im american and i can truthfully say we are crazy!

stupidity has no limits.

disclaimer: this could just be Los Angeles

let's hope so, but something tells me it isn't. :/

I blame calculators and spellcheck on everything we use so you don't do any of it with your brain pieces anymore. That and the growth hormones.

Also, I love that you take all your product pics on the same terrace. And one's a collab of mine, good show Kelly's hubby!

hahaha that was from the $10 tee sale. The deal was I picked out a bunch of shirts and bought them for my husband and he would have to model them. They arrived the day of the Lakers' final game, so during commercial breaks I was like "QUICK, CHANGE SHIRTS AND GET ON THE BALCONY!!" haha

None of the teachers here get paid well enough to actually focus on/care about their jobs.

I guess so... the really scary part is the intern who is in college goes to the university I graduated from last year (LMU)! I was pretty surprised because I loved it there and felt like I got a great education...

You get out of it what you put into it, I guess!

The generation after ours has to deal with incredibly dumbed down curriculum and teachers that don't care, so I guess it's not ENTIRELY their fault.

Granted, I've met several stupid kids in my life. There was one who didn't know the date of New Year's Day. As in, he didn't know that January 1st = New Year's.

There's a lot of factors that go into how stupid kids in America are these days. But sometimes, you can just blame the kids.

The education system is structured, or at least presented in a way that students only accomplish what's required. Gaining knowledge isn't as stressed as much as passing the course. You can get a good education anywhere, but the same doesn't go with credentials, which is what everyone looks at. You could pass whatever school without learning shit.

That being said, misspelling words can be fixed simply by reading. That girl apparently doesn't read.

I don't really blame the low pay that teachers get. Teachers teach because they want to, not for the pay. My film teacher works at a concession stand and he makes more there than he does teaching. They know what they're getting coming into the job. That doesn't effect their performance. They are grossly underpaid, though, and that should really be fixed.

i know decimals because i have to use them to measure my penis

As Mike said, teachers know what they're getting into with the pay, which is why some have summer jobs and side jobs to supplement their income.
I blame the lack of reading in our society as a major problem. We have kids going into college that aren't even at a 12th grade reading level.
On sunday, in our Sunday School class that we taught, we asked a 12 year old to read a few verses from the Bible, and he really stuggled, but not with difficult words or words unique to the Bible and other ancient language. He was stuggling with words like "Truly". He just hasn't been forced to read out loud and become confident through practice, which is in part the fault of the schools, but also his parents could help with that too by encouraging it at home.

I'm so smart that my brain auto-corrected the wrong spelling. I couldn't work out what she had done wrong. haha

i would not reduce that to the states, kids here are pretty stupid too..

heehee "tittle"

I blame smart phones and the internet. Why bother learning something you might need later when you can just look it up on wikipedia when you do need it?

I think they were too busy watching this video on TV:

That song made them ... Clueless.

they do have private schools for "special" kids too

I am a complete spelling/grammar nazi. However, being married to a wonderful man that has never been able to grasp either of my beloved language-related subjects, I understand how that can happen. He's so intelligent when it comes to math(s) that I can let it slide. :) Although, the 3/4-to-.75 thing bothers me; my 7-year old has been talking about decimals and basic fractions at school and she knows the "easy" ones (quarter, half, three-quarter, whole). It's not like you asked her to do 8/33rds or something.

I am american, I was actually referencing that song from Clueless/ song by Kim Wilde hahaha.

Becky the three quarters thing really kills me, too. How does she make change when she pays for something? Although, I guess when you are swiping daddy's credit card you don't have to!

kittyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!

You know what's really stupid? I had to study "Clueless" at high school and say how it related to Jane Austen's "Emma." That's right, in order to make literature exciting to kids, we have to relate it to a contemporary movie that completely rips off the plot. What's next? Reading "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" and saying how it relates to "Pride and Prejudice?"

haha omg that is awful! That's like that scene in "Orange County" where they talk about Leonardo DiCaprio's "Romeo and Juliet" instead of reading the play ahha.

I'm still laughing over 'tittle'. Outstanding.

Was it their first day or something? I wouldn't make a stupid spelling mistake, but I know many people could. But I might ask a stupid question about which way I was supposed to record it, 3/4ths or .75, especially if nervous.

