I've grown up probably as much as she has over the last 12 years. We've taught each other a lot about patience and resilience. I got to experience high school as a 40-something, through her studies. And I might have picked up a thing or two. Here's a little of what I've experienced over the past few years:
English - Classic literature is wasted on youth! Remember how boring and irrelevant The Crucible seemed? Not anymore! Adultery is alive and well in my town, so these stories don't seem so far-fetched to me anymore. Canterbury Tales? Hilarious! And comforting to know that mankind was just as greedy and lustful in the Middle Ages. I could go on and on. Of course, Middle Child just gives me a blank stare when I try to explain why these books/plays are so interesting. A blank stare or a yawn.
Algebra/Geometry/Trig - Fortunately for me, these subjects seem to have gotten easier in the past three decades. Or maybe it's just the relief of having a subject where there is only one right answer and you either know how to find it or you don't. No studying for hours, hoping that random facts sink into her brain. I like math now more than ever!
US History - Nothing has changed here, folks. They still spend too much time on the Revolutionary and Civil Wars. The end of April rolls around and they are just getting to World War II. Another generation of kids who will not understand what the Korean and Vietnam wars were all about. Not to mention Watergate, Desert Storm, Contras and everything that has happened during our own lifetimes. They really need to speed things up here.
Biology - Again, no noticeable change. I still can't tell a liver from a kidney in a dissected animal, girls still scream during labs, boys still pull evil pranks with dead animals and the classrooms still stink of formaldehyde.
Foreign Languages - I think there is something to that whole Learning-A-Foreign Language-Is-Easier-As-A-Child business. I had no problem with French in middle/high school/college. Now, I can't remember a single German vocabulary word from one day to the next. By German II, I gave up helping her study and told her she was on her own. Fortunately, my son was at the same level in the subject and was able to fill in for me when she had trouble with conjugations, etc.
Phys. Ed. - Vast improvement! No longer are you forced to wear a ridiculous gym suit. Your choice of shorts and t-shirt are accepted. Also, there are options. You can do the traditional PE or you can take racquet sports, weight training or body toning. At least there may be something that may prove useful in life, rather than chasing your classmates in order to pull off strips of plastic from their waists during flag football.
Home Ec. - It's gone! None of my kids will ever learn how to piece together material, thread a sewing machine or make baked alaska. I find that somewhat sad. They certainly won't be learning any of that from me!
Typing - Another dinosaur of my youth. I think by the time kids are in first grade, they are expected to know how to use a keyboard. Or at least text 40 wpm (that's 'words per minute' for you youngsters who never took a typing class and were deafened by the sounds of 40 bells and carriages moving at demanding speeds during timed tests).
Ah, high school. I shall miss you once again.
Amazing how much things have changed since we were in school, I remember typing on an old manual typewriter and can just imagine the look on a kids face today if you sat them in front of one.
ReplyDeleteI always enjoyed helping the kids with their studies because more times than not I have to admit I either learned something new or got myself refreshed on something I had missed.
God bless you for your tutor-hood. . .
ReplyDeleteI've been doing math tutoring for my kids for over a decade now. This year, I'm finally getting my second shot at freshman calculus, which is kinda fun (I still remember most of the 'tricks'). And also reinforcing the thought in the back of my head that I could retire into teaching math at the jr. college. . .
I so get you on the classic lit. Since I left college, I've finally read some of the old classics (you know, older than Vonnegut and 'Catcher in the Rye'), and I've come to the firm conviction that books do not acquire a reputation as a 'classic' by being dry or hard-to-read. . . and more's the pity that I got thru high school and five-plus years of college reading so few of them. . .
And I'll probably serve some time in Purgatory for a couple of the pranks on the squeamish girls in biology class. . . ;)
Jimmy - Remember correction ribbon? I do learn something new, at least once/week.
ReplyDeleteCraig - I will see what next year brings for college math, but I have a feeling it won't be Calculus. I was an honors english student, so we read books like 'The Scarlet Letter' (good!) and 'Moby Dick' (not so good!). We missed out on 'To Kill A Mockingbird,' but I got to read that with her last year. Very good!
