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this post was submitted on 04 Apr 2024
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British expat in the US here. I work in marketing for a tech company.
I was astonished that when someone suggested a rhyming couplet on one of our ads a) no one knew what a couplet was, and b) no one even understood the basic concept of meter.
Both those things are definitely covered in high school.
Whenever I see one of those "what would you tell your younger self / a younger generation to do" — definitely "pay attention to all your classes, it all becomes useful one day"
Yes even algebra. Yes even reading Of Mice and Men
Full agreement. As a kid I didn’t really understand that the goal was to make me a well rounded adult with a wide variety of knowledge to pull upon if needed.
And also more than any other classes math and English are about teaching you different ways to think. Algebra is applied logic and I use it on a regular basis, sure not on a whiteboard that often (though I do that too) but in my budget, in taxes, in how I approach problems
What is a couplet?
Pretty sure it's Juliet's last name in Romeo and Juliet.
No, that's Capulet.
I think a couplet is something nice you say about another person.
No, that's a compliment.
You're thinking of soft fabric you put down over hard flooring. 🤣
Ah yes, a rug
It really ties the room together.
No that's a carpet. You're thinking of a griddle bread that's commonly served with tea in the UK.
No, that's a crumpet. You're thinking of enumerating things
Which reminds me, how is your mother doing lately?
Two lines that rhyme
Or as DMX said
You're putting a lot of the onus on the student, when often times it's the state. I went to a high school that should have had 2000 students but actually had 3000. So crowded we all abandoned going to lockers between class in order to make it on time, and just carried full backpacks all day. Most classes had too many students for the teachers to really help actually teaching at.
That last statement came from one of my teachers, so happy she had one of the few classes with around 20 students instead of 30 plus. It was a world history class, and still the one I recall the most, more than 20 years later. She had the option to work directly with us on stuff we didn't understand, and had more interactive classes (like having students with specific relations to civil rights type stuff discuss their experiences in front of the class).
When you're an exhausted kid being taught by an exhausted teacher who can't even check up if you're falling behind, you don't retain much.
Easier said than done. It’s nearly impossible to keep focus on something for 5 hours straight, even if you care about it. Expecting young people to remember all the stuff that’s being forcibly taught to them and will definitely be useless for the huge majority of their life is ridiculous.
For anyone who doesn’t work in very specific fields, remembering what a couplet is has the same usefulness as a random trivia. At that point it would be more useful to tell students to go on a wikipedia rabbit hole of their choice for an hour, at least if they chose it themselves there’s a higher chance they’re interested and it’ll stick to them.
Also echoing what the other commenter said, the fact that there’s a single stressed person on a schedule trying to teach the same thing simultaneously to 30 different people with 30 different needs definitely does NOT help.
Why are you using the word expat and not immigrant in the US?
a) because for this context where I'm from adds more context than where I went to
b) because immigrant in the US connotates South American heritage usually