Warning Rant. Americans and stereotypes.

[bandit4910]

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.

If I were a parent I would seriously walk up to the teacher and ask her directly 'what the hell are you teaching my kid?!'.

Then take my kid out of the school and try home schooling.

[Ydoow]

I\'m pretty heavily considering home schooling if I have children.

I respect teachers for the most part. They aren\'t all bad, and I kinda dislike it when parents rage on teachers because they\'re kid won\'t do work or w/e, but some teachers just make me wonder.

The best teachers I\'ve ever had all came fresh out of college too.

I\'m not sure if it\'s a more recent thing, that these new teachers have different principles than older teachers, or if it\'s just that fresh/new teachers are more into teaching and can relate to kids better than aged teachers.

In my experience, young teachers are always more relaxed which makes them easier to learn from, easier to listen to, more understandable and overall more pleasurable to learn from.

Older teachers tend to freak out, be harsh, teach strictly and narrowly, and make everything bleh.

Not ALL, but a majority.

This is one of the reasons why college can be so much better. Sometimes.

[RedDwarfIV]

I\'m pretty heavily considering home schooling if I have children.

I respect teachers for the most part. They aren\'t all bad, and I kinda dislike it when parents rage on teachers because they\'re kid won\'t do work or w/e, but some teachers just make me wonder.

The best teachers I\'ve ever had all came fresh out of college too.

I\'m not sure if it\'s a more recent thing, that these new teachers have different principles than older teachers, or if it\'s just that fresh/new teachers are more into teaching and can relate to kids better than aged teachers.

In my experience, young teachers are always more relaxed which makes them easier to learn from, easier to listen to, more understandable and overall more pleasurable to learn from.

Older teachers tend to freak out, be harsh, teach strictly and narrowly, and make everything bleh.

Not ALL, but a majority.

This is one of the reasons why college can be so much better. Sometimes.

One of the chemistry teachers at my school apparently once talked non stop for an entire lesson. No wonder then that on multiple occasions his students successfully locked him out of his own classroom with his own keys.

[Kryten]

One of the chemistry teachers at my school apparently once talked non stop for an entire lesson.

They call that \'teaching\'.

You are going to HATE university...

[Radion]

They call that \'teaching\'.

You are going to HATE university...

Teaching by talking non-stop is perhaps the worst method of doing so. Now, I\'m only 13, but I find I learn more from teachers who talk less, and actually interact with us during the lesson, instead of blaring on like some other teachers.

[RedDwarfIV]

They call that \'teaching\'.

You are going to HATE university...

I plan on getting an Engineering BTEC, and A-Levels in Physics and English. I don\'t intend to go to University. Tuition fees. So many people doing Media Studies that there aren\'t places or the funding for people who want to do something productive with their lives. Its only because our recent Labour government said \'HEY EVERYONE GO TO UNIVERSITY ITS COOL AND YOU SHOULD BECAUSE... WELL BECAUSE WE\'RE GOVERNMENT SO DO IT\' that everyone started going to University. Its not nescersary. I could get a job at Martial\'s Airport and work up from there.

[bandit4910]

I plan on getting an Engineering BTEC, and A-Levels in Physics and English. I don\'t intend to go to University. Tuition fees. So many people doing Media Studies that there aren\'t places or the funding for people who want to do something productive with their lives. Its only because our recent Labour government said \'HEY EVERYONE GO TO UNIVERSITY ITS COOL AND YOU SHOULD BECAUSE... WELL BECAUSE WE\'RE GOVERNMENT SO DO IT\' that everyone started going to University. Its not nescersary. I could get a job at Martial\'s Airport and work up from there.

Here\'s the thing that sucks.

If I try to get a job in graphics design like I plan.

If someone is being interviewed that has went to college even if I\'m better at the design they will pick him.

And they\'ll just teach him how to be better.

I really wish that part was different.

[Ydoow]

Teaching by talking non-stop is perhaps the worst method of doing so. Now, I\'m only 13, but I find I learn more from teachers who talk less, and actually interact with us during the lesson, instead of blaring on like some other teachers.

Tttthiiiiiissssss.

I\'m taking 3 classes this semester, I\'ve stopped going to 2 of them because the professors just talk the entire time with no real interaction.

My other course is MicroBiology and they teach it like a Pre-Med class, where real PhDs come in and lecture on certain material.

It\'s talking non-stop, but there\'s true direction and organization to what they\'re presenting. Plus, there\'s no real other way to efficiently teach what they need to.

I\'m fortunate to find this course very interesting.

It\'s still one heck of a tough course though

[Ydoow]

Here\'s the thing that sucks.

If I try to get a job in graphics design like I plan.

If someone is being interviewed that has went to college even if I\'m better at the design they will pick him.

And they\'ll just teach him how to be better.

I really wish that part was different.

It\'s true.

There\'s two 'Theories' or 'Views' on college. I don\'t think either one is more correct than the other, it\'s just a way of interpreting the purpose of college/university.

