Kids/Teens Book Club discussion

Ive noticed that some of you members have been going off-topic in numerous discussions, and turned the topic into school. Weather you're comparing subjects, whining about a teacher or boasting some great marks-you can do that here, instead of invading some poor book thread:)

-shrinks in corner- :) But it wasn't a book thread! It was a movie thread!


ANYWAYS onto school.
WHat classes are people taking this year?
I'm taking English 9, Physical Science, Spanish 1, Geometry, Religion 9 (religion is a required course at my school), American History to 1900, and Band.

Wow, you're pretty busy! What College classes?

I am taking Algebra 1, World History, Biology, Business Computers, English II, French, Danish, and a little German. And LOVE IT!

Right now I'm in English 9-10, Math 9 Honors (Geometry), Living Environment (biology), Latin 2, Global Studies (all the history of the non-western world in one year), orchestra, PE, and Sculpture 1. Last semester I took Visual Dynamics, which is the general art class and a prerequisite for any of the other art classes, instead of Sculpture.

Freshman year, we don't have much choice about what we take: we have Global, English 9-10, Bio or Earth Science (but almost always bio), a foreign language that you've been taking since fifth grade, the math you have been placed in, and gym, and then you can take up to two electives, although they recommend you only take one, so that you have at least one free almost every day.

★ Jessica ★ wrote: "Ive noticed that some of you members have been going off-topic in numerous discussions, and turned the topic into school. Weather you're comparing subjects, whining about a teacher or boasting some..."

Good idea, Jessica! :D

Brenna wrote: "I am taking Algebra 1, World History, Biology, Business Computers, English II, French, Danish, and a little German. And LOVE IT!"

Danish? That's awesome!

Uh...AP Lang & Comp, AP American History, Psych, American Justice, Chemisty, and...Intermediate Math. I am not a smart man when it comes to math. Not smart at all.

@Kate

I love it! It is sooooo easy.
Not what I expected. :P

well that's okay!
Brenna: that's sweet! i wish i could take a language other than Spanish, but it's the only language my school offers.

Spanish? I wanted to take Spanish for awhile but it didn't work out. :)

Why do your classes have numbers? lol like english 2 and stuff what do they mean? :S

I am taking, Higher Pychology at college, Higher English, Higher History and int 2 biology. It doesnt seem like a lot but theres alot of work in the highers thats why we get less classes in 6th year.

I'm taking AP English III (Language and Composition), AP American History, Spanish III, Honors Pre-Calculus, Symphony, and AP Biology.

Lauren wrote: "Why do your classes have numbers? lol like english 2 and stuff what do they mean? :S"

The numbers at the end refer to the class level. If you're in 9th grade, you have English 1, 10th grade you have English 2, and so on, unless you take an AP course.

Right now... Haha Pandy it looks like we have about half the same classes! I'm taking Painting II, AP Literature, Honors Precalculus, Honors Physics, AP American History, and Sociology.

I have an intense schedule... Complex Analysis, Numerical Analysis, Mathematical Physics 2 and Modern Physics (which covers Special Relativity and basic Quantum Mechanics stuff...)

That is correct.

Yeah, I just finished up one of the problem sets for one them due tomorrow... it was probably 15 pages long. Most of the math homework at this level is 10+ pages written out anyway though...

:O Well all my classes are mandatory since I'm still in 8th grade. LOL.

Bible (required), US History, Chemistry, Physics, Geometry, English, and Literature.

Which is the same for everyone in my class except people who are only in Pre-Algebra and Algebra I.

My favorite subject at the moment is English I think... we are reading the short rip off version of the Diary of Anne Frank. And we are watching the movie between each scene we read. Today we just saw Peter and Anne kiss and everyone got excited. o_o Not a big deal people! D8

You're taking chemistry and physics and you're in eight grade? I won't be able to take physics until I'm a junior, and that's if I'm in the "advanced" track.

Is the Anne Frank ripoff good?

Well In Australia, subjects are different. Im in year/grade 10, and the subjects Im taking are:

-standard maths, english, religion, PLP, humanities, P.E and science. All of those are compulsory.
For electives Im taking Advanced French and Drama.
Next year we get a get to select all our subjects, not just a few. My favorite lesson so far is definitely drama.
My best lesson is drama or Religion :)

@Kate:
It's definitely not high school leveled Science. We are just learning about ionic bonds, periodic table, motion/acceleration, etc. 1st semester was chemistry, and 2nd semester (started last week) we are just getting into physics.

I just finished the "rip-off" from my Literature textbook today, but I have never read the full book of the Diary of Anne Frank before, so I can't really compare the two. In my opinion it was pretty enjoyable, but nothing really exciting happens. They just do random stuff for 2 years... I really liked learning about the WWII though. And of course Peter and Anne's romance ~ I think Anne writes some wise words in the diary. :]

I take english, math, soc. studies/science, band, art, gym, and library.

