My experience with high school biology was similar, though that might have been that particular teacher. He was close to retirement and while he could have identified most plants in the region, he could not answer most of my questions about biochemistry.
I found that the first semester of biochemistry at university alone changed my understanding of biology. The quality and depth of the education was so much higher than what I had in school before. A large part is of course that it is so much more focused, you could not go to that depth in a general purpose school education.
It does go again in a different direction later. Once you learned the general principles you might have to learn all the inconsistent details that are present in the actual biological systems. And the immune system is certainly one of the worst offenders here. There are a lot of really fascinating aspects about it, especially how it adapts and learns. But you quickly get to a points where you're just overwhelmed by the incredibly amount of different parts that play a role in it.
when were you in highschool? I took honors bio back in 93 in highschool and it was all memorization of aniimal and plants parts. I'm taking bio 180 at UW now (20 years after graduating college) and it's all about genetics and statistics. They're almost different subjects. One is closer to farming and exploring and the latter is more science and the unseen. I could totally see an end of career hs teacher staying with the older style.
Also I bet that dude knew where all of the morels grew.
A bit later than you, and not in the US. But as my teacher was born around World War 2 (estimated from their retirement date) I don't think it is unexpected that they had a very different view. Biology has fundamentally changed in that timeframe.
My teacher back then was in ww2. He actually was one of the army kids in the closer bunkers who were somewhat unwitting test subjects. He had a recording of him being interviewed after one of the first tests. He said he was 18 at the time. He said "I think this might just change the world" or something like it. I couldn't find the interview with a quick google. His last name was stocker. He was actually a great teacher in basic science the year before which is why I took honors bio but I zoned out memorizing all of the names of parts of sponges. The kids in regular bio were dissecting pig fetuses.
The man had a photo of an orangutan on his desk facing class with the name plate "moker joe". "An orangutan could get about 50% on this test", he'd say and walk around saying to the kids he knew weren't studying "Moker Joe's gonna get you Craig". Some of the smart kids pointed out to him that Moker would probbably get way less than 50% at random probability. "yeah but the kids moker's gonna get don't know that".
Anyway it's definitely more interesting this time around and only taking one class at a time.
> My experience with high school biology was similar, though that might have been that particular teacher. He was close to retirement and while he could have identified most plants in the region, he could not answer most of my questions about biochemistry.
That's a totally different problem. Nobody can expect a teacher (or scientist, or ...) to be equally interested in all subfields. Of course, they should know "what is needed" - whatever that means, for example to teach the part of biochemistry that is in the curriculum.
I, as a mathematician, for example don't care much about statistics or number theory. As somebody generally interested in biology I don't care about biochemistry.
So, as long as he didn't just say "fuck off", you can't blame your teacher for liking something else than you did.
I found that the first semester of biochemistry at university alone changed my understanding of biology. The quality and depth of the education was so much higher than what I had in school before. A large part is of course that it is so much more focused, you could not go to that depth in a general purpose school education.
It does go again in a different direction later. Once you learned the general principles you might have to learn all the inconsistent details that are present in the actual biological systems. And the immune system is certainly one of the worst offenders here. There are a lot of really fascinating aspects about it, especially how it adapts and learns. But you quickly get to a points where you're just overwhelmed by the incredibly amount of different parts that play a role in it.