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I think part of the reason it appears this way is the rise of standardized testing for those subjects plus "english" (reading and writing). There are standardized tests for Social Studies and other subjects but seeing as how they are not mandated by NCLB they often get the short end of any discussion that deals with education.
As a Social Studies teacher I can say that I do get pressure to make sure I'm teaching certain reading and writing skills that are necessarry for "the test" but as for making sure the curriculum is challenging or even relevant, there's not much talk about those.
My high school had higher requirements for English and the social sciences. 4 credits for English (1 credit is one year of class not a semester) and 4 for the social sciences (which covered a broad range of classes).
Math and Science were 3 each to graduate. And it didn't really matter what math you took either. Basic Algebra, Algeba 1, Algebra 1 part 2...done.
Oh, but we still needed 4 credits of Phys ed
It's funny though. I never learned another thing about writing, grammer etc after 8th grade. They just stopped teaching it. All through High school we read books and wrote papers but I was never again taught how to write. I don't even remember them grading on that either. Unless it was something obvious like punctuation.
I would say two thirds of what I know today I learned in College. And even though I went for Engineering I learned more in my 4 semesters of lit classes about writing then I did in 9-12.
Okay, is it just me, or does our education system consider math and science more important than any other subject? Do schools emphasize math/science at the expense of other subjects? Am I wrong in my perception? Just curious.
Mackinac
I work in education and can tell you; 1. it depends on the school district and 2. it really depends on the school. 3. It really depends on the teacher.
My district emphasizes math and reading. Maybe if the story the kids are reading (K-6) can include some science then it is up to the teacher to steer things in that direction. Once you get to jr high and high school with individual classes- hist., eng., etc. at that point it again depends on the the school and teacher.
If anything my district emphasizes math and reading, early on anyway, at the expense of science and other subjects like art and/or music.
Math and Science are emphasized because American students are so notoriously bad at these subjects. The curricula are not rigorous enough. Combine this with the decline of government research funding and the future of technological innovation in this country is going to suffer greatly.
Speaking of foreign language, at least around where I went to high school, students got to choose from Spanish, French, or German.
Just stupid. The first priority of every school should be to teach Chinese, Spanish, and Arabic. French or German only if there are extra funds left over.
I would have loved to have learned Arabic and Chinese. I love Spanish and it makes sense considering the high Latino population but at the same time, Chinese and Arabic is good for the global market.
No one will disagree that it is important to have a well rounded education.But, in a competitive world, science and math should be considered very important - especially since we do not do well in these subjects. The nation needs to become more competitive - especially as Asia begins to wake up.
I am sorry, but unless there is a major overhaul of the foreign language programs in any school, they are almost useless.
I took 7 years of French (grade 5-11) and 2 years Spanish in high school (10 & 11), and two years Spanish in college, as well as 1 semester Russian in college.
I have been learning Arabic for about 10 years, not with any sort of concentration, my focus on it has come and gone in waves.....
(I am married to an Arabic speaking man who never speaks Arabic because he came to the US so young)
I would like to know what the goal of teaching ANY foreign language is in the grammar, junior and high school level? Is it for the students to become fluent? Because if it is, it's not working!!!! I don't know one student that is fluent out of high school and very few that continue their language classes in college. And then if you don't USE it, you LOSE it.
Ask me how much French and Spanish I remember. Yeah, thats about how much. Listening to spanish, i can pretty much follow along with what is being talked about, not what is being said. My french is even worse. Ask me to talk in either language and what I can remember would probably be half one and half the other. Of course the Russian is even worse as I only had one semester (the college didn't offer the next level, I don't know why) My Arabic is probably the strongest, I can pretty much follow along a conversation, understanding a good bit of it, but I can hardly speak it (used to wonder how that was possible, but it is).
Anyhow, I wouldn't want to see the kids not taking a foreign language, but really we are failing to become a bilingual society by any means. They either need to improve the foreign language classes or scrap them.
btw, in Egypt, my husband went to a British school, he was taught in English for EVERY subject. (except, of course when they had their Arabic class) His nieces all went to British or American schools, and when we visited them, all spoke English. Now, many of his cousins back home send their kids to French school, where the kids receive ALL their instruction in French, and have an Arabic class. These kids are speaking French fluently already. (At ages 8, 9, 11) This would be the equivalent of us sending our kids to private school, which was taught solely in Arabic or Chinese or Spanish or French, ALL DAY, with one period of English. If we want our kids to be bilingual, that is the way we need to be going....
It's funny though. I never learned another thing about writing, grammer etc after 8th grade. They just stopped teaching it. All through High school we read books and wrote papers but I was never again taught how to write. I don't even remember them grading on that either. Unless it was something obvious like punctuation.
I would say two thirds of what I know today I learned in College. And even though I went for Engineering I learned more in my 4 semesters of lit classes about writing then I did in 9-12.
You are right about that. I learned more about English grammar in foreign language classes than I did in English. (Maybe that is why our foreign language classes are failing)
Foreign language is very overrated and is useless to make it a requirement.
I have yet to attend college with anyone who is fluent or even obtained an upper division level understanding of a foriegn language with the excpetion of immigrants whose language at home was not English.
Even at that, if a person gradutate from a foreign high school whose native language is not English, they still have to take extra English language courses to take place of what would be a foreign language course for English speakers regardless of how proficent the speaker is in English, its ridiculous.
The first college I went to still made me take foreign language courses even though I already know a foreign language because they did not have a placement test available for my language and would not accept testing from anywhere else.
What comes at the end at the 2 year language requirement? A bunch of people who all in all will only remember hi, bye and thank you.
Language should be reserved for those with real interests.
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