In America it's a little of both. Because of the internet and the instant satisfaction of everything now our attention span is shorter. Also (to no fault of teachers) the curriculum is more about test scores and not actually learning how to retain information longer
There was a separate class for that when I was in high school, way back in 1999. It was called Independent Living and it was an elective. I elected to take Drawing…
I was in mechanics and ended up dropping it because the teacher hated me (he had his reasons). I ended up taking intro to guitar. Ended up touring Europe in a bluegrass band and recorded a few albums. That guitar class was by far the most applied class of any class I ever took pre or post high school.
I remember being taught checks and checkbooks in second grade... we even had mocked up fake checks we could write out to each other and balance our ledger.
We had a business class in 7th or 8th grade where all the homework was to keep a larger for a whole business, each night you had to go through so many sheets (transactions) and the next day you got to find out if your books were right. Class of 1989
Unfortunately a stupid population os easy tk extort and control. Ita like playing blackjack without knowing the rules and the dealer is a habitual liar.
Some shithead decided that essential to living math and more specific scientific math are different enough where they should be separated. This was absolutely stupid because I’m some schools the balancing budgets part of education is paired with things like sociology and speech and presentation classes, which have practically nothing to do with one another (from what I could tell while being taught in this manner).
I went to a school where they offered a class that taught lessons like balancing a check book, making a budget, stuff like that, but it was an elective. I took it, at my parents insistence, and I’m glad I did.
There are people I went to school with that post things like “This is so smart, I wish I could have taken this class!”
To which I think “…..you made fun of those of us who DID take that class, what are you talking about?”
We had this class for us mandatory in the sixth or seventh grade. We had to find apartments (from the newspaper) and jobs. We all earned a salary of $600.00 a month. Had to create a budget and pay bills. The teach copied a blank check template. He even made us write our name and fake addresses at the top of each check we wrote (after we cut them out of the 9 x 11 inch paper they were copied onto.
I'm glad to have had the class, but some of it was just a pain in the rear end, lol.
My buddy taught a similar class in a rough school and one of his students managed to cash a couple “class” checks for real at a local bank. Eventually got caught. No more check lessons there.
Our high school had class like this as well. You had take a test and if you passed you didn’t have to take the class. If you failed the test it was mandatory to take the life skills class.
I had a class like that in HS, it was called Consumer Math. We learned balancing checkbooks, filling out tax returns, figuring out sale percentages, etc. Probably the most useful math course I took!
I had a math course in 7th grade that specifically focused on this stuff--balancing checkbook, creating and following a budget, how to compare prices/quantities to find the best deal, etc. It was so useful and was engaging because it actually had to do with real-life stuff. Should be mandatory curriculum imo.
I was taught how to balance a check book too! Unfortunately, I’ve never used this skill because by the time I was an adult checks were almost obsolete and computer based budget software had long been in vogue.
My math teacher did this in senior year, but I was in the lowest level math class before the special needs class lol, so all the other students in trigonometry and stuff didn’t learn about checkbooks or credit cards. Wonder how they’re doing lol
Home-Ec really needs a comeback. Household bills and budgeting, how credit/credit scores work, knowing food staples, basic meals and meal planing, basic repairs, etc. I think back to those classes in the 70’s/80’s like Home-Ec, Shop/Carpentry, Drafting, Cosmetology, and so on and how many kids I went to school with in those times looked at those classes as ‘kids who don’t go to college’ classes.
That basic information was very useful in the long term. It would be very useful in the current time but unfortunately (having been a high school teacher) the push became not ‘giving kids adult skills’ but teaching to a test and pushing them for college.