I am dreading chemistry. :S

My School Suckksssss! We have Science, Regular and Honors Reading/Lanuage Arts(we are working on WWII also!) Pre-Alg or Algebra 1, and Social Studies(they don't specifically say world geo or anything haha)
We have a mandatory 3 six week PE terms and between those are computer typing, technology(offers aerospace,forensic,sewing,computer apps, comp repair, and alotta other stuff,sounds fun?!not!teaher sucks), and LIFT(test help:( ) then you take 4 nine week fine arts classes Art, Chorus, Keyboard/Piano, and dance. We also have band. I am honors r/la an alg 1. Also I am in gifted Classes, can't wait til high school so I can be challenged.:) lol

In junior high my social studies classes didn't have any other name either. They were so boring, but then again history has always been horribly boring to me, especially this year.

Taylor wrote: "Right now... Haha Pandy it looks like we have about half the same classes! I'm taking Painting II, AP Literature, Honors Precalculus, Honors Physics, AP American History, and Sociology"

You're right - we do have half the same! What's the senior AP English class at your school called?

★ Jessica ★ wrote: "Well In Australia, subjects are different. Im in year/grade 10, and the subjects Im taking are:

-standard maths, english, religion, PLP, humanities, P.E and science. All of those are compulsory. ..."

What's PLP?

~Noelle~ wrote: "I've always been kind of curious about religion lessons at school.. What kind of things have you guys done in that class before? ^_^ Obviously things related to religion, but you know what I mean..."

I don't take a religion class, but my so-called "Global Studies" focused on religion for the first half of the year. We learned the basics of Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, Asceticism, Brahminism, old Mesopotamian religion, ancient Egyptian religion, Shinto, Confucianism, and Taoism, as well as some Sufism and Sikhism. You can see just how much we focused on that, even though supposedly we were learning all about a specific region at a specific (although vast) time. They didn't even make us remember a single year from all of it, except that 622 AD was Muhammad's journey from Mecca to Medina (known then as Yathrib).

Anyway, even though it's not an official religion class, we've spent a lot of time on it; we learn the basic beliefs, why it started, who founded it, where it started, etc. It's useful to know, I guess, but I think I'd rather take a class that was supposed to be religion, not one that ignores other important aspects of life for religion.

Pandy wrote: "In junior high my social studies classes didn't have any other name either. They were so boring, but then again history has always been horribly boring to me, especially this year.

Taylor wrote:..."

We have AP Language for our senior year.

Oh, thanks. It's the other way around at my school.

@Kate, PLP is about jobs and helping us discover what we like and careers we may want t get into and all that jazz :)
It's a bludge lesson.

Oh, thanks. Our school doesn't really worry about that. Most people wait until they're in college before really deciding.

The subjects I take are:

Science 2 (we have to do either science one or science two. Science two is harder and we have to take it if we want to do senior science.)

Religion and Philosophy (we have to do either RAP or normal religion and RAP sounded more interesting.)

Prep Maths B (the hardest maths subject in grade ten)

Multimedia and Computer studies (photoshop, flash and similar things)

Music

English

Studies Of Society and the Environment (history, geography and other boring things.)

All the subjects I take are compulsory for the rest of the year in one form or another except music and multimedia which we got to choose from other arts and languages subjects mainly.

We also have one lesson every six days of core PE and pos ed which is about positive psychology and happiness and that sort of thing.

Michelle wrote: ":O Well all my classes are mandatory since I'm still in 8th grade. LOL.

Bible (required), US History, Chemistry, Physics, Geometry, English, and Literature.

Which is the same for everyone in my c..."

We watched and read that too! You guys reading the play version?

I take math, science, ELA (english language arts), library, gym, band, art, social studies, and latin.

Next year we get to choose/drop subjects.
I am definitely continuing drama and english and will pick up law and business studies.
I will for sure drop maths and PE...

Can you drop maths in SA? Here we have to do at least one form of maths except for under certain circumstances. My cousin told me if you are really good at English (because that is compulsory too) and bad at Maths and you are wiling to argue with the teachers enough you can get out of it but in most cases we have to do it.

I am really starting to hate music class. I didn't take it last year and if I decide I want to switch subjects, I won't be able to until the start of next semester which is in July. I had a music assignment draft due last week. On Tuesday I found out that I will have an afternoon detention next week because my assignment was incomplete (remember it was a draft) and wouldn't have passed as a final assignment. My friend also has detention. It is only the two of us and our class is fairly small but she said there were two other people who didn't have it finished but their assignments would have passed according to my teacher so they don't have detention. I wouldn't care as much if this had happened before. This has never happened before to me or to anyone I know. None of the other teachers have ever told us that drafts must be complete and given detentions when they are incomplete. My friends who took this class last year and everyone else agreed that it was unfair and my friends who took it last year said that she hadn't done that before and the work wasn't as difficult last year either. That is not because we are a year older now either. It is a combined 9/10 class so it shouldn't be any more difficult than last year.

