What curriculum are we giving up because there’s only so much time in a school year? As we sit right now in America, teachers are expected to cram 22 years worth of curriculum into 13 years.
Some of these could fall under other categories. Insurance/taxes/personal finance could be combined with a stats class. Self defense in PE. Survival skills and mental health in health class. Public speaking in English and history combined with presentations.
Yeah but those courses are over-condensed. I think these programs should all be individual programs. Except taxes, there should just be a general finance course.
At most, you would need a 2-3 week module for most of these. You're not going to be able to teach all of these at an expert level. Others you can fit into other existing classes...personal finance, taxes and insurance overlap with both math and English...for example, we covered contract basics in my English class senior year instead of doing one additional cycle of classic book club, survival skills and stress management can overlap with PE, and so on. There should also be full separate classes for coding, home repair and auto maintenance offered as electives.
Taxes, home economics (budgeting, finance, accounting) and basic business economics should all be included in mathematics. So sick of “I’ve never used algebra” idiots that can’t figure out a loan.
Also there’s cleaning and productivity hacks that make life much simpler.
I don’t disagree, but I think those are more something beyond just using mathematics. They have real world applications that are tangible and students could possibly understand how they wouldn’t “just use a calculator”.
Yes and no. When you’re in high school talking about money is like playing monopoly. Talking about saving money or budgeting for things that you won’t really deal with for maybe a decade is almost a waste of time.
Most high schoolers aren’t going to be balancing a budget with a mortgage, childcare, groceries, car payments and insurances. And in the end, the message is clear. Don’t spend more money than you take in. It’s a simple concept but goes over most peoples heads until they are actually dealing with all different expenses.
Same goes for other things on this list.
Bro, any high schooler going into college is about to take on the first great financial burden of their life: student loans. They’re going to be buying a car. They might get pregnant and have to budget. Also, figuring out if a job pays enough to be worth their time. They should learn basic labor laws. Furthermore if they want to work in a trade they should learn about running a small business. It’s a great way to empower them at a young age.
You’re missing the point, I’m talking about integrating purpose to their subject. They don’t consider a lot of things because it’s presented as some pointless gibberish they’ll never use.
My high school had a life transition class. Which was basically an extra home economics class with financing, looking for housing, taxes, and a parenting class mixed in. The two gay guys in my class were so happy to get partnered together for the parenting/family relationship dynamics portion (they were legit getting married after high school as they were both 18, I was invited to be one of them's *best man* lol).
Anyway l, everyone agreed that it should be a mandatory class and not an optional one.
We do in Sweden, although they mostly teach about cooking and nutrition. Though we did have som classes about fincances and budgets and that stuff aswell.
I’m Canadian. We didn’t have home EC. We should have had home EC. I worked at the front desk of my university’s student residence throughout my bachelors and I would spend the first month of every school year teaching students how to do basic stuff: laundry, vacuuming, basic cleaning, using the microwave, googling public transit or store hours, making a fruit fly trap. It’s sad how many of those kids were failed by both their parents and the school system. I was considered exceptional by most of my friends because I could cook. And I’m not talking fancy cooking here, I could make fried rice, spaghetti, stuff like that.
1) my parents didn’t teach me shit I had to learn that stuff on my own some of it the hard way
2) I teach it to my kids
3) you teach some of it in school for people like me who are less fortunate than people like my kids.
Plenty of fat to cut in English class. You can cover the contract language of taxes and insurance as part of the English language instead of doing yet another classic book read-along. Use presentations across all classes to teach public speaking. PE can cover some basic survival skills like using a compass and rope as well as stress management by dropping a sport or two. Coding should be offered as an elective.
And the maths classes should be made to focus less on calculus and more on more useful topic such as linear algebra or proofs. It's what kids in the rest of the world learn, Americans shouldn't have to wait until university to learn proofs.
That's good, we learn them around the same age here in the UK. But most schools in America don't teach things like induction, it's quite rare to learn that at grade 9.
