Education systems

[Amethyst]

I'm copying all of this from the Ranting Topic into its own thread to avoid cluttering that place.

I am extremely sorry for any people who are still in school - I acknowledge many of you are, and I know there are people who aren't like this.

But I'm fucking pissed.

I want to become an English teacher, because I like to write - and I thought I could share my skills and maybe get nice inspiration from students. When the school found out, they gave me an offer; help out in the English department, get more money. (We get paid for staying in school in 5th and 6th year. They aren't required, you can leave at 4th.) So, naturally, I accepted. I expected it to be okay - I was only helping. But I soon found out the HELL teachers go through, and honestly pity them. I understand there are foolish teachers, but I'm talking about the good ones. There's always at least one. But honestly, they have fucking strength. They get up every day, to be:

• Ignored
• YELLED AT
• Given cheek by their students
• Trying to teach them crucial things, with those jackass fools just thinking they're perfect, superior, they can ignore this class and be alright, skive, they don't revise for tests.
• Given those half-baked, and quite frankly, idiotic excuses for not completing simple tasks, or not doing homework. This is going to get me a bit of hate, but I've always been annoyed at the people who use 'I thought it was for _____' as their excuse. No, you fucking didn't think it was for next week, because the right date is in your diary/on your fucking sheet. These stupid fucking idiotic excuses for students just.. make me scream.

I was given a timetable for the day. And one period, I walked in. The teacher JUMPED out her seat, ran to give me papers, and I swear to god she mouthed 'Good luck'.

Naturally, her class was hell. Fucking interruptions. STUPID questions about what was just gone over - 'Where do I place the apostrophe? At the start?'

"OH I DON'T FUCKING KNOW. Use your obviously superior intellect - and your amazing ears, able to hear through those quite obvious earphones! I must say, you must be proud of yourself. You have the best ears on the planet!"

This'll make me get a small(code for large) bit of hate, but honestly, that's the honest truth. I can see why some teachers are like what they are like. I know myself that you can get distracted. It's easy. We're humans, that happens. But can you please just fucking apply yourself, or have the guts to say;

"I'm sorry sir/miss, I got distracted because of ___ and I'm very sorry. I'll bring it in tomorrow." I'm sorry if you're in school, or have to deal with these. I still do. But, I needed that off my chest.

(on another note, 1000th reply! Woo.)

My dad takes no shit from his students. If they give him any smack, he flunks them. Of course he cant really kick them out because it's college, but he knows that the grade is mightier than the boot.

Hell now that I think about it, I think he'd rather keep failing students in his class and prevent them from leaving and confuse them by pushing assignment after assignment on them and make them panic when finals come.

Relevant to this, I have a question of curiosity for any of our European users (I'm assuming Alatreon is from America? I can't remember atm, and if not this is going to be awkward)- and particularly anyone from the Scandinavian countries because I've heard no small amount of praise for that area's educational and social systems:

Is the scenario described above familiar to you?

As an American, I know it all too well but my first inclination is to blame it on our educational system. I can't speak for other states, but I've grown up with my mother as a teacher, and later working as a tutor for high school students- I've consistently seen both sides of the local educational system and to sum it up in a word, nobody involved likes the state of things here- teachers and students are both unhappy. Yet, I know that there are twisted values at the root of our educational structure that essentially corrupt it (its all about good scores on tests to get funding).

But I will with some shame admit that I know little of the European educational system (aside from tumblr infographics that make me want to move to various northern-European countries) or the forces that motivate it-

Is it as cankerous there?

@Shiri, teachers master specific skills to orient to certain classes. You will learn later on that you will have good classes and bad ones, like life. The only way you can change the class is if you yourself try to change it. Tolerance, Flexibility, Fairness. Let them hang on enough rope as they want but when it comes to crunch time, you tighten the grip. Course, this is your own path to being a teacher, so I wish you good tidings on your journey to becoming a English Teacher!

As for the supposed corrupt school, it's not our fault. Everyone always blames that it's the student's disobedience; It's not. It's the teachers.

A bad teacher is what you saw Shiri. She's spineless, won't take the class in charge, won't show her dominance towards her classmates, and won't be fair about it. Two years ago I had a math teacher who was amazing. I got an A in his class but I was in a room surrounded by lesser-standard peers. (Or we can just call them retards, idiots, bakas. ><) My math teacher was so fed up he yelled in the whole class that other rooms could hear it. He specifically yelled at one student that if he didn't like the class he could get the hell out. I heard him yell a few times before that but I just felt some sort of envy that he just exploded on a student like that. Years end he was naturally more nicer, he even played a few Beach Boys albums during some tests we were doing.

