Why are American public schools so bad.?
Not all public schools in the US are the same and you've certainly described some things that need to be better. American students tend to lack discipline as compared to international counterparts - I've heard teachers who have taught in other countries (China, Russia, Thailand, Argentina) complain about sloppiness in dress, handwriting, posture, work, etc, as well. Yes, high schools are full of sex and drama and most kids don't know how good they've got it. I routinely talk to my students about kids around the world who would literally give anything to get the education they so often complain about. I wish you could have a better experience here - there are certainly some schools who offer more challenging course material, have uniforms, are longer, and have a more refined population than you're experiencing. Your school experience can be what you make of it - surround yourself with people you like and respect, take classes that interest you and ask your teacher for more challenging work, bring your lunch to school in the form of a sandwich or granola bar/yogurt/fruit (easy to pack), get involved in something like student council or Key club, and do your best to ignore the parts you don't like. There are plenty of American teenagers who feel the same way as you do. Remember, the stereotypical "ugly American" that you know from foreign travel exists for a reason. Some of us are loud, rude, sloppy, obnoxious and think things like "we own your country" but a lot of caring, kind, hardworking people as well. There are many things you should be able to enjoy as well, so try and see the good in your situation.
Are American school lunches that bad?
In some schools, yes. It depends on the area.If it’s a private school, you’re probably going to get a good lunch. Private schools are expensive.If it’s a public school, it also depends. Do you live in a high-income area? If yes, then you’ll get a decent lunch. High-income parents usually have enough time to care about what their children’s getting for lunch.If you live in a low-income area, good luck. Public schools there get less support from the government then other areas.My personal experience is that it isn’t that bad, only unhealthy and expensive.I went to a school in the suburbs of New Jersey. My middle school had about 400 student tops (90~100 students in each grade). The lunch there wasn’t very bad, except for the fact that they only served foods like Pizza, Chicken Nuggets and Hamburgers. They did have salads, but they were expensive (3 ~ 4 dollars) and very few. The pizza was about 2 mm thick, and one slice cost 2.50.Do you see how unhealthy that is?
Why is the American public school system so bad?
it's bad because it does not have to be any better. The USA is blessed with lots of natural resources, docile neighbors, having won a few big wars, and some luck. So everybody knows deep down that we don't have to be very smart-- just a few years ago a high-school dropout could get a union job in construction or at UPS and soon me making as much as most college professors. This bit of a guilty secret filtered through school administrations, PTA's, politicians, and parents too. So now we have schools where a great deal of the time the students spend on "Social" activities-- band, pep club, "distributive education", and dozens more. The basics of reading, writing, math, and just plain thinking are watered down and downplayed. Then there's industry, that really does not want smart thinkers, but just dull drones, conditioned to sitting and following orders. Funny how schools just by coincidence seem to be geared toward that goal. ---- The opposite happened in like Japan, where after WW2 the ruling class and industrialists were left warming their hands over scrap wood fires and they had plenty of time to think of how to bootstrap themselves back to a comfortable level. They had absolutely no natural resources so they HAD to rely on native intelligence,planning, and hard work. ---- There is a little bit of hope as cushy jobs are getting scarcer, but still....
Why are American school lunches so unhealthy?
Thanks for the A2A.I’ve never worked in public education, just attended a public school, but I can tell you right away the answer here: FUNDING.American public schools are infamously underfunded, and this is reflected in everything from class sizes to school lunch.Schools need to feed students (who often come from an underprivileged background, and whose only meal may be school lunch) for as cheaply as possible.The cheapest foods are typically not-so-nutritious. They are prepared ahead of time, and usually shipped to the school frozen. In this way mass amounts of food can be made factory-style (cheaper than made daily, and easier to store). Then, they are simply reheated and served by lunch staff (cheaper than paying them to make it, and cheaper than finding qualified chefs). Food is served on disposable trays or plates with plastic silverware (cheaper than paying a dishwasher).Unfortunately, it just ends up that the most inexpensive, easy, and filling foods are processed, starchy, fatty, and salty. The problem here isn’t regulation— it’s how much money they have to spend.I’m going to note right here, however, that it is possible to make nutritious school lunches on a low budget. I attend an inner-city school in Minneapolis, Minnesota. My middle school food was very poor (see my answer about the content of American school lunches here).However, at the high school I attend, nutritious options are always available. The choice is upon the students to take them. While not always palatable, there’s a salad bar available daily with rotating salads, fruits, and cold vegetables. Entrees may or may not have vegetables but there’s always some sort of protein and some sort of starch. (These are reheated like explained above.) Occasionally, full-meal salads are also available, and are a large portion with some meat or roasted veggies.I understand that my school is moderately unusual in this, however. I’m lucky I live in a state and city where it’s possible— many other high schools in the country have much fewer resources.TL;DR: Unhealthy school lunches are, in my experience, linked to low educational funding. (And maybe some poor administration.)
