> If you son was a top student I imagine you managed to keep him interested in spite of the mediocrity of the curriculum? How involved were you during their homework etc.?
> I expect average kids with educated and involved parents to succeed anyway in our system, but I'm wondering how bad it has become in the past 20 years. All these reforms and changes of curriculum don't seem to good every time I hear about them.
The exact case (but the others were similar) was when they were introduced to derivatives in math. The chapter starts by a horribly convoluted definition (even for someone who has a PhD in physics like myself) and the class was lost. Again this is the star class of a top-top-tier high school.
I started with examples from physics that naturally brought the concept of derivative and we ended up with the definition. From that point it was easy to get back to the theoretical math track.
France has a terrible way of teaching science (except for biology). There is a several generations old obsession about mathematics in its purest form. The more abstract, the more orgasmic it looks to the ones who create the curriculum.
There is exactly zero use of this kind of math afterwards - you have engineers who have a hard time approximating (and were taught to not do it because it is not sufficiently precise) or economics students who do not understand the statistics they were force fed.
I hire quite a lot of these and the general feeling is that the school does not matter anymore (the other obsession in France: the Grandes Ecoles - top schools which are supposed to give birth to geniuses) and that the people who did things on their own are way way more interesting for companies than the ones who have a specific diploma.
Just so this does not sound like whining: I myself graduated from such a top school so I am shiitng my own bed somehow.
Finally, a lot of the science taught at school is just boring.
Take the first year of "specialized" physics (2nd year of high school). Exactly everything in the curriculum is made boring or nonsensical. You teach students what are electronics layers (s1, 2s, 2p, ...) but when they ask about details the answer is "nah, you will understand this in your 2nd year of university".
How come someone did not decide to teach mechanics?? This is not only something everyone can relate to, but also perfectly fits with the math curriculum and allows for very interesting and advanced exercises. No - better tell them "Schrodinger equation" and move forward.
I am really mad against this: not only it pushes away young people from science (boring, difficult, ...) but also avoid teaching the important things everyday people will encounter: what a kWh is on their electricity bill, how compound interest works, ... But hey, they will know that the 2p layer follows the 2s one and that homothety is an endormorphism.