Of course, yelling doesn't always equal results. It is okay to show once or twice that you are the teacher of the classroom and your main goal of your class is to help your students pass your course and succeed in life. Dominance isn't a problem every so often to keep everyone in check. If you abuse that power, students will exploit it. A had another teacher that got fired last year for a threatening comment she retorted towards another student saying that "her husband was in the mafia". Albeit it was very funny when we heard it, but that's an example of someone who cracks under the pressure. You can't let your guard down at any moment or else you'll end up making a fool out of yourself.

You gotta find that middle ground. Know your students and what you are dealing with. Let them hang onto as much support as they can, while being your own fair lenient style. That way, i'm sure you'll be an amazing teacher one day Shiri. ^^

[Funny that i'm a Sophomore and I am giving information to a near adult. Sorry if it seems a bit too unrealistic that i'm giving you tips on this subject.]

Don't listen to Cowtao. It's the students. And if there's any corruption at schools, its at colleges and universities where people with fancy named positions get the big bucks and the people who do the work don't, and then there's the college sports bullshit.

For the last couple posts, regardless of whose 'fault' it is- perhaps both students' and the teachers', as it does take two to tango- I feel like yelling is always an ineffective solution. It seems primitive, and I would very much hope that a teacher wouldn't feel it necessary to resort to that.

If the teacher, an adult, cannot respect their students enough to speak kindly to them, why should the students respect the teacher?

[Color]

Honestly it could go either way.

Sometimes it is the teacher, sometimes it is the students.

I know from personal experience that my teachers were not good ones.

Our teachers were either horrible when it came to communicating with us, or spoke down at us like we were like dirt.

That made me rebel.

I think if the teacher and student have a mutual relationship between each other then you will have a stable class.

Communication and knowing how both the teacher and the student feels are important.

It may sound sappy, but trust me it works.

[Sapphire]

Oh? When you say 'reform', how so, and why does the teacher's union dislike that?

I can only speak for the UK mind you. The unions dislike it because in the UK teachers [high school and downwards only] get a very easy time of it. They get a tiny workload, good pay, short hours, and long holidays. The quality of teaching is pretty poor, and those teachers that actually want to do their jobs properly aren't really able to do so. The Unions want the gravy train to keep on going, so any attempt by the government to actually make teachers do their jobs and teach is shut down. With the current anti-union feeling though, this all seems to be changing, as the current government seems to be trying to pull a Thatcher [the total destruction of any union that tries to interfere in politics].

[Dark Desire]

i feel really bad for the teachers i've had so far in like most of my classes, they just get abused so much by the class and some of them don't even speak up for themselfs

[Nico Nico Nii~]

If a teacher can get along with the majority if not all the students, then classes would be so easier, but unfortunately there are those asses of students that just wanna piss off their teachers. Why they want to do this is beyond my understanding. What I fucking hate the most is when they get caught doing something they shouldn't (aka phones out during class) they just quickly try to cover it up and if the teacher actually takes it than just a "put it away, this is your last warning blah blah" then the student acts as if the teacher hates him/her. Sometimes I just wanna smack the students who do this, maybe I just don't understand the whole phone thing since my phone is, compared with pretty much everyone else's phone, shit. This is also why I kinda don't want those kinds of phones, they might do the same to me, but since I'm pretty much antisocial irl I'd like to think I wouldn't become like them.

I have had teachers who actually are very strict, so no bullshit gets pass them, but at the same time class is dull and like a prison (aka my 7th grade language arts class). Actually right now I have two teachers who do yell, but just to make things clear but without the rage. One is my Studio Arts teacher who is known for being "crazy", I see why they think that and I agree, but I love that class, not only for drawing but the teacher is a pretty cool guy, when he's not angry (which only happened for like 1 day). The other is my stats teacher but even though its a boring subject most of the time he makes things fun or at least attempts to while we actually learn about stats.

All in all I personally feel as if the students are more to blame, but some fault can be blamed to the teachers.

[Code: PIRULUK]

Ultimately it boils down to forming an agreement of mutual trust between teacher and student. The student must accept that he/she needs to respect and pay attention to the teacher, while the teacher must learn to let go of perfection as a goal.

