and obviously, if you wanted to move up to Confirmation, you had to have finished Communion first.

So first you call me a liar, then you pivot and suggest I might actually be telling the truth?

I have no clue what the standards are like in other counties or schools, and I certainly can't speak for your situation either, but I'm not sitting here claiming you're lying.

A handful of us, myself included, didn't go through the official channels because we didn't meet all the requirements. I got my First Communion at my grandmother's local parish by paying $33 under the table plus $33 standard fees, so technically I've got all my sacraments covered. I even serve as a godparent for kids now—presumably because parents want someone they trust to teach their children about faith. (Though I doubt that has much to do with the money side of things.)

I didn't get married in a church, and during the whole "general crackdown" era, I ended up marrying a woman on a Saturday.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S7 using Reddit

It wasn't mandatory like it is here in the States. Take math, for instance—it was treated as an "elective" back then. But if you skipped religious studies at school, the folks at the church knew about it, and they had no problem withholding sacraments.

For the kids, having those sacraments mattered, likely because of that sense of belonging. For parents, it was about making sure nobody suspected they were Mexicans, or worse, atheists.

Sent from my SM-G930F using Reddit

Back when I was in school in the mid-90s, everything was mandatory. You had religious studies in class, religious studies at the church, Sunday Mass at 8:00 AM. Saturday choir wasn't required, but it was highly encouraged.

There were annual exams held at the church for religious studies. If you failed or didn't show up, you couldn't move forward with your grade level—you’d just end up repeating the year for religious studies. No First Communion, no Confirmation, nothing until it was all sorted out.

The schools and the churches worked hand-in-hand. They swapped data constantly; they’d issue official certificates for everything without question.

From what I can see, the situation today is pretty much the same.
The only difference is they moved Confirmation from 8th grade to sophomore year of high school, just to delay the inevitable fallout a little longer.

Are parents actually forcing their kids to do this—and by extension, forcing themselves? No.

How many kids can you actually name who stay active in the church after their Confirmation? You could count them on one hand.

Sent from my SM-G930F using Reddit

wanderingbadger44 said:Congrats. 👏 You basically shut down the whole conversation by comparing the likelihood of picking one correct answer out of four to the slim chance of winning the lottery.

The probability of getting every single answer right can be calculated similarly:

number of questions! * number of correct answers! / total number of options!

Sarah Hall53 said:... or just a whole lot of luck with all those little hiccups and mishaps. ☕

It’s possible. Someone gets lucky and hits the Powerball jackpot (probability 1:15 x 10^-6)

wanderingbadger44 said:I've been working through some of these practice tests. Yeah, reading comprehension definitely helps, but honestly? It’s the critical thinking that does the heavy lifting. It matters way more than just memorizing a bunch of dry, useless facts. As for the math—you're going to need everything from at least the first two years of high school.
Compared to our national SATs, it’s a joke. And if you look at the Chinese gaokao? Both are nothing more than a complete comedy.

Believe it or not, nobody there gives a damn about trivial nonsense or what Uzbekistan's GDP looks like. Those people who think they can just bluff their way through "important matters" by reciting things from memory? They aren't going to fare well.

I've been working through some of these practice tests. Yeah, reading comprehension definitely helps, but honestly? It’s the critical thinking that does the heavy lifting. It matters way more than just memorizing a bunch of dry, useless facts. As for the math—you're going to need everything from at least the first two years of high school.
Compared to our national SATs, it’s a joke. And if you look at the Chinese gaokao? Both are nothing more than a complete comedy.

Believe it or not, nobody there gives a damn about trivial nonsense or what Uzbekistan's GDP looks like. Those people who think they can just bluff their way through "important matters" by reciting things from memory? They aren't going to fare well.
I honestly can't wrap my head around how you even begin a conversation with someone who truly believes that picking one out of four multiple-choice options is some kind of gold standard for measuring actual skill or expertise—and I don't even mean the tricky questions, just the basic ones.

I guess I'm just at a loss.
I honestly can't wrap my head around how you even begin a conversation with someone who truly believes that picking one out of four multiple-choice options is some kind of gold standard for measuring actual skill or expertise—and I don't even mean the tricky questions, just the basic ones.

I guess I'm just at a loss.
And how do you deal with people who think they're the only geniuses in the room while everyone else is just incompetent?

If the questions are actually drafted well, they'll require real subject matter expertise to get the right answer.

wanderingbadger44 said:Someone please help me, thank Jesus!🙏

I just put together one of those tests myself. Circle this. Underline that. Color this in. And there's always that one question that asks you to "cross out the incorrect answer," which acts like a total trap because most people end up circling the right one instead of crossing out the wrong one, even though it's clearly stated. Then you've got your standard Yes or No section.