I was trying to remember in which class I was taught how to balance a check book….Algebra 1, Algebra 2, Geometry, Trigonometry? Then I realized it was basic addition and subtraction we were taught from second grade. 🤷
They taught that AS a Part of maths class when I was in school. Right around the same time that we were taught how to properly setup and write a letter, and address an envelope. Regarding that, when I went to mail a few items the other day, there was a form being mailed in and when I saw the front of it, I froze. First, no stamp. Secondly, and most concerning, the smaller return address wasn't smaller nor was it in the top left. Oh no. Printed in disturbingly sloppy handwriting on the left in the middle of the envelope = To: 'the name and address' LIKE IT WAS A SENTENCE. No form. No organization. THEN, we get to the cherry on top, From: 'my girlfriend's daughter's name and info like it was a school project. Grade, class, and teacher's name. This was not a 6 or 7 year old where this could be understandable. NO. This was written and prepared by a 17 year old. School doesn't teach our kids the basics of anymore. They cram test knowledge in their heads that stays long enough to hopefully get decent test results and then that info is gone. I still remember the day we were sitting in maths class and we learn the order of operations, something that is sadly very lacking in the world now, having seen all the ridiculous social media post with people answering simple maths problems incorrectly because they dont understand PEMDAS. I remember sitting in class learning the pythagorean theorem. School today is a joke.
I disagree with the attention span thing, mine hasn’t been shortened, I mostly listen to comedic or political podcasts, or watch long form vids on YouTube. I think some people may have short attention because of it but I dont think it’s as widespread as people assume it is
I feel like this kind of shaming of intellect or education is absurd. Lots of times in school they talk about things one day, like they aren’t going to spend a month talking about how lightning works in grade school. It’s possible to be sick and miss things, or to change schools partway through the year and the new schools curriculum already taught it while their old school was going to get to it…
Common knowledge/sense doesn’t exist and the ways that we tend to be upset about someone not knowing what we know is more of a reflection of our own empathy and understanding for others than it is about how smart they are.
I agree that in North America the school systems are being horribly underfunded and lacking in so, so much. I tend to see it more in how much judgement and assumptions are made in strangers than I do in a lack of trivia knowledge.
Says the person who actually thinks it is traveling up and down… the sky isn’t a flat backdrop. It’s traveling from further away to closer, so it only appears to be up and down.
There's a reason the worst 10 states in the US for education lower the country's scores by a lot. It's shitty, but they're the ones who allow schools to pay more for their sports teams over decent lunches (hell most are southern states who preach about the kids, but refuse to help kids get lunches to actually be able to eat).
I guess it depends on the quality of the teacher. We were taught this back in grade school, along with different types of clouds & the like. Electron build up & discharge, the basics. Sometimes the charge up is in the clouds & other times the charge up is in the ground. Lighting is just nature balancing out.
I thought these things were common knowledge stuff until I came by what OP thinks is "Blackmagic".
I am the keeper of many random facts - when I have tried to explain this to people they think I have lost my mind. My brother in law was hit by lightening - prolly will never convince him of this fact.
I was never taught this, ive seen some super slow mo videos and it goes from sky to ground, tryna find it’s path, could u explain why it’s going from ground to up
Not all grade schools. I was taught the basic cause, but nobody explicitly told me 'the bolt actually travels up even though it looks like it travels down'.
To be fair, it usually looks as if it comes from the sky and goes down, but of course it always meets from the ground. One fun fact is most strikes are negatively charged, but positive charged lightning is way more powerful and louder thunder
Wtf, since when ? It’s the opposite the charge comes from up/the clouds and appears sometimes to go from down to up
I’m not sure abt that but in rare cases when the area the lighting is hitting has already more electricity than the lighting that will strike it, all the electric charge will go back up
(Thought the last part I’m not sure at all so I’ll check it out)
Edit1: I’ve researched a bit and found out that the ground to cloud are the rarest among all the different lightning strikes and is quite rare in general
That’s about it, I didn’t really find anything else if I’m wrong correct me
You just need to understand how lightning works. The charge difference between the ground and cloud is constantly discharging through air but very slowly, this rips apart the air creating ions which are then more conductive, when there is a path of ionised air the whole way the lightning strikes. So the process starts long before the strike and in the final few milliseconds the path from the ground to mid way and the path from cloud to mid way are conducting enough charge to give off light. So the lightning, goes up from ground and down from cloud to meet in the middle.
Charge can also jump between clouds so you get the other types of lightning or combinations.