One key issue is that the current generation of students is extremely self-centered. We are brought up with the impression that each of us is a special sunflower due to the influence of Baby Boomer parents who want their child to live a good life and the pervasiveness of the internet. As a result, all of us consider ourselves intelligent; resourceful; talented, and we believe it is therefore okay to not pay attention to the teachers, when this is completely untrue.

[Gold]

Sincerely i find both sides guilty, ignorant students who doesnt take the teachers seriously, even though they are there to help them, and the teachers who dont care for the students, like, the best teachers i had were friends to me, and i didnt even like their subjects at the time, but for being friends with em i managed to score A+ in all tests :v so ithink there should be a ying yang in school, balance between students and teachers relationship

[EggtasticTaco]

I, being a student myself, think this is mostly the fault of the students (in America, at least). I don't have any teachers that I dislike, or at least not this year, but I see some people go absolutely ballistic over the smallest things.

Some teachers are just bad teachers because they don't know what the hell they're doing, and some are bad because they act unprofessionally, but when students take this as a personal insult and decide to make their teacher more stressed than they already are (my school recently switched to 7-period days rather than 6), it just adds fuel to the ever-burning fire.

Some of the things I've seen in my school are as follows:

• A student flipped a table and assaulted a teacher for getting a 50% on an assignment he turned in a week late*
• A teacher failed a student because she denied his obvious sexual advances made in the middle of a lecture (he got fired)*
• A student broke down crying because she was late to a class. She had never been late to a class before. Ever*
• A student groped a teacher and threatened to rape her. He was expelled, she quit*
• A teacher actually did rape someone on school grounds during prom last year and got off with nothing ("lack of evidence" also he was rich and a friend of the superintendent)
• A teacher punched a student in the face because the student made a joke about his recently-deceased wife

The stars mean it happened at my old school, which was a private school for genius-types. I got expelled because of my behavior (general hating on everyone student and teacher alike), and for bringing a "weapon" into school (pepper spray, because I walked home and had to go through a bad neighborhood. I actually needed it once). The others are at my current school.

I've actually done a student teacher-type thing before, subbing for a teacher in another district because I had perfect grades in that particular class when I went to private school (it was English class), so I've seen both ends of the spectrum. I'd honestly prefer being a teacher, because students are just as bad to other students.

[Requieon]

Sincerely i find both sides guilty, ignorant students who doesnt take the teachers seriously, even though they are there to help them, and the teachers who dont care for the students, like, the best teachers i had were friends to me, and i didnt even like their subjects at the time, but for being friends with em i managed to score A+ in all tests :v so ithink there should be a ying yang in school, balance between students and teachers relationship

This is pretty much it, a good teacher and willing student together will get to do what both came for.But, a bad student will make the teacher feel like dying (or killing), and a bad teacher will make a class feel like the source of all boredom. Both have to be working together.

• A teacher punched a student in the face because the student made a joke about his recently-deceased wife

I am SO on the teacher's side with that one.

[The Radiant Aeon]

Honestly, there are a lot of people out there. That means A LOT of shitheads roaming the wild savanna we call Earth. Some students like to complain about every fucking thing. (i.e. This girl who sits behind me in French, who says it is stupid and hard yet all she does is go on Twitter.) and some teachers just love to yell, and ramble, and scream at students for minuscule mistakes, like use of grammer, when the student is IN 2ND GRADE. As Requieon stated, both teacher and student must work together to achieve a working mutualism. Otherwise, they are parasitic to each other, and nothing good will come out of it. Though I am annoyed by students more because of their attitude they give to their teachers. YOU GUYS ARE NOT THE EXPERIENCED ONES. YOU ARE LEARNING TO BECOME ONE. I tend to forget assignments, but I take full responsibility because, well, it is my own damn fault for being clumsy and forgetful.

[Skullkin]

My German 1 teacher was terrible. During the first week of class, she had us do a project on a famous German person that involved an essay. I did the project, hand-drew the required picture of the person I was assigned, fact-checked everything--the works.

When I got it back, I had gotten a 2/10 on my project, with what I had done wrong written at the end of the assignment--in German.

Naturally, since I had no clue what the heck I did wrong, I went up to her and asked, and she responded with, "You didn't write your essay in German."

WTF?! Not only had she never specified what language to write in, but this was literally the first week of the class; I didn't know any German yet!

