But I wouldn't equate learning with suffering.
Do you?[/quote]
In the case of my younger son and higher mathematics, yes, I would equate it to suffering for all involved. He got his mother's artistic streak and math comprehension.[/quote]
That's a shame. I suppose I was lucky in that area. I helped my children (and sometimes half the neighbourhood it seemed) with mathematics and science subjects.[/quote]
Me too. I am the reason my wife passed high school algebra. My younger son would not accept my help. I know I am not the best of teachers, but even looking over his work was a fight. Moreso when I had to point out it was wrong and needed to be corrected. He would have rather turned it in and received a bad grade than have me show him it was wrong. I was doing beginning algebra in the 5th grade when my teacher noticed I was bored with long division and was looking out the window. When I knew the answer to the question she asked she gave us 10 problems to try for additional experience that night as homework. They were reading problems and challenged me so I enjoyed it. I also got them all correct. That was when the results of my IQ tests were first discussed in the parent teacher conferences following. The school guidance counsellor had assumed there had been a typographical error in the record because the result was so far out of line with the rest of the students but my extra work was used to show her the results were accurate and that I needed advanced placement. We moved to another location before the wheels had turned. The only advanced work I was able to get was admission to college summer semesters starting the summer before my junior year of high school. I had completed my first year of college English before I took senior English in high school. My english teacher was not happy with me because I had done so much more than the class would be doing and I was bored.[/quote]
Sounds like you were bored. Curriculum across the country ... and even across the continent, is the same. It is homogenized. You would have been better off educated outside the public system.
The history of public education .... as an edifice of sorts, an institution, a philosophy, an accepted form of organization .... is just that. Many kids are falling throught the cracks.
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