Why is school cafeteria food so bad?
Simple. You’re not going to a school that serves good school lunches or you’re not living in an area where there are schools that serve good school lunches.Let me show you what a regular school lunch in Estonia looks like (free until year 9, cheap in high school and in some cases, free even then):Every other day you’d have soup and dessert. This looks like seljanka (a Russian vegetable soup that would historically be put together from leftovers - sausage, potatoes, carrots, salted pickled cucumber, onions) and a chocolate pudding type dessert with jam. It’s an average school lunch. Other soups may be chicken noodle, borsch, rassolnik, cabbage soup, pickled cabbage soup (ew).Every other day, instead of soup and dessert, you’d get this. It’s usually either rice, buckwheat, pasta or potatoes with a sauce and one or two different types of salad. In this case, it’s rice with a meat sauce and a shredded rutabaga and carrot salad. It’s very typical. Sometimes the salad is beetroot, or coleslaw or just shredded carrot with pineapple or shredded cucumber with cabbage.On the side you either pick milk or kefir. Milk is always 2.5%, not that white colored water that some schools serve and have the gall to call it milk. Schools don’t sell carbonated sugary drinks but you can always have water. Juice isn’t available every day, but there may be tea or hot chocolate if it’s a special occasion and wintertime. A lot of schools have a separate container for fresh cabbage slices or fresh fruit for students to simply pick and eat whenever, as well as bread to accompany the meal.The problem isn’t that schools don’t give decent food. It’s that your school doesn’t give decent food. Although, to be fair, school lunches are subsidized by the country through taxes, so even though the parents don’t have to pay extra for their children to eat at school, they do pay it through their usual taxes that would be deducted anyway. Thanks to that I always had a full stomach when I was in school and I know the children in my family as well as those of countless others can eat well at school. It serves to keep alive our food culture and traditional meals as well as give some children their only hot meal in a day, as sad as it is.I suppose you’d need to get parental backing and lots more in order to make things move. It’s way more costly for every parent to put together a separate lunch than it would be to give all children food of the same quality.
What's so bad about ATA Schools?
They're the best school I've ever been to. The teachers are nice and everyone respects each other. They don't force you to do anything. There's a 43 year old there and he's a red belt and says ATA is one of the best schools in America, so he's been there longer than I have. They have more ranks, and they make you pay a little bit more. You don't have to buy the new equipment every time it comes out. All the student's there are ncie and everything. I don't see anything wrong with it. One of the other schools i saw where yelling at a three year old because he didn't kick right and he was a white belt. But it wasn't ATA.
Why are Americans so bad at geography?
First of all, my intention is not to insult anybody here who happens to be an American. I know that this question might offend some people anyway even if I didn't write this in that manner. The truth is, I've never met an American who knows much about the rest of the world. I'm 15 years old so I suppose the younger ones are a little more ignorant than the older ones. (But I've seen a lot of the same from the older ones). A lot of people are able to recognize my Russian accent when they meet me. I tell the people that I'm from Ukraine and the response I get is "Wow, you are? You sound very Russian!" and then I tell them that I consider myself Russian. "But Ukraine is a completely different country, isn't it?" It's amazing to me that they wouldn't know that. Of course I don't expect anyone to be an expert on my country, but I at least expect them to know that it's a country in Eastern Europe where Russian & Ukrainian is spoken, and also where to find it on a map (it's one of the largest countries in Europe). At my high school there are also no geography classes but I just assumed they learned when they were younger but I guess not.
How come most Americans suck so bad at Geography?
They aren't even that good when it comes to Canada and Mexico. Come ot think of it, many of them are pretty shaky when it comes to US geography as well. I guess they don't have atlases there =) Okay - serious answer to a serious question. US is greatly concerned with itself. It teaches US politics, US law and US geography - but in the poorer schools (and some schools have terrible standards) the teachers themselves know little other than their immediate areas, when it comes to geography. So there are serious difficulties when it comes to teaching anyone about the other nations in North America, much less the rest of the world.