That wasn't the first incident either--she would give us a test over our massive list of vocabulary the day after she gave it to us, never gave us enough time to learn anything before moving on to tougher work material, forgot what she had assigned us for homework, sometimes assigned us homework that she had intended to give her German 3 class, and when we asked her questions, her answers were never helpful.

The only kid who managed to pass the class with flying colors was this girl who was already fluent in English, and even she admitted that the teacher sucked. (And I want to add, everyone in the class worked their asses off just to be sub-par.)

I joined the class wanting to learn German because I loved the language--now I hate it.

I will agree though...most of the time, it's the students' fault for being a bunch of twitter-texting douchewaffles. The only year that I felt that student behavior improved was my Senior year of highschool--and even then, we still had all the underclassmen being underclassmen. I remember back in my freshman year, my biology class was so rude and so mean to this substitute teacher that she actually left the classroom to go down to the teachers' restroom to cry. It was brutal.

Stupid kids making random sex-noises while the teacher was trying to teach. -___- ughhh...I would never make it as a teacher.

Edited October 30, 2013 by Skullkin

[Cowtao]

Point is. There is fault on both sides. Whatever has been said on both can be rebutted back.

Like...What happens if the students are rude to the teacher? Does that mean that the Teacher is supposed to tolerate harassment and resist the urge to keep his classroom in check? Like they are supposed to be insulted on a daily basis?

What if the Teacher did a wrong on their own impulse? Does it make it right for the student to fight back? Will they be trialed unfairly because of how a higher authority can feel they can get away with certain things?

After thinking on this topic for a bit, I have re-evaluated my conclusion. The conclusion; There is no winner of what causes the worst in Education Systems, because both hate each other. At the same time, however, they need each other and they need to find a way to work through school. Provided that both sides of the perspective have done massive degrees in wrong, but we can also achieve massive degrees in right if we work together. This theory can be applied towards many things. In pokemon, we need a good team that can work together and defeat others teams. With that, the team will make the trainer using them look amazing.

Fighting will accomplish nothing. Only when the Teachers and the Classmates form together to get through a unit will things start to change.

[Amethyst]

My German 1 teacher was terrible. During the first week of class, she had us do a project on a famous German person that involved an essay. I did the project, hand-drew the required picture of the person I was assigned, fact-checked everything--the works.

When I got it back, I had gotten a 2/10 on my project, with what I had done wrong written at the end of the assignment--in German.

Naturally, since I had no clue what the heck I did wrong, I went up to her and asked, and she responded with, "You didn't write your essay in German."

WTF?! Not only had she never specified what language to write in, but this was literally the first week of the class; I didn't know any German yet!

I feel like this is really indicative of what happens with a lot of classes, particularly foreign language ones.

And like, I get it- Immersion is supposed to be the best way to learn a language. What those teachers aren't considering, however, is that students cannot be immersed in a foreign language when they are attending school in their native one (and even, English classes still!). I've done a lot of reading on immersion theory when I was taking learning Japanese more seriously than I am now- and from what I've read it is literally not possible to get what they are trying to do to work in the timeframe they have to do it.

Now, that's frustrating for a teacher as well, but I think those teachers also need to consider how they're coming across to the students.

• A teacher failed a student because she denied his obvious sexual advances made in the middle of a lecture (he got fired)*
• A student groped a teacher and threatened to rape her. He was expelled, she quit*
• A teacher actually did rape someone on school grounds during prom last year and got off with nothing ("lack of evidence" also he was rich and a friend of the superintendent)

This is the stuff that makes me sick. I was going to try and say something intelligible but I am actually speechless.

[rustytengo]

i have to agree with the people saying that it both side. Mainly because i think its just nether side really respects the other. Students don't pay attention in class because they are on there phone(or in my case i was reading books) and the such. well teachers i can't say much about them because from when i was in school my teacher where good. though one thing i will say is that some teachers just did not enjoy what they where doing so it felt like they did not care about the students at all.

i also think for at least America it how the school system is which is the problem. Like what Ame said about the schools that get the good grades on the test get the more funding which it should not be because A) the schools that get the bad grades are usually the ones that need the funding a lot more then the ones that get it. And to put kids for the most part basically in charge of how much money your going to get is a really bad idea mainly because kids for the most part don't usually under stand the value of money and the need for funding tell around the end of high school(and then there are some who still don't when they are out of school). so in my thoughts its really that kind of stuff that need to be changed as well as stop given students breaks when the literally just had one the week before(once more this is America and where i am from) it kind of breaks the whole learning thing when for the most part students will forget what they learned in that time.

