Unless you're not allowed on the team! So you think your country would be no worse off if it were run by Stalin?
Honestly, the only issue I had with high school was that the material wasn't nearly hard enough. I could sleep through class all the time and still pass with flying colors. It's pretty sad when the guy who slept through class still knew how to read and write better than virtually all his peers in his graduating class though. It did make reading Shakespeare interesting enough to stay awake for however. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that the American education system is shit and we should feel like shit for letting the people we're putting through our general education be this stupid. I got one hell of a wake-up call when I started going to college thanks to this crap. I blame "No Child Left Behind".
I agree with Reider above. As a current HS student in the US, I can sleep through half my classes (and often do, after staying up all night) and still pass easily. This includes pre-calc, with I royally suck at and yet still pass.
Damn. Same thing happened to me, but I paid attention in class. I never really applied myself in school and I still passed with Bs and As. And college was a wake up call. BIG time.
My highschool is mostly bad but they let choose your subjects in year 9 to do in year 10 and 11. You have to do the basic maths,english,science and ICT, but you get to choose two other subjects and a DT option. Well i chose the diploma Construction which gets me out of my school for two days,the course isn't that bad but it counts as the two subjects. For the DT i chose woodwork/resistant materials. I chose them because i would want to be an Architect or a Joiner when im older. Thats a good point but my school has made bad decisions, they got rid of coursework which challenges the years 10 and 11, and makes us to try to find the information out and to try to do it on our own. Removing it won't help us at all, coursework is supposed to be challenging and is supposed to help the students learn but they got rid of it. The quality of school mainly depends on the students and where you live since different places may have different ideas of learning.
I respect your point of view, but I didn't decide to be a computer engineer until I was 16. I was lucky enough to have the requisite general education to be able tosteer myself down that path for the last two years of high school. A lot of people don't have any clue what they want to do. My sister is 17 and she still has no idea. As for the algebra/calculus, I actually preferred knowing how to do most of it manually. It helps you understand the correct practical applications for a given equation, and conversely helps you figure out what could be used to model a solution to a problem. Sure, a lot of people won't need this skill since they don't work in technical fields, but as we've been trying to beat into calvin, some people do so that doesn't make it useless.
Well, in an ideal world everyone would know exactly what career path they would want to follow from an early age and have private tuition where they learned exactly what they needed to become a master in their field. But saying as it would be impossible to teach every kid in the country 1-on-1 we have to settle for school, where everyone learns generally useful (if impractical) information until they are able to understand exactly what they want to become and then move on to university where everything they are taught can be applied to what they want to become.
I hate school because I learned stuff from it and it got me to college and asdsfsdfdskldffdh. School is so useless.
apparently, whoever started this thread is still kinda young to notice the values of school. even though you think all you learn in school is pointless, it is not. i actually use alot of what i learned in school, in real life. things like history, math, english. all useful. and school is not just about learning. but also creates social skills and other really important values that prepare you for life
only about 2 seconds of this is relevant: Spoiler http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTKoOf-yZOw&feature=iv#t=1m29s&hd=1
My friend is doing studies at university on history. She intends to make a career out of classical studies (Roman and Greek culture).
I've had many interesting conversations with people about history and I can see similarities cropping up in world events now that mimic those that took place in the past. Anyone wishing to be a politician should have a good background in historical events.