Arizona students must pass US citizenship test on civics

[Ideologue]

There was a (minor) discussion on education in Germany - a girl about to finish school tweeted that while she could analyze poems in 4 language she had no idea how to rent an apartment, how the tax system works or what insurances would be useful.

Usually this is something that's taught by parents/family/friends, but I would agree that covering some of "life out there" at school would be a good idea, esp. as there might be a generation gap between how parents learned something and how things have change.

No.  School is for teaching liberal arts.  You're out of order.

[Ideologue]

Make every 12th grader pass a Jim Crow-era voting test, and then we'll have some truly knowledgeable youngsters on our hands.

...To be promptly dissuaded from continuing to study the social sciences or humanities at the post-secondary level, of course.

The whole damned system's out of order!

[dps]

Would you say that you don't know much about biology?

I didn't say I didn't take it, I said it wasn't required.

And even though I answered the question straight, I did get the reference.

[Ed Anger]

Make every 12th grader pass a Jim Crow-era voting test, and then we'll have some truly knowledgeable youngsters on our hands.

...To be promptly dissuaded from continuing to study the social sciences or humanities at the post-secondary level, of course.

The whole damned system's out of order!

Get the fuck off my obstacle!

[Ideologue]

Would you say that you don't know much about biology?

I didn't say I didn't take it, I said it wasn't required.

And even though I answered the question straight, I did get the reference.

I was about to say.

[Razgovory]

It used to be a requirement to pass an exam on the Missouri constitution to pass high school.  While I have no problem with taking an American citizenship test in school, it's not the most meaningful way to judge someone's civic knowledge.  Civics classes have really fallen by the wayside, these days.  If nothing else they are important for when you are part of a protest and shouting slogans to know if what you are demanding can actually be passed into law.

[CountDeMoney]

Biology wasn't a requirement when I was in HS, either.  You had to take 4 years of science classes IIRC, but we had enough available science courses that you didn't have to take biology.

Biology I was a requirement for us, I think in 10th grade.  Whether you took Biology II was on you, but they wanted us to at least know what the fuck chlorophyll was.

[Eddie Teach]

I took bio and AP bio but always ended up dropping physics.

[dps]

Biology wasn't a requirement when I was in HS, either.  You had to take 4 years of science classes IIRC, but we had enough available science courses that you didn't have to take biology.

Biology I was a requirement for us, I think in 10th grade.  Whether you took Biology II was on you, but they wanted us to at least know what the fuck chlorophyll was.

As I recall, they taught us about chlorophyll in 5th grade science class.

[CountDeMoney]

Biology wasn't a requirement when I was in HS, either.  You had to take 4 years of science classes IIRC, but we had enough available science courses that you didn't have to take biology.

Biology I was a requirement for us, I think in 10th grade.  Whether you took Biology II was on you, but they wanted us to at least know what the fuck chlorophyll was.

As I recall, they taught us about chlorophyll in 5th grade science class.

YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN

[jimmy olsen]

Monstrous?

No, not monstrous. I am wondering what's the point of making this a school requirement though. Seems not particularly useful / I'm always skeptical of mandatory school testing - particularly when for something like this.

Of course, I'm also always skeptical of anything mentioning patriotism and Arizona.

Well, as things go, this knowledge is probably more useful to an average high school graduate than understanding the gastric system of an amoeba.

I can't speak to that. I never took biology in high school.

Seriously!

Okay, I exaggerated. In 8th grade, I had half a year of bio. After that though, I stuck exclusively to chemistry and physics. I had no desire to participate in dissections.

Kids don't have a choice in RI, it's required for 9th grade. They didn't force you to do the dissection though. Only one kid I knew opted out of that though.

[Eddie Teach]

I let my lab partner handle the gnarly parts. I'm sure she appreciated it too. 

[garbon]

Kids don't have a choice in RI, it's required for 9th grade. They didn't force you to do the dissection though. Only one kid I knew opted out of that though.

Our setup was in 8th grade (which was at the highschool), you had to take intro classes in Chem, Physics, Bio and Earth Science. Then in 9th-12th, you just had to take 3 years of science and you could pick what you wanted. Bio had frog dissection as mandatory and the most advanced bio class had mandatory cat dissection. I instead opted for the relatively less messy Chem to AP Chem and Physics to AP Physics.

[CountDeMoney]

11th grade Chemistry completely derailed my ascent to medical school.  Only class I ever cheated in--once, used a crib note in the cover of the calculator--and managed to still fuck it up.

[Admiral Yi]

I took physics for two days.  I come in the second day of class with a notebook instead of a three ring binder and the peckerwood writes me up in his grade book.