Posts by Linda Price5

Fruity, I followed that exact same path during my studies. Here in America, during this current decade.

I’ve also spent time working with high schoolers here in the States over the last few years, and frankly, it’s disheartening. There is a profound inability to apply basic skills learned in middle school to actual word problems. They lack fundamental life skills that should be second nature—skills they should have mastered by now, especially if they claim to be dedicated students. It’s even more striking when you look at how middle schoolers are treated; there is a constant, subtle undercurrent of bullying over trivial details that prevents them from seeing the big picture. I’ve been tracking our national standardized test scores since the US started participating in major international assessments, and the data tells a grim story: students aren't actually learning; they are just checking boxes to pass a quiz before immediately forgetting everything. Our national graduation exam results reflect this same decay. There is this hysterical obsession with chasing high averages—hitting those five-digit numbers—with absolutely zero regard for whether that average represents actual intelligence or true education. You see it in the parents, too. They lose their minds if their kid gets a D or a C, yet they stay silent when a child writes "I can't" instead of "I am unable," failing to address the literacy gap because they are too busy panicking over a letter grade.

The fact that certain unreachable teachers attend these so-called "professional development" seminars only to learn that traditional schooling is "obsolete" doesn't change the reality on the ground. The fact that they swallow such propaganda whole is just further proof of a systemic failure to teach critical thinking.

In my view, anyone lacking that fundamental aptitude wouldn't qualify as a high-level STEM professional anyway. Most other students can simply pick up whatever math they require in a matter of hours—or perhaps a few dozen if they happen to need more than the average amount. Consequently, mandating four-digit numbers of math hours for every single student essentially serves one purpose... recruiting math teachers.

Take a look at Lana over on those influencer pages and Instagram feeds in suburban Connecticut. 😬

Tara Westover was only seventeen when she stepped foot in a classroom for the first time; before that, aside from her brother teaching her how to read, she was essentially self-taught. Fast forward to today, and she’s in her early thirties with a PhD.

I’m not suggesting we neglect our children, but it’s clear that adults who actually *want* to learn are far more efficient than kids who are just being dragged along to chase a piece of paper.

No, I am convinced that regardless of whether they were taught in fifth grade, seventh grade, or freshman year of high school, it remains a usable skillset. My reasoning is based simply on your own observation that there aren't any cognitive limitations at play here.

They grasped the basics of percentages, proportionality, and geometry.
And they can clearly navigate a coordinate system and various curves.

I believe those fundamentals have been mastered.

Personally, this looks like a pretty pathetic return on investment after spending 1,500 hours of one's life on a subject. It’s akin to studying math for eight hours a day for six months, only to walk away knowing how to plot the point (5, 1) on a graph or calculate basic proportions. Even Lana would achieve significantly more than this if she spent half a year applying herself alongside Klingor.

Do you honestly believe an eighteen-year-old with genuine drive and focus wouldn't be able to master high school level math within a single year, even if they started from scratch?

The bureaucracy in this country is so incredibly obsessed with paperwork that I’m surprised the system hasn't developed blisters from all its own red tape.

urbantinker8 said:If something is a total drag, then I suppose it just is.
For me, the money part of this whole thing is pretty much secondary, I guess.🤷
Do you really think people would actually pick up a required reading book more often if they were paid per title or based on how many pages they managed to get through?😁
I mean, that’s about the only way left to shake things up, really. Maybe then everyone would suddenly start obsessively worshipping Camus, Sartre, and Kafka all at once.🎉

Seriously, if someone told you, "this portion of your job is no longer being compensated," would you still be just as eager—or perhaps even less willing—to perform those duties?

Do you honestly think people would read classic literature more often if they had to pay per title and then proportionally based on how many pages they actually turned?😁

No, I believe we are living in 2019, and we should be exploring educational models that are far more relevant to life in the 21st century and more efficient than what we have now. The goal should be that after eight or twelve years, more people possess a broader toolkit to facilitate a higher quality of life, whatever that definition may be for the individual.

There is certainly still room for literature, mathematics, grammar, philosophy, and chemistry, but not within this idiotic "rote-memorize-repeat-forget" framework that is currently so highly valued.

Listen, for instance, to an episode of unknown's unknown, compare it to an average hour of history class, and tell me honestly who comes out on top.

there, it's not like we haven't tried that. maybe suddenly everyone would start hysterically worshiping Camus, Sartre, and Kafka.🎉

Neither of us is hysterically enamored with the most tedious aspects of our jobs, but we receive something in return (money).

If a student isn't attending school to actually educate themselves but merely to acquire a diploma, I don't see the issue if they decide to purchase one. 😁

briskjackal5 said:You could even learn how to brew beer without ever stepping foot in a classroom, just like you could learn math. 😁

If there are side effects—like people losing interest in reading altogether, or avoiding the classics, or developing a total phobia of math—then the whole outcome ends up being negative.