i was not the best student mainly for me school was boring because i was always learning the same stuff every year(not kidding they just change how history is taught in schools in Montana now we are not learning the same things in middle school and high school) and they kept making you do the same things for assignments(mainly writing for English which was write a paper on this one thing that i did not have a opinion about and you cant chose your own or poetry. okay with poetry its mainly because in the last year of middle school so 8th grade for me English was suppose to split poetry and Greek mythology up half and half during the year so you did one at the beginning and the other at the end well that did not happen and i got suck with the poetry part in except the last few months which was unfair this was the teacher and had nothing to do with the students at all. its like they forgot all about the splitting it really made me made because i love mythology any kind especially Greek. and i suck at poetry.)

[Code: PIRULUK]

I'm going to sum up any opinions I have about the cause for most, if not all, problems with education in one statement

Standardised testing is a bad idea.

[rustytengo]

I'm going to sum up any opinions I have about the cause for most, if not all, problems with education in one statement

Standardised testing is a bad idea.

Agreed.

[Soysauce]

I agree with the fact that both sides are guilty... I was in an infamous middle school and met lots of lazy, class disturbing, not-give-a-damn students, but also had one or two teachers who didn't teach me anything because they were not efficient when they could catch the class attention or they would try to have that class attention. I've had some very friendly and better teachers though and i'm still takling to them!

But there is more to the students/teachers problem. The parents, and also in most cases, the education system itself are extremely important factors here.... i'll take my own country (France) as an example.

In France it's undeniable that middle school and highschool are becoming easier, for the sake of having the mighty " 80% of the students gets the baccalauréat each year yayyyy", so even if you loaf around for the majority of those years it's still easy to catch up. Most of the parents here don't push their children enough so they either don't work enough at home, or they don't understand something and fall behind.

Some parents don't care at all and will even scold the teachers for trying to get them on the road. And the student him/herself is too young to comprehend that, well, it gets real after the baccalauréat, if you have a terrible school record, you won't have many choices. There are exceptions, of course, like students who don't have the studying environment at home, but even then it's not related to teachers/students only.

And about the education system, we're trying to get a best of all things here, taking the "more activities in the afternoon" in middle school from Germany for example, while decreasing theorical stuff to teach more about oral presentation and all-around culture. Eventhough we're reaching a point where a lot of French people can't even write in their own language without a massive amount of spelling and grammar mistakes (disregarding recent foreigners).

Sometimes it can get pretty ridiculous. In the physics&chemistry test for the ""scientific path"" baccalauréat, you have a little part where you read an article and you have to sum it up in a short paragraph. What the heck?

And I learned much more in post-baccalauréat anyways, so why not give people some theorical stuff so that they can understand what they find in books or the internet?! ><

It saddens me because now people feel like they should make their children go to private schools if they can't get into higher-famed (but selective) public schools to avoid "bad teachers" and "riff-raff". I got from an infamous middle school, the name of which appeared on TV due to a student stabbing another one (non-lethal luckily) with a screwdriver because of a love rivalry to a selective public highschool and it's like different worlds. So yup, there is definitely something wrong in the ducation system itself, but what to do....?

Edited October 30, 2013 by Soysauce

[Summer]

Stupid kids making random sex-noises while the teacher was trying to teach. -___- ughhh...I would never make it as a teacher.

Ahaha haha ha ha

ha

ha

ha

I'm very guilty of this all the time. ;~;

[anethia]

Sorreh to say Ame, but I live in Scotland. It's not as bad as some places, but still horrible at times. I've been doing other things and also had another period with that class.

yay

I tried to bring in other tactics and reasons - my own experience and the things you all have said. It went slightly better, but here's something.

They laughed when I said I understood how they felt when they said they found Homework boring or they got distracted or blah.

SO. Apparently, teachers?

lolnoap. According to some students, teacher's can't;

• Play games! We have to be "serious hardcore learning freakish fucking nerds." That's a quote from said class. I'm not joking. I gave him a demerit (because stupid systems say I can't just flipping refer him immediately) and sent him out.
• Can't relate to you!
• Can't inform them that they had a fucking childhood and has recently graduated slightly earlier than others because of enough credits.
• Know what homework feels like!
• Understand that you may not like subjects/teachers!

