I told them i'm a programmer.
My teacher calls me up to fix his printer.

I told my programming teacher that I work for the NSA...
He removed me from the class.

My programming teacher in high school drove past me one day walking in the rain to school. Didn't realize it was going to rain so I had no umbrella or jacket. When I got to school soaked and everything, he said he would've given me a ride if I had my shirt tucked in.

He let me walk 10 minutes in the rain. Because I didn't have my shirt tucked in.

Shirt. Tucked. In.

Shirt.

BURN @JITTAI xD should have tucked in your shirt. That's a life lesson right there ;p

I'm sorry for your situation. You should find some willing media/news places willing to talk about it if it bothers you that much.

Falcon lazorz wrote:

I love doing media

This is why you're doing well. You're focusing on your goal, your passion, your future life.

There's no point in having high school kids or college students take remedial classes. If your goal in life is to be a media producer, there's no justification in a college telling you that you have to take classes that have NOTHING to do with media studies. The only purpose it serves is to line the pockets of professors.

A school will spend 4 years teaching you what photosynthesis is, but mention the word "resume" every blue moon. We have kids learning what an obtuse angle is, but none of them are learning what networking is, and how establishing connections with people can further your career. We have 18 year olds who don't know it's unprofessional to take a job application and cram it into your back pocket, then whip it back out, all wrinkled and whatnot, to hand it to the employer. We have teenagers who are being told that college is the only way to learn something. Meanwhile, a lot of successful people nowadays are autodidacts, and learned how to do what they do from just grabbing a book off a shelf and reading, or watching an online tutorial.

We cram "get a job after college" down every child's throat. When are we going to start telling them "create a job after college". Start your own business. Be your own boss. We tell kids not to take risks, when the vast majority of people we consider successful today got there by risking something, if not everything. And even if you risk something and you fail, it has the potential of making you a better person, because failure tends to build humility while success usually just boosts ego.

I guess I'm just confused as to what school actually prepares us for. It just seems like a daycare. Something to keep teenagers occupied. Which, I'm all for occupying teenagers. But if you're going to occupy them, make them spend their time learning things that help them IN THE REAL WORLD. I'm fine with reading and writing being re-iterated, but honestly, how has geometry impacted your life? Why did I need to know that plants reproduce asexually? I was told Pluto was a moon in school. Whether it's a moon or a planet, I'm still waiting to hear how that bit of knowledge is going to help me pay my rent.

We take kids in and give them 12 years of almost nothing, then push them off into another 4+ years of nothing ( remedial courses ) mixed in with something that kid is actually interested in. Then, assuming that kid makes it out of college, he competes for the exact same position thousands of others are competing for, and if he's lucky enough to get it, there's no guarantee he'll keep it since outsourcing is apparently the way of the future and we'd rather toss jobs overseas instead of keeping them here because our country has this habit of taking care of other countries better than we take care of ourselves. Welcome to 'Murica - where absolutely nothing makes any sense at all. Enjoy your stay ( if you can ).

Boxcar wrote:

Maybe i'm the bad guy here, but is it really too much to ask kids to learn how the world around them works? Yeah, learning pluto isnt a planet won't make you rich anytime soon, but I think its important that people dont walk around only learning about things in their little bubble of interest. Especially since they wont know what interests them until theyre exposed to new ideas.

I mean, kids only have one job, and that's to learn. Unless you have some especially shitty parents, you aren't working through middle school to earn rent money, or feed yourself. Your one job is to learn, and we have to make that even easier? I feel like if you cant make it through 12 years of school, you are either such a genius that's its too boring (which is rare as hell) or you aren't going to make it, period.

I'm sure if I were to ask the class of 2011 ( my class ) what the circumference of a circle was, they wouldn't be able to tell me. What's the value of learning something that not only will never benefit you, but you'll forget as soon as you leave the school environment anyway? Why study obtuse angles, when you can study interview tactics, something you'll actually use and most likely not forget the moment you step off campus and start your life?

Teaching kids things that don't interest them doesn't really help them. If a guy has dreams to be a mechanic, sure, you can tell him about Pluto for 12 years, but he's not going to retain any of the information after he leaves school, because he couldn't care less about planets and moons. This guy wants to work on engines and change oils and play with spark plugs. And I think it's extremely unfair to suggest that a kid "isn't going to make it" if he can't comprehend some of this stuff. I saw classmates struggling with geometry and algebra 2, but I'm not going to say they're a lost cause because they didn't get it. Einstein was bad at spelling - arguably one of the more simpler tasks you're faced with in school. But he'd crush you in a contest of mathematics, which was his interest. So should we have deemed Einstein a lost cause because he didn't understand everything you learn in the 12 years of school, or attempt to nurture his natural talent with numbers and let him focus on what he excelled in and had a passion for?

My suggestions aren't to make school easier, it's to make school actually worth a child's time. Let me give you an example of how unprepared students are nowadays, because I actually worked at a university for two years, and some of the things I saw were just mind-boggling.