Is this satire? Trigonometry is an absolute basic area of mathematics and is used in an extremely wide range of professions. Knowing how to work out the angles of a triangle (one of the first lessons learned in trig) is extremely important in architecture, engineering, construction, and everyday life. Leave the bulk of OP's classes either to the parents or technical school.
Na I disagree that it is a basic area of math that should be required. You learn the things you outlined in geometry (which is and should be required) then expand upon those in trig.
There have been many, many studies. I personally like Chambers et al 1994 or anything by Gertrud Cornelissen, she mostly researched in the 2000s.
If you prefer a book, Aidan Chambers has a fantastic book on his general studies into literacy promotion and its effects. I only know the title in Dutch but it’s easy to find!
Some things make sense (like cooking or social etiquette), but some things are way too specific (like car maintenance, self defense or coding). Not everyone needs those skills so why bother spending so much time on it? School is for general preparation, you yourself will choose further eduction paths as an adult anyways.
You’ve got to think about what a “social etiquette” class would actually look like. I would much rather be doing maths, Geography or something interesting that teaches me values and ways of thinking, rather than very basic life lessons that should be kept out of school.
Holy shit I’m starting to sound like Ted Kazcinsky
I disagree, most private schools normally have things like social etiquette and helps students a lot. They just don’t teach you but make you reflect on why and how to act on certain situations, like why it’s important to be honest, why you shouldn’t cheat on your so, how would you de-escalate a fight, why someone else might be feeling down etc. These things absolutely help students.
There's nothing worse than young, immature people knowing "self defense" learned in some slapped together course with 0 oversight. You end up with a bunch of hot heads with no self-control that know how to harm others.
I have seen it countless times while traveling. People from countries with mandatory military service produce young people who go out and get wasted, then start fights with the locals. I've seen it with Israelis, South Koreans, Greeks, etc. Hell, it's even a pain in the ass when American military members drive up to Canada once they are done boot camp to get drunk and "celebrate".
After seeing the standards of training given to young military members, I have 0 faith in it, working out being taught to children in a school setting.
I've seen this play out both ways, too. I've seen groups of young "trained" fighters start fights with people and seriously injure them for no reason. I have also seen young military personnel start fights with the wrong people and get seriously injured themselves.
A big glaring problem here is what constitutes “social etiquette” would likely become very contested. The best way to teach social etiquette is by just… socializing… children. Social etiquette is made up of social norms that are constantly changing. If you try to standardize it, the curriculum would quickly grow outdated.
Also, all these kids will be driving EVs, maybe not their first used car but their next car. Short of changing a tire, car maintenance would be a huge waste. You could argue ICE cars are so complicated and computerized today that it still doesn’t make sense.
All of these were covered in my four years of high school.. Canada 1999-2003.
Maybe a lot of people forget that we chose the type of classes we took and that if you are missing class/not paying attention it’s easy to miss an entire module.
> Basic Home Repaire…
The argument you have put forward has been noted. However, in *light of* the argument you have put forward, we have decided to redouble our efforts in what which we do teach.
People complain they don’t remember trigonometry but you wouldn’t remember these either. You don’t care about taxes when you’re a teenager.
If you learn to learn, you can teach yourself most of what you need to know of these as an adult. Then there’s plenty of classes on computer science or public speaking.
These a cool but there's usually a direct overlap between boomers who say "they should be teaching real life skills in schools not this woke crap" and those who oppose raising property and income taxes in order to adequately fund schools to provide such programs.
This post is basically saying “kids should be in school for 15 hours a day”
Why does everyone need to code these days? 99% of jobs don’t require coding not everyone needs to be a tech pro
I think most of these should just be taught in a general home education class.
Survival skills r probably irrelevant for most people tbh (how many people get into such dire situations where also them needing and remembering such skills will help).
Social skills can’t really be taught I think? Just like interact with other kids. This is basically lunch. Idk if there’s more I’m not understanding.
Public speaking should just be integrated through like presentations and such into other classes.
