Please tell me about the education system/standards in your country. In Australia, it's all about money. Minimum expense to pass through the maximum number of clients. Larger class sizes each year, underpaid teachers, and standardised testing. All educational material and progress is geared so it appeals to the majority, the most common level of ability.
I can only speak for my own experience in the California, USA, school system (I think it is one of the worst). Too many administrators, not enough teachers. The stupid overpaid administrators drive off the good teachers and keep the ones who don't complain, do their paperwork, don't have too many parental complaints about "controversial" discussions/lessons/books (i.e., don't challenge the students). Keep the bad ones and drive off the good ones! That is the way you keep your worthless "Vice principal of academics" or some such nonsense. I'm starting to foam at the mouth and flames are coming out of my ears so I think I will end this post for now.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Text book companies seem to have teachers and schools by the balls here, too. They offer these crappy textbooks, a district will buy and mandate one textbook for all the classes in the district, and teachers then don't have the choice on which one they can use. Of course, there are ways of getting around that *rubs hands together conspiratorily and peers sideways to see if anyone is listening* the copy machine! . Did I say that too loudly? Oh yeah, my favourite t-shirt on the subject: Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
In america too much money is spent on extracuricular activities. In highschool and college sports are overhyped and get way too much money out of the budget. We tend to neglect the hard sciences a bit until you reach specialty classes in college. ie: higher math, physics, chemestry. We focus too much on life and social sciences.
My education in suburban Philadelphia, PA, USA hasn't been too bad. I've been very privileged compared to other places, especially inner-city schools. In the USA, it varies region to region onhow good the edu is, it can vary within miles even. In my experience i would say that, me personally, experienced alot of redundancy each year, year after year. Up til highschool. Even now, still learning U.S. government and history, civil war, etc. Geography/World Cultures last year was quite wonderful, eccentric teacher that didnt teach by the book or the curriculum, but he tought wonderfully nonetheless. The guy was nuts. anyway, those are my thoughts on the matter.. P.S. i'm in highschool (secondary), 11th grade.
It's more a case of the textbook companies giving the school boards what they want. All of the textbook companies make some great textbooks, but the school boards usually only want the crappy ones that are politically correct, full of pointless pictures, and don't contain anything controversial. So, what the school boards will pay for, the textbook companies are happy to sell them.
In Latvia the main problem is teacher sallaries an average is about 154 Euros/month thus almost absolutely no new people work as teachers. there are only fanatics, loonies and old people left. And also students who want an extra cash and couldn't find any other place. think about it - my math teacher is a crazy 88 year old monster..... I can call myself lucky as I had any teachers , but I don't know what will be in 20 years, when all the old ones would be dead
clockwork dont you have a SEVER problem with childhood obesity???? seems there needs to be MORE sports not less
In Ontario (Canada) we're facing huge classes (tho our government is denying it), not nearly enough text books, a new ciriculum that doesnt make sense, and the 'double cohort' (which is two classes graduating at the same time with more competition and no spaces or funding being increased to handle it), not enough teachers, no new teachers, no supplies, no funding, teacher strikes every one or two years and school closures all across the board! the government tried to fix things but they just made it worse so now I"m heading into university with a lot of street smarts but no book smarts!
