Lewis wrote:

> You people are spoiled.

Nah, underchallenged.

> In Israel, the schooling system is so different that the only people
> home-schooling are the ones with really, really bad grades and usually
> more than just that for problems.
>
> We have "final exams" on our last three years of school, which combined
> with a year average form the grading system (plus a physchometric exam)
> by which the universities (no colleges, really) choose who to accept.
> The point is, we work very hard in our last few years in school
> (espcially the last two) and even if you're is rather smart, it's still
> a whole damn lot of work. Of course the real geniuses always have a good
> time, but you gotta be REALLY smart for that. I'm talking about kids who
> go to university when they're 15 to 17 years old.

Bah! I'll have just turned 18 when I start college, and Lord knows I could have
skipped seventh grade... but this is America, after all. It's true our schools
lag. Still, I don't think I'd be up to the workload of somewhere like Israel or
Japan.

> I was in LA for 2 years, during my sixth and seventh grades; My
> impression is that school in America, by experience, is MUCH easier!
> Everything is less hard, less work, less everything. I think this has to
> do with the level - in Israel the level is much higher, at least in
> certain subjects. For example, part of our "final test" in Math (in the
> highest of the three levels you can chooes, which is what I did)
> includes Vectors, Complex numbers, integral + differencial mathematics,
> and more stuff. In the US, and europe too as far as I know, you don't do
> this until late college. It's cool, yeah, but demands a lot of work when
> you do it at 17. About 2 hours a day is the max you can squeeze out for
> rendering most years, but at the end of each years I happens that you
> never see you computer for a whole week. This is for about 3 months.

I agree! Comprehensive at my school is sooo easy (but I'm in a lot of AP and the
magnet program, so I get some good material).
I've had complex numbers and some intro to vectors, but no integral or
differential (at least not in class, but I have a general idea of their
functionality down :-) ). 10th grade.

> Anyway, my particular school is (was, I graduated last year) a rather
> new school (mine was the third class) and like all new schools founded
> as an alternative to rotten old schools, the teachers young, nice,
> helpful, idealistic, etc. and although it's a lot of hard work, it's a
> pleasent place to study.

My school varies quite a bit. My bio teacher is only at her second year of
teaching, my math teacher is kinda old but a great teacher because he used to be a
college professor... and then there's the East building's basement -- a bunch of
ugly old cranky women who teaching English and history... staying couped up in
that dark hallway halfway underground watching History channel all day must get to
them...

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