Reddit reviews The De-Textbook: The Stuff You Didn't Know About the Stuff You Thought You Knew

Oh man. There's a series of exactly this. They're fairly big tomes on cheap paper with about 3 pages at a time dedicated to some obscure and interesting fact or piece of history. They're like Cracked on paper, and slightly classier (very slightly).

Actually, Cracked has a few books. Like this and this. Buy, chain to the toilet and become the most loved man in your building.

Found it. The Bathroom Reader's Institute.

> I meant primary school as in k-12, not before high school.

Ah, misunderstandings happen. I thought primary school in the US was up to 12 years and after that is secondary school.

> I think that High school should be about Intro-electives, where kids can learn about a subject in an intro class, and then if they write papers, do research, and do other things (like get an internship/apprenticeship) that could count too. That would encourage kids to learn more on their own, and be curious about what interests them.

It's a good idea, but you'll be missing a lot of the basics if every student just does some projects during their school time. You get to do projects now either way, I've never heard of a school where you just sit all day making calculations for math, or reciting grammar rules in some language course, or just recite year numbers for history etc.

For every course there are always projects you have to do. It's kind of hard for math to have fun and engaging projects, but you use all of your math knowledge for physics (which has loads of awesome stuff you can engage in outside of just making calculations) and chemistry. For language courses you'll have to debate stuff in that language, write letters to foreign students, make posters about famous monuments/cities in that country (this applies more to foreign languages + is also done in geography), read awesome literature from that book and analyze it. Researching history is always a big part of the course, you have to write essays on why and how specific events happened in history.

>> Weird, because I clearly remember being forced to sit and listen to the fucking explanations on how to learn to understand and remember things from a book, how to understand and remember things the teacher was explaining etc.

> K, then maybe your experience was atypical. Most teachers are full of shit, btw.

I very much doubt my experience was atypical, because every single person I've known has had these lessons. Every foreign student I've met has had these lessons. What relevance has your statement that most teachers are full shit? And you link a book published by Cracked ffs? Wow. The first thing I read is that we do not have five senses. No shit? Has any teacher of you told you that we have only five senses? Or that those are the five traditional senses? Anyone with half a brain understands that you have more, like your balance sense? Temperature sense? Pain sense? That's practically self-explanatory.

>> What the fuck does this even mean? To think for themselves? Who the fuck else are they thinking for? Their parents? Their teachers? Their friends?

>Yeah. They're being taught how to think like their teachers, parents, friends, etc. Which is what the government likes, because it's easier to pander to a class of people when they all know/think the same way. Also, calm down a bit, will ya?

Being taught how to think like my teachers, parents and friends is wrong? Then maybe you associate with the wrong people? Take that tinfoil hat off, please. I don't even know how to answer to this. The government is keeping you complacent and stupid? Maybe that's more your own fault.

>> By learning to read and understand what you've read in primary school you can fill out your fucking tax forms yourself.

>Then why do so many people hire accountants? Do you know how to calculate your capital gains taxes on short term and long-term investments, and how that impacts your taxable income? What about the myriad of write-offs and tax-breaks/benefits that the government allows?

Why do people hire cleaners? They don't want to spend the time doing the cleaning? The same with accountants. Yes I know how to do my own taxes, I've done it a couple of times already, and it really is not that hard. If you want to find out tax-breaks/benefits that are not listed on the forms, you just google around a bit, maybe go loan a book on taxes from the library. Information is available everywhere in this day and age, it's not that hard if you've learnt the basic skills of reading comprehension.

>> I get really fucking pissed of at people whining about the fact that they learn nothing in school, more often than not those are kids who don't put in any fucking effort in school and then whine that they don't know shit when they're done.

>I'm "whining" because most of the shit I learned in school was completely fucking wrong or outright propaganda.

Propaganda in school? Where the fuck did you go to school to? Fucking North Korea? I hope you're not saying that most of the shit you learned in school was wrong based on that one very 'nice' book by cracked.

Hmm, how about some sort of book to keep him/her engaged in educating themselves even though they're a retired teacher?

This book springs to mind :)

I meant primary school as in k-12, not before high school.

I think that High school should be about Intro-electives, where kids can learn about a subject in an intro class, and then if they write papers, do research, and do other things (like get an internship/apprenticeship) that could count too. That would encourage kids to learn more on their own, and be curious about what interests them.

> Weird, because I clearly remember being forced to sit and listen to the fucking explanations on how to learn to understand and remember things from a book, how to understand and remember things the teacher was explaining etc.

K, then maybe your experience was atypical. Most teachers are full of shit, btw.

> What the fuck does this even mean? To think for themselves? Who the fuck else are they thinking for? Their parents? Their teachers? Their friends?

Yeah. They're being taught how to think like their teachers, parents, friends, etc. Which is what the government likes, because it's easier to pander to a class of people when they all know/think the same way. Also, calm down a bit, will ya?

> By learning to read and understand what you've read in primary school you can fill out your fucking tax forms yourself.

Then why do so many people hire accountants? Do you know how to calculate your capital gains taxes on short term and long-term investments, and how that impacts your taxable income? What about the myriad of write-offs and tax-breaks/benefits that the government allows?

> I get really fucking pissed of at people whining about the fact that they learn nothing in school, more often than not those are kids who don't put in any fucking effort in school and then whine that they don't know shit when they're done.

I'm "whining" because most of the shit I learned in school was completely fucking wrong or outright propaganda.