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From: wa2ise@netcom.com (Robert Casey)
Subject: Re: Quality of education  Was: ...
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Date: Fri, 28 Mar 1997 06:52:28 GMT
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>>> >That was exactly my original point.  Parents must take some of the
>>> >responsibility for the education of their children, and stop whining
>>> >"Johnny deserves good grades, obviously, because he's my son!"  If a
>>> >parent insists that their child be given a good grade even if they don't
>>> >learn the material, then that parent must be willing to accept the fact
>>> >that their child will be an incompetent, incapable idiot, and society
>>> >must be willing to accept the burden for that person.
>>> 

Way back when, before men walked on the Moon, I had a 3rd grade teacher
make a wisecrack to the effect that I didn't have to do my arithmetic
homework if I didn't want to.  Sarcasm, but I didn't pick up on that, 
and as every kid knows, homework sucks, and took her literally.  Didn't
do that homework untill when my parents came home from a PTA meeting
pissed.  My parents didn't believe me when I told them the teacher
said the above.  Arithmetic class was mostly drilling you to do adding
and stuff quickly and memorize times tables and such, stuff we use
calculators for today.  Grammer school (grades 1 to 6 or 8, depending
if you go to junior high or just high school next) was mostly based
on one's ability to memorize random information and give it back on
tests.  And it seems that some teachers think that's all one can do
in school, that the idea that you could figure out what 6 x 7 is if
you know 6 x 6 and then add 6 to that, never occured to them.  And
I have a really crappy memory but a reasonable "IQ".  Well, I'm no
rocket scientist.....   :-)  As this post demostrates.....  :-)
