Karen Richardson3 said:Schools try to cram everything under the sun into kids' heads, but honestly, most of it just evaporates. It's because they don't care, or maybe they just can't wrap their brains around it. Do you seriously believe that teaching "more intense" lessons on compound interest is going to stop people from living way beyond their means, taking on bad debt, making reckless financial choices, or somehow bringing peace to the world? 😁
The fundamental flaw in our education system and the country at large isn't actually that low-performers fail to learn interest rates. It's that the whole system coddles them; we're afraid to call things what they are. The entire structure is built with the bottom tier as the priority, leaving all those high-achieving kids and driven individuals with no choice but to leave the country if they want a top-tier education or a career where you actually move up based on merit.
And that’s honestly one of the reasons why the USA remains a superpower. Over there, they don't hand out participation trophies to everyone, and frankly, nobody cares if some person doesn't know how interest works or lacks health insurance—instead, they focus on importing the absolute best talent from every other corner of the globe.
Grades are the absolute North Star of our school system; everything revolves around them, and they basically dictate a student's entire future. Nobody actually gives a damn about true knowledge or deep comprehension. Like I always say, cram it all in today, recite it tomorrow, forget it by the day after, and in three days, nobody will ever ask you about it again. They'll just move on to the next topic, and you'll just have to repeat the same cycle.
You could also look at it from a different angle: - some kids/people are only capable of rote memorization, while others are capable of actual understanding. That leaves us with four main groups: the ones who are clueless and don't study at all, the ones who are clueless but can memorize things, the smart ones who don't bother studying (but understand enough to get an A), and finally, the smart ones who actually study (meaning they both understand the concepts and retain the necessary data). You're clearly an idealist, so I guess you believe everyone has the capacity to truly understand, but personally, I think that's pretty far from reality. Because of that, you and I are probably never going to see eye-to-eye on how to fix the school system. 😁
Besides, I don't see anything wrong with learning something and then forgetting it shortly after. The brain just needs to have encountered that information once; that way, if you ever need it again down the road, you'll at least have a fighting chance to find it and figure it out.
The reality is most people struggle even with that today because they can't even figure out how to use Wikipedia properly
Interest rates are covered in various subjects, depending on how specialized the school is, I guess. As for writing official correspondence, that’s practiced intensively in foreign language classes; I actually know quite a few English teachers who somehow manage to squeeze that into the curriculum. The stuff about summer vacations is what younger kids in elementary school write about. That seems pretty normal, I suppose. Or do you think eight or nine-year-olds should be expected to know how to draft a resume and a cover letter?🙄
For me, the absolute peak of this absurdity has to be those essays on the SATs. These silly American gimmicks involving strict word counts and such low literacy requirements just to pass the first level really ought to be abolished. But noooo, that's "external assessment," and we aren't allowed to touch that.😲
And most importantly, a colleague of mine over in the States told me students REFUSE to learn anything that won't show up on the SATs, basically saying there's no point in learning it.
Don't even get me started on the kids we see coming out of middle school who can't even handle basic math problems involving numbers up to 10 and some parentheses!!!
As for everything else regarding the American language, I already covered that in another thread so I won't repeat myself.
nimblelynx7 said:It isn't about capping power; it’s about steering growth toward a productive direction.
Anyone who tries to compare Uzbekistan's GDP to the population of Turkmenistan is a complete moron. It’s just as mindless as walking into a Chase Bank to ask for a loan without having a clue how much you'll actually owe, or failing to understand a simple interest calculation. If you can't even draft a basic formal complaint or grasp your own labor rights, you don't know how to do your job.
Between those two subjects, what is actually taught in schools, and more importantly, what *should* be taught? Which one offers more actual utility in the real world—and which matters more?
This is exactly what they should be teaching at PIG.
nimblelynx7 said:Of course that’s the easy way out. Just toss some mindless definition at the students, force them to memorize it word-for-word, collect their perfect scores, and move on to the next lesson. It’s lazy. How much harder would it be if you actually had to help them grasp the concept? If you wanted them to truly understand it so that ten years from now, when they hit a real-world problem, they actually remember how to apply it? That's what teaching is supposed to be.
It’s a good thing Americans aren't smart. Seriously. If they actually had any brains, how much further behind would people like us be? We wouldn't even be able to compete.
How much culture does bread actually bring to the table? When it's time to settle a bill, what are you going to do—hand over a few pages from an encyclopedia instead of cash? Or maybe you'll try listing off state capitals instead of paying the actual amount due and expect them to count that as payment?
urbantinker8 said:Turkmenistan, Zanzibar, Sri Lanka, Kazakhstan... they all feel like places invented just to confuse kids during geography class or to make a trivia game unnecessarily difficult.☕
Robert Rodriguez9 said:I don't see the issue with these kinds of questions; we had to learn this stuff too. Besides, you just watch a few documentaries, check out a map, and you're set. No need to grind through textbooks. Honestly, I thought they were expected to memorize exact percentages on command.
