Warning Rant. Americans and stereotypes.

[LaydeeDem]

Well with Obama in office we wont have a miltary for long.

You mean that as a good way, right?

Because I would like to make that red a bit smaller, and the green a bit bigger. 8)

[Misterspork]

You mean that as a good way, right?

Because I would like to make that red a bit smaller, and the green a bit bigger. 8)

Sadly, expanding the green bit would probably expand the red bit into space.

[Guest GroundHOG-2010]

Sadly, expanding the green bit would probably expand the red bit into space.

Actually, that red bit is already in space.

[RC1062]

To the guy who made out that our NHS is great;

In some ways it is brilliant. It means everyone can get seen to by a professional doctor. Everyone can get treatment. We don\'t have to pay (much) for treatment.

However, it is paid for by the state through our taxes. This means that the NHS will get its money whatever happens. Obviously this can lead to issues.

Let me put it this way; Every week your parents give you £5 to tidy your room. They check it for the first two weeks, then they don\'t bother. Will you still tidy your room? No, probably not. But you still get the £5. If your parents changed it and said to you and your sibling (you now have one ) whoever has the tidiest room each week gets £10 you would rush to tidy it. The only problem here is that you might resort to underhand tactics...

To reiterate my feelings about this stereotyping; Everyone stereotypes each other! And in many ways the stereotypes are ways of making ourselves feel better.

Besides in Britain I see many fat people, and I have met people unable to spell or perform \'complex\' maths.

[Guest GroundHOG-2010]

To the guy who made out that our NHS is great;

In some ways it is brilliant. It means everyone can get seen to by a professional doctor. Everyone can get treatment. We don\'t have to pay (much) for treatment.

However, it is paid for by the state through our taxes. This means that the NHS will get its money whatever happens. Obviously this can lead to issues.

Let me put it this way; Every week your parents give you £5 to tidy your room. They check it for the first two weeks, then they don\'t bother. Will you still tidy your room? No, probably not. But you still get the £5. If your parents changed it and said to you and your sibling (you now have one ) whoever has the tidiest room each week gets £10 you would rush to tidy it. The only problem here is that you might resort to underhand tactics...

To reiterate my feelings about this stereotyping; Everyone stereotypes each other! And in many ways the stereotypes are ways of making ourselves feel better.

Besides in Britain I see many fat people, and I have met people unable to spell or perform \'complex\' maths.

Your going to find those people everywhere. Hell, I have a friend who can\'t spell or do complex math (only time tables) and a friend who is \'Huskey\' or \'big boned\'.

[cteam]

i get made fun of becouse im 14 and only 62.4 lb and so im very thin (my bmi is in the 1 cenitnal meening less than 1 in 100 people have a bmi less than me) im not anerxic i eat alot but i walk 4 miles there and back to school and i am in a road raceing team (cycling)

[Guest GroundHOG-2010]

i gaet made fun of cos im 14 and only 62.4 lb and so im very thin (my bmi is in the 1 cenitnal less than 1in 100 people have a bmi less than me) im not anerxic i eat alot but i walk 4 miles there and back to school and i am in a road raceing team (cycling)

Nice (at the road cycling). My dad was a road cyclist.

[RedDwarfIV]

Britain has a lot of idiots.

I refer you to the English Defense League.

[CAUTION: Some swearing, and satire on racism]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFfQiXLOON0

[cteam]

Britain has a lot of idiots.

I refer you to the English Defense League.

[CAUTION: Some swearing, and satire on racism]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFfQiXLOON0

I second this.

[RedDwarfIV]

On the plus side, we are good at comedy.

[Guest]

I dunno, i find it funny to find the faults in all countrys. Like america, Or the UK. Austrailia (Although it does look pretty cool over there) Ect.

[bandit4910]

I\'m slightly overweight, and every time a european tourist comes along, be it a child or a fully grown, developed, mature man, all I hear is 'Wow, the stereo-types are true! Fatass!' or 'Lard-man!' Of course, then, I call the police for harassment. Then thay usually ask 'What?', and I respond 'Freedom of speech. And, seeing as you\'re not an american citizen, you don\'t have that freedom. Deal with it.'

No when someone tries to say that to me I\'d kick them into a wall then call the police...

I don\'t know if that accounts as assault or something...

[bandit4910]

On the plus side, we are good at comedy.

You are right the brittish are funny.(when you don\'t call our country fat)

[RedDwarfIV]

You are right the brittish are funny.(when you don\'t call our country fat)

Because calling people fat isn\'t funny. To me comedy is at its most funny when the comedian has the moral high ground. Then he can say pretty much whatever he likes, and it can be amusing, and its at the expense of the bad guy/s.

Take my example of Russell Howard. When he was satiring racism, he was pretending to be a member of the EDL, and as the News interview showed, that\'s the sort of level a lot of those people are on. That\'s ok, because the moral high ground is showing that racism is stupid. If he were being racist to be funny, that would not be moral.

[Ydoow]

I think a lot of the stereotype comes from unequal media attention.

