Sick burn bro.
I can assure you that just about every American that has made it through middle school has been taught about kinetic energy. Let alone high school.
I can assure you that just about every American that has made it through middle school has been taught about kinetic energy. Let alone high school.
Perhaps just because it suits my learning style, I find learning is actually easier if I attempt to work something out or guess it, and then am corrected when wrong, because then I have a memory to anchor it on. If I skip that part and just try to learn some facts, very little is retained. One consequence of this is that I prefer science / logic based subjects to things like history or geography (as in places, etc, not the science parts) where it's just a bunch of arbitrary facts that you can't just guess or work out for yourself.
Have they retained that knowledge beyond the test at the end of the semester?
Anecdotal observations would imply that they have indeed been taught it, and indeed have failed to retain the concept.
I have no rigorous data regarding either; but the generally poor outcomes which appear as result of a lack of retention of scientific, math, socio-economic, and anthropological instruction do seem self evident both from within and outside of the US, in headlines and actions, writ large and for all to see.
Is the problem the use of teaching methods which focus on short-term memorization rather than conceptual comprehension? Is it the lack of support for instructors? Is it a lack of focus in the student body? Is it some or all of the above in varying degree? Or something else entirely?