Replying to Wuvwand #loveland Bc me and my girlfriend are taking a much shorter, much more condensed Canada trip in August lol
Quebec is so close to Kingston you should try to talk your gf into how you have to meet your internet cult leader irl
general
Wednesday, July 10, 2024
I think learning Spanish past like, an elementary level is kinda weird
unless you want to go into business in Mexico/S.America
I'm just glad English became the worlds default 2nd language, you can reliably find someone able to understand you nearly anywhere
yeah
at least for travel, a light brush with the local language + Google Translate can get you by
(Indians speak a lot of English FYI)
because of the British
Hindi, Bengali, and Urdu are the big 3 local languages
Just go to places that have ENG as a 2nd+ language
but like, English it HEAVILY used
that's probably acurate
I think it's Chinese -> Spanish -> English for 1st language
and then it's English for total
depends also if you count all the dialects, like India, Africa, Philipines, etc.
which are english+local
Even Russia, one of the last places you'd expect it, ~1/5 people speak English at a passible level
and that's one of the lowest globally
Replying to Spooky Phijkchu #spooky.131 I'm just glad English became the worlds default 2nd language, you can reliably find someone able to understand you nearly anywhere
yeah but this sucks because this a big reason why our language learning curriculum is so awful in the states. that and education as a whole is awful here
I think the education system is very good overall, and am glad we don't dedicate significant time to learning foreign languages
it's inconsistant across the country, and I think it is underrated how important that is, but most curriculums biggest shortcomings is the innability to weed people out
I think language is the least concerning part of your (and our) education system
the slipping math conpetency is more concerning for me
so districts with extremely low-participation get fucked over because a huge portion of their student body drag their peers down
and while some states fix this with charter, feeder, or technical schools, states that don't care don't bother
you can't fail school at any point K-12
what do you do in a system where the kid isn't showing up or meaningfully participating, and their parents don't care
previously, you fail/expell them, now because you can't though
you end up in this weird resource drain, spent forcing students to irregularly attend class and disrupt and drag down the experience of everyone else
to a lesser extent, districts where parents take no participation in the school system, also drag down learning opprotunity
esp for younger grades
In Ontario, the've been "destreaming" grade 9 and 10 so instead of having applied and academic courses to seperate higher achievers, they are all in the same class
Class of 30 kids, where the teachers time is spent 20-30% dealing with that bullshit
them showing up, being disruptive, having to dicipline them, having to get the class back on topic
K-6, most of the cirriculum is not lecture based, it's hands-on
thinking 7-12, the overall expectations for the class become lower and lower, as people around you are just not trying or not participating
Efficient schooling should be the goal, and for the most part it should skew towards developing the top 10% as a priority
but if you can only field enough teachers/facilities for 2 groups
mix the general populace together, and just weed out the bad eggs
and not as like a punishment, but it's a waste of state resources to do this song and dance for no reason
if education benefits from being a state function (which I think it does) don't lose sight of the actual goals
I mean, they're basically independent as it is
some states are lazy and fall back to using Dept. of Education curriculum because it's "free" and easy
it's a catch 22, states that have enough resources to care and segregate, end up trying for the bottom 20% anyway, so they get the tax dollars
states that are too poor to care, didn't have the resources to segregate, so they get the tax dollars because the standards are so low
difference is the well-funded states/districts also produce actual educated kids as well
versus the poor ones that just don't
I think the write-off is ~10% of kids in most districts, higher in really shitty areas, maybe 20-30% there
it's not struggling, it's non-participation
well, there's also special needs, which is its own whole other thing
but in general, anyone who wants to try should be in the general ed level classes, K-12
even if they're getting a 20% on every graded assignment
I think most states K-6, have two measures of grades, achievement and effort
as long as you're getting satisfactory effort marks, you're obeying the teacher, you're participating, etc.
you should be getting an education
I care about education (as might come accross in my autistic sperging lol)
and I think we're pretty good at it, most of the time
but the whole underfundedness and lack of ability to give top performers the correct support is the biggest shortcoming
I think most people recieve a pretty damn good education though, if they participate