Obviously the \'so stupid it\'s outrageous\' people are going to make the news/tv shows much more often than \'Hey, this guy knows who the 16th president is. Let\'s all give him a cookie\'

I think a lot of the downfall in grades/fitness come from:

A lack of self-motivation / self-discipline

Heavy standardization of school work / grades (teaching the test, rather than the material)

Poor parenting.

I feel like the lack of self-discipline comes from poor parenthood (for the most part). I was raised very well. My family is far from rich and certainly not perfect, but I was raised well. I was never spoiled with gifts, and disciplined when I needed it to set boundaries and limits.

People around me that I see as complete obnoxious spoiled brats always seem to have been raised the opposite; spoiled with gifts, parents don\'t follow through with punishment / give in to child\'s demands...

The heavy standardization makes classes extremely dull and boring. I\'ve taught myself bits and pieces of math/science and it really sicks with me because I enjoyed the discovery processes. I\'ve always been told to basically memorize equations in math and spit them back out, with no real understanding of where the equations come from.

Just a few months ago I realized 2*pi*r is the same thing as s/r = theta. That connection was never pointed out to me.

2*pi*r had been embedded into my head since 6th grade, and s/r = theta was another equation set into my head in highschool. They had me so focused on remembering the equations, I never realized they were exactly the same.

I\'m an extreme believer in teaching by guiding students through a discovery process. It makes the information so much more valuable, and ensures a firm understanding of the concept, while letting them be able to apply it to future concepts.

[RedDwarfIV]

Maths is one of the subjects I dislike. Though have you, in your entire time in the American education system, ever been tasked to use angular bisectors, protractor-drawn circles and line bisectors to locate boats in distress/oil rigs/the range of a radio transmitter? I actually liked that lesson.

[Ydoow]

Yes we did, I didn\'t particularly care for that stuff so the nomenclature is a little fuzzy.

There was always that question of 'When are we going to use this?' (I hate that question now), and even then applying it to real life situations like what you stated didn\'t help.

Using math in games, like KSP, are great ways to learn math though. There\'s a very distinct rewarding feeling when you meet success.

In school, there\'s little success to be had.

You can get good grades, but I\'ve often met ridiculous grading rubrics, like losing all points because I answered the question in a way that was unfamiliar to the teacher, or was slightly different from the lesson.

I see that as punishing creativity, for going outside the box to find a solution.

I understand why Teachers would punish it, because you didn\'t learn what they taught and therefore you are unprepared for the State Test.

And that\'s what I mean by Teaching the Test

[RedDwarfIV]

To be fair, in Primary School, I was told that I should not have answered the question \'in what direction does the sun come up at\' as \'Varies between north east and east depending on the time of the year\' because I heard it on a TV documentary about Stonehenge. Apparently I should have said \'East\' because that\'s what the teacher said.

In Secondary school, a few weeks ago, I mentioned this to my Chemistry teacher. I quote; 'Well, they must have been an idiot.'

[semininja]

There are some terribly narrow-minded teachers, and I think that\'s half the problem with the education system right now...

[Nooblet68]

There are some terribly narrow-minded teachers, and I think that\'s half the problem with the education system right now...

The problem with education today is that most of what Teachers say in Primary school is just a basic filler until you get taught otherwise in Secondary - and with that, children may not believe what the Secondary school teachers say, or the Secondary school teachers may neglect to teach that topic.

[semininja]

The problem with education today is that most of what Teachers say in Primary school is just a basic filler until you get taught otherwise in Secondary - and with that, children may not believe what the Secondary school teachers say, or the Secondary school teachers may neglect to teach that topic.

It\'s getting worse, too; they\'re apparently teaching kids in kindergarten to use \'invented spellings\' instead of teaching proper spelling from the start, which only means that they will have to un-learn first...

[RC1062]

Ooh! This is fun! Changing it to school discussions...

My first teacher at primary school said I didn\'t have the work ethic... It was a bit unfair... Though in retrospect she may have been incredibly far-sighted.

Another teacher said I was a pleasure to teach but asked far too many questions...

[Nooblet68]

It\'s getting worse, too; they\'re apparently teaching kids in kindergarten to use \'invented spellings\' instead of teaching proper spelling from the start, which only means that they will have to un-learn first...

So... They\'re basically teaching children to re-invent their language, then waste the time to teach properly after they\'re settled with their own invention.

Wow, are these guys stupid. The only way you\'ll make a child fully understand is by teaching them what\'s fully right in the first place, and not contradict previous things they\'ve said. I know this. I\'m still a child.

[Ydoow]

I never learned proper english grammar (nouns, verbs, pronouns etc etc) until I took Spanish in highschool.

The teacher was a bit of an arse, but he was a very good teacher and you had to respect that.

He basically taught english and spanish simultaneously, and was very efficient at it.

[semininja]

I never learned proper english grammar (nouns, verbs, pronouns etc etc) until I took Spanish in highschool.

The teacher was a bit of an arse, but he was a very good teacher and you had to respect that.

He basically taught english and spanish simultaneously, and was very efficient at it.

It\'s the same in my German class, which, if you ask me, is ridiculous, considering that he\'s a Baier...