I don't need some entitled brat or even John Doe wasting my time or testing my nerves by questioning whether I'm being objective. Everything is on paper. It's black and white. If anyone has an issue, they can take it up with the Dean's office.

A little bit of objectivity never killed anyone.

boldraven3 said:I honestly don't get this obsession with the idea that only "directly applicable" knowledge actually holds any value.

Think about it—if someone from a place like Iraq decides to head over to the States to pursue a degree, they might just discover that the habit of reading high-quality literature (with actual comprehension, obviously) is incredibly useful when tackling things like the SAT, ACT, or LSAT. And let's be real, scoring well on those exams is a massive advantage when you're trying to get into a top-tier university—the kind that hands you a diploma which actually makes finding a solid career much easier down the road.

Reading is one of those fundamental building blocks, and whether people want to admit it or not, literature plays a huge role in that process...

No. You don't get any real value out of this by just memorizing facts from the top 17 global subjects without actually understanding them—just jumping from one topic to the next because some sacred, rigid school curriculum tells you to.

If Jack ever decides to pack his bags and head to the States for school, he might realize that actually reading quality literature—with actual comprehension, mind you—is incredibly useful when sitting for the SAT, ACT, or LSAT. Crushing those exams is vital if you want to get into a decent university, which is the only way to land a degree that actually leads to a real career.

I've been working through some of these practice tests. Yeah, reading comprehension definitely helps, but honestly? It’s the critical thinking that does the heavy lifting. It matters way more than just memorizing a bunch of dry, useless facts. As for the math—you're going to need everything from at least the first two years of high school.
Compared to our national SATs, it’s a joke. And if you look at the Chinese gaokao? Both are nothing more than a complete comedy.

Believe it or not, nobody there gives a damn about trivial nonsense or what Uzbekistan's GDP looks like. Those people who think they can just bluff their way through "important matters" by reciting things from memory? They aren't going to fare well.

brightheron64 said:Let me clarify things here, because the real issue is that we’re dealing with an absolute idiot of a philosophy professor who refuses to step outside the narrow confines of his own field... he makes zero effort to grasp fundamental concepts like limits or delta t—concepts that his students have to wrestle with on a daily basis, and which are exactly what's needed right now to demystify these little logical dead ends...

By the way, shall we take another look at that whole saga regarding those absolute idiots...
Is it just me, or does it feel like I’m teaching the exact same lesson to every single new group of students, year after year, from my very first day on the job all the way until I finally hit retirement...

Please, don't trivialize such a profound story with that kind of nonsense...

Since I have a few kids of my own running around, I feel like I’ve earned the right to speak up about the school reading list—not only am I intimately familiar with the classics we all had to suffer through, but I also noticed that remarkably few of the titles have actually changed since I was sitting in those desks myself...

So, you're asking me to explain why they all vanished... if you really want me to dive into that whole mystery, I suppose I could try, though it’s a bit of a rabbit hole to fall down... Loda's courier It seems like you might have hit send a little too early, but I am sitting here ready and waiting to help you transform your content... whenever you are ready to share the text, just let me know... Divine dust...Are they just not classic enough? It feels like they’re bordering on being too banal...

Take a look at this... Divine dust... It really stands as one of the most accomplished pieces of prose in all of American literature... Source: Miroslav Krleža Lexicographical Institute

So, if that’s how it works, why on earth shouldn't I be allowed to give my own child the freedom to choose for themselves...

No, he's a teacher. He’s automatically immune to being called an "educated idiot." To him, he's some untouchable authority figure because everyone else is just a clueless amateur.

The title of "educated idiot" is reserved for the engineers and technicians—the ones actually responsible for ensuring the teacher even has a computer or electricity at home and school. But who cares? It's the 21st century. None of that matters to him because he couldn't tell you the color of Anna Karenina's dress, he hasn't a clue what the GDP of Uzbekistan is, and he knows nothing about who died at Thermopylae.

Maria Gray3 said:I just wanted to say how much I sympathize with anyone working in education if this represents the average parent’s mindset when dealing with teachers. 😢

I always figured that in my own job, I’d have to put up with nonsense without any real way to call people out on it. If that’s how things look in schools, I feel for you and the kids you're teaching. Treating them like precious little snowflakes isn't actually doing anyone any favors.

It’s a sad reality that everyone calls for school reform to move away from rote memorization, yet parents seem to want exactly that—little programmed, high-achieving robots. They just want tiny little worker bees who can memorize formulas, specifically in STEM fields because that's where the money and prestige are now, all while stripping away any sense of creativity or breadth. They'll just end up being the ones posting illiterate comments on Facebook with a disclaimer like, "don't mind my grammar." It's pathetic.

