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New Zealand has sunk to a new low in modern education. A number of high school students have started a petition to not be failed on a national history exam as they did not understand the meaning of the word 'trivial'. For those not in the know, trivial means "of little value or importance" which aptly describes this petition given that it is being made by grade 13 high school students who by all rights should know the meaning of this word. More than 2400 people have signed the petition 'expressing their frustration with the exam question'. Student Logan Stadnyk claimed that he was "lucky" to have known what the word meant, as half his class didn't. "New Zealand History Teachers' Association chairman Graeme Ball has sided with the students calling the exam a 'little bit of a snafu'" but not providing an adequate answer as to why students in grade 13 would not understand a common English word.
Have the three Rs lost all meaning in schools? Are we failing our students? Or is this just another case of today's teens being snowflakes?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday November 17 2018, @11:13PM (21 children)
Beg to differ. Not knowing the meaning of such a common bit of vocabulary doesn't mean you're not being taught; it means you're failing to learn anything without being explicitly taught and that particular failing is entirely your own. Now if it was never in any material presented at school, it shouldn't be on a test. But they're still dumbasses for having an abysmal vocabulary as high school seniors.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @11:17PM (14 children)
High school seniors are in grade 12, this is grade 13.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 17 2018, @11:44PM
Same thing ... it's like turning your guitar up to 11.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday November 18 2018, @12:48AM (7 children)
Are you speaking for the US, or for New Zealand, or for Zimbabwe, or for Brazil, or . . . .
We are kinda US centric here. The story is about New Zealand. TFS says grade 13 high school students, so I took the statement at it's face value. Maybe they've always had 13 years of schooling. Or, maybe they just tacked on kindergarden, and renumbered from there. Here, in the US, high school seniors are in grade 12. It appears that in New Zealand, high school seniors are in grade 13.
Any Zealanders want to set us straight?
I'm going to buy my defensive radar from Temu, just like Venezuela!
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 18 2018, @01:46AM (5 children)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Thirteen [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday November 18 2018, @02:10AM (1 child)
That didn't take very long. Are you a New Zealander?
I'm going to buy my defensive radar from Temu, just like Venezuela!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 18 2018, @11:54AM
Same AC: no, I'm Oz. But the Tasman's not too big.
(Score: 2) by DaTrueDave on Sunday November 18 2018, @05:13AM (2 children)
Ah, so it's for people that can't earn their diploma in Year 12. Stupid kids and kids that had travel opportunities or other obligations?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday November 18 2018, @06:51AM
I wouldn't be so quick to jump to conclusions. Sometimes, scheduling just doesn't work out to the student's best advantage. I could have used a thirteenth year to get a couple more electives, and third year of chem. Had I done so, I would have taken another year of biology as well. That only accounts for half the day, so I may (or may not) have taken another English or lit course.
Years later, my brainy son could have put a thirteenth year to good use. He had all the prerequisites for college, but he would have taken the maths that he didn't fit in already.
One of my nephews complained of something similar when he was finishing high school, but I can't remember now what he was wanting to fit in.
A lot of that depends on the school that you attend, as well. For instance, if you go to a school that doesn't offer chem beyond 2nd year, or calc, or whatever, then that thirteenth year would do you little good. Then it would only be a make up year for incompletes and fails.
And, finally - there may be some kids who haven't yet reached the age of majority at the end of the 12th year. Might as well stay in school, if you can't get a decent job, right? That may vary by country - we don't see much of that in the US any more. Most schools just won't allow you to start 1st grade until you're six years and some months now. I was five years old when I started, and didn't turn 18 until days before graduation.
I'm going to buy my defensive radar from Temu, just like Venezuela!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 18 2018, @12:02PM
Actually an extra year for finishing high school can have great pedagogical* benefit.
A minor point - in this part of the world a diploma is a post secondary qualification.
*I use that word a lot, and it does mean what I think it means.
(Score: 3, Informative) by dry on Sunday November 18 2018, @05:11AM
Here in Canada, some areas finish high school with grade 12 and other areas with grade 13. I think grade 13 is more voluntary but not sure as I only lived in areas that only went to grade 12.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Sunday November 18 2018, @10:36AM (2 children)
It would very much help if someone from NZ could tell us what age in years the kids are in this Grade 13. Anyone? I don't have a clue.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 18 2018, @05:34PM (1 child)
Yes, please. ANYONE?
Gosh, if only there were some other way to find out this information other than people repeatedly begging on SN for some knowledgeable Kiwi to chime in! Thanks to that Canadian in the above post for providing random anecdotal data about his experience in Canada (which may or may not have any relationship to anything that goes on with New Zealand)! That's amazing!
