For The Americans - Geography Question About Europe

Quote:

Originally posted by Wheelers

im in ohio and the classes here gives us a good history on eorpe ...

Um, I'm not sure your school is that great if they're teaching you about "eorpe", maybe it's the second-hand texbooks

oh, and second "im" is a contraction and therefore should have one of these (' in between the "i" and the "m"

::stares at screen for about 10 minutes looking for his own typos

^^ Should've capitalized "oh" since it's at the beginning of a sentence and should've used some kind of punctuation mark at the end of your sentences.


Oh yeah, fuckin' grammar Nazi!!

Quote:

Originally posted by Beta671

[reply=surfarch]
[reply=Burn]
there are places other than america?

thats fucking wierd...

Yeah dude. You remember. Europe is the place we go to a couple times each century to rescue them from conquest.

[/reply]
Yes sir, I like it. that's 1-800-the-chuk...call 24/7 for all of your invasion needs...Chuck Norris will personally come and save your country from the communist (because everyone knows that the communist are the only bad guys in the world). When he is done saving the world he will call W. in to set up some oil wells and trade oil for food (you all need food for survival). Also the best part of it is that he will also give your country a brand new constitution (to his liking) to insure more world peace...
[/reply]

Nice. Funny stuff Mr. Norris. Good guys wear black!

Beta and Harman..sorry if I overreacted..I just get tired of the America bashing that seems to be so damn common around here lately..even by other American's

About the only thing I remember about Denmark in school is that they were the only country in the world to pay back money to the US. Therefore they were thought of as a good country. I think it must have been debts owed after WW2 but I am not sure.

Hans Christian Andersen wrote "The Little Mermaid" and there is a famous statue of her in Copenhagen harbour, I think.
On the subject of schools, I read a letter in a newspaper from someone who had a school teacher as a friend. He has 30 kids in his class, he teaches one of the sciences I think, and most of the kids say he is a bad teacher because they fail tests/exams. Only 2 or 3 pupils pass the tests/exams. But if they are all taught the same thing at the same time why dont the majority get the same grades as the others? The teacher in question is leaving the education system because he is fed up with being called bad when in fact it's the pupils who can't be bothered to learn.
On a comment about sending kids to school in England, make sure it's what we call a public school ie one where you pay for your child to go. Ass backwards or what, public schools are private education establishments.
Our son is in a state primary school(elementary school) but we moved him to a different one 2 years ago as his old school was full of idiots who's parents are on benefits (welfare) with no proper father-figure in their lives. Consequently, our son wasn't learning anything. He would have the same reading book for 2 or 3 weeks despite repeated requests for it to be changed. He is a bright kid and wanted to learn but when you are in a class of 30+ kids, at least 10 of which are distruptive, what chance do you have.
Since moving schools he has caught up with his new classmates and even surpassed some of them, he has a new reading book every day and spelling tests every week (which he passes due to us ensuring that he practices every day after school before bring allowed to play with his friends).
I think a lot of the problems in schools and education is that parents do not take the responsibility to ensure that their children do their homework and learn more at home.
There is also a disturbing lack of respect for teachers among both parents and children. When a child gets told off for misbehaving, the parents reaction is not "what did you do to get told off?" but "how dare you chastise my child" and they have an argument with the teacher in front of the child. What example does that set? When our son has done something wrong and been told off for it, he also gets a telling off from us because we have taught him right from wrong and what is acceptable behaviour and what is not.
If respect and acceptable behaviour are not reinforced in a home environment, what chance does a school have of instilling it when the child knows that their parent either wont do anything about their conduct or will defend the child regardless of the seriousness of their misbehaviour.
Sorry to rant, but the decline in education standards, I believe, is down to a lack of respect and discipline both in parents and children. Before you bash me, I am a parent and I have children and what I am saying comes from my own experience of having a child in the present education system.

@ SuperPirate: Your emotional reaction to the bashing of ones own country is understandable. I too care about this place we live, so much so that I enlisted to protect it. I also think that citizens of America take such strong positions on the institutions and policies because they think something isn't quite right. The silver lining of pointing out these problems is that they become identified, and therefore, can be solved. Take Morgan Spurlock for example. He had probly been sitting around with his woman talking about how bad McDonalds is to eat, then took some intrest in the court cases involving overwieght people taking McD's to court. Spurlock already had a decent paying job, his survival was already secured.

Spurlock wanted to do something about the problem, so he showed the world how bad the problem was. This lets each person make their own choices to do something about it.
Same thing with education. Personally, I think that a education system that freely admits that its students will only retain 20% of what their taught is not something they should boast about, and usually you'll spend 12 years minimum in basic school. 20% of 12 years is 2.4 years of actual learning that is retained.
Currently, I'm writing a education/business plan in my spare time to set up a home school program for children so they don't have to waste years in public or private school, learning how to be some company's bitch. Like i said, I saw the problem and believe I can do better then 20%.

