Today's high school seniors.....ouch.

[ovrszd]

I'm pretty sure I was one of those kids back in HS who didn't comprehend what I was taught and more interested in other things, like having fun, then learning. I cheated in several classes just to get a passing score, so in all reality, I'm probably not as smart as most of them. In the Marine Corps, I learned the lesson of hard work and sticking with something that I started, and doing the best I could at it. I think that lesson, basic math I learned in grade school and what I learned in wood shop are what has allowed me to make a living and provide for myself. My wife is extremely smart, and seeing how quickly she learns new things, processes complex problems and retains what's she's learned just amazes me. I don't consider myself to be stupid or slow, but I also know that there are a lot of people out there a lot smarter then I am. My guess is that those kids are going through the process and absorbing a little here and a little there, but they are still too young and immature to put any of it together yet in order to take advantage of the information they have been given. I was 30 when I first started to think for myself and try to get ahead. Before then, all I cared about was having fun. I see teenagers who are already putting a plan together for their future and I'm amazed at how smart they are. One of the advantages of remodeling homes for a living is I get to meet these people and see them at their homes. Good parenting and setting an example of success, problem solving and achieving goals are what I consider to be the most important thing for a kid to be successful in life. School is more for baby sitting.

Eddie

Eddie, thank you for probably the best contribution to this thread. I now look at you in a different light.

Very few people will admit what you said. The vast majority of people aged the same way you described. :thumbsup:

 

[smstonypoint]

Vox had a recent article on kids' financial literacy -- Kids in the US don't know much about money.

The news isn't good.

Three basic questions are often used to test financial knowledge:

Suppose you had $100 in a savings account and the interest rate was 2% per year. After 5 years, how much do you think you would have in the account if you left the money to grow: more than $102, exactly $102, or less than $102?

Imagine that the interest rate on your savings account was 1% per year and inflation was 2% per year. After 1 year, would you be able to buy more than, exactly the same as, or less than today with the money in this account?

Do you think that the following statement is true or false? "Buying a single company stock usually provides a safer return than a stock mutual fund."

Just 27 percent of young adults in a nationally representative study, the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, answered all three questions correctly.

The scary part.

There is no evidence that the classes actually made students worse at managing money, the group wrote in its report. But it certainly didn't make them any better.

Academic research backs up that conclusion. A 2008 study from two Harvard Business School professors studied the relationship between education and saving and investing behavior. They found state-required financial literacy education had no effect on graduates' saving behavior later in life.

The money spent on financial literacy education, they concluded, produced little in return.

Other research has come to the same conclusion sometimes to the evident frustration of the economists conducting it. "What evidence is there that financial education actually increases financial literacy?" three researchers wrote for the National Bureau of Economic Research in 2012. "The evidence is more limited and not as encouraging as one might expect."

Steve

 

[Green Power]

If theses seniors cant move a decimal, i wonder how they did on the ACT?

 

[rtimgray]

I know several kids in high school that are very bright, and very good at math, and can make practical calculations. I'm sure there are several that can't. I would also bet that there were a large number of folks that are among the generations that are represented in this thread that couldn't or wouldn't have answered the given questions any better than the kids mentioned by the OP.

In all honesty, I have no idea what the ages are of the folks posting on this thread, but I'm going to guess that most of them are out of high school. I would love to be able to rewind this thread and have our elders answer the same questions about our generation. Is it possible that when we were all in high school that the folks that were 20 to 40 years our senior were saying "Wow - those high school kids these days really have it all together! They have books smarts and street smarts and common sense! It's only going to go downhill from here."

I kinda doubt it.

I doubt that there has ever been a generation that has not bemoaned the lack of "common sense" present in the younger generation (of course, I am speaking in generalities, so bear with me). As long as I can remember, I've heard older people complain about various attributes of the younger generation. I don't expect that to change anytime soon.