I remember this one time at an SAT prep center where this person was just staring blankly at a basic middle school math problem, and it was like the explanations were just bouncing right off them. It wasn't because they lacked the brains or the talent, honestly. If they hadn't been forced into math classes all those years, they probably would've figured it out fine. But instead, all they learned from math class was that math is hard and that they're just bad at it. That’s a totally negative result after spending hours every week on it for twelve years. It's just... it's awful.

First of all, I don't think that's quite right. There were definitely things that person *did* master, so I guess you could say their net result was actually positive.
Maybe not as much as the kids who are naturally gifted, but still positive, I think.

Second, whatever you decide about their individual results, you're really only talking about that one specific person. You can't really apply that to the whole class or the entire community, right?

What do you mean by "Bane23"?

-briskjackal5

Of course they can. Carpentry has been around for millennia, whereas the modern American high school system is a relatively recent invention.

First off, that isn't really a result; it’s just a list of things that the individual managed to pass.

By "managed to pass," do you mean "barely scraped through a quiz or two" or "developed a lifelong habit of applying mathematics to real-world scenarios"?

Consider this: if a student spends an average of two hours a week on math, that adds up to roughly 2 hours × 54 weeks × 12 years. After those twelve years, all they have to show for it is knowing how many gallons of Sherwin-Williams paint to buy when repainting an apartment, checking if the local grocer is overcharging them, and memorizing the definition of a circle or the quadratic formula (by the way, when was the last time you actually used a quadratic equation in your daily life?). On top of that, they often end up with a deeper aversion to math, more mental resistance whenever they try to grasp a concept, and less motivation to learn than if they had never encountered it at all.

And you consider that a net positive outcome? Impressive logic.

How much of high school math do you actually use in your day-to-day life? Seriously—how are you applying logarithms, limits, or the volume of a pyramid?

Not for an entire class or community, though.

Sure, those are exceptions. On average, Americans are a highly literate and mathematically capable people who understand basic biology and can solve redox equations while they're cooking dinner.

What does "unknown" mean?

He's just a character from a classic folk song.

It’s an absolute grind, but at least there’s a paycheck at the end of it. Even if the job itself was soul-crushing—like spending your life sewing baby clothes or something equally tedious—it would at least be compensated. 😁

urbantinker8 said:but I suppose everyone has their own version of wasting time, don't they?🤷
There really isn't a single system in the world that works perfectly for every person. For one person, it might be reading required literature, for another, it's solving calculus equations, and for someone else, it’s probably just knitting.
It doesn't particularly surprise me, nor does it frustrate me, I guess.
Some things you just power through, even if you hate them, and then you move on. I don't quite understand why it causes people such deep trauma, honestly.🤔

To each their own, I suppose.
For me, it was always a bit of a challenge. And I don't mean specifically reading old American texts, but just reading books in a foreign language—it didn't really matter if they were boring or interesting, long or short...
I felt like I learned something from every single one, expanding my vocabulary and just getting acquainted with all sorts of things. Some parts help me more today than others, but I never felt cheated just because I had to use a dictionary for certain books. If anything, it was quite the opposite.

So, why is everyone forced into the exact same curriculum? It makes zero sense. Why should an aspiring mechanic or a carpenter be stuck reading classic literature or copying down essays just to avoid failing out of school? Why is anyone required to sit through a high-level calculus lecture when they have absolutely no intention of ever using it? If someone actually develops a genuine interest in a subject later in life, they can easily pick up a book, sign up for a specialized certification course, or simply hire a private tutor. The current system is fundamentally inefficient.

Sometimes, you just have to stop overthinking, cut through the nonsense, and handle things with a certain level of blunt indifference. You deal with it, you move past it, and you don't look back.

Of course they could be done, but one has to ask: what exactly would be the motivation for doing them?

Even today, I find myself grinding through tasks that are utterly mindless and entirely beneath my interests. I do it simply because I know exactly what my hourly rate is for such drudgery. If I spend my afternoon disinterestedly scanning through some dusty old Hemingway manuscript or performing the soul-crushing task of balancing accounts deep into the red, I’m not getting paid a dime. Money only flows when the clock is running on billable work.

If we are still seeing the fallout in the form of a general decline in reading habits, a growing disdain for the literary classics, or a widespread allergy to mathematics, then the bottom line is clear: the net result is a failure.

I recall an instance during a standardized testing session where a student sat there, completely blanking on a basic math problem intended for elementary schoolers. It wasn't a matter of cognitive deficiency or a lack of innate mathematical talent; if that individual had never stepped foot in a math classroom in their life, they likely would have solved it without a second thought. Instead, the only takeaway from years of schooling was the crushing conviction that math is an insurmountable mountain and that they simply aren't "math people." That is the cumulative, disastrous result of spending several hours a week in a classroom for twelve consecutive years. It’s nothing short of a systemic failure.

