<p>Well, I feel I really have for the most part. MA does have a great educational system for the most part.</p>
<p>Math: Great, most of my teachers have been great, although a few weren’t good at all.
English: Great as well, I can’t think of a bad english teacher to tell the truth.
Science: Amazing, I mean the teachers haven’t always been nice, but they’ve always taught the best.
History: Meh, most of my history classes are considered a joke, but we’ve still learned quite a bit anyway.
Foreign Language: From what I’ve heard/experienced, Latin (one teacher, best man ever), Spanish, and French have all been very good, Italian is ok, and Mandarin has one good teacher and one horrible teacher.</p>
<p>I think I have received a decent education. I can’t really complain. I’ve had some bad teachers, but I’ve also had some good teachers who’ve taught me to be creative and to do more than just regurgitate and memorize information. The thing that I don’t like about my education is the fact that in some of my classes all we’ve been taught is how to score well on a state test. We don’t really learn anything, we just memorize.</p>
<p>This year is the first year that I genuinely feel like I’m being educated. Honors classes are the biggest joke and half of the time you’re learning to the test that you have to take instead of the actual subject. That’s all that education is for most American students. We’re taught to past tests, not to retain knowledge.</p>
<p>But I’m guessing that towards the last years of high school it gets better.</p>
<p>Lol, my math teachers also made the toolbox metaphor (one teacher called it “your little bag of tricks”). As for the whole “problem solving steps” thing, I personally think that, at the most fundamental level of a math concept, all people do eventually follow a set of steps that maximize efficiency. It’s when problems start integrating multiple concepts that the student needs to use his or her creativity to correctly approach a problem set.</p>
<p>Almost all of my teachers in high school were adequate. I can name several who were truly consummate educators, and a few that went above and beyond my expectations. The math and english tracks as a whole are especially competent.</p>
<p>I’m not really that far ahead. I took Pre cal as a sophomore, which isn’t so irregular, then I went straight to BC as a junior, also not that odd, and this year, I opted to take multivariable calculus outside of school. I can take other courses like diff EQ and linear algebra, but my schedule is full enough, so I’m not taking any more math until college.</p>
<p>I suppose my “getting ahead” all started in 5th grade, when my teacher handed me the book for 6th graders in the 2nd or 3rd week of school. So, in 6th grade, I and one other girl were doing math that was for 7th graders.
When I went to my 6 year high school, I like every other entering 7th grader, took a test to see if I should be in Pre Algebra or Algebra I, and the regular or AA (basically, Honors) level. As I had already taken 7th grade math in 6th grade, I tested into Algebra I. Even if I hadn’t though, my parents would have called up the school and tried to get me into Algebra I. They did the same thing with my sister. My father’s an engineer, so he pushes for us to take accelerated math.
So, 7th grade was Algebra I AA, and I just went on with the normal schedule from there, taking Geometry AA in 8th grade, Algebra II AA in 9th, Pre Cal AA in 10th, Calc BC in 11th, and I finished my Multivariable calc final about 2 hours ago.</p>
<p>I should mention though, that I’m pretty much a B student in math and have been since 7th grade.</p>
<p>Yes, I have received a great education. It costs a little bit (not that much considering how good the academics are here), but it’s been worth it.</p>
<p>i have received an amazing education. i attend one of the best public schools which is in one of the best districts in the nation.
a lot of the graduates go to top ranked schools and i could not ask for anything better.</p>
<p>but my middle school educations was great. like really, they were the hardest teacher’s I’ve had.</p>
<p>In Science, we learned about a semester’s worth of high school physics, chemistry, biology, geology, stars and the solar system, rocks and minerals, atoms, etc. in 2 years.</p>
<p>In English, we learned everything we needed to know until 12th grade (in grammar, literature, etc.)</p>
<p>As a USAMO participant from a school that’s not exactly great for math, I got to where I did through self-study, looking on the internet for materials and begging my parents for math books from middle school on. I definitely would have been happier (and probably more successful) if my environment was more supportive, though, so don’t take this as an endorsement of poor teaching.</p>