That's not at all true. I had at least 5 computer classes in high school, and at least 2 that I can remember in middle school, and one in college.
More likely than not, that teacher is a bad teacher. Teachers teach in a way that does not inspire critical thinking. They will say, "I want you to think this through", but they will mark them down is they're wrong.

Here's an example:

The following concerns a question in a physics degree exam at the University of Copenhagen.

"Describe how to determine the height of a skyscraper with a barometer."

One student replied:

"You tie a long piece of string to the neck of the barometer, then lower the barometer from the roof of the skyscraper to the ground. The length of the string plus the length of the barometer will equal the height of the building."

This highly original answer so incensed the examiner that the student was failed. The student appealed on the grounds that his answer was indisputably correct, and the university appointed an independent arbiter to decide the case. The arbiter judged that the answer was indeed correct, but did the problem it was decided to call the student in and allow him six minutes in which to provide a verbal answer which showed at least a minimal familiarity with the basic principles of physics.

For five minutes the student sat in silence, forehead creased in thought. The arbiter reminded him that time was running out, to which the student replied that he had several extremely relevant answers, but couldn't make up his mind which to use.

On being advised to hurry up the student replied as follows:

"Firstly, you could take the barometer up to the roof of the skyscraper, drop it over the edge, and measure the time it takes to reach the ground. The height of the building can then be worked out from the formula H = 0.5g x t squared. But bad luck on the barometer."

"Or if the sun is shining you could measure the height of the barometer, then set it on end and measure the length of its shadow. Then you measure the length of the skyscraper's shadow, and thereafter it is a simple matter of proportional arithmetic to work out the height of the skyscraper."

"But if you wanted to be highly scientific about it, you could tie a short piece of string to the barometer and swing it like a pendulum, first at ground level and then on the roof of the skyscraper. The height is worked out by the difference in the gravitational restoring force T = 2 pi sqroot (l / g)."

"Or if the skyscraper has an outside emergency staircase, it would be easier to walk up it and mark off the height of the skyscraper in barometer lengths, then add them up."

"If you merely wanted to be boring and orthodox about it, of course, you could use the barometer to measure the air pressure on the roof of the skyscraper and on the ground, and convert the difference in millibars into feet to give the height of the building."

"But since we are constantly being exhorted to exercise independence of mind and apply scientific methods, undoubtedly the best way would be to knock on the janitor's door and say to him 'If you would like a nice new barometer, I will give you this one if you tell me the height of this skyscraper'."

The student was Niels Bohr, the only person from Denmark to win the Nobel prize for Physics.

It is something that needs changed to improve our secondary schools. Or, to directly answer the question posed as the topic of this thread "What is America's Secondary Education Missing?" I could have phrased it as "Better governmental policy. No Child Left Behind is ineffective."

Too many don't know anything about these subjects. You can't teach something you don't know.

Too many just don't care about their kids education. They are too wrapped up in their own interests.

Sad, really.

I agree with the teacher. The problem was "Describe how to determine the height of a skyscraper with a barometer."

This would require a barometer, a string, and some device to measure the length of the string.

This would require a barometer and an accurate timing device.

This would require a barometer and an accurate measurement device. It also requires the shadow to be uninterrupted (say, by another building) and the ground to be at a constant, even slope.

This would require a barometer and a piece of string.

This would require a barometer and a device to measure the length of the barometer.

This would require a barometer and nothing else.

This assumes the janitor knows the height of the building and is not just giving you an answer to get a new barometer. Hardly scientific.

I suspect this story is more legend than fact, but if it is true, I would have expected more from a winner of the Nobel prize for Physics.

What is America's secondary education missing?

Consensus.

Everyone's an expert.

Nobody can agree, policies shift, fads come and go...

That said, I've been reading this thread with interest because I'm actually studying educational leadership and I've worked in schools on and off for twenty years.