For me, that was a genuine hurdle. And I’m not talking specifically about deciphering archaic American literature; I mean the broader challenge of reading books in a foreign language. It didn't matter if the material was riveting or incredibly dull, or whether it was a massive tome or a slim volume—the struggle remained the same.
Every single experience has served as a lesson, helping me expand my vocabulary and familiarize myself with just about everything under the sun. Some of that knowledge proves more useful today than others, but I certainly don't feel cheated for having spent hours hunched over books with a dictionary by my side. On the contrary, it was worth every second.

I find myself reaching for a dictionary quite frequently, but if the constant interruptions start to derail my flow, I simply pack it in. There’s no point in struggling through it. That’s exactly why I don't bother reading anything in Greek.

That is precisely why I tend to ignore footnotes and endnotes—with the notable exception of Terry Pratchett’s. To any author or editor out there listening: if your idea of good pacing is interrupting my flow thirteen times per page, you might as well go jump in a lake. Do you want me to actually read your book, or are you just trying to force me to read your damn footnotes?

There you have it. If you had spent your time sewing designer clothes or listening to podcasts instead of grinding through science classes, you might actually have some cash in your pocket by eighteen.

To me, this kind of thing feels like a massive waste—of time, electricity, fuel, and taxpayer dollars. It’s honestly pathetic.

If an education isn't actually teaching you anything and is just burning through your life, what's even the point?

It isn’t just my own experience to consider. Most of the adults I know who have developed a genuine appetite for reading—and I don’t just mean mindless pulp fiction—generally shared a mutual disdain for required school reading assignments. They rarely felt those mandatory texts provided any actual value to their lives.

To me, this looks like a systemic failure.

You seem to think I ever claimed Dostoevsky was trash just because you breezed through your high school reading list and concluded the literary canon isn't all that miraculous. 😢

And sure, go ahead—try explaining that logic to someone who spent their childhood throwing tantrums because being allowed to borrow just two books was "not enough" for a weekend. That’s how they'll handle the realization that their entire world collapsed once they finally finished their required school readings. 😁

Reading between the lines, I'm getting the impression that people think Shakespeare is absolute garbage just because he's a fantasy figure.

Richard Perez3 said:Alright, we’re basically just running in circles here.
It feels like no matter how much we try, we just can't get on the same page when it comes to reading. Maybe we're all just more about the writing side of things anyway.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy using Reddit

It appears to me that we simply have fundamentally different perspectives on what the purpose of reading actually is.

urbantinker8 said:Quincy:

I guess I might have missed it. A quote?

If you're actually interested, you can probably find it if you look.🤷

It’s quite elegant to simply admit "I don't have an argument." Intellectual honesty is a rare commodity these days.😁

urbantinker8 said:

Do you actually have an idea what’s going on here, and if so, could you maybe walk me through it?

I suppose I do.
and I think I could, if I really tried.
actually, I've already done it—more than once, I guess.😉

I must have missed it. Quote?

Richard Perez3 said:Personally, I don't think it's an impossible mountain to climb.
It can be done.
And it will be done.
Your average kid can handle it. I wouldn't call it "torture" or say the pictures make it feel like a massive burden. Yeah, it'll be tough, yeah, they might struggle a bit, but they'll get through it. And then something else comes along—something even harder, with even more foreign terms, even more text, even more complex structures... it's all just Pinocchio. 😁

Then they graduate, and half of them won't touch a single book for the rest of their lives because reading feels like a chore—something you only do because life forces your hand.

Dammit. 👋

urbantinker8 said:

I think my brain is actually starting to ache from trying to follow your logic, if you can even call it that.

I mean, why are they even tasked with teaching literature, urbantinker8, when they clearly lack the basic capacity for it since they probably didn't even bother reading the books at home?

Oh, believe me, my head is spinning too from all this pseudo-intellectual posturing you're doing.🙄
I honestly don't have the energy to play along with this fake deep persona of yours, especially since it feels like you're just talking to yourself in an empty room anyway.🙂

Do you genuinely not understand the purpose behind studying literature? Like, seriously, do you really not get it?

I actually feel bad for you. I really do.
😢

I honestly haven't the slightest clue.

It’s even more pathetic than that. I honestly can't see the point of our entire educational system when you compare it to the reality of people sitting around listening to podcasts while they sew tiny little accessories for seven bucks an hour.

Do you actually have any idea what you’re talking about, or are you even capable of providing an explanation?

Just because someone can "read fluently" doesn't mean they actually possess literacy. Good grief, if I tried to count the number of college students who failed to notice entire fragments missing from their textbooks—even when you literally pointed your finger at the page and told them, "something isn't right here"—I’d run out of fingers before I finished my list.

Do I read other people's posts? Of course. Bane23 sounds like a textbook little bureaucrat, Persephone is busy swinging her broom around and scaring everyone, I have to read William's posts two or three times just to process them and find myself wanting to invite her out for a drink, and then there's you—full of feelings but completely lacking in arguments. To top it off, you make it abundantly clear to all of us that, given the chance, you'd eventually look at him and say, "William, buddy, either bring me proof that fairies small enough to be wrapped in discarded snake skin actually exist, or stop declaring war."