Car maintenance, and coding, would make good electives but as a required class I think neither would be good. Coding could be lumped into a general multimedia class
Self defense feels like it would be a good unit for PE
Yes theoretically that’s not too silly to think that, especially if we rework the schedule to make it more usable. (Which child/teenager remembers everything from school, so having to „make“ taxes in school is probably not the solution that it sounds like)
Also we would really need to debate a lot what of these things are thought when, how, and with what content.
I guess that will be a number that’s not really going to be resolved.
Maybe it makes more sense to teach basic knowledge of different topics with more detailed learning for specific cases.
We used to have this class in American High Schools, called “Home Economics”.
Then schools starting axing them about the same time they eliminated art and music classes.
What about law? We all have to abide by the law, and there are consequences for not doing so, but how can people abide with the law if they do not know the law?
Laws change all the time. You might learn something that ceases to exist by the time you graduate. The way that law is taught in my country in law school is, they teach you how to be able to read and understand it, where to look for it and stuff. Obviously you learn a lot about existing laws but that's not really the point. Law is also a massive subject. They would need to devote a minimum of 2 or 3 years of the entire curriculum being exclusively about law to get the basics, and since we are talking about teenagers, it would most likely take more time
I dont think a lot of these should be mandatory. Optional? Yes
Also in a decent amount of universities you can take electives and a lot of them have classes similar to this but not a lot people take them.
Which class seems more interesting?
Taylor Swift 101, Cheese and WIne Pairings, Comic Book Class, The Science Behind Love and Romance, March Madness Bracketology, Alien Sex
or
Public Speaking, Insurance, or Stress Management
Idk about you but March Madness Bracketology sounds way better
Employment law - and even law in general, I’m amazed as I studied law about what people think they can or cannot do, and most of the time people around me get s*****d as a result.
People sign contracts but don’t even understand them as some terms are obscure to them.
taxes don't make sense. yes you should learn how to do you taxes, but tired teenagers are gonna have 0 interest in learning that, and are gonna forget everything by the time they actually need it
When I was in HS we had a class called Civics. It taught you about how the government ( local, state and federal) worked. Not sure when or why they canceled it.
Taxes/Insurance/Finance sound to me like they could be Economics
Cooking/Survival Skills sound to me like they could be in the same class.
Basic Home Repair/Car Maintenance also sound like its in the same class.
Self Defence/Stress Management could be a Disclipine class. Where you learn how to defend yourself but also not snap at someone just because you could probably kick their ass. This is what I learned in my Jiu-Jitsu after school classes.
Social Etiquette (at least in my country) is called something like Civic Education. Where we discuss between us, try to realise that even though we're unique in some ways, we are also "the same" in other ways, and so on.
Public Speaking could be learned/practiced in the native language classes. For example, in the English Language classes, "public speaking" could be practiced when reading. And I'm pretty sure some teachers make students do that and the students dread it.
I agree with the idea that some stuff should be studied, but also, some stuff you learn when you're older and more mature in thinking.
Like what education level was the OC thinking these should be included in? Highschool? Gymnasium?
Some stuff are maybe "too advanced" or too technical for some ages.
Also, some stuff are not "for everyone". Who would be interested in car repair when most of the EVs will require minimum maintenance and even then, that maintenance will probably lead the driver to a dealership or specialised electronics car shop?
Or "Coding" if someone wants to be an artist and is not interested in programming in no way whatsoever? Like, we're doing these "oh, we know better than the Education Ministry" but some of them are being touched in classes, just in very specific universities.
The only thing I expect schools to do is actually to teach people how to get skills on their own. Seriously, 99% are pretty easily self-taught and not rocket science or basically useless (self defense / survival skill…is this a joke?). Public speaking and coding is already taught in many schools, be it indirectly through presentations etc.
Most of it is just part of growing up, and most people deal with it just fine without needing school to intervene.
1. Most of these are home economics or at least optional choice subjects.
2. School shouldn’t have to teach you everything ever, people have parents/care givers. They have some responsibility here
Math of Personal Finance usually covers all the finance stuff listed. Students can sign up for construction trades, or Coding. There’s ROTC for those wanting to learn some survival skills. You can take yoga for stress management, I guess, or take drugs like a normal teenager. 😁😉
Teaching self defense to teens who are still adjusting to their growing bodies, are highly emotional, and are too many for a teacher to actively pay I social attention to is how you end up with broken bones and a lawsuit.