I think, as a previous poster mentioned, Eddie Walker may have offered the most honest and observant view of the short-sightedness of youth, and that viewpoint is certainly refreshing. I don't know if I was more or less serious about my future at the time than Eddie was - but I'm pretty sure I was closer to his perspective than being a genius.

I think a lot of this is along the same line that so far, pretty much every generation has thought that they were living in the "end times", and so far they've all been wrong.

Sooner or later, though, somebody is gonna be right.

Good luck and take care.

 

[check]

Actually, I think that today's high school curriculum is ridiculously difficult, at least here in Ontario. The grade 12 math course for university, which is called Advanced Functions, has a ridiculous amount of esoteric high-level math, such as solving sinusoidal equations, that it just uses up kids' time unproductively, with the accompanying stress that makes high school miserable for them. On top of that, very few teachers themselves are able to teach this kind of stuff in a knowledgeable and meaningful way.

In chemistry and physics, again there is a ridiculous amount of stuff that they will never use in life, which should be taught at University. Have you ever picked up a grade 12 chemistry textbook and had a look at it? I would venture to say that maybe one in 100 people who are reading this now could understand one 10th of it. And heaven forbid if the child chooses to take AP chemistry or physics or math, or any AP course, for that matter! More and more work, more and more study, more and more stress, to the point where in my daughter's school they told me the universities were telling them to cut back on the amount of stuff taught in AP chemistry, (which she took). And the teachers cannot seem to handle the AP stuff!

Even Biology has gotten out of hand, and in Ontario we blame some of this on a Provincial Premier who sometime ago decided to up the ante with respect to high school curriculum, in response to the fact that the students were not doing so well. On top of that, students used to go to grade 9, grade 10, grade 11, grade 12, AND grade 13 here in Ontario, but a while ago they trashed all that. And now they jam the same curriculum into just four years, because there are only 12 grades now. So, especially in grade 12, they do nothing but study and study and stress out if they want to have the higher and higher grades needed now for various University and professional programs.

What we need is to pare down the curriculum, and leave more for post-secondary institutions to handle, because they will cover it all again anyway. Look up the literature on high school stress, and you will see that it is through the roof, which would also explain why the dropout rates are getting so high.

Enough ranting for now.

 

[PILOON]

There has to be more than one factor.

Have 2 granddaughters, both starting university, parents work, their mortgage paid off also paid off a cottage.
Both girls are great students, darn close to straight A types.
Parents make sure that they contribute towards education costs so that they know the value of the $ and as grandparents we praise them for their parenting skills.
Both girls have part time jobs.

One is so frugal that I think she has actually started her retirement plan, LOL
She has taken 2 trips abroad and has a healthy bank statement.
She is close to being a neat freak.
She works part time in a book store but also was selected to summer work in a major corporation where her mom works.
She opted to hold down both jobs!
One for the experience the other for the $$s.

The other, well let's say there is a bit to desire.
Money is like s--t thru a goose, nada in bank, can't see the floor for the mess in her room.
Just plain scarey as you keep wondering what she will do next.
Quite opposite to her sister in so many ways.

Should add that both attended same public schools, virtually same teachers classes etc.
Both have won bursaries and awards.

All to say there seems to be an X factor that enters the equation as well.

 

[paulharvey]

Actually, I think that today's high school curriculum is ridiculously difficult, at least here in Ontario. The grade 12 math course for university, which is called Advanced Functions, has a ridiculous amount of esoteric high-level math, such as solving sinusoidal equations, that it just uses up kids' time unproductively, with the accompanying stress that makes high school miserable for them. On top of that, very few teachers themselves are able to teach this kind of stuff in a knowledgeable and meaningful way.

In chemistry and physics, again there is a ridiculous amount of stuff that they will never use in life, which should be taught at University. Have you ever picked up a grade 12 chemistry textbook and had a look at it? I would venture to say that maybe one in 100 people who are reading this now could understand one 10th of it. And heaven forbid if the child chooses to take AP chemistry or physics or math, or any AP course, for that matter! More and more work, more and more study, more and more stress, to the point where in my daughter's school they told me the universities were telling them to cut back on the amount of stuff taught in AP chemistry, (which she took). And the teachers cannot seem to handle the AP stuff!