We have a summary of the assessment policy at my school and it doesn't say that if the draft is incomplete we have a detention; it says if we don't submit the draft when it is due we have detention. Our teacher told us that it is part of the policy and some teachers just don't enforce it. Yeah. Of course all of the roughly twenty teachers I have had haven't enforced this rule because they were being nice or couldn't be bothered and one teacher only now is. I don't care so much about the detention, more so the fact that it will go on my record and lessen my chance of becoming a captain for anything in year twelve and I find it insulting that I have been punished by a seemingly non-existent rule and she acted like it was my fault and I should have known about it. She said to me that she knew I could have done it and it was just laziness. Well sure. If you think that not understanding the assignment and struggling with it because we didn't get to do any work on it at school and having music camp the weekend before it was due laziness, then fine, it was laziness.

Today I was in one of the practice rooms across the hall from the music room which has glass walls. I was practising scales on the piano for our assessment and my friend was practising scales on guitar for assessment. My other friend was outside and then she walked in and we were laughing about something when suddenly my teacher walked in and took the guitar off my friend. Then she said something similar to 'what are you doing?' we said we were practising scales and then she said something like 'good behaviour in my class earns you brownie points. You can also get negative brownie points.' Then she took the guitar back to the music room and told us she thought it was time for us to go back to the music room. This was out of nowhere. I don't even know what I did wrong and what she was going on about. None of my friends did anything wrong either unless laughing is a crime. I don't know if she was talking about the assignment because it was my friend who also has detention or if it was something else completely. Either way, I take that to mean 'I hate you for no reason. I have favourites and you're not one of them.' I don't know why she hates me so much.

I just wrote 669 words about that. If only schoolwork was that easy.

Well that sounds awful....

If you're worried about it going on your permanent record and stopping you from being captain and all that, stop. Detention isn't anywhere near as bad as believed (repercussion-wise). Yes, it's on your permanent record but no, NO ONE cares that you had one detention when you were in tenth grade. Furthermore, the truth is that most people have a detention at some point in their high school careers. According to one of the teachers at my school, everyone should have a detention at least once before graduating, or the experience isn't complete.

I will NEVER get detention! My goal for all of my school years is:

no detentions
all A's
the best clarinet player in the whole school


:P

I mean, I don't exactly plan on getting detention, but if it happens, I will try to convince myself it's not the end of the world.

Well aren't YOU special, Rose! lolz. JK> that's pretty much me too. only I'm a freshman in High School. Not quite all A's though (stupid spanish). And best band MEMBER. Cause there are a couple people who take private lessons and I know that they are better then me. :)

That's AWFUL, Mandie! It's a bit ridiculous and extreme....

I am very special, Rebekah! I'm in sixth grade, so I've got a long ways to go. I started latin last year, and so far she's been easy on us, but it's going to get worse. I almost had a B in math (I didn't always turn in my homework,) but I got an A-!!!!! There's a kid in my band that takes private lessons, but he's horrible. I'm definetly the best piano player in the school. I started lessons in second grade.

I started piano then too. But where I am, that's not early, and I am by no means the best. My friend, who is the best, has played at Carnegie Hall.

In every section of the band and orchestra (well, definitely orchestra, probably band), we have at least one amazing player. One kid has taken private lessons on the violin since the age of about three. By now, almost everyone in the orchestra has outside lessons though. I am the exception.

Carnagie Hall? Awesome! I wish I could play there. Most kids in my town aren't musicaly gifted. Theres a special group of kids that are called "the ensemble." We are really good. It's just me, my sister, a bass guitar player, two trumpets, and three flutes. We're all really close friends even though we are sixth grade through eighth grade.

That's really cool. We do have a chamber orchestra, but I'm not good enough to be in it. It's the best of the best in the high school; while I would call myself musically gifted in that I can learn instruments pretty easily, I am by no means anywhere near the level of even some of my fellow freshmen, let alone seniors.

I'm very lucky to get into the ensemble. I'm the youngest one in it, but I'm pretty gifted with music. We play shows around Christmas time.

I hope that you get into the chamber orchestra!

Thank you, but I'm not even trying. With sports, I don't have the time, because the rehearse after school.

Yeah...I don't like auditions so I probably wouldn't try either. :) But you have a better reason then me. :)

Kate wrote: "Thank you, but I'm not even trying. With sports, I don't have the time, because the rehearse after school."

good point. I'm so busy, that I can't even think about adding in bass guitar lessons! (I got a bass for christmas and I want to learn how to play it!) I bet that you do way more than me, but this is my schedule-

Monday- ensemble
tuedsay- concert band, ballet
wednesday- piano
thursday- library volunteering, jazz band
friday- NOTHING!
saturday- jazz(dance)
sunday- NOTHING!

my schedule right now has one thing besides school each weekday, since I'm not doing a sport in the winter(recovering from a sprained ankle).

In the fall though, I had cross country practice every day right after school, getting home around five thirty. Then I had a meet almost every Saturday, taking up most of the day, and some Tuesdays, in which case I got home around seven.
THEN, on Mondays I would have Hebrew school starting at 6:15 and going until 8:30, and on Thursdays a 45 minute piano lesson around 6:45 to 7:00. I still have those, and other things, but right now (until March 14th) I no longer have practice before it as well.

And then there are the morning Academic Challenge "practices".

So yes, my schedule is very busy.

wow!