(07-12-2021, 01:10 PM)dfrecore Wrote: Some of these are getting too specific I think.  I wouldn't go to your universities - they're just more of the same.  I think theories and concepts that you want people to learn is understandable, but some of that doesn't really need to be a semester-length course - you can teach a lot of what you want people to understand in a single sitting with some of those.  How about you get a freshman-level course that meets 3x a week for an hour, with the basics of econ, bio, history, etc.  Why does it have to take an entire semester?

I took econ, and then taught my kids lots of the concepts in it pretty easily -it's not hard to understand some of the basics.  Stats is WAY to easy to manipulate - you can see what they did with Covid statistics when they would do a data dump over a weekend, putting weeks worth of deaths into the computer on a single day, and then reporting it, and the media reports how deaths went up last week, when it wasn't true.  How about teaching people how to read stats, and how they lie with them as well?

I'm not taking Bio 2 (I didn't take Bio 1 either), I'm not certain there's anything there that I can't live without.  I'm not taking Physics (loved it in high school but no longer interested).

Yes on World History and World Geography, although I want a teacher who will cover it without a shit ton of bias - or maybe multiple teachers might be better - and TONS of discussion from all sides.  And teacher's that aren't just from the US here.

And separating kids into "yep, you're college-bound" and "no, it the trades for you" at a young age sounds awful to me.  Just because our system doesn't work as well as it should doesn't mean that these other systems are better ones.  Picking winners and losers early on in their lives - and some government bureaucrat or standardized test doing the picking at that - seems like the worst possible way to run things.  Think about a doctor at one of the VA systems that let vets die being in charge of this program.  Or an unhappy bored DMV employee.  No thanks.

(07-13-2021, 11:04 AM)sanantone Wrote: After seeing all the idiots believing conspiracy theories and not having a basic understanding of science and how the body functions during the pandemic, K-12 and college science instruction needs to be boosted. We could have saved lives if Americans were smarter. We have these dummies talking about a 97% survival rate as if being in the hospital and/or having long-term symptoms is desirable.

(07-13-2021, 11:20 AM)ss20ts Wrote:

(07-13-2021, 11:04 AM)sanantone Wrote: After seeing all the idiots believing conspiracy theories and not having a basic understanding of science and how the body functions during the pandemic, K-12 and college science instruction needs to be boosted. We could have saved lives if Americans were smarter. We have these dummies talking about a 97% survival rate as if being in the hospital and/or having long-term symptoms is desirable.

You do realize that everyone who believes in different theories isn't an idiot, right? Plenty of highly educated people who do understand the basics of science don't agree with what's happening today. There are doctors and members of the medical community who don't agree with everything in the media and refuse to be vaccinated. Doesn't make them idiots. Just because you disagree with someone doesn't make them an idiot.

(07-13-2021, 11:04 AM)sanantone Wrote:

(07-12-2021, 01:10 PM)dfrecore Wrote: Some of these are getting too specific I think.  I wouldn't go to your universities - they're just more of the same.  I think theories and concepts that you want people to learn is understandable, but some of that doesn't really need to be a semester-length course - you can teach a lot of what you want people to understand in a single sitting with some of those.  How about you get a freshman-level course that meets 3x a week for an hour, with the basics of econ, bio, history, etc.  Why does it have to take an entire semester?

I took econ, and then taught my kids lots of the concepts in it pretty easily -it's not hard to understand some of the basics.  Stats is WAY to easy to manipulate - you can see what they did with Covid statistics when they would do a data dump over a weekend, putting weeks worth of deaths into the computer on a single day, and then reporting it, and the media reports how deaths went up last week, when it wasn't true.  How about teaching people how to read stats, and how they lie with them as well?

I'm not taking Bio 2 (I didn't take Bio 1 either), I'm not certain there's anything there that I can't live without.  I'm not taking Physics (loved it in high school but no longer interested).

Yes on World History and World Geography, although I want a teacher who will cover it without a shit ton of bias - or maybe multiple teachers might be better - and TONS of discussion from all sides.  And teacher's that aren't just from the US here.

And separating kids into "yep, you're college-bound" and "no, it the trades for you" at a young age sounds awful to me.  Just because our system doesn't work as well as it should doesn't mean that these other systems are better ones.  Picking winners and losers early on in their lives - and some government bureaucrat or standardized test doing the picking at that - seems like the worst possible way to run things.  Think about a doctor at one of the VA systems that let vets die being in charge of this program.  Or an unhappy bored DMV employee.  No thanks.

After seeing all the idiots believing conspiracy theories and not having a basic understanding of science and how the body functions during the pandemic, K-12 and college science instruction needs to be boosted. We could have saved lives if Americans were smarter. We have these dummies talking about a 97% survival rate as if being in the hospital and/or having long-term symptoms is desirable.