"Emlyn (pentacle)" wrote:
> > As it happens, this particular topic has been rather well researched. Mike
> > is exaggerating a bit, but it is certainly true that in the first half of
> > the 20th century American high schools taught many subjects that are now
> > considered advanced college fare. My favorite example is the fact that the
> > material colleges now cover in three semesters of calculus used to be
> taught
> > in high school as a matter of course. Much the same thing has happened in
> > all of the sciences, not to mention literature and foreign languages.
> >
> > Now, obviously that doesn't mean that every citizen of the day was
> actually
> > proficient in all of these skills. It does, however, make it clear just
> how
> > far our current system's standards have declined.
> >
>
> Well, maybe most people didn't actually understand all that calculus in high
> school. Perhaps its harder than once thought, and so has ended up in uni?
I took calculus in high school. The only thing difficult about it was that it
was a 1st period class, when my body much prefered to be in bed...
>
> (I'm assuming College is Uni; we do things differently down here).
Yup.
>
>
> Emlyn
> (Isn't calculus that guy from Tintin comics?)
No, he's the guy in the movie _Fletch Lives_, Calculus Jones (and his cousin
Geometry Brown).
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 27 2000 - 14:09:31 MDT