I think the problem isn't entirely the failing education system, but it's part of it. There is a good deal of knowledge that everyone is expected to have, that may or may not ever be taught to you, and once you don't know it and you're past that level or behind, your ignorance is often ignored for the sake of speeding up the class for everyone else. It's a big problem that there are people in grades of school that they are not ready for because they're just not up to par with what they should know or some of the basics, but there's no one making an effort to stop awful spellers and whatnot before they reach the real world.

CHUFFED

sadly they have been with us since the last week of May. I mostly just have them clean, though. The inventory was already half done from the previous day, so she could have seen that it was all in decimal points, in addition to my telling her to write in decimal points.

SJ27 on Jul 08 '10 at 9:55am
You know what's really stupid? I had to study "Clueless" at high school and say how it related to Jane Austen's "Emma." That's right, in order to make literature exciting to kids, we have to relate it to a contemporary movie that completely rips off the plot. What's next? Reading "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" and saying how it relates to "Pride and Prejudice?"

i understand what you're saying, but i disagree. clueless was just a modern take on emma; i wouldn't call it a ripoff. emma was the source material. just like how 10 things i hate about you is a modern take on the taming of the shrew.

i blame kelly for being a super genius

I've had some amazing and encouraging teachers, but then I've also had the ones who don't seem to have a clue what they're talking about nor care for the success of their students.
This includes an English teacher who believes seals are fish and pronounces crustacean as crusticane.

A few of my teachers have spelt title as tittle many times too

lmao at crusticane

kids these days!

tracerbullet on Jul 08 '10 at 10:02am
i understand what you're saying, but i disagree. clueless was just a modern take on emma; i wouldn't call it a ripoff. emma was the source material. just like how 10 things i hate about you is a modern take on the taming of the shrew.

Yeha, I mean I'm not saying it's a ripoff per se, but it's a direct adaptation, you knkow? So we're expected to find out things like "The character of Elton relates to the character of Mr Elton" or "the gypsies are like the guys in the shopping mall." Rather than say comparing the themes of jealousy btween Othello and Anna Karenina, or revenge in Hamlet and The COutn of Monte Cristo.

I don't knoe, I jus felt like we were being expceted to think about simple actions and events rather than looking deeper and that the only way we were expected to undersatnd this "old" material was to have a cool, modern take next to it.

Crusty man with a cane = crusticane

At my high school, seniors could serve as teachers' aides for other classes. Basically it meant we spent a period grading worksheets, making copies, that kind of thing. The class I was assigned to was a 9th grade English class and holy crap these kids were dumber than a bag of hammers. They had one pop quiz where one of the answers was "Abraham Lincoln," and they managed to misspell it in a staggering number of ways. I actually made a list. My favorite was "Albamba Linconan."

'Tittle' and 'crusticane' are my new favourite words.

'Albamba' is also fantastic.

I don't knoe, I jus felt like we were being expceted to think about simple actions and events rather than looking deeper and that the only way we were expected to undersatnd this "old" material was to have a cool, modern take next to it.

I think having respect for the classic, original material is very important. But I also think that if using adaptations that have the same underlying themes–but in a more contemporary setting–help modern american students learn and relate to that material, that is important as well. Teach material in a way so that your learners can relate to it.

Albamba Linconan!

Gt the kids themesleves to adapt the material to a modern settting or something, ifk, make it interactie,

Don't worry, not all of us are like that! While some kids at my school (I'm going into 10th grade when summer ends) aren't exactly the brightest, there are a lot of hardworking kids here - I have 2 friends going into Calc BC next year (10th grade also), which is 2 years beyond most of the rest of our grade (I'm going into Alg 2H). I don't know if you adult peeps think this is a good idea, but most of the people in my grade are taking practice SATs and stuff to prepare already (which sucks from my POV xP)

I think the majority of students here are doing fine, but in my opinion there are always going to be people that are not quite with the rest.

squintygirl on Jul 08 '10 at 10:24am
'Tittle' and 'crusticane' are my new favourite words.

We need to start using them in everyday conversation until they are completely integrated into the English language. Then, we'll have people misspelling 'tittle' as 'title' and ' crusticane' as 'crustacean'.

Crusticane should mean some kind of combo of 'mundane' and 'melancholy'. Maybe 'tittle' is a hurried 'too little'.

haha. I like the too little idea but I think I'd end up giggling whenever I use it

At one point I made a teacher to normal person dictionary for this teacher's mispronunciations