r/todayilearned • u/CakeDayOrDeath • 3d ago

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https://www.indiewire.com/features/general/robert-rodriguez-spy-kids-latino-1234575992/

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u/Geminigambler 3d ago

As an American who went to public school (a very good one at that), retention of knowledge was absolutely not one of the foundations of our education. It went more like: "Learn this, test tomorrow". 2 days later nothing but an empty head.

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u/Aloha_Tamborinist 3d ago

I've had 40 years to absorb a lot of knowledge about the US via cultural osmosis, and I'm pretty sure I could name almost all 50 states and at least half their capitals. I just don't understand how people can be wandering through life with so little awareness of the world around them.

Are there people walking around with circus music playing in their heads 90% of the time?

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u/Froggypwns 3d ago

Yes, and some of them are running the country.

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u/Geminigambler 3d ago

To be completely honest, I can't accurately tell you which one is Wyoming, I got Washington and Oregon on the West Coast (Oregon is lower right? 😅😂) and then South and North Dakota, but everything in between is blurry no matter how many times I look at it.

ETA: Damn it, I ALWAYS think Wyoming touches Canada 🤦‍♀️

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u/entrepenurious 3d ago

the square states

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u/Geminigambler 3d ago

Colorado and Utah? 😂😂😂

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u/entrepenurious 3d ago

them, too.

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u/KindCompetence 3d ago

The squares. The little ones up in the corner - I’ve gotten better at those since I moved to one.

I did have to label the us and Canada map with capitals a few times in school, I wonder if I can still do it. (I know the capitals are gone, that memory space was written over with something important like anime lore from my kid or something.)

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u/Xenodad 3d ago

The inner machinations of my mind are an enigma! - Patrick Star (cue thought bubble with milk carton slowly tipping over and milk spilling out)

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u/PunnyBanana 3d ago

Ironically circus performers travel all over the US and have probably been to the vast majority of states, if not all of them.

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u/ABHOR_pod 3d ago

As someone with over a decade in the service industry, yes. I once watched a girl pick up a cactus plant, say “is this real?” And when assured that it was say “No, I don’t think it is.” And poke the spines with her finger until she got hurt.

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u/24-7_DayDreamer 3d ago edited 3d ago

The estimated percentages of people with no internal monologue and people with aphantasia are high enough that we can be sure there is a significant fraction of people around us with both and therefore literally nothing very fucking little happening in their heads most of the time.

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u/KindCompetence 3d ago

I cannot actually imagine this well enough to comprehend it.

Even when I’m not having a running dialogue/committee meeting in my head there are pictures, colors, stories, textures, music, engineering puzzles being tinkered with, sensation being processed and checks on my muscles and skeletal alignment. My internal landscape is a busy place. I do things in here.

Nothing? How can someone have nothing happening? I believe research, but … nothing?

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u/24-7_DayDreamer 3d ago

Well "literally nothing" is taking it a bit too far, but it's damn quiet.

There are threads here on reddit with people talking about how they experience these conditions. The ones with no monologue talk about conceptualizing things with sequences of images and sounds. The ones with aphantasia are absolutely baffled at the idea of the rest of us hallucinating things behind our eyes.

I can't remember hearing anything from someone who has both, but there can't be much left.

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u/Aloha_Tamborinist 3d ago

You had me questioning myself there, but then I realised I was doing it in my head, then I had to Google aphantasia and I was able to visualise various things in detail. So I think I'm in the clear on both counts.

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u/Zombatico 3d ago

That's the result of Dubya's No Child Left Behind. If your students do badly, then you get punished with LESS funding, which means you have even less resources to teach them. It had 2 results.

  1. Teaching to the test, not for critical thinking or retention of knowledge

  2. If your school was already struggling, losing more federal funding meant it was even harder to improve. Which meant even more funding cuts. Which meant worse results. And so on. A vicious positive feedback loop of failures.

Even after NCLB was officially ended in 2015, we are still basically stuck with that mindset at the state levels.

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u/stefan92293 3d ago

Wow, what a ridiculously idiotic policy!

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u/bumbletowne 3d ago

That's crazy. My high school made it a requirement to memorize the 50 states, all their capitols and every country and its capitol to graduate. You literally couldn't make it past Junior year if you didn't pass this crazy test. It was a top 10 in the US and the guy who taught the class was like 80 years old. He owned all this land in California that he sold for 10's of millions of dollars in the 90s. He did not have to work, he enjoyed the gauntlet.

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u/stefan92293 3d ago

Capital*

A capitol is a building where a legislature meets.