[fifeboy]

commanderkai wrote:

Umm. Zipper, from my experiences in both a Canadian and a US high school, I found the US education far superior. I know for a fact they were ahead at least a year in math...but even before this, comparing US and Canadian elementary schools, when I went from grade 6 in the US, to grade 7 in Canada, I was basically ahead in the Canadian school.

Math test scores across 29 nations


Fifteen-year-old students from across the world took part in the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), which gauges their math literacy. Here are the nations' scores in rank-order.
Country Average math
literacy score
1. Finland 544
2. South Korea 542
3. Netherlands 538
4. Japan 534
5. Canada 532
6. Belgium 529
7. Switzerland 527
8. Australia 524
9. New Zealand 523
10. Czech Republic 516
11. Iceland 515
12. Denmark 514
13. France 511
14. Sweden 509
15. Austria 506
16. Germany 503
17. Ireland 503
18. Slovak Republic 498
19. Norway 495
20. Luxembourg 493
21. Poland 490
22. Hungary 490
23. Spain 485
24. United States 483
25. Portugal 466
26. Italy 466
27. Greece 445
28. Turkey 423
29. Mexico 385
http://www.apa.org/monitor/mar05/scores.html

[Lemmy]

People that put any credibility into standardized testing ought to shampoo my crotch.

[Pseudonym]

Remember to use the anti-dandruff shampoo!

[commanderkai]

Zipperfish wrote:

Again, this is behaviour that is parodied outside the US and yet this guy was serious. He was a more extreme case, but I found that attitude pretty common.

Maybe this is the difference. I was a Canadian living in the United States, who then returned back to Canada, and thus I got the "America sucks speech because they're really religious and they're rednecks and they're greedy" so on and so forth. This is the same with Psuedo right now. He didn't say anything about "America was holier than thou" until you criticized the United States (unfairly, in my opinion), and thus he defended himself, and the United States, from extreme criticism from both Europe and Canada, and much of this criticism was unfair.

Quote:

Maybe. Or maybe they resent stuff like changing the name of French Fries to Freedom Fires because France didn't go to a war that was just based on a bunch of American and British lies anyways.

They're bitter over something that lasted 15 minutes in 2003? The only people in the United States that called it freedom fries was the United States Senate cafeteria, and no school, store, or restaurant bothered to change. At worst, they called it "fries".

So why are the french getting bitter over something that they didn't even create, to begin with. They resent things like how a former colony basically protected their European asses after the Cold War. Maybe it's even more simplistic than that. Mainland European prestige collapsed after WWII, while the Americans increased, and they're bitter over their own shortcomings.

Quote:

I don't have shitty opinions about America as a whole. I like them better than most countries, actually. There's good things and bad things about it. If I point out what I see as a bad thing, that's not my entire opinion of the whole country.

I was just generalizing, like saying your/our as a statement of being a foreigner to the United States (unless you're living in the US once more), and not you as a singular person.

Quote:

Your experience was far different than mine. I went to a large California inner city high school. It was about one quarter each white, black Vietnamese and Mexican. Quite a culture shock from Winnipeg, I can tell you. The thing that struck me was the obsession with the sports teams, and the level of control over punctuality and attendance. You weren't even allowed to leave the school grounds during school hours, except for one hour at lunch--and they'd have cops circling the school to make sure you wouldn't leave. That just blew my mind. You'd fail a course if you were late a certain amount of times, regardless of your marks on tests and assignments. Academically, I found that the honours courses were better than Canada's, and the standard courses wqere worse.

My wife went to high school in the US too. She told me that if she hadn't taken all honours courses in high school she would have been behind when attending university in Canada.

Well, I only took honors in both countries, so I can't judge on the standard courses. However, I'm sure going into an inner city Canadian school in Toronto or Montreal won't exactly look pretty, but you're right. Inner city schools are another problem, and I don't exactly have first hand knowledge.

I have knowledge with one middle class high school in Whitby, Ontario, and another in Rochester Hills, Michigan. Now, this might be due to age of the both cities, but the fact is, those three high schools in Rochester Hills were big, but they all had the same opportunities as one another, with the same distribution of clubs and programs. In Whitby, the Durham school board basically centralized their focus on a few schools, while letting the smaller ones fall apart and basically lack sometimes even basic resources. This might be a flaw of Durham, to be sure, but this was my experience, and it has created a lasting one to me

[Firekite]

ziggy wrote:

Just wanted to say I've seen our military literally holding the hands of the yanks in the arctic so they wouldnt get lost so our guys and gals have nothing to be ashamed of.

They dont laugh or snicker when they see Americans getting off the plane dressed for summer,they help them get furs and what have you to stay alive.
But if it makes them feel tougher to have to run us down then whos the bigger person?

What.

Lemmy wrote:

I was in Florida recently, and I heard two things on American TV that really made me scratch my head: 1) When reporting on the plane that crashed into the Hudson River in New York, the media blamed the incident on "Canadian Geese", not "Canada geese", but Canadian. The media literally played this incident up as a Canadian conspiracy to kill American airline passengers.

It's hard to tell if you're the dumb one or you somehow think Americans are that dumb or both. Maybe you're just joking, in which case it's funny but damn subtle.