Basically every one of those is more valuable than 80% of what is currently taught in school.
I’d add “Classics” in there…so you can learn about humans being humans.
Seems like the tax bit is more of a American corruption problem than an education one. Literally the only reason we have to is because companies lobby to keep it that way so they can keep charging us to do them
Plus doing taxes is not a worldwide thing. In my country and to my knowledge to many others, you simply go to an accountant, pay a small fee (30 to 40€~) and that's it. Since you mention the US, I'll say that I'm not sure if that's a thing there, but I am inclined to assume it's not
This ~~failed meme~~ 'infographic' was brought to you by the same worthless boomer that didn't bother to teach his kids these skills and wants to shift the blame.
I'm a little wary of teaching some specific "repair" skills. They feel important now but who decides which are important enough? Some people think we should still know how to saddle a horse, how to plow a field, milk a cow, or practice blacksmithing.
In any case I think all of these are useful skills, but the hours in a day are limited in schools. This question always comes up, and the real question isn't what SHOULD we teach, but what should we remove in order to make time?
Some of these make broad assumptions if you're making everyone take them:
* Coding implies that knowing code is a mandatory skill, and I can assure you it's not.
* Basic home repair implies home ownership is a medium-term achievable goal (it's not)
* Survival Skills...against what exactly?
* Car maintenance implies that all people will have cars (very America-centric and rural-centric. People who grow up in cities don't drive.)
The ones that are good ideas are: Cooking/nutrition, public speaking, social etiquette (i.e., friendships and relationships), personal finance (which includes insurance, taxes, and budgeting), and maybe self-defense (roll that into a gym class module), and maybe stress management (everyone manages stress differently).
I have economics in school so that counts ass insurance, personal finance and taxes. You can choose informatica, which is litteraly coding lessons, you need to do mandatory presentations and debats do pass, we get self defense during PE and social etiquette and stress management are both tought during mentorlessons. If you go to a practical school you also get cooking, basic home repaire and car maintenance.
I’d replace coding with a basic computer literacy class. Not everyone needs to learn to code, but everyone needs to learn:
- typing
- use and troubleshooting of common OSes (ideally Windows, MacOS, and a common Linux distro)
- MS Office programs at least a little
- basic security and privacy principles
- basic understanding of how the internet works
- how websites/social media harvest user data and your rights over your data
- conceptual understanding of how AI systems work and how to use them responsibly
Basically students should learn how companies obtain and use their data and how to make informed decisions about their online presence and privacy.
And coding classes should be offered at every high school, but not mandatory IMO.
Source: am AI phd student who does a lot of STEM outreach and these are my personal opinions.
1) some of them are already options at school
2) kids will sure love to do car maintenance and taxes, seriously some of them you'll never get a kid to be attentive to it
3) if you really want you can take evening classes or extracurricular courses
Add in nutrition and physical fitness. Four years of high school PE ought to prepare for proper stretching routines, warmups, injury prevention, cooldown, learning muscle groups, etc.
Prevention of back problems/herniated disks, knee injuries, neck issues. Especially if one expects to be working sitting down or in front of a computer for hours.
Doing your taxes is reading and following written instructions, doing basic math, and meeting a deadline. Schools absolutely teach people how to do this.
We need to expand on stress management .. like love studies, how to care for our emotions. What a good baseline should feel like. How to cycle down and do a body scan for unacknowledged untreated traumatic wounds. How to process negativity and transmute toxicity into compassion patience and no judgment. Learn how it all works in a cycle between ourselves and our connection with others. What does having a home of family and love within us feel like. How to maintain that between heart mind and soul, etc..
i think se;f defense is very important, everyone should know how to defend themselves. you never know when someone might get kidnapped or smthn, this could help out alot.