The first view is that College, earning a degree, going through 4 (or more) years of school is a method to weed out those who can\'t handle the work, or aren\'t \'bright\' enough to understand it.

It\'s a selection process to eliminate those that would perform poorly in the workforce, leaving only the elite to apply for jobs in specific careers.

The second view is that College is meant to educate the students.

That (most) everyone is capable of performing these trained duties, they just require the proper training and education to be able to perform.

Personally, I really do think it\'s a mixture of both.

However, you and I both know that Highschool is where you learn to BS all your work, and a LOT of that carries into College, especially since so many kids go to College now, even if they don\'t really know why or even if they don\'t want to apply the effort (tons of these kids around campus).

Truly, what I see happening is that a College degree is becoming equivalent to having a highschool diploma ~50-60 years ago, whereas earning a Masters or PhD today is the equivalent of a Bachelors ~50-60 years ago.

The standard has been 'risen', but at the same time everyone has been pushed that standard effectively devaluing having a College Degree.

In a Free Market based Economy there always have to be the Lower, Middle, and Upper class in terms of jobs/careers.

There always have to be people to flip the burgers otherwise the whole system crumbles bottom up.

What\'s going on is rising the standards of everything, all the classes. In the end, it rises the cost of everything because everything is risen to higher standards that the whole system has to meet.

But, of course, if you don\'t rise the standards, the education, social, societal, scientific progress stagnates.

[Misterspork]

The best teachers I\'ve ever had all came fresh out of college too.

Actually, for me I\'ve found the best teachers are usually the oldest ones. I don\'t know why, but it just seems I get better grades and learn the material better with older teachers, and can also talk to them better.

[RedDwarfIV]

I\'d been looking for this for a while.

[bandit4910]

Actually, for me I\'ve found the best teachers are usually the oldest ones. I don\'t know why, but it just seems I get better grades and learn the material better with older teachers, and can also talk to them better.

For me when I had a younger teacher it was just awkward.

She was fresh out of so I have to give her a break.

She wasn\'t good at helping us understand topics, I got my parents to do that.

[bandit4910]

I\'d been looking for this for a while.

Really? So we pronounce your football soccer.

One thing I never got though, Do you call our football soccer?

[Kryten]

It\'s \'American Football\'. And did you really have to quote that image?

[RedDwarfIV]

Really? So we pronounce your football soccer.

One thing I never got though, Do you call our football soccer?

No. We call it \'American Football\'.

I had a supply PE teacher who was from America once. He told us that he had gotten so used to saying football, that when he went back to America he told them to get themselves prepared for a game. They arrived wearing all the armour padding and headgear that American Footballers wear. He had a \'soccer\' ball.

[Rascal Nag]

Teaching is a mess in America because of how it\'s devolved into nothing but lectures and similar things at the lower levels. If you\'re going for a PhD though, lectures I guess would kind of be necessary - there\'s going to be a lot to do and a lot to cover. You just need to be good at soaking at all up.

But I strongly believe that education at the highschool level and lower would be much better if it was more interactive, more applied and more inspirational. Problem is, we\'re not doing anything REALLY interesting at the moment in the world, at least to a kid or teenager, so what can teachers relate the knowledge to? If there\'s nothing to apply it to, the students just ask: 'When will I ever need this?' and then stop caring about the subject. Personally I think that course of action is quite mentally unsound - you acted on a question, not an answer. Why not go get an answer, then decide what to do about the stuff you need to learn? But let\'s go back again: There\'s nothing interesting going on. There\'s nothing out there that drives students to keep learning, and when that question comes up, to find an answer. Too many think that learning is boring and that all this hard work to become a scientist or something is worthless, since it doesn\'t look to them like it makes anything come to fruition, since they haven\'t seen anything happen. And despite this obvious lack of a motivator out there, education has stayed the same. It\'s not because we need the latest technology in the classroom (though it helps) and don\'t have it. It\'s not because all students are dumber now for some reason. It\'s because when the world stopped providing talking points for teachers, they refused to make their own. Educators, at least at the lower levels, must try to say something now and then that makes a student think. Something that gives that whole lesson on, say, Trigonometric identities, a meaning beyond just 'If I don\'t understand it, I\'ll fail the test.' Look at what Tyson does, or what Sagan did or what Cox does. They are perfect examples of what teachers should strive to be like. 3 E\'s and an I: Energetic, Emotional, Engaged, and Inspirational. There is one very good example of this in Cosmos, it\'s even in a classroom setting. Anyone else who watched the series probably knows what I\'m talking about, but here it is anyway:

Carl Sagan returns to his sixth-grade classroom to share Voyager\'s discoveries

That\'s how teaching should be done.

Or, if teachers keep refusing to teach the way they need to in this time, there needs to be an outside source to drive the students. Personally, I think there is no better object to do so than NASA. But that\'s my opinion.

