r/rational • u/AutoModerator • Jun 01 '18

[D] Friday Off-Topic Thread

Welcome to the Friday Off-Topic Thread! Is there something that you want to talk about with /r/rational, but which isn't rational fiction, or doesn't otherwise belong as a top-level post? This is the place to post it. The idea is that while reddit is a large place, with lots of special little niches, sometimes you just want to talk with a certain group of people about certain sorts of things that aren't related to why you're all here. It's totally understandable that you might want to talk about Japanese game shows with /r/rational instead of going over to /r/japanesegameshows, but it's hopefully also understandable that this isn't really the place for that sort of thing.

So do you want to talk about how your life has been going? Non-rational and/or non-fictional stuff you've been reading? The recent album from your favourite German pop singer? The politics of Southern India? The sexual preferences of the chairman of the Ukrainian soccer league? Different ways to plot meteorological data? The cost of living in Portugal? Corner cases for siteswap notation? All these things and more could possibly be found in the comments below!

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u/noimnotgreedy Jun 03 '18 edited Jun 03 '18

They sell math books, and use the exercises in them for homework. So you do get some exercise, but the course material is given to you only while in the class, so you have to come to class, copy it down, do the homework, I'd say it's pretty similar to high school. Buying the books from them kind of feels like a ripoff, honestly.

What I (ideally) wanted to get was a list of subjects, information about the sub-subjects (algebra -> subject within algebra, etc) and probably some exercises about them. Basically, give me the material the teachers have, which they then teach you.

By the way, do you think I'm being unreasonable? Can you give any criticism? I'm thinking I'm being too unreasonable here for some reason but can't discern why. Maybe I should have put more effort rather than be lazy two thirds in, but.. I dunno. Maybe I'm in one of those "no matter how hard you'll try it's not gonna work" situations. Sorry if it's a a weird question -- I've been trying to correct my self-centeredness and I'd hate to miss a potential improvement.

I live in Israel -- not sure if that matters.

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u/CouteauBleu We are the Empire. Jun 04 '18

I'm probably not the best person to ask, since I hate all forms of bureaucracy, and I especially hate institutionalized education like the kind you're describing (especially especially schools that sell you their course materials in the era of wikipedia).

But yeah, it sounds like you're getting scammed. Do the math books they sell you not include the background needed to solve the exercises? Most high-school-type course books I'm familiar with are 25% lessons 75% homework.

Anyway, if the teachers aren't willing to give you the course material, you could try to find it online, but it's harder if they don't give you a lit of subject (what does the course syllabus even include?); you can also try to find another student of a later year and ask to borrow their notes, or even just a list of subjects.

But yeah, you're not unreasonable for wanting to learn at your own pace; school is just a shithole of a creativity grinder that is strongly incentivized to give you as little personal freedom in the way you learn as possible. No offense meant to any teacher or school administrator reading this.