These students thought it was a good idea to jog alone, at 2AM, wearing headphones, in secluded areas of Downtown Nashville. I'd log into my Vanderbilt mail and get a "Theft Report" message saying that a student was robbed at gunpoint earlier that morning. Basically what kept happening is, a brown vehicle would creep around downtown nearby campus areas, and when they'd see one of these buffoons jogging alone, they'd hop out ( which, the student can't hear this happening because she's jogging while listening to "Wrecking Ball" with the volume turned to maximum ) and snatch people's belongings off of them, whether it was a backpack, laptop, iPod, it didn't matter.

But do you think these students had a class about "Surviving Downtown"? You think these students were informed that there are gang-ridden projects 5 minutes away from campus? You think someone sat them down and told them never to jog alone? Or with headphones in? Or at 2AM in the freaking morning of all times? No. We just keep telling them about how trees give us oxygen and how we give carbon dioxide to trees. This is just one of many examples of a lack of awareness of how the world operates that I saw in students. I'd see girls get up from their seat in the dining area, and leave an expensive phone or other electronic device sitting on the table. Then 20 minutes later, that same girl is approaching me saying "Excuse me sir, do you know if anyone found a pink iPhone? I think I left it on my table and when I came back it wasn't there."

School prepares you for a world that doesn't exist. A world where geometry pays your bills. A world where thieves aren't lurking around every dark corner. A world where writing your entire middle name on an application that only required your middle initial is acceptable. A world where a job is guaranteed if you have a Bachelor's. A world where everything you're told on T.V. is factual. That's why when students go out into the real world, they're the first to get robbed. They're the first to fill out an application incorrectly. They're the first to wonder why they have a degree but still can't get hired anywhere. They're the first to believe whatever they see in the media. Because school prepared them for Disneyland, and not America.

Oh, I'm all for classes teaching kids how to survive in the real world. If there was a course teaching kids things not to do to make yourself a victim, that could help many kids avoid unnecessary strife.

My problem with letting kids skip what they arent interested in is that this just seems to coddle the kid and tell them they can just avoid something thats hard, and just focus on the things they like, or want to do. Life isnt really like that. Maybe it should be, but we arent there yet, not even close.

Not to mention, the struggle can lead them to an appreciation of something they wouldnt have had otherwise. For example, I was almost held back in 2nd grade because my reading comprehension was so horrible. That summer, my mom worked with me every day, running drills into my head and having me practice reading increasingly advanced material. When I came back, I was at the top of my class in reading. In middle school, I tested at a reading level of a senior in high school. Imagine if I just dropped lit classes because I didn't like it, and had trouble with it.

I'm just saying, it can be hard to sit down and work on something you aren't particularly interested in, but I think its a vital part of becoming a responsible adult.

Jittai wrote:

When your shirt is tucked out its caused you're hiding a knife or gun. Obviously, gun/knife holders are also solely criminals looking to victimize middle-aged computer teachers.

Creative meme is creative. Much art. Such skills. Good job. I mean it.

EmpirezTeam wrote:

They do an assignment to the best of their ability, turn it in, get an F, and the teacher just fails them without pursuing the issue.

A student who does an assignment and gets an F, probably did not do it "to the best of their ability." They probably did a total hack-job and then threw in the towel, because they hate school and this is a stupid assignment that I'll never use in the real world right?

A teacher who gives an assignment and fails students with no recourse or interaction with the student is just a bad teacher. They are not doing their job to the best of their ability.

So you see, there are two sides to the issue. It's a vicious cycle of students who don't care, so the teachers lose motivation to help them, so the students care even less, etc.

I do think teenagers should be able to explore learning a variety of subjects. However, the whole "I won't ever use this" argument is total BS. You don't know what your career is going to be at 16, and even if you did, it's ridiculous to think that a 16-year-old could just ignore learning about the world around them. They might as well just drop out and enter a trade school (which is not impossible).

The reason kids don't remember things is because they only grudgingly learned them, and their learning didn't go any further than being able to pass a test. I personally enjoyed math, chemistry, physics, literature, and civics. Those subjects have very little to do with my degree (except maybe chemistry) but I still remember stuff from those classes and I feel that I am a more well-rounded person because of it. Sure, my survival is not really hinging on the fact that I know the difference between a metaphor and a simile, or that I know which sides of a triangle correspond to the ratios sine, cosine, and tangent.

Then again, what if I wanted to pursue something outside my degree or my work experience? What if, for example, I wanted to develop a computer game? Then, the writing skills I was taught in high school (and a little in college) will help me create a better product. The mathematics that I do remember will come in handy when I need to create game physics that aren't completely insane.

Anyway, my point is that forcing people to take general classes is not the main problem. In some situations I do think kids need more freedom. However, I also think that teachers need to get better at doing their job. I always loved math, but I hated math class mainly because the teachers just gave us stupid math problems to do. If the classes were more project-based, allowing us to do large assignments that had an end result that we could present to the class and be proud of, I might have liked it more. Of course that would mean the government needs to hook schools up with more money so...fat chance.