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> So many kids learn 4 years of algebra without having the slightest clue that this all is building to something called "Calculus" that they don't understand what it is.

That specifically at least could be improved greatly by just reworking classes to include plenty of hands-on practical application so it’s not so abstract. The pervasive thought during that period of my life was, “why am I learning this” and nobody wanted to bother answering except with the non-answer, “you might need it someday.”

Motivation is the root of all learning in my opinion.

Every class should start with a why~!

I wholeheartedly agree. It wasn't until my late 20s that I realized that literature is actually a deep reflection of real life, rather than just some story that someone made up. eg Animal Farm is not about farm animals...

Surely it wasn't my fault for being so dense. Age was, of course, mostly responsible. But probably also just poor instruction - surely if a teacher had actually explained this, it would have gone a long way to opening my mind and likely re-orienting my life.

Likewise with most other subjects - I spun my wheels learning French from age 10-15, because it was just an exercise in memorization rather than understanding. I learned Spanish in my 30s without even "studying", just by virtue of better understanding grammar at that point, and just focusing on trying to express ideas rather than worry about conjugations, spelling etc...

The school system really does not do a good job.

Calculus is advanced mathematics and absolutely not the end goal of algebra. It used to be taught at university level but its utility to other sciences (and toys of war) got it shoehorned into the high school curriculum at the expense of other maths and logic.

So many high school students tragically treat it as a litmus test, bounce off it and as a result suspend their dreams of higher education. It is the epitome of sacrificing education for occupational goals. If you don't intend to pursue applied science it is almost worthless forced masochism.

Disclaimer: I have a bachelors in pure mathematics.

I don't know, I'm finding Calculus ties a lot of earlier math together. The quadratic equations that I thought were a weirdly specific thing to spend so long drilling (ok so parabolas can describe kinematic arcs, what's the big deal?) come up again and again in differential equations.

The relationships between area and volume of various objects I spent geometry trying to understand make much sense as integrals.

Trig, logarithms, exponentials, infinite series, they all come into themselves when you start applying them to analysis. It just all sorta clicks once you start to thread them together.

We (as society) don't assign algebra or Calculus for the fun of it. We assign it because they are so useful in a lot of different careers (mostly in engineering). However it is really hard to find a simple and realistic example of why you need to spend the next 6 years learning that before you have done the math so you can see how it works on a real world problem.

I have a background in education, and I agree with you so hard.

Another related mistake educators make: assigning material that could be relevant or interesting to high school students, but then not giving them the sorts of experiences that will make it so. I was a nerd (and, in fact, skipped high school English), so when my classmates were reading Chaucer and were (predictably) bored to tears by The Knight's Tale (it's all about Virtue, right?), I led an impromptu study hall session on The Miller's Tale (it's a long series of scatalogical jokes), and what do you know?, they a) enjoyed it, and b) were more willing and able to give The Knight's Tale a go.

Don't even get me started on reading Shakespeare without, you know, experiencing it as a play first (or, indeed, ever).

It’s disheartening to see this happen in real time. I raised my kids to be readers but the habit ultimately didn’t stick. My son got assigned Frankenstein in his Grade 12 English class and I hoped for the best but he was bored to tears by it. I read a page or two and I could understand why - the language is outdated and there’s little for him to relate to. Meanwhile there are plenty of modern novels by great writers to choose from where I think the reading would be easier and the stories would be immersive. Tom Wolfe and Jonathan Franzen come to mind, or Margaret Atwood, or Ursula K LeGuin. I’m reading We Do Not Part by Han Kang right now, which won the Nobel - it’s a great example of an ideas-driven book with accessible language.

I agree. Frankenstein is a great novel, and I've taught it at the college level, but I wouldn't include it in a high school curriculum. It feels to me like those "great books" lists got frozen in 1880-something, when general literacy (among literate people!) was much higher than it is today. Imposing texts like that onto much less experienced readers (much as we might deplore their relative lack of sophistication) seems almost punitive, and turns them away from reading entirely.

(I'm not familiar with We Do Not Part; thanks for the recommendation. I love all of the other authors you mention, and will check Han Kang out.)

I am a Shakespeare actor and director, and I find it insane that they give students plays to read. Reading a play is a skill unto itself. Even more so for an Elizabethan play.

The actors are doing so much interpretation work for you. It is an enormous effort. Let them.

There is much value in reading Shakespeare, but you have to learn how, and you won't get there just by having an unabridged text thrown at you.

For early high school, would you consider Moonlighting's condensed adaptation of Shrew to be a viable first exposure? https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/MoonlightingS3E...

jfengel might disagree, but if you absolutely must watch a Shrew variation made for TV at least give the BBC's Shakespeare ReTold version a gander:

https://booktalkandmore.blogspot.com/2011/03/shakespeare-ret...

  Everything comes together brilliantly in this adaptation, which remains remarkably - and surprisingly, perhaps - true to the source material, ...

I haven't seen this, but going by the linked summary, I'd say 'no'. I'm sure it's very clever, but pastiches depend upon familiarity with the source material to work. They also - this is why they're fun! - change the source in material ways, as it seems this does.

Students need to experience plays the way they're meant to be experienced: as plays. Live events, with human interaction at their heart. Anything else is... Missing the point.

Same. I've done I can't even count how many shows, and I don't particularly like reading plays. It's effort - usually worth it, but never not work.

By the way, I spent the first two or three years of my professional career performing school-tour Shakespeare. That was a joy. Hard graft: sometimes three shows in a day, along with loading and unloading the van in between, but my goodness it was rewarding. Great training, too. We'd do a show in the morning for twenty people in a library, and then in the afternoon in a 2,000 seat auditorium. You had to learn quickly how to modulate your performance, and what choices land with what kinds of audience.

> So many kids learn 4 years of algebra without having the slightest clue that this all is building to something called "Calculus"

But... that's not something they should think. It's not something that's true. You learn algebra to solve certain types of problems. You learn calculus to solve other types of problems.

I honestly don't get western obsession with Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky. People at r/books are going nuts in how they tackle these books, some even try to learn the language only for that feat. Like, just what do you think even applies to humanity at large from those authors? Let alone the "treasure" angle? Incomprehensible for me. I read them in school and unlike some of my classmates I actually did read them fully. Today I wouldn't touch any of their books with ten feet pole voluntarily, unless I will find a need of a huge dose of depression plus cringe spread out on a thousands of pages. Which is unlikely.

Do you think it might be possible that youre missing something/missed something in your youth?