Hi John, I went to a typical rural mid-western public school in the 70s and 80s. In elementary school, we learned a little bit of both the metric system and traditional American units.
They probably gave both systems equal time. However, you can learn the metric system much more quickly than the traditional system, so we probably learned the metric system a lot better than the traditional system. We certainly learned the basics of the kilogram, meter, and liter, along with the more common prefixes. We had dual-unit rulers. As far as the American system, we really only learned a bare-bones basic introduction to the most common units, probably including inches, feet, miles, pint, quart, gallon, pound, and ounce. By high school (late 1980s) our science classes were 100% metric. We learned the true beauty of MKS, and several derived units like Joules and Watts. All measuring tools were metric-only: L, mL, cm, mm, g, deg C, etc. We unfortunately used calories in chemistry. I would guess that vocational classes were the opposite of the college-track classes, in that they probably were entirely non-metric. We never learned the American system in any depth at all. No one ever so much as mentioned words like avoirdupois, apothecary, troy, dry pint, dry quart, peck, bushel, rod, furlong, chain, nautical mile, knot, fathom, stone, slug, imperial, etc. To this day I still don't know non-metric units for energy or power. Finally, the recent high-school graduates that I know seem a lot more familiar with metric units than with traditional American units. While nearly all Americans have a better intuition for common traditional units like inches and miles than for the metric equivalents, I've noticed that everyone I work with under the age of about 25 seems very eager to use the metric system at work and would definitely prefer it over the tradition system if (alas!) they were only given the choice. Hope this answers you questions. John On Jeudi 11 Septembre 2003 07:20, john mercer wrote: > Hello. I would like to know if children in U S schools get much teaching > in the metric system. In Canada I believe children get educated in metric > from grade one threw 12. I guess children have to learn both systems, that > could cause confusion. I hope everyone has a good day. have