[SpaceBlunt]

There\'s all types of racial and general stereotyping which mostly stems from truth but really their are only 2 types of person, people and sheeple. Id say England and America are on par with the people versus sheeple statistic, the only difference being is the sheer volume of people America has over England and the fact everything is done on a grander scale, including your food and drink. So from an outsider looking blindly in, being lead and only seeing what the media and news wants the outsider to see, you get a loud mouthed, big headed, obnoxious fat idiot who can\'t see past their own boarders... When really the people who can actually think for themselves and are generally not seen from outsiders know this to be very different.....

...another way of putting it is people who stereotype are usually a stereotype themselves, conforming to a set why of thinking which is placed their by someone else and not actually thinking for themselves. Slaves to society

[mockingking]

I\'ve only read the first page, so here\'s my quick and dirty two Cents (€!).

1. Obesity: Even if 'only' 50% of the population are obese by whatever criteria merit the term, the population as a whole will be much fatter than on average, and appear less fat to a native observer - who\'s perception of obesity has been formed around an entirely different average - than to an outside obersver coming from a country where an 'average' american would be seen as moby dick.

2. Idiocy: Around these parts here, americans are generally considered not stupid as such, but a rather delusional bunch, full of incredibly nonsensical ideas and comically exaggerated attitudes - and seen as all the worse for being serious about them. It\'s especially because the smartest and most hard-working of people emigrated westwards back in the day, that we anti-american Europeans think of their modern-day offspring as a such thorough disappointment. In a way, the scientific elite is what we still like about the USA - but the average joe is seen with something in between suspicion and disgust.

[Ydoow]

In a way, the scientific elite is what we still like about the USA - but the average joe is seen with something in between suspicion and disgust.

That\'s pretty much how I feel about America.

And I\'m in America >_>

Not everyone is bad, but some people really do scare me. A lot of the idiots, crazy ideas, over-inflated patriotism, stereotypical americans are very low class people. Rednecks or Trailer-Trash if you understand the references.

I had the...experience...to live with one for a while. Her family was a wreck. Father left at young age, mother is in jail, and she has absolutely no common sense whatsoever. It astounded me.

I absolutely thought no one could be so thoughtless, I felt it was only in movies or the media. But she couldn\'t foresee any repercussions to her decisions.

She asked my mom once (we were providing her housing and guardianship at the time) if she could go next door with 3 guys she barely knew, and we certainly didn\'t know, in their rented room (a 2 family house, divided top and bottom) upstairs with no windows to play X-Box dressed in short-shorts barely longer than her underwear and a tank top.

She honest to God had the purest of thoughts thinking that nothing bad would ever happen or even could happen.

Her geography was atrocious.

Could not name a single country on a globe, thought Canada was a State of the US (Which she thought had 53 states...)

It was astounding.

Completely genuine, capable of thought, but no common sense and lacked some very common knowledge despite having high grades all her life.

It\'s tough to get those types of people out of the gutter. Mainly because they drag themselves back in and don\'t seem to realize it until it\'s too late.

Last I knew she decided to get in on a pregnancy pack with her friends (who are all druggies...), all aged 17 and miscarried.

She wasn\'t under our control at that point. Her father finally returned, which was probably the worst thing to happen to her ironically.

Some Americans fit the stereotype very, very well. I never thought they really existed, but they do in some cases.

Just...don\'t hate us all :l

Help us hate our government for making the smart ones pay for the stupid one\'s to live in comfort while they repeatedly make mistakes, procreate and therefore expand the issue.

Makes me want to support requiring a license for having a baby sometimes >_>

[NovaSilisko]

Help us hate our government for making the smart ones pay for the stupid one\'s to live in comfort while they repeatedly make mistakes, procreate and therefore expand the issue.

Makes me want to support requiring a license for having a baby sometimes >_>

God...so much truth in so few words. Such a shame we fought off natural selection! ;P

[mockingking]

[A sad tale.]

Funnily Unfortunately enough, the same kind of trash/victim people exist over here as well. That one isn\'t even a purely american phenomenon at all.

[4 IN 1]

We are living in a time where dreams are the evil, and almost everyone believe that you can only make a living by becoming a banker, a lawyer or an accountant, and engineering are only for lower class people while science someone who have the brain of genius when in fact it is people in these area that keep the world moving about.

[mincespy]

I\'d been looking for this for a while.

Actually, in german, it\'s not \'fussball\' it\'s \'fußball\'.

The \'ß\' is a sharp \'s\'.

[semininja]

Actually, in german, it\'s not \'fussball\' it\'s \'fußball\'.

The \'ß\' is a sharp \'s\'.

The double-S is actually considered an acceptable substitute for the ß, although the reverse is not necessarily true.

[mockingking]

It amazes me that germans, the most orderly of all western people (not counting the swiss), and certainly one of the most conservative, are the ones to have delieberately destroyed their uniform gramnmar system. I really would not have expected that.