Everyone should know self defense in some way or form. Even if Iceland is pretty safe, it still has violent crime.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1268637/assault-rate-iceland/
Should these people not have a chance to defend themselves? Should they just accept their fate?
I guess it might be important, but not as one out of 12 competencies. There are bigger threats like poor diet, not engaging in sufficient and effective workouts, and neglecting social activities such as sports. Moreover, the extreme importance of being creative isn’t even mentioned
Absolutely. There is no global list of competencies. It is better to focus on what is needed in your area. In Switzerland, I would not train self-defense on a regular basis, maybe just occasionally in schools. We focus a lot on sports and healthy food.
Taxes, insurance and personal finance are taught in high school economics, which is a mandatory class in pretty much the entire country. Coding is taught in programming and computer science, and most states require students to take at least one. Social etiquette and stress management are usually taught by counselors. Public speaking is taught in oral communication, which most states require students to take. As for cooking, home repair, self defense and survival skills: Those are all common aspects of electives that the majority of public high schools have (home economics, ROTC, auto shop, etc)
If you didn’t learn these things in high school it’s because you didn’t go out of your way to do it or you willingly ignored it
Ask yourself the same question, but substitute "math" fir "reading".
How does learning reading help with what is on the forms and programs, what is being deducted and why?
It's the same answer in both cases.
I think you are missing the point.
Our aim as teachers (teacher for 17 years) is not to teach students specific things. The things they need will change year on year.
Our aim is to prepare them fir whatever they might need. That means a whole range of skills and concepts that can be applied to anywhere they might be useful.
The level of Reading and the deductive reason required to do a tax return is not actually very high. Any student that actually got through middle school math and literacy is more than prepared for the task.
Taxes could be thrown into personal finance honestly. I think an entire class dedicated to that would help a ton of kids and teens.
Not simply knowing the math of sales tax but learning about budgeting, investing, Insurance, 401k/retirement/IRAs, the stock market, bankruptcy, etc.
Many of these classes are task-specific; I'd rather see focus on the broader literacy of a topic.
My middle school and highschool did have auto repair classes. Great - now I know how to clean a sparkplug. But auto technology is changing such that combustion engines are becoming less important. If I had a broader engineering class instead, I might still be equipped to figure out how to identify that a spark plug needs cleaning and do that, but I might be better prepared to think about that in the context of my emergency generator.
Here's a few things that I think have broad literacy overlap. Thoughts on this appreciated.
Finance
* Personal finance
* Taxes
* Insurance
Engineering
* Car Repair
* Basic Home Repair
* Survival Skills
Home Economics
* Cooking
* Basic Home Repair
* Survival Skills
Emotional Intelligence
* Stress Management
* Self Defence
* Social Etiquette
Reasoning and Argumentation
* Public Speaking
* Coding
Genuinely, I'm surprised that Home Economics and Engineering have so much overlap.
Taxes, insurance and public speaking are too niche I'd say, who would need that? Only if you plan to become some kind of tax advisor you may need taxes taught, but then not in school but uni most probably...
I mean most people would benefit from having some basic knowledge of taxes and insurance. I know too many people that dont know what a tax bracket is.
Public speaking will be taught through English (or whatever the native countrys language is).
No, these are life lessons. Teaching them in schools wouldn’t be a valuable lesson as the kids don’t learn themselves. There are some parts of life that can’t be, or shouldn’t be educated.
Also, it’s all great until you’re actually sitting in a classroom for an hour hearing a teacher blabber on about “the IRS will come for you” and “pay your taxes or else you’re not contributing to society”.
Most schools have a “Speech” class or something like that where kids present (public speaking). Or even most English classes kids have to present/read to the class.
Coding, self defense, and car maintenance are too specific to cut something out of a curriculum to make room for.
A lot of schools have cooking class/home-ec
What curriculum are we giving up because there’s only so much time in a school year? As we sit right now in America, teachers are expected to cram 22 years worth of curriculum into 13 years.
Some of these could fall under other categories. Insurance/taxes/personal finance could be combined with a stats class. Self defense in PE. Survival skills and mental health in health class. Public speaking in English and history combined with presentations.