@ Slaine - If a teacher is teaching 30 kids and 27 or 28 of those kids are failing the tests I would say there is something wrong with the teacher.

Hi HighGuy, I cant say whether he was a good or bad teacher as it was something I read in a newspaper, maybe there was something wrong with his technique, the subject or maybe the kids didn't like him(who doesn't have a teacher they hated). Why only a small % passed I have no idea, but to put the blame solely on the teacher and vilify him isn't right. If the ones who passed studied and the ones who failed didn't then that's down to the kids themselves.
Another hypothesis, as I personally dont know the teacher. If, for example, one pupil didn't understand the subject matter, asks a questions so they can understand and subsequently gets humiliated for being stupid etc, then they are not going to ask anymore questions. Following that, the other 26/27 who also dont understand are not going to ask questions either, even though they dont understand, and from the figures neither do the majority of their classmates, because they know that they will be humiliated. Thus the teacher is bad for denying the child understanding.
Another hypothesis may be that a child asks for clarification on something, the teacher takes the time to go over the subject again in a way to help understanding and the rest of the class dont like it, the child feels the resentment from his classmates and then wont ask any more questions for fear of being unpopular. Thus the teacher is good for trying to help the child understand but the class, who also dont understand but dont want to either, are bad for denying the chance of understanding.
Whatever way you look at teaching, it's a mine field. I'm trying to be objective. Maybe he was teaching physics or something, I don't know.
Perhaps as you say, there is something wrong with him. One thing I didn't mention as I've just remembered it. He had been a teacher for 20 odd years.
The above hypothesis are things I have actually witnessed happen in school class rooms.

Quote:

Originally posted by DevilHair[DK

]
They knew about France and Germany and that was about it.

isn´t that all they need to know?

Quote:

Originally posted by DevilHair[DK

]

And dont tell me that its because Denmark is a small small small country, like somebody once told me in here

you have to admit denmark realy is small

Quote:

Originally posted by HighGuy

@ Slaine - If a teacher is teaching 30 kids and 27 or 28 of those kids are failing the tests I would say there is something wrong with the teacher.

nice one mongolia, that just about sums it up!

Quote:

Originally posted by mrmisterme

Well there are 2 possible answers to this question: 1. Americans are taught about the whole world and that most 17-24 year olds are so stupid nowadays that they forget, or 2. Until Denmark does anything worth while or contributes to world history in some small way then maybe we'll take a minute to learn about you. Until then, keep on walking around the windmills in your wooden shoes.

D00d, if perhaps you'd acutally be interested in learning about our history, you'd quite surely be surprised. For instance, the transistor was invented by a dane. And then there's Niels Bohr (played a role in the invention of the A-bomb), H. C. Ørsted (he's got a sattelite named after him, but I don't remember who he was... ;p), Karen Blixen ("Out of Africa" with Meryl Streep is based on a book she wrote - nothing to be proud of though) and then of course, H. C. Andersen, the "ugly duckling"-fellow. Hansel and Gretel is a folktale, and as such, there's no official author. The Grimm brothers didn't write any fairytales themselves - they merely collected a bunch of folktales (Hansel and Gretel amongst others)

Finally, sorry for bashing the USAnians, I just happened to have the pic lying, and couldn't resist the temptation =)

[EDIT] Note how the home of Santa was misplaced on the pic...

@Returner good one

word

"here be something else" is a great country

Quote:

Originally posted by mongolia

"here be something else" is a great country

you mean the one with kangaroos and strange people?

Quote:

Originally posted by mongolia

[reply=HighGuy]
@ Slaine - If a teacher is teaching 30 kids and 27 or 28 of those kids are failing the tests I would say there is something wrong with the teacher.

[/reply]

Nice topic by the way... I'll add my 2 cents.

Well, are your answers make sense, but the true is otherwise. As you all said so, geography and history is related. In school courses and in history. For exemple, currently everybody know where is New York, because of the 9/11 event, etc.

USA and Canada where found not so long ago, so we do have way less history then Europe. Besides, in the long run, we almost all come from Europe and UK. So it is normal that we have less history and less interests in history. Does that make sense to you?

Quote:

Originally posted by xela0000

Nice topic by the way... I'll add my 2 cents.

Well, are your answers make sense, but the true is otherwise. As you all said so, geography and history is related. In school courses and in history. For exemple, currently everybody know where is New York, because of the 9/11 event, etc.

USA and Canada where found not so long ago, so we do have way less history then Europe. Besides, in the long run, we almost all come from Europe and UK. So it is normal that we have less history and less interests in history. Does that make sense to you?

And here my friends is undeniable proof that Canadian schools suck...My god man you're Canadian Fix your grammar!!!!

But yes i get your point