Even Biology has gotten out of hand, and in Ontario we blame some of this on a Provincial Premier who sometime ago decided to up the ante with respect to high school curriculum, in response to the fact that the students were not doing so well. On top of that, students used to go to grade 9, grade 10, grade 11, grade 12, AND grade 13 here in Ontario, but a while ago they trashed all that. And now they jam the same curriculum into just four years, because there are only 12 grades now. So, especially in grade 12, they do nothing but study and study and stress out if they want to have the higher and higher grades needed now for various University and professional programs.

What we need is to pare down the curriculum, and leave more for post-secondary institutions to handle, because they will cover it all again anyway. Look up the literature on high school stress, and you will see that it is through the roof, which would also explain why the dropout rates are getting so high.

Enough ranting for now.

I agree, most of us use about 8th grade math, writing, etc in our daily life. It's just that so many people never master those basic levels. Now, how many 30+ year old men can't change their oil, or put a spare tire on.

The general level of ability for many Americans suck, at math, basic handy skills, physical ability, ect.

I bet if we all where in 8th grade almost everyone of us would get a D in at least one class

 

[NorTracNY]

Actually, I think that today's high school curriculum is ridiculously difficult, at least here in Ontario. The grade 12 math course for university, which is called Advanced Functions, has a ridiculous amount of esoteric high-level math, such as solving sinusoidal equations, that it just uses up kids' time unproductively, with the accompanying stress that makes high school miserable for them. On top of that, very few teachers themselves are able to teach this kind of stuff in a knowledgeable and meaningful way.

In chemistry and physics, again there is a ridiculous amount of stuff that they will never use in life, which should be taught at University. Have you ever picked up a grade 12 chemistry textbook and had a look at it? I would venture to say that maybe one in 100 people who are reading this now could understand one 10th of it. And heaven forbid if the child chooses to take AP chemistry or physics or math, or any AP course, for that matter! More and more work, more and more study, more and more stress, to the point where in my daughter's school they told me the universities were telling them to cut back on the amount of stuff taught in AP chemistry, (which she took). And the teachers cannot seem to handle the AP stuff!

Even Biology has gotten out of hand, and in Ontario we blame some of this on a Provincial Premier who sometime ago decided to up the ante with respect to high school curriculum, in response to the fact that the students were not doing so well. On top of that, students used to go to grade 9, grade 10, grade 11, grade 12, AND grade 13 here in Ontario, but a while ago they trashed all that. And now they jam the same curriculum into just four years, because there are only 12 grades now. So, especially in grade 12, they do nothing but study and study and stress out if they want to have the higher and higher grades needed now for various University and professional programs.

What we need is to pare down the curriculum, and leave more for post-secondary institutions to handle, because they will cover it all again anyway. Look up the literature on high school stress, and you will see that it is through the roof, which would also explain why the dropout rates are getting so high.

Enough ranting for now.

Wow! I've never heard this. I understand that most people have forgotten much of what they were taught in HS subjects that they don't use regularly, but I believe that I could easily get up to speed on any HS class in a matter of a few days if needed. College courses might take a little more refresh. I can't think of anything I learned in HS biology, chemistry, or physics that the principles taught are not good useful knowledge to have. I say this especially for physics.

 

[MH8675309]

A mind is a terrible thing to waste

 

[Egon]

I doubt that there has ever been a generation that has not bemoaned the lack of "common sense" present in the younger generation (of course, I am speaking in generalities, so bear with me). As long as I can remember, I've heard older people complain about various attributes of the younger generation. I don't expect that to change anytime soon.

Seems there is some fellow from way back in history that said the same thing!


There are times I feel that the Education System should split between University Prepared to Technical Prepared at an earlier stage??