I mean, imagine if there were some sort of comprehensive free readily available resource [wikipedia.org] that might have information like this, perhaps even with directions to find more reputable resources to fill in such information! Wouldn't that be something?? Or maybe even some sort of apparatus to search for said information, a sort of... engine, if you will...
But alas. I don't have a clue about this wacky New Zealand education thing either. I went to the local library and asked to see their Facts on File database, but their microfilm reader was out of order. Then I remembered that I had a friend of a friend who was an extra in the original Lord of the Rings movie. So I sent him a telegram. I'll report back when I hear from him. I'd call him, but when I contacted my phone operator (who seemed confused to actually be talking to anyone who needed assistance in dialing), I was told I'd need to upgrade my long distance plan for them to place the call over the international wires for me.
Oh well.. let's just hope we hear from someone here. That would really help! Anyone?!? Maybe someone should start looking into creating a resource that we could look up easy to find information like this... perhaps a sort of interconnected network that's around the world or somethin'...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 18 2018, @09:15PM
Anyone can edit wikipedia though, is that a reliable source?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday November 18 2018, @09:53PM (1 child)
We don't have High School seniors at all. These people are "Year 13" which means they are either 18, or very nearly 18.
The youngest zombie in fact sat this exam, and yes, he knows what trivial means, because he's an 18 year old with English as his first language.
Until I saw this story I would not have thought it possible to attain the age of 18, speaking english as your first language and not know what trivial meant.
In my view these students' parents ought to be ashamed of themselves.
(Score: 4, Informative) by driverless on Monday November 19 2018, @03:31AM
Going from this quote in the story:
I would say it's quite possible.
I'm also surprised that this person is taking a Year 13 exam, and not still stuck repeating something around Year 5. No Child left Behind, I guess.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 18 2018, @12:55PM (4 children)
Nonsense. How can a normal person teach themselves to teach themselves at a remotely acceptable level of efficiency when they're bombarded by information 24/7? When we were kids there were 2-3 linear algebra books, 2-3 differential books, and a couple of newspapers everyone read and you were expected to understand without opening a vocabulary. Nowadays kids are running into foreign loan words from Spanish in American English, Gaulish in Irish/Scottish English, Hindi in India's English, Latin/Welsh/Cockney in British English... All without being able to differentiate what's slang and what's necessary for academic purposes.
If the education system expects children to know a certain word, they should put it in writing. You think "trivia/trivial" should be in the core vocabulary? I agree. Lets make it official. In all the non-English countries there's a core vocabulary list students are required to know. It's done to prevent such situations as private schools with partial public funding from deliberately using obscure words that are only taught in their associated lower-education private schools from fixing the examinations to only welcome their own students. So, have the school board write down the list and make it mandatory for teaching materiel and examinations not to exceed it. You can even go the Japanese way and force the newspapers to stick to it and add a footnote whenever they use a word that isn't no the list.
The English vocabulary is huge with enough regional and age differences to boggle commonsense.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday November 18 2018, @02:36PM (2 children)
See the learning of their native language from birth to age five or so. It not only happens, it happens for every single human being on the planet.
As for that particular word, there is no way in hell they didn't hear it enough times while reaching their current age to infer at least a reasonable approximation of its meaning.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by http on Sunday November 18 2018, @11:21PM (1 child)
Before the brief 90s phenomenon of the board game "Trivial Pursuit", I had never heard the word used outside of undergraduate math classes. Your experience is not universal, and neither is mine, but your absolute insistence suggests an unwillingness on your part to imagine someone else's experience.
Sadly, the disease is common enough that there's a name for it.
I browse at -1 when I have mod points. It's unsettling.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday November 18 2018, @11:40PM
Hi, welcome to the world with the Internet, http. My experience is hardly isolated given the global forums everyone interacts in nowadays.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 20 2018, @12:18PM
"Inshallah" literally means "of god wills".
It is what you say when rape someone
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Fluffeh on Wednesday November 21 2018, @10:48PM
Totally agree.
I would consider that list of signatures a list of people to never hire, and probably avoid in general.
At that age, you're an adult and you don't understand a common word - okay, sure it might be that you were never specifically TAUGHT that word. I don't recall ever going into class and reading pages of the dictionary to learn all the words either, but to basically reject any ownership of your shortcomings and DEMAND you are marked up without merit of being able to answer a question correctly? That's just downright embarrassing and as far as I am concerned, perfectly indicative of how you will react to potential poor performance in the future.