[irrational]

>Just imagine a gardening and cooking class where you could teach:

1. Plant biology and genetics of seeds 2. Chemistry and Soil Biology, Composting, Decomposition. 3. Use geometry to design raised bed frames 4. Learn some vocational carpentry to build raised bed frames 5. Plant in different environments, track growth, production, measures in a scientific experiment 6. Learn to cook some different recipes with what you've grown as well as how different temperatures affect what you're cooking (caramelization of onions, etc)

One of my kids attends just such a class in high school half of each day. What you have described is pretty much exactly what they do. They have a carpentry shop, a huge garden, a kitchen, a science lab, etc. It sounds great, but the teachers suck. All the students hate it and are encouraging other students not to sign up for it next year.

[20years]

"It sounds great, but the teachers suck."

That really is too bad. Sounds like a great program but if they can't get good teachers, it is a waste.

What are some of the reasons why the kids think the teachers are bad?

I believe that is an entirely different issue. Our education system is not employing the best teachers especially in the STEM fields because we do not pay them enough. I know plenty of professionals who would absolutely love to teach but they don't because they can make 2x to 3x as much elsewhere and would barely make ends meet teaching.

[ddebernardy]

> What are some of the reasons why the kids think the teachers are bad?

I'm not the parent, but my guess if any is that it has to do with the teachers' educative background. They're basically trained to teach biology as biology only, mathematics as mathematics only, etc. without putting 2 plus 2 together and spelling out the day to day usefulness.

A corollary question with a similar answer might be why the education system in just about every country (all?) is stuck with "traditional" course separations, as in maths, physics, biology, literature, etc. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[irrational]

From what I can tell the teachers are wanna-be hippies who aren't really interested in teaching but enjoy collecting a paycheck while hanging out miles from supervision by administrators. Most of their teaching doesn't seem to be STEM related per-se, but more political ranting.

[watwut]

We had similar classes and I always found them waste of time. It sounds fun, but a lot of time is basically wasted in (needed but still) busywork. Conventional class allows you to learn exactly same amount of things, but much faster and then you can do whatever you actually find fun. Specifically, planting in different environments and tracking growth takes a lot of time and boring work.

It is cool to do experiment once in a while or short experiments you are curious to know what happens. But, if you are able to read experiment based class means waiting till the thing you expect to happen (based on what you already read) finally happen.