The Old Folks Home

[The Yakima Kid]

English 101 is all about writing an essay. It teaches high school graduates how to write a paper.

In my final year of high school English in Oz I studied The Mechant Of Venice and The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith for literature Dylan Thomas and John Donne.

As with English, Mathematics at senior high school was compulsory. There were 4 levels.

2 unit A was what we called veg math. It is at the level of college algebra Rational expressions, integer and rational exponents, quadratic formula, complex numbers and exponential functions

2 unit (standard) included logarithmic functions, conic sections and trigonometry and calculus. This was required for acceptance to most college degrees.

3 unit was 50% more detailed than 2 unit with advanced calculus

4 unit was for the ultimate math nerds

I also studied Geography, Physics and Chemistry

When you attend college in Austalia and many other countries you dont do any compulsory general ed subjects. You can do a few off topic units but typically you are required to study courses within your major. A phychology major studies psychology topics. They dont do languages, art apreciation and history. They are all taught in years 7-10. Students have the option of continuing them in their senior years

When I became a nurse in Australia it was a different system. I was one of the last diploma nurses. I studied nursing for three years. I then worked for 18 months before I could qualify for a post graduate 12 month critical care course. I left the country as an elite clinical nurse specialist and was recruited to work at Cedars Sinai with transplants.

I decided to get my bachellors degree in the usa so I could get a masters. I had to do all the 18 california mandated GE units so in my 40s I started at Santa Monica Community College. I sat next to 19 year olds in my English 101 class and wrote essays. I cut up a cat in Anatomy. I did two semesters of Spanish and appreciated art. Santa Monica is one of the best community colleges in CA. It has more students transfer than any other college in Socal. I was appalled that I had to do these subjects but could see why they were being done. These kids did not get a good education in high school. It was only 18 bucks a unit at the CC but students at USC were paying 20,000 a semester to learn how to find x and write an essay.

OK. We had algebra in either the eighth or ninth grade. (I was supposed to take it in eighth but my idiot mother didn't think I was "ready" because I hadn't done well in the last quarter of seventh grade. She failed to remember that I had missed over a month of school at the end of the year due to a virus followed by asthma.)

In either ninth or tenth grade we had a year of Geometry. That was followed by either Algebra II or Algebra II/Trigonometry. If you took regular Algebra II, the next class was Trigonometry, followed by Analytic Geometry. If you took Algebra II/Trigonometry, you then took Analytic Geometry. After that came Calculus.

Did you take all four years of mathematics? Our general requirement for university admission was Trigonometry.

There is no standardization of course numbers in the US educational system. Where I went to school English 101 was the first part of a sequence in English literature.

In my second year of high school one of my English classes was reading mythology. Another was my first pass at Beowulf. Then there was the idiot "relevant" teacher who messed around in our modern poetry class playing Rod McKuen albums. That was enough to make me long for Thomas Hardy. It was very odd - in my ninth grade year we read the Merchant of Venice, expurgated. And later in high school we read Jude the Obscure, unexpurgated. Very, very, odd.

 

[The Yakima Kid]

I know I have all kinds of family that migrated from Ireland to Canada and then into the US. My youngest son is Native American 1/16 Souix and 1/2 Apache and he now lives in Florida and by law he cannot walk into a store on Sunday and buy an asprin. A bunch of those old laws are still on the books. We are Irish, English, German and Souix I guess I am a heniz 57 and proud of it.

Yeah, I grew up in the west, where we had those lovely "sundown laws." Outside of California, they were generally aimed at American Indians. In California they often included Asians, Blacks, and Latinos. They're no longer enforced out here, haven't been in years. But I remember sitting in a Mexican restaurant in Toppenish, WA where they refused to serve my mother because she was "indigene." She had very little native ancestry, but it showed in her features.

Please describe this asinine Florida law to me. It sounds like it isn't enforceable and makes the state look like it is inhabited by imbeciles.

 

[The Yakima Kid]

OK. We had algebra in either the eighth or ninth grade. (I was supposed to take it in eighth but my idiot mother didn't think I was "ready" because I hadn't done well in the last quarter of seventh grade. She failed to remember that I had missed over a month of school at the end of the year due to a virus followed by asthma.)

In either ninth or tenth grade we had a year of Geometry. That was followed by either Algebra II or Algebra II/Trigonometry. If you took regular Algebra II, the next class was Trigonometry, followed by Analytic Geometry. If you took Algebra II/Trigonometry, you then took Analytic Geometry. After that came Calculus.

Did you take all four years of mathematics? Our general requirement for university admission was Trigonometry.

There is no standardization of course numbers in the US educational system. Where I went to school English 101 was the first part of a sequence in English literature.

In my second year of high school one of my English classes was reading mythology. Another was my first pass at Beowulf. Then there was the idiot "relevant" teacher who messed around in our modern poetry class playing Rod McKuen albums. That was enough to make me long for Thomas Hardy. It was very odd - in my ninth grade year we read the Merchant of Venice, expurgated. And later in high school we read Jude the Obscure, unexpurgated. Very, very, odd.

I refer to my mother as my "idiot mother" because she didn't want me to take vocational coursework in high school, but she thought I should not go to college because it would only leave me "frustrated" when I wound up becoming a housewife. She didn't notice that being a housewife wasn't much of an option by the late 1960s.

 

[Alaskan]

I am impressed that so many of you'll can remember what classes you took in school!

WOW!

I know I went to school....yep.....I did go to school. I remember that.

I think that my school had classes.

OOOH! I remember getting a negative grade on an English paper, must have been in high school. So there! I remember a class!

 

[The Yakima Kid]

I am impressed that so many of you'll can remember what classes you took in school!

WOW!

I know I went to school....yep.....I did go to school. I remember that.

I think that my school had classes.

OOOH! I remember getting a negative grade on an English paper, must have been in high school. So there! I remember a class!

I don't remember all of them. I do remember Beowulf, Caedmon's hymn and English 101. I remember the high school mathematics curriculum because I have severe mathematics anxiety, stoked and fueled by my mother. One reason I went back to school to pick up a degree in computer science - it forced me to overcome my mathematics phobia.

 

[bamadude]

I request to be transferred to the wing that has metal before bed.

metallica enter sandman for u

 

[tnspursfan09]

I have Megadeth's "Tornado of Souls" as my ringtone. I keep it on vibrate when I'm out because I get weird looks.

 

[LindaB220]

My DD Aimee is almost 40. Smart as a tack. She is so articulate that I can never win an argument. Down to earth and just plain smart. I showed her my first tiny egg that I got the other day. She said, "You mean the egg that comes out of a chickens butt?" sigh I said, " Yes, like every other egg in the entire world, It comes out of her butt". To be honest, none of the family wanted me to raise chickens. "Why can't you just save money and buy them from the store?" They don't want me to discuss the fact that I'm going to buy my own freezer to put in the storeroom that I bought so I can raise my own chickens and actually eat them. I may be the only one eating them but, by God, I'm gonna do it.

 

[tnspursfan09]

I remember Jr. High and High school. Vividly. Bullies suck...they really do.

 

[Alaskan]

I remember Jr. High and High school. Vividly. Bullies suck...they really do.

OH!!! oooh!!!

yep, I vividly remember being bullied....except for the really bad stuff I partially blocked out.

So, that means I must have been in school and taken classes.

There were probably books too.