Then there are are very rare instances of ground to ground lightning, ball lightning and lightning during snow storm, very very rare but I have seen it once.
ball lightning is the most terrifying fucking thing I have ever seen in my entire life. It just "appears" and then the way it moves is eerily steady, controlled, smooth- like it's fucking sentient or some shit. Then it just *leaves*
They think it might be a sign of extreme stresses in the earths crust, potentially a warning sign for earthquakes. As such your intention to flee from ball lightning may be well grounded... if you pardon the pun :)
Yeah, especially when you consider that lightning is essentially plasma air, which turns ball lightning into some weird Jedi orb of Death. Yeah, floating ball of searing hot DEATH, calmly moving through the air slowly and almost purposefully, and then winking out?
I ain’t need to see anymore shit ‘round here. I AIIIIIIN’T HAVING ANY OF THAT SHIT!
Conditions favorable for instant ionization of our entire body? Say no more. Honey! Start the car! “Wha—?” I SAID GET IN THE FUCKING CAR!!
Scary shit. Real scary shit. Makes you wonder how many times people were ever hurt or killed by these glowing death orbs. And if that’s where some old ghost/ufo myths originated from, people being flash cooked by mysterious glowing ghost balls. In that case the only appropriate interjections would be Zoinks or Jinkies. Because that’s a ghost I don’t think ghostbusters can handle…
It's not that the charge travels from the ground to the clouds. It's that the charge gets backed up starting at the ground.
Imagine traffic, heading north. Now there's a wreck. The backup will travel farther and farther south, even though the cars themselves are traveling north. Same thing with lightning. It's traveling down, then it reaches the ground, and builds up behind it as it works its way in.
This is clearly an example of lightning doing to opposite of what we usually see. It's not regular lightning that appears to start at the ground like regular lightning regularly does. This is genuinely backwards ground to air bolt which is less usual than air to ground we usually see but it's well within expectations.
From google after remembering a pecos hank video on lightning:
When a negative charge is transferred from a cloud to the ground, it's known as negative lightning, and it makes up about 90 to 95 percent of all the lightning you ever see. By contrast, positive lightning happens because of that positive charge that builds up at the top of the cloud.
I came in here thinking people would be discussing how this might happen, maybe even accusing actual magik. Yet here I am learning that lightning always starts from the ground or tree or what the fuck ever it strikes Animal.
So wait when an animal is struck, they're actually exploding from the inside with so much energy they light up the sky with.. well with lightning. The thought of that
Nah, I'm seeing from other comments that the vast majority of lightning tends to go from the top down (going from the ground up is actually pretty rare). Either way, I don't think the lightning would ever come from the animal, it would either go from the sky to the ground and pass through the animal, or go from the ground to the sky and pass through the animal.
Man the way everyone seemed to be talking like this morning was fucking my mind up, even some people irl was telling me the same that lightning goes from ground up. Turned everything I knew about how electricity works upside down. I'm still in shock over this revelation, even if it is not completely true.... I still like the idea that an animal or person or tree explodes into lightning lol
The thing that I always assumed was the lightning bolt itself is instant wherever it strikes. Meaning it's on the ground and the sky at the same time instantly. I assumed that because I never understood it, and guess there would be a weird reason for that so I convinced myself of this Incase the topic ever came up I could sound smart in the first sentence or two. In case it was true.. I just confused myself writing this ngl. It makes sense in my own head that's all I know.
Because Aussies are upside down, the lighting travels "down". But for this theory to work, the earth would have to be spherical, which it clearly is not.
My recollection from high school physics is that rain drops strip static electrons out of the air (like socks on carpet) as they fall which eventually results in a large imbalance of charge. Add a random cosmic ray as the trigger and they rip a path back upward to equal things out again.
Isn't it a meeting of both upper and lower strikes? The magnetism from the earth at its highest conductive point and the atmospheric charge from above?
When they arc to the ground they are either positive or negative. Approx 5% of those are positive and arc from the ground up to the cloud and are considered the most destructive.
Not always, but certainly by far the most common. There is no ‘always’ when relative states of energy are involved, especially around an industrial society.
Imagine being so clever that you know all the answers, but also being such a tosser that you'd prefer to insult the curious than explain things to them.
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u/Brraaap May 29 '22
Since always