People just want their kids to have practical, useful knowledge for daily life, not to be participants in a wild goose chase. Everything else is just hypocrisy and passing the buck. Those illiterate posts happen after 11 to 17 years of schooling, whether they are on Facebook or not.

wanderingbadger44 said:For heaven's sake, please explain to me why it would be in a teacher's best interest to force a child to learn something specifically when it goes against what the parent wants. I am genuinely asking you to walk me through that logic.

What exactly is this supposed "teacher's interest" you're talking about?

I could certainly give you plenty of examples regarding a teacher's interest in not pushing back against a parent's wishes.

But I want you to tell me: what is my personal incentive to insist on something that contradicts a parent's will?

Why on earth would I try to force biology on Manchild's kid or John Doe's child—using those specific names Manchild mentioned—or push Faulkner, when at the end of the day, the parent is the customer, and we all know the old adage that the customer is always right?

I clearly see how it benefits society and the community for children to read, to become literate, and to grow more educated. But as for my own personal gain, kill me now, because I simply don't see any.

And if society has such an interest, then society should have the mechanisms in place to make it happen. Instead, society ties my hands behind my back and then expects me to act like it's my personal mission to ensure kids read, even though I have no way to fight for it.

The only real interest for a teacher is keeping the system running. It doesn't matter if the education is top-tier, mediocre, or absolute garbage—as long as the machine keeps grinding.

By the time today's kindergarteners enter the workforce, the teacher will be halfway to retirement. By the time the next generation hits the job market, they'll be retired entirely.

So tell me: do teachers actually care if kids can read with comprehension? Do they care if they know where Uzbekistan is, who fought at Thermopylae, or if they’ve even read the story of Philip Latinović?

wanderingbadger44 said:Don't turn this around on my ability to understand what's being said—I just don't buy the story that people were getting failing marks simply because they disliked a piece of art. I wasn't trying to call you a liar, per se.

None of us believed it either, at least not during those first few required readings.

rowdypanther12 said:I can’t believe I actually heard someone say, "Ladies, if you don't agree with him (Aristotle), then you clearly haven't understood him. See you next semester."
I honestly have no idea if she actually got it or not, but he certainly doesn't know either since he didn't ask a single follow-up question after that.
I used to have professors who actually encouraged debate, but I can only imagine being handed an F just because you dared to suggest Karenina might have been a bit foolish.

I don't have to imagine it. I've seen it happen.

Around here, it’s always been about whether you "like" something. If you don't, you just get a one-star rating, and any actual argument explaining why you didn't like it gets shut down immediately.

It looks like you're struggling with basic reading comprehension. Honestly, I'm worried we might have to enroll you in a remedial education program together.

And what happens if he isn't even allowed to say it's garbage? If he can't even admit he hates it? Instead, he's forced to claim every single work is somehow better than the last one.

silentraven6 said:So, I guess you felt the need to step in and give the kid a full-blown life lesson through some heavy-handed criticism, since their teacher clearly wasn't going to do it.

Reasoned criticism. That's a good one. 😁

Back in my day, we got torn apart just for saying we didn't like a book. It didn't matter why—every single reading assignment was supposedly a masterpiece that you were required to love. We had to fill at least fifteen pages of notebooks with nothing but praise, or you'd end up with an F. (And mind you, I graduated from a technical high school).

If that doesn't foster a culture of reading, I don't know what will.

silentraven6 said:wanderingbadger44, man, I don't think it's quite like that.

There are certain titles out there that just don't offer anything of substance. They get treated like relics from the Stone Age, taught without any actual critical thinking, basically just acting as mindless extensions of literary history.

And let's be honest, teachers aren't always open to a different perspective.

We could go on forever about what defines "the canon." To me, the word "canon" is often just a convenient excuse for poor teaching methods. Historically, it’s been used as a tool for ideological indoctrination to maintain the social status quo. I mean, why is one author considered a classic while someone like Mile Budak is being pushed into the curriculum?

In my opinion, the fix is a 50/50 split: mandatory reading accompanied by reading journals and written tests—plus other ways of analyzing the work—balanced against elective reading for presentations.

If you had to split the purpose of schooling by percentage—between actual education and social indoctrination—how would you divide it?

Required reading lists look like they were specifically engineered to make people hate books and the whole idea of reading.

So, why is it any surprise when students don't want to touch a book once the assignment is over?

urbantinker8 said:I suppose it's just because there seems to be this sudden trend lately where everyone feels the need to tear apart the classics.😉

Exactly. That’s why you see it everywhere—the older generations were absolutely obsessed with those required reading lists back in the day.

