US education system: High school grades 9-12 - what and how are you taught? Part 2

In the first part, we discussed primary education in the US junior and high school.
This note refers to high school, that is, graduation classes from 9 to 12, when a student forms his specialization and decides whether to continue his further education and in what direction.

The meaning of these articles is to share your observations about the US educational system, based on the experience gained by my children, to express your thoughts.

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Item selection strategy



For example, in our district there is a detailed list explaining the purpose of each class and which strategy is better to choose for training.

In short, it all comes down to money, schooling in the US is free, getting further education often costs significant amounts and therefore, attending school you can take university level courses, thereby saving money and time for education. A year of college education here in California costs about 20 thousand dollars on average.

Thus, a motivated student has quite a serious opportunity, after finishing school, also to receive two years of higher education. I had to meet quite often people in IT who, having two years of college, quite felt perfectly on the labor market. Most of my friends were forced to complete their education by the age of forty, as they decided to leave the profession of a programmer and grow up the career ladder.

The second, not unimportant, motivating moment is to take more classes at the university level, based on university policies, which students they would like to see in their walls. Also, for each university level, an extra one is added to the middle school ball. Those. The price of this course is one unit higher. Pupils who have taken university courses can get an average score above four (the maximum grade in US school 4). It is also worth noting that the average score is seriously taken into account by universities upon admission, along with federal exams, as well as with personal achievements in various fields.

What and how to teach and what skills they want to develop in the student.

Literature

The literature focuses on understanding the work and why the author chose this topic and what technique the author uses to express his thoughts in the work. I must say this is a very strong level of university education. Here is an incomplete list of references that my son read for grade 9-10:

"Animal Farm" and "1984" Ourell
Kill Mockingbird Lee
"Romeo and Juliet" and "Midsummer Night's Dream" Shakespeare
Iliad Homer
"On the Western Front, without Change" Remarque
"Lord of the Flies" Golding
"The Old Man and the Sea" Hemenway
"Greek mythology"

I personally liked one moment in the discussion of the work of Remarque - the description of the beating of Sergeant Khimelshtos; in fact, Remarque devoted the entire third chapter to this act of retribution. So, the teacher learned a whole lesson, explaining to the whole class not only the moral and philosophical aspect of what is going on, aptly described in the work with the phrase Katchina

You see, if you teach the dog to eat potatoes, and then you put it a piece of meat, then it will still grab the meat, because it is in its blood. And if you give a man a piece of power, it will be the same: he will grab it.

and also what writing technique the author uses to keep the reader in suspense, telling about the dynamics of group violence against a hated sergeant.

Maths



There is a clear trend to develop the skills of calculating the same analysis in high school, you can study three years, two of which are university level. Just a picture of the end of the 19th century by Nikolai Petrovich Bogdanov-Belsky “The oral account” characterizes the state of mathematics in the United States at an opportune time, although the tasks are not always as original as in the rural school of the Russian Empire.

Mathematics in high school pays great attention to most of the university-level courses, even a simple listing is impressive - algebra, trigonometry, mathematical analysis, statistics.

Unfortunately, the geometry developed in the Soviet school easily “puts” a graduate of the US high school since, alas, they do not learn to understand the basic mathematical principles of what is necessary and sufficient.

Programming

Two years of teaching a second year specialization in the Java language, at least as much in our school.

Science

A fairly diverse set of advanced chemistry to biotechnology with serious laboratories. A separate trend in physics from classical mechanics to engineering seems to be something like mat.

Story

Starting from the 10th grade, you can take advanced history classes. Classes are considered to be very difficult. This is the real level of the university of the Faculty of History or the candidate’s minimum if someone who passes it remembers everything there is not sickly. History is usually taken by those who want to specialize in jurisprudence and just fans of history.

It can be conditionally divided into basic directions as the history of Europe, the USA and World history, then comes the economy and macroeconomics, and absolutely for the slaughter Government and Politics.

The tribunals over historical figures this year are very popular in the history of the son of the son of Louis 14 and Stalin. When the US history goes by, they often discuss a nuclear strike on Japan and violence against civilians during the American civil war in the town of Antens, Alabama, which began with General Ivan Vasilievich Turchaninov’s legendary phrase “I shut my eyes for two hours”.

Physical education

From the first year of study, 10th grade, inclusive every day one physical education class. There is no particular variety - usually running and outdoor games: volleyball, basketball, if there are tennis courts, if the pool is swimming or water polo (this is what my children have at school).

Starting from high school, and in some schools and middle schools, you can also study in the sports section of the school. Usually it looks like two hours every weekday, i.e., five times a week and every Saturday and sometimes Sunday district competitions. It is quite tiring for parents, but the approach is fully justified for a couple of years of such activities, children look very athletic.

Conclusion

I suppose that describing everything in detail is quite difficult, I just wanted to convey a general approach. In my opinion, the school adheres to the Voltaire principle of division “into smart and not very”, and everyone is given a chance to prove himself in any field, be it science / literature or sporting achievements. In practice, it looks like there is someone who decides not to reach the 12th grade, then they just go to work. Often you can see in the ad for employment, so that the applicant had a diploma of graduation from school, that is, a school diploma is quite highly rated.

My former colleague once told an amusing story on this topic. In the mid-90s, he and the boys created a well-known company in the dotcom community and at some point he was forced to quit school and in a few years he became a millionaire bought a house and the latest model BMW. Serious investors came and "they with the boys" lost control of the company and found out that they were fired and their shares were washed out to cents.

So he told me my parents were not a bit upset and said, “well, finally you will finish school.” Our conversation took place after ten years of his ruin, he finished school and the BMW was still in excellent condition.