A Problem with American piblic schools and how it affects my chances of going to the moon?

Question

I wasn´t born in America but I went to several American schools. From what I saw, students are not really sweating it. Kids who like science and math are called nurds and are frowned upon, which makes then want to abandon the wisdom path that doen't seem to get them popular or laid. Nurds turn into Joks or die off.
Now I am wondering, who are those people that make ipod Nanos and Bluetooth wireless technology? Are they all from Japan or Russia? Where in other words does America get it's brains? Are they imported?

Answer 1

The problem is they never taught you to spell public properly

Answer 2

America seems to be losing it's technical edge. I see a lot of engineers with foreign names now.

Why the nerds are put down, I don't know. There is a far better chance of making good money in technology then there is in getting on a pro sports team and making good money. In other words, there are far more millionaires in tech. companies than playing for sports teams. Look at Bill Gates, he didn't become the worlds richest person playing football.

But it's not the schools fault. It's the students. The facilities are there but the students have to make use of them. Kids today seem to have the attitude that they should get it all without trying. Here is where the jocks are different. The jocks do try and work and put out effort. If they don't they get dropped from the team. If a kid doesn't try in english or history they are still passed on to the next grade. It's like that old saying: You can lead a horse to wate but you can't make him drink.

Answer 3

You asked, " Where in other words does America get it's brains? Are they imported?"

You put your finget on a serious cultural problem in the USA. The dummies rule the country and every aspect of society. Anyone with brains quickly learns to not "show off", use a complex sentence structure, a large vocabulary, or challenge common beliefs. It is usually just because they don't have to study. Nothing demands any thought and everything discourages it.

America had depended on a continual inflow of bright people into the country to make up for the dumming down of America after the second generation of citizenship.

Answer 4

There are students who stay nerds their whole life or students who find they like math/science and make a career of it. America gets it brains from students who have enough money to go to college and do what they like. Most engineers were not nerds in high school they were average students who may have played a sport or two or been part of one club or another and just so happened to be good at math or science.

Answer 5

Actually, we do import a lot of foreign grad students - usually almost as many as half in a program of study (especially science and enginneering). Our physics programs could fill completely with Chinese students before even bothering with Americans. The Chinese usually do much better than us - better work ethics and better education overall.

We need to work on it, that's for sure - or we won't be the technological and scientific leaders much longer.

Answer 6

welll.. to start... it's "public"... and "nerds" and "jocks."

And given that the US has the most developed space program, I'd think the chances are good. But then again, there are no planned missions back to the moon....

There are a few schools you might have heard of... MIT, Cal Tech, Stanford...Cal...UCLA... USC...Harvard...all of which produce the finest of scientists, mathematicians and economists.

I suppose one only need to look at the American sweep of the Nobel Prizes (minus Peace and Literature) to see evidence of our strong science and math programs and research institutes.

Answer 7

Maybe it's because so many of them spend their time whining about others instead of pushing themselves to achieve.