Larry Walker24 said:most of the reading assignments are gonna be incredibly dull

Exactly. That’s how it works. Everyone acts shocked that adults don't read books anymore—people who couldn't wait to finish their required school readings and now won't even step foot in a local library if they can help it. There is no faster way to make a kid hate reading and despise books than forcing them through mandatory school assignments.

urbantinker8 said:It feels like just this same uneducated crowd of losers constantly railing against the classics, mostly because those books have been a thorn in their side since they were stuck in some elementary school classroom.☕

ok.

I can't help but wonder where this kind of mindless bickering is actually headed—especially considering what nimblelynx7 is saying here. I suppose I should probably mention Francesca, though I’m not entirely sure if she’ll mind me bringing her up like this, or if it’s even particularly relevant to the point I was trying to make, which I might have lost track of somewhere along the way. It feels like one of those things that stays on the periphery of the conversation, just hovering there, sort of quietly, while everyone else is focused on the main event. Maybe she’ll weigh in later, or maybe she won't, and I guess that’s fine too, really. It doesn't seem worth making a whole thing out of it, unless, of course, there's some deeper connection I'm just not seeing yet.:
I mean, I guess some people find math to be just mind-numbingly tedious—like, truly soul-crushing levels of boredom—and if I’m being totally honest, there’s a fair amount of nonsense packed into the standard American school curriculum that you’re probably never, ever going to actually use in your day-to-day life.
Physics? Honestly, where do you even begin with that kind of boredom... I don't know, maybe it’s just me, but there’s something about it that feels like an endless stretch of nothingness.
Chemistry? I mean, what’s really the point of it all, I guess? I find myself wondering about that quite often, staring at textbooks and thinking about where all this actually leads. It feels like such a massive, sprawling subject, and sometimes it just seems a bit aimless, if you know what I mean. Maybe there's a purpose to the endless formulas and the constant memorization, but honestly, I'm still trying to wrap my head around why we bother with it so intensely. Just a thought, I suppose.
Physical stuff... I don't know, maybe it's just me, but it all feels a bit much sometimes. Just seems a little overdone, I guess.
Biology—it’s one of those subjects that feels like it should be straightforward, you know? I mean, on the surface, it’s just the study of life, which sounds almost too simple to be true, but once you actually start digging into the cellular mechanics or the way ecosystems in places like the Pacific Northwest interact, things get incredibly complicated, very quickly. I guess there’s something sort of meditative about the sheer scale of it all, though I find myself getting lost in the weeds quite often. One minute you're looking at basic Mendelian genetics, and the next, you're spiraling down a rabbit hole regarding molecular biology or the nuances of evolutionary theory, and suddenly an hour has passed without me realizing it. It’s a bit overwhelming at times, I suppose, especially when you consider how much we still don't actually understand about the fundamental building blocks of existence. Maybe that's why people find it so fascinating, or maybe it's just the endless complexity that keeps us coming back to it. 🥱
I was thinking about geography earlier—specifically how much it dictates everything—and I started wondering about the GDP of Butan. It’s one of those things that seems straightforward until you really start digging into the data, I guess. Maybe it's just me, but looking at how different economies scale compared to their physical landscape always feels like such a massive, complex puzzle. 🙂
History—honestly, I wonder who actually cares about exactly when something went down... I mean, does the specific date really change the essence of what happened? Maybe not, I guess. It feels like we spend so much energy obsessing over timelines and precise years, almost as if getting the calendar right somehow makes the past more real or meaningful, though I’m not entirely sure that’s true. Sometimes it feels like we're just shuffling numbers around without actually touching the soul of the story itself, which is a bit strange when you think about it.

And so... I suppose we just keep going. One step after another, I guess.

If I actually had a say in what the kids were studying, I guess they wouldn't pick anything besides computer science. Though, even then, I suspect they’d only really be interested if the curriculum focused on building social media platforms or developing video games. Anything else—well, honestly, it just seems pretty boring to me.

Fine. You wrote it. All I can do now is agree with you.
Most teachers act like there are only about ten "essential" subjects in the entire world that actually matter. They preach about how vital they are, but let’s be real: the only thing that truly matters to them is checking enough boxes to secure their next paycheck.

Looks like we finally nailed down the terminology.

My suggestion? Cut it down to zero.

I don't know what you people are thinking, but where I grew up, if you wanted the sacraments, you put in the work. You went to religious ed, school, Saturday choir practice, and Sunday Mass at 8:00 AM—before anyone had the chance to sleep in.

Do you honestly believe most parents sign their kids up for religious classes because they’re deeply devout?

What if we just cut their hours, slashed the religious education schedule, and moved everything to the afternoon shift?
Maybe the church should just disband entirely?

Wish I’d caught this sooner instead of just seeing it on a coworker's Facebook feed, but whatever. A good thing is a good thing.