education

I have just returned from the Library where I am helping kids with homework. And boy, do I feel like I am stupid - or something!
And I find myself like a kid wondering why kids need to learn the things they are being taught.
First there was a young man who was from Africa who has a paper to do on Dante's Inferno. I wasn't working with him but overheard the conversation about thesis statements and symbols and allegories. I remember doing papers like this in college and I was an English major. And find myself thinking about why we are teaching Dante's Inferno. In High school. But I guess that is part of being an educated person????

And then I worked with a young Muslim girl on genetics - about homozygous and heterozygous and I couldn't remember ever knowing this stuff? And then another girl asked me to check her homework - algebra and factors and I couldn't remember this stuff. And she is just in 7th grade.

It all seemed hard to me and I have a graduate degree.

I guess this is a worthwhile way for me to help - but I wonder if I am any help at all. I can just see these kids going to school with the wrong answers and saying....I am never going to go back there for help again!!!