You can have the math, thank you; I still tell everyone, that I don't "do math". Programming & engineering, that's not math, that's formulas so I can do them, but not math :)
ReplyDeleteLit, I hear ya- but thankfully, I never did stop reading a lot of the classics, when I could get them (read: Afford to buy them; thank god for free e-books!). Just re-reading Anna Karenina, actually, and the Odyssey is still a favorite :)
Good luck in the next steps too, to both of you
I was required to take Home Ex (but in 8th grade, not high school), but refused typing thinking I'd never have a job that required it. I do remember, though, enjoying both lit and biology and not enjoying math.
ReplyDeleteno home ec makes me sad. I did learn to cook(sort of) and sew even though I don't do either very often.
ReplyDeletealso I have discovered I no longer know my times tables--how the hell do you forget something like that?
Truth to tell, in HS, we actually did read some pretty 'classic' books - 'The Scarlet Letter', for sure; and 'Huckleberry Finn', which for my money is the greatest American novel of all time. I know we read some Dickens somewhere along the road, and some Jack London, and some Steinbeck, and some Hemingway, and probably a Tolstoy short story or two (but not his novels; that would've taken all year); and Kafka - that dude was strange!
ReplyDeleteBut looking back, I'm pretty appalled at what passed for freshman lit at my university, at least while I was there. . . Vonnegut and 'Catcher in the Rye' was about as 'classic' as it got. . .
Sailor - Is the quadratic formula not math? And thanks for your kind wishes about the future :)
ReplyDeleteAgent - We were required to take typing in 9th grade. One quarter of Home Ec, the boys & girls switched and we had to go to metal shop. I was afraid of the torches!
JK - I think calculators have killed some of my basic math skills too.
Craig - My 2nd semester of college, I had an honors english prof who made us read classic russian literature and then write a massive thesis-driven paper combining three works. I read two of them, but skimmed 'The Gulag Archipelago' and managed to get a B+ on my paper! Years later, my mother-in-law was complaining about a professor she had had in her master's program and it turned out to be the same dude. We bonded!
ReplyDeleteMemories, memories. Our oldest has a learning disability and all of this reminds me of all the years I've spent tutoring her through.
ReplyDeleteIn 1st grade the consensus was that she'd never be more than a C student. She took that as an insult and never let me forget it, fighting every inch of the way through graduation. Fighting me, fighting Mom, and fighting teachers to the honor roll.
Dammit, now you made me cry!! Cocotte woulda never done that to me .... :-)
I think that my graduating class may have been one of the last few to enjoy a manual typewriter class in high school. I remember buying a small "high-tech" typewriter to take to college classes -- it had a correction ribbon BUILT IN!!! Now, *that* is technology! :)
ReplyDeleteXavier - My daughter could write a book about overcoming limitations and surpassing expectations. I'd have to be her editor though!
ReplyDeleteFlutter - I think my husband bought a similar typewriter for grad school. We finally threw it away a few years ago.
I was, honestly, out of high school before I learned boo about the Vietnam War. I remember a thinking "Wha?! I was alive during that?!" when it finally learned of it (from television, btw, and not school)!
ReplyDeleteAlso, my oldest, an 8th grader, is sewing right now in his Family and Consumer Science class right now (a pillow he'll likely never use). The other day I asked him what he had worked on that afternoon in Home Ec, and he had no clue what I was talking about...which is much the same as when I question my 3rd grader about typing that day, and he responds "Mom, duh, it's KEYBOARDING!"
FADKOG - Ok, well I'm glad it's not just me with the whole missing history lessons from 1950 onward. I did have a Social Studies teacher in 8th grade who went to Kent State, so he made sure we knew about Vietnam. Due to financial problems, our school has entirely cut out any sort of family and consumer science. It's sad that practical classes like that aren't offered anymore,esp. since it's not like Americans are good with budgeting!
ReplyDeleteAh, but did he tell you about Kent State?
ReplyDeleteSee, that was the freaky part for me, was the time I happened to be on the campus at Kent State, and it all came home - 'holy shit - that stuff happened here'. . .
i think i agree with most of your observations here...except the ones regarding math. lord have mercy. i could nto help any of my children with that once they hit algebra.
ReplyDeleteInteresting .... my History teachers always did the recent and current events junky crap so I knew all about them other 'tiny' wars as one teach called 'em. he was the teach who later got hired in as a co-worker.
ReplyDeleteYeah, that was weird. Speshully when I had to do some of his new-hire orientation! "Um, see Mr McGregor first you ..." "STOP calling me Mr McGregor!! It's Jack!". Can you say awkward?