They don't teach you how organic solvents often dissolve polar materials such as various polymers? I'm really becoming befuddled here, what do they teach then?

Well, my grade school science teacher was also my gym teacher (he may have held a third position). So we mostly just sang periodic table rhymes and made baking soda volcanos.

Despite what you may have heard, the average middle-American education doesn't prepare you for the hard science of the real world.

Illuminating, I didn't know it was that inconsistent. I have a newfound appreciation of my own teachers now.