Leopets

[Anne]

Yeah, that's not fair xD Even our conscripts got out of it provided they went to university. But I guess that when you're ALL so strongly encouraged toward academic endeavors it would be hard to get a good turnout every year if they let the academics off xD

[Nick]

Heh, serves them right for making us slog so hard in the place >.< *hates the education system here* It says a lot when Primary School kids are forced to study past midnight these days just to pass their leaving examination -.-

[Anne]

You have a leaving examination?! What the hell o.0
That's sick. I don't think children under thirteen should ever be given home work, let alone be put under the stress of an examination just to leave PS. They do know that stress and sleep deprivation is really debilitating, don't they? If you go without sleep for long enough your organs start to pack up.

[Nick]

That's what the concerned parents say every year, when they write in to the papers at the results-release day xDD Of course, that doesn't stop them from sending their kids to ten million tuition classes to make sure they get-straight-As-or-bust -.-

*is glad his didn't force him into extra classes*

And it doesn't stop the government making the exams harder either- to the point where even teachers-in-training can't do them, and even Cambridge's exams look easier by comparison x.x

[Anne]

And your cousin wanted to send their kid back xDD
*shudders*

[Sofia]

Nov 30, 2008 5:27:51 GMT -5 Anne said:

You have a leaving examination?! What the hell o.0
That's sick. I don't think children under thirteen should ever be given home work, let alone be put under the stress of an examination just to leave PS.

Yeah right. I mean, I don't have too much work now, because my school stinks, but in Elementary I had up to five hours of homework every night. No leaving exam, though.

[Anne]

That's just... gross. Occasionally we would get "home work" in the form of simple assignments or to get us used to it as were reached graduation but other then that we didn't get HW.

[Sofia]

Lucky!!

Just to clear things up: I'm not saying that my school is bad because it doesn't give out a lot of homework. I really don't think that homework is nessecary for learning to take place.

The New York City Public School System is really rushed. For example, in History we went through 3000 years and about five different countries in only about a month. It makes it hard to actually retain anything when you're changing topics so quickly.

[Anne]

I didn't interpret it as being bad, I consider that a good thing xD If they're giving you too much home work that means they're either wasting class time or overloading you to begin with; not a good sign as far as teaching methods go.

Wow, that's way too much. Ours would have different theme changes either per month or per term. Sometimes we would study multiple aspects within that theme but never so many as that. o.0

[Nick]

Nov 30, 2008 15:49:42 GMT -5 Anne said:

And your cousin wanted to send their kid back xDD
*shudders*

Yeah, that's why I told him to stay in Aus, where the people are happy

And 3000 years of history? o.0 That's an awful lot to cover, Nut. We just did the Cold War for half a year xD

[Nick]

Ours isn't too different from yours. We get broad themes (like the Cold War) and smaller subtopics within. But 3000 years is overkill xD

[Sofia]

The thing is that we only learn little snippets of stuff from each topic we do, so it's not much help anyway. Last year we spent the whole time learning about Assyria, which I liked doing much better. Plus, my History teacher last year was actually semi-interesting.

[Nick]

Wow, Assyria seems quite interesting. All I know about it is that it destroyed Israel and took its people prisoner in Biblical times xDD

Interesting teachers really help, especially in a subject like History ^^ Mine is extremely sarcastic and cynical, but interesting all the same.

[Sofia]

xD
Sarcastic and cynical can be good things. My English teacher is extremely sarcastic, and also slightly crazy, so he makes for a an interesting English class. You never know what he'll do next.

[Nick]

Yeah, mine's got an unpredictable streak too. One minute he's cracking jokes about the US in Iraq, and the next, he's yelling at some poor kid who didn't finish his homework xD