Some observations:

In an effort to improve standardized test scores, many (possibly most) schools are increasing time for math and language instruction. I read recently that a poll showed that this is what a majority of the public wants (focus on math and English). However, in order to do this other subjects are pushed aside, like life skills classes and the arts, in particular. For example, my local middle school has instituted remedial math and reading skills classes for those not yet proficient on the state exams. These are in addition to the regular classes. The result for a student who is not proficient in both math and reading could be a schedule that looks like:

Period
1 - English
2 - Reading
3- Reading Skills
4 - Math
5 - Lunch
6 - Math Skills
7 - Science
8 - Social Studies

What's missing? No PE. No Art. No Band. NO RECESS!!!! (Kurt Cobain comes to mind, as well as pissed off kids writing obscenities on bathroom walls and fantasiziing about breaking windows and slashing tires).

Actually, a neighboring district has reduced time in PE and Social Studies to make more time for the assessed subjects. Students take one semester of Social Studies instead of a year, and PE is offered primarily for students who do not engage in sports programs after school.

Visit www.wholechildeducation.org if this concerns or interests you.

snope attributes it as a very modified version of a first hand account published in Readers' Digest in 1961 by Dr. Alexander Calandra

http://www.snopes.com/college/exam/barometer.asp

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[Frontiersman editorial, 2/7/97]

Depends on who you ask. Liberals will defend government schools until they're blue in the face.

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then prove them wrong. offer data which will demonstrate private schools achieve better results teaching to the same level of kids who attend public schools. i will await your proof

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“Mayor Palin fails to have a firm grasp of something very simple: the truth.”

[Frontiersman editorial, 2/7/97]

That's just it; private schools are not required to keep comparable data. My experience has been that some private schools produce students with higher skills, but many do not. There are two religious schools in my town, one Baptist and the other formerly Catholic (they went solo after the diocese cut their funding). Most who have transferred to the middle school are found to be years behind their peers in reading and especially math once the public school gets a chance to assess them. Many come from private schools with no test data, but assume they should be in advanced classes. It's a hard lesson when they find out the public school, at least in my town, offers a much more challenging and rigorous curriculum than the local private schools. Though the teachers in the private schools here lack the training required to be licensed (and get paid under $20K per year), some do an excellent job in part because the class sizes and the schools are a fraction the size of those in the public school. My perception could be somewhat skewed in that my experience is with those who have chosen to leave the private schools rather than those who stick with it perhaps because they are thriving there.

Rah,

Pardon me for not being clear in my previous post. When I said "media interpretation" I meant how to process information coming from different media and how to compare and contrast information from one medium to another.

Television as an example is perhaps the most misunderstood medium. Marshall McKluhan, a Canadian, a brilliant mind of the past century said of television, "The medium is the message". How more prophetic and insightful could someone be! Television had - I think it's potential golden years are gone - tremendous promise but it delivered very little really. Television itself may have changed the world but it could have done great things.

Occasionally, my wife will turn the TV on in the morning - which drives me crazy. I'll pass through the family room and see some morning network broadcast where they have a street cam and people in New York are all outside the studio in all kinds of weather at very early hours waiting for 10 seconds to hold up signs that say things like, "Ed and BC say hello to Wanda and Frank." It baffles me. WTF? Who would do that? Why? Just to be on television. It's not the message that matters, it's the fact that they've been on television.

I have a friend that has her own television talk show. I've never actually seen the entire thing, only segments. People constantly ask for her autograph and tell her they have seen her on television. It amazes me when they do that. Lots of people see her on television, it's her job. Nothing about her job makes her special except for the fact that her job is on television. We sometimes marvel at it and laugh about it.

Here's the point television is acceptable by no doubt a large % of Americans as reality. But it isn't. People believe what they hear or see on television, but the message is distorted by time and space. Advertisers spend billions to get their message on television because people believe what they see. It doesn't have to be true. Big advertisers conduct massive demographic surveys to determine what people will watch and then the advertiser develops a television program around the demographic they want to reach. People think they are watching an innocent television show with commercials but what they are watching is are commercials interspersed with entertainment content. A hell of a lot of people do not know how to process television. Children certainly don't and now even a generation of parents are largely clueless.

The Bush Administration played the public like a fine guitar on the run-up to Iraq. It is the one thing that this administration has excelled at doing. It's documented. They did a superb job. The public was guileless. You can bet the next President no matter who it is will take Bush's lesson and improve upon it.

Television is one medium.

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Last book read: "Child 44"
Now reading: "Tree of Smoke"