Quote:

2) A cold weather blast rolled in and the American media blamed the weather on Canadians, like we intentionally blew cold, arctic air into the southern states purposely to fuck-up their beach weather.

DAMN YOU CANUCKS AND YOUR COLD! We'll get you for this! We're going to have some unwatched wee-hours show on Fox News comment in passing about your military! THAT'LL SHOW YOU!

[commanderkai]

fifeboy wrote:

A big list that basically means nothing, just like many polls do

Listen, you can show me a list, but my experience shows me otherwise. Without knowing the EXACT schools that participated, you really won't really know if American students are lagging behind or not. So if they choose a few inner city NYC schools as their American portion, while the Canadian schools were the ones in Richmond Hills, then of course there will be differences.

[Lemmy]

Firekite wrote:

It's hard to tell if you're the dumb one or you somehow think Americans are that dumb or both. Maybe you're just joking, in which case it's funny but damn subtle.

I'll leave it up to you to decide. It's okay, though, after the 2-minutes on the Canadian geese, the media went right back to 15-minutes of celebrity entertainment news, so the American people weren't taken away from the REAL news stories of interest for very long.

[Geryon]

Okay, simply put America has a population of what, around 300 million, not going to bother looking it up, don't care enough. There are so many different people there and so many different sub-cultures that two people can go to the U.S. ten times each and have extremely different "average" experiences. Yes the show pissed me off but it was how many people out of HOW MANY PEOPLE. Yes the U.S. is often unjustly hated, but they are also justly disliked by some people, some of the U.S. is also overly fervent about certain things, such as religion, compared to other countries. Canada however is overly pompous to the point where if you say so to some people they will be shocked that you could even think that. Every country has issues. Lastly, education in the U.S. again lots and lots of people, therefor lots and lots of schools there for a huge variety in quality of schools, hell I've even heard people in Canada talking about how moving from on province to another is a huge change in terms of education. Anyway this wasn't so much a point as a rant.

[fifeboy]

Lemmy wrote:

People that put any credibility into standardized testing ought to shampoo my crotch.

Looks like it needs it


The tests do however, show that the idea that American education is superior is inferior.

[roger-roger]

I have seen a big difference in education from Alberta to New Brunswick, lets just say some people in NB dont know the difference between bacteria and viruses.

[fifeboy]

fifeboy wrote:

A big list that basically means nothing, just like many polls do

I didn't write that.

commanderkai wrote:

Listen, you can show me a list, but my experience shows me otherwise. Without knowing the EXACT schools that participated, you really won't really know if American students are lagging behind or not. So if they choose a few inner city NYC schools as their American portion, while the Canadian schools were the ones in Richmond Hills, then of course there will be differences.

Like you said, NOT KNOWING is quite an excuse. For more information, see http://www.apa.org/monitor/mar05/math.html

Remember, you were the one who brought this up. Ya can't say

Quote:

I found the US education far superior. I know for a fact they were ahead at least a year in math...

and then get huffy when presented with stats.

[Murray_Smith]

Our schools suck because teachers' unions started getting political. They care more about teachers living comfortably than students becoming well-educated adults.

This is an issue that exists solely because the media wants it to exist.

[Amilam]

Hehe man I hate FoxNews as much as the next guy, but come on. It's really narrow sighted to make a national fuss about stereotypes and criticisms, then proceed to do the same. If you guys are so secure in the superiority of your education, culture, and spelling of the word "colour" then why does a low rated 3am comedy show sting so much? You guys continue the jokes about us being self-absorbed bullies, we'll continue the jokes about you being irrelevant. Fair give and take. Do toughen up a bit.

[Geryon]

Amilam, just to preface this statement I actually have Canadian and American citizenship and although I would probably in general prefer to live in Canada I think that the American congressional system in general is MUCH stronger than the Canadian parliamentary. I do think that the reaction was over the top but it was the fact that they made fun of the military that was aiding their own rather than the fact that Canada is largely irrelevant on the world stage, or at least for me it was. I am of the belief that one can support the troops without supporting the war, not saying anyone here doesn't think that but anyway, and therefor trivializing one's allies losses bugs me. If Canadians are fighting and dying in Afghanistan with Americans I do not think that either Canadians of Americans should make fun of the other in that context. That said I have no problem with Americans, or Canadians making jokes that Canada's military is underfunded or that Americas is bloated and top heavy or anything like that.

That said I also think the attitude some people have is silly where the fact that people have died means a war should be called off. Yes it's a tragedy but a country can not go into a war and expect no body count, this is not to anyone at all but just because this comic popped into my head. http://www.filibustercartoons.com/index ... hilosophy/

[Ramsey]

Garyon: I totally agree with you on the subject of supporting the soldiers. It doesn't matter what country the soldier is from, they're sacrificing for others and that should be respected.
On the other hand, I do think that Canadians getting upset over this was kind of silly. If you're getting made fun of for being insignificant by a crappy news show that airs at 3am, I don't think you have too much to worry about.

In the spirit of making fun of each other though, I remembered a joke from back in the day regarding Canada's military consisting of 5 infantry battalion's, 3 tank battalions, and 7 submarines. I also remember something about it turning out to be 3 mounties, a couple of moose, and some squirrels after the monetary exchange came into play.

Also, the tragedy of Canada is they could have had British culture, French cooking, and American technology, but instead they got American culture, British cooking, and French technology.