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rather than being like those Americans who can't even point out India on a map, let alone their own continent.
There’s a new proposal on the table to tweak the Every Student Succeeds Act, and it’s honestly a mess. They want to make certain topics elective, basically letting kids opt out based on what their parents believe. How is a teacher even supposed to function like that? You can't just tell one group of students one thing and then flip the script for the next group. It’s going to be total chaos in the classroom.
Can a teacher actually teach different things to different kids just because of their parents' worldviews?
James Rogers53 said:How exactly do you think they get it from the government? Since when does a bank have the authority to demand or receive any private data from the state beyond what's already public record?
Realistically, banks don't care about terrorism financing or money laundering any more than we do—meaning, we all agree it's bad and should be handled. That's it. But if you factor in the fact that the government will slap you with massive fines during an audit if you don't have client data that the client was supposed to verify, then yeah, they’ll implement every tool available to stay on the regulator's good side—maybe even go overboard. And for banks, the ultimate penalty for being non-compliant is losing their charter. So management is left with a choice: A) Close the accounts of Krkimir and a few dozen or hundred other "rebels" just to prove to the Federal Reserve or the government that they're following every single rule to the letter. B) Tell Krkimir and people like him, "Eh, you aren't important enough to bother us," only to find out later that Krkimir is laundering money for a cartel, resulting in a revoked license and saying goodbye to $150 million in annual profit.
Tough call, I guess.
The inspectors shut down small shops for $0.67 having a little extra cash in the register
but they haven't stepped foot inside Walmart in over 10 years.
I honestly think if you see a deer crossing sign on the road, it’s because the local hunting club isn't doing their job. If there's no sign, then they're actually staying on top of things.
A few days back, Bloomberg reported that the economic boom in Sweden has triggered a massive labor shortage across the country. Even though Sweden has seen record-breaking numbers of immigrants arriving over the last three years, finding workers is getting tougher by the day. According to a survey from the Swedish Entrepreneurs Confederation back in June—which represents about 60,000 companies—over 75 percent of businesses are struggling to staff up.
Looking at the employment agency's data, 12 out of 15 sectors are dealing with workforce shortages, and the ratio of job openings per person is at its highest point in 17 years. The biggest gaps are in construction, followed by education, then IT, healthcare, and science...
Back in August, there were as many as 78,000 open positions in Sweden, which is a nine percent jump compared to last year.
Bloomberg also points out that while there are still more than 300,000 unemployed people in Sweden, the unemployment rate is sitting at 3.9 percent—the lowest it's been since 2008.
A few months ago, the Swedish employment agency announced plans to create 149,000 new jobs throughout 2017 and 2018, predicting that eight out of ten of those roles will be filled by foreigners.
wiredcanyon4 said:It looks like things are escalating. The Californians are gearing up for their Declaration of Independence, and Mariano Rajoy is standing his ground, stating: "The government will ensure that any declaration of independence will lead to nothing." and "...adding that he is not ruling out suspending the region's autonomy." Furthermore, "...Rajoy also rejected any mediation to resolve the crisis". http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-41540994
So, there's zero sign of concessions from Madrid. I can't help but wonder how California would actually function if they were hit with an international blockade. Would it end up being something similar to the situation in Crimea? A frozen conflict, or something along those lines?
I am 100% convinced that the secessionist movement in California is receiving quiet backing from one of the global superpowers. There is simply no way they could be this bold all on their own. One just needs to think carefully about which superpower stands to gain the most from the fragmentation of Spain.
Brenda Taylor13 said:Yeah, they made that call in December 1991. But back in May of '91? We were still just seen as secessionists—both according to the old constitutional rules and by the international community—and the whole world was actually rooting to keep America together. Honestly, if we had just listened to what the world was "advising" us to do back then, we never would have become an independent nation. Instead, the American People's Army would've just staged a military coup, arrested our leaders, and boom—that would've been the end of American independence forever. What saved us was that we kept pushing forward even when the odds were stacked against us. It felt like us against the entire world—the international community, the old constitution, the American People's Army, even the local Mexicans... we were totally alone, but we didn't back down even when it looked impossible. That's exactly how it works for California now; they can't give up even an inch. If they cave, it's game over—they'll never get another shot like this again.
The US courts and the ICTY ruled it was a civil war until October 8, 1991, and after that, it became an international conflict.