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While on the subject of math (or lack thereof)...


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I was in the grocery store an hour ago. Our store accepts competitor's coupons and I had one giving me a bag of carrots for 59 cents. The carrots cost $1.50 without the coupon.

 

The high school aged checkout girl couldn't figure out the value of the coupon WITH a calculator. After a minute or two - when she was no longer pushing buttons and just standing there looking stumped - I told her. I was nice about it... She didn't even question it. I probably could have saved a lot more if I had wanted to be unethical.

 

I asked my 9th grader when I got home. Fortunately he got it right - without a calculator - and in far less time.

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I've run into such things before. My favorite was looking at a magazine article on man made wonders while standing in the checkout line. There was a gorgeous picture of the Burj Al Arab hotel on the cover. The checkout lady asked if that hotel was in AL or FL. I said no that it was located in Dubai. The young man bagging the groceries said something about that being in TX. My then 6th grader said, no, Dubai was in the middle east. To which the bagging person said oh, then it must be in the Carolinas.

 

........And some states have a minimum score on standardized tests for homeschoolers........

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These examples would be hysterically funny if they weren't so sad a commentary on the state of basic education in our country. That's one of the reasons most of us homeschool - to NOT see our kids on those segments featuring clueless young people on The Tonight Show...(those basic geography questions make me cringe...) Thanks for sharing!

Blessings,

Arpil

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........And some states have a minimum score on standardized tests for homeschoolers........

 

Yeah...

 

Sometimes I really wonder what the apathy to education in this nation is going to do to it.

 

But then I wonder if it's always been this way and I just didn't realize it in my younger days.

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I was in a thrift store recently whose cash register was not working. It took four people, one calculator, and ten minutes of effort to total a customer's purchase which included several items at 50 and 75 percent off. I'm not convinced the employees were correct in their total, but the customer was desperate to leave at that point. It would have been laughable were it not so sad.

 

Regards,

Kareni

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Ah, yes. I bought two yards of ribbon at 98 cents / yard, and the clerk had to use a calculator to figure it out.

 

I am always sympathetic, though, because as a teenager, I would totally have been the one having a brain burp in that kind of situation, with people watching. Adults, I have less sympathy....

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Not math, but...... :eek: nonetheless.

 

In that vein, a couple of years ago, in an attempt to be open-minded about our options for school, I reviewed the website of our local middle school. It included a letter from the principal touting a program the school had recently held on bullying (they're against it). I printed it out and gave it to my then-TEN YEAR OLD to proof, without telling her how I obtained it.

 

She found all of the errors, grammatical, stylistic and otherwise, and there were a lot.

 

I don't think he is there any more, but I know for a fact that none of my children are or will be.

 

Terri

Edited by plansrme
It was right the first time.
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It's all frustrating. I've been spending more time than usual in our local high school picking up extra $$ while hubby's job is down in the economy. The biggest problem I see is apathy. The kids only want to memorize what they need to know for a test. They do not care in the least about actually learning except in really small sound bites. It's frustrating.

 

My youngest who is back in school (9th grade) by his own choice has even said the same thing to us. It frustrates him too. I hope it frustrates him enough to want to come back home, but I doubt it. I can only hope he doesn't get contaminated by their apathy. He's already getting kidded about being the "smart one," but so far, I think he likes that. It makes him popular in their group learning environments too. The others have definitely learned one way to get the grades they want.

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I was in the grocery store an hour ago. Our store accepts competitor's coupons and I had one giving me a bag of carrots for 59 cents. The carrots cost $1.50 without the coupon.

 

The high school aged checkout girl couldn't figure out the value of the coupon WITH a calculator. After a minute or two - when she was no longer pushing buttons and just standing there looking stumped - I told her. I was nice about it... She didn't even question it. I probably could have saved a lot more if I had wanted to be unethical.

Similar thing happened to me last Christmas. I was buying 4 boxes of chocolates. The display sign said that it was on sale for $4.99 each. At the register, however, the boxes were scanned and the register displayed $5.98. I told the girl at the register about the display sign. It took her about 2 minutes to find the chocolates display, and it took her another 3-4 minutes for her to find a calculator, because she couldn't figure out how much to deduct (she had to type it manually at the register). I told her it was $3.96 ($0.99 x 4) but she ignored me and continued to look for the calculator. She found it, but I could only shake my head at the whole situation. The girl wasn't a high school student either -- she looked to be in her mid-twenties. :scared:

 

 

69

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I've run into such things before. My favorite was looking at a magazine article on man made wonders while standing in the checkout line. There was a gorgeous picture of the Burj Al Arab hotel on the cover. The checkout lady asked if that hotel was in AL or FL. I said no that it was located in Dubai. The young man bagging the groceries said something about that being in TX. My then 6th grader said, no, Dubai was in the middle east. To which the bagging person said oh, then it must be in the Carolinas.

 

........And some states have a minimum score on standardized tests for homeschoolers........

 

These examples would be hysterically funny if they weren't so sad a commentary on the state of basic education in our country. That's one of the reasons most of us homeschool - to NOT see our kids on those segments featuring clueless young people on The Tonight Show...(those basic geography questions make me cringe...) Thanks for sharing!

Blessings,

Arpil

 

I was in the grocery store an hour ago. Our store accepts competitor's coupons and I had one giving me a bag of carrots for 59 cents. The carrots cost $1.50 without the coupon.

 

The high school aged checkout girl couldn't figure out the value of the coupon WITH a calculator. After a minute or two - when she was no longer pushing buttons and just standing there looking stumped - I told her. I was nice about it... She didn't even question it. I probably could have saved a lot more if I had wanted to be unethical.

 

I asked my 9th grader when I got home. Fortunately he got it right - without a calculator - and in far less time.

 

Well, I have to say that I used to hear things like this 30 & 40 years ago and more because I come from Canada. It was amazing how many people had no clue about anything in Canada, and that's right next door. It just wasn't being taught in many schools, and it is sad, because there's no good reason why Americans, or students in any western nation for that matter, should be so poorly educated with all the resources available here. That goes for a number of countries in other parts of the world, too.

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