In Kindergarten, on the last day of the year, we had one lesson on reading. That entire year, after learning the alphabet (again, the same as in pre-k), we left for the summer knowing exactly one word, and that word even had a contraction in it. I think the particular word we were taught sums up the educational system of the U.S. quite well: CAN'T.

I never had formal grammar instruction. Perhaps it is because I went to 7 different schools, both public and private. Fortunately, my mother is an English teacher and my father is an engineer, so I learned to speak properly at home. Things such as the proper usage of "whom" came naturally to me, since proper english was spoken at home. When I took the PSAT, I scored abysmally on the grammar section. I generally speak correctly, but I don't know why it is correct.

Something that is probably worse than our grammar instruction is mathematics. In first, second, and third grades, kids learn addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. If they are lucky, they might even learn fractions and decimal points. After that, most kids do not learn any new mathematics until 8th grade, when they study PRE-algebra. I was lucky in that I had pre-algebra in 5th grade, after only sitting idle for one year and moving slowly all the years previous.

Why are our schools so pathetic? Is it the teachers? The system? Perhaps it is the students? Our school day was 7 hours long. Of that, we spent about an hour in class changes and about 10 minutes at the beginning and end of every class. Of the remaining 4 hours, 30 minutes was lunch-time. Only about half of the remainder was used in productive instruction, which was very slow. Of course, every teacher made sure to assign more busy-work to take home than all the time they actually spent teaching us. This was in the advanced classes....

-Biscuits