I am not joking. They seriously didn't believe me when I said I still played games, had a Facebook, et.c

I'm trying to not explode - I've already shouted at them so much. But no matter how much you try, you can't get through to some. You think their skull's made of soundproof concrete.

But I'll concede, some teachers are idiots. I've literally had to resist laughing in some meetings because they sound stupid. And, I smirked (thankfully unnoticed) when I was told of a plan to use a learning computer game.

..Those just make you get laughed at. I never liked them myself either.

I understand I need to communicate and be on the same level as them..

But I'll use this quote from my friend - it's not exactly made for this, but it's on the same lines;

'It's hard to love someone,

When you don't get love back.'

And of course, QUICK EDITS.

'It's hard to respect someone,

When you don't get respect back.'

Edit; To say something else, I feel as if some students view you as someone who must always keep their cool - almost non-human.

Shouting means we hate you,

Whispering means we're - another quote - 'bitching about someone',

Congratulating someone instantly makes them our favourite.

"Yeah, she is my favourite. Why? She gets fucking work done and takes this seriously."

Want to know why some teachers are stereotypical/sexist?

Because it's so often that it's the boys that are slacking off/causing trouble. Girls interrupt and whisper at times, but it's the boys who shout out and act stupid 99% of the time.

I'm not saying that's ANYONE here, because everyone here wouldn't be like that. It's just what I've been seeing e-e

Oyeah, and some teachers ARE crap. Period.

Edited October 30, 2013 by Alatreon

[Brockze]

Hm... There's this one teacher in my school, whom everbody dislikes. Even the ones who don't have him.

Some of the things he's done:

• Tell us not to bring in the syllabus
• Set us the work he should teach us for homework (I'm not joking he set us a whole fucking chapter to do)
• Waste half a lesson on irrelevant things

Not the best teacher. As for the others, they're all different; and because I go to a private school, they do more for us. But the whole good results thing is there, and that can cause problems.

As for workload? My mum's a drama teacher and she regularly comes home 3 hours after school's done with piles of marking. And because of the trips and plays she does, there have been quite a few nights where I've been the only one in the house... I actually decided not to become a teacher because of the mental stress it causes her. It's one of the worst jobs ever, because it's never just the length of a school day.

[Skullkin]

I feel like this is really indicative of what happens with a lot of classes, particularly foreign language ones.

And like, I get it- Immersion is supposed to be the best way to learn a language. What those teachers aren't considering, however, is that students cannot be immersed in a foreign language when they are attending school in their native one (and even, English classes still!). I've done a lot of reading on immersion theory when I was taking learning Japanese more seriously than I am now- and from what I've read it is literally not possible to get what they are trying to do to work in the timeframe they have to do it.

Now, that's frustrating for a teacher as well, but I think those teachers also need to consider how they're coming across to the students.

She also gave out zeros when she felt that students were using some sort of translating service like google or bing, yet the translating dictionaries she gave us ordered the words in alphabetical order according to the German translation.

Which meant that If you didn't know the German word for an English word, you had to look up the word in german in order to make sure the English correction was right...but you couldn't, because you didn't know what the word was in German! Rrrrrrgh!!! >.<

[Yuki]

[Skullkin]

Yeah, pretty much ^that.

[Requieon]

Find what America is doing.

Do the Opposite.

????

Profit.

[Manes]

Once upon a time, in high school math class, I had a teacher.

She insisted that we keep study journals and our tests in those journals (she took a lot of them back anyway?), and I was a very untidy person. I found it difficult to summarize what I had learned in a way that doesn't involve demonstrating a formula through a test. Weeks passed, months passed, then it was crunch time, and I didn't have a study journal ready.

The teacher threatened to fail me. My response, in a hasted panic, was attempting to jump off the third floor of the school building. It was about 4 meters to landing. I was only stopped because I was pulled away by a boy whose face I didn't see. I was suspended for the few days that remained in the year.

Was it my fault---I, with the strange mix of inflated ego and depression that pervaded my ultimately formative years? Had that been my fault?

Was it the teacher's fault---who did a poor execution of an idea I still personally object to?

My memory is too clouded. Maybe there is no answer.

One thing's for sure. I no longer have the acuity for math that I used to have. So when it comes to true education---not the form of it parodied by these varied organizations---I lost. Doesn't matter whose fault it was, I lost a skill. As much as I want to blame someone---anyone---for this, it won't matter.

And as long as education is parodied thus, students will continue losing the skills they were supposed to gain or hone.