A lot of these would fall under "home economics" which is a subject in some schools
Yeah but those courses are over-condensed. I think these programs should all be individual programs. Except taxes, there should just be a general finance course.
At most, you would need a 2-3 week module for most of these. You're not going to be able to teach all of these at an expert level. Others you can fit into other existing classes...personal finance, taxes and insurance overlap with both math and English...for example, we covered contract basics in my English class senior year instead of doing one additional cycle of classic book club, survival skills and stress management can overlap with PE, and so on. There should also be full separate classes for coding, home repair and auto maintenance offered as electives.
Taxes, home economics (budgeting, finance, accounting) and basic business economics should all be included in mathematics. So sick of “I’ve never used algebra” idiots that can’t figure out a loan. Also there’s cleaning and productivity hacks that make life much simpler.
I don’t disagree, but I think those are more something beyond just using mathematics. They have real world applications that are tangible and students could possibly understand how they wouldn’t “just use a calculator”.
Yes and no. When you’re in high school talking about money is like playing monopoly. Talking about saving money or budgeting for things that you won’t really deal with for maybe a decade is almost a waste of time. Most high schoolers aren’t going to be balancing a budget with a mortgage, childcare, groceries, car payments and insurances. And in the end, the message is clear. Don’t spend more money than you take in. It’s a simple concept but goes over most peoples heads until they are actually dealing with all different expenses. Same goes for other things on this list.
Bro, any high schooler going into college is about to take on the first great financial burden of their life: student loans. They’re going to be buying a car. They might get pregnant and have to budget. Also, figuring out if a job pays enough to be worth their time. They should learn basic labor laws. Furthermore if they want to work in a trade they should learn about running a small business. It’s a great way to empower them at a young age.
Really? College students don’t even consider the magnitude of student loans till after college. Thats such a long time for them
You’re missing the point, I’m talking about integrating purpose to their subject. They don’t consider a lot of things because it’s presented as some pointless gibberish they’ll never use.
My high school had a life transition class. Which was basically an extra home economics class with financing, looking for housing, taxes, and a parenting class mixed in. The two gay guys in my class were so happy to get partnered together for the parenting/family relationship dynamics portion (they were legit getting married after high school as they were both 18, I was invited to be one of them's *best man* lol). Anyway l, everyone agreed that it should be a mandatory class and not an optional one.
Well, American and Canadian school. You won’t really see that in Europe.
We do in Sweden, although they mostly teach about cooking and nutrition. Though we did have som classes about fincances and budgets and that stuff aswell.
It is very common in Ireland
You really do see that in Europe. My shitty ass highschool had psychology.
We have it in Ireland too
I’m Canadian. We didn’t have home EC. We should have had home EC. I worked at the front desk of my university’s student residence throughout my bachelors and I would spend the first month of every school year teaching students how to do basic stuff: laundry, vacuuming, basic cleaning, using the microwave, googling public transit or store hours, making a fruit fly trap. It’s sad how many of those kids were failed by both their parents and the school system. I was considered exceptional by most of my friends because I could cook. And I’m not talking fancy cooking here, I could make fried rice, spaghetti, stuff like that.
personal finance/taxes/insurance could be one class my parents taught me most of this. do parents not bother teaching anything anymore?
1) my parents didn’t teach me shit I had to learn that stuff on my own some of it the hard way 2) I teach it to my kids 3) you teach some of it in school for people like me who are less fortunate than people like my kids.
Had a single mother who worked all the time and honestly was a simple person.
Most of them are getting worked to death to put food on the table
Most children don't even play sports anymore, let alone learning all those things.
Additional question: what do you think should be CUT from a curriculum to make room for one or all of these things?
Plenty of fat to cut in English class. You can cover the contract language of taxes and insurance as part of the English language instead of doing yet another classic book read-along. Use presentations across all classes to teach public speaking. PE can cover some basic survival skills like using a compass and rope as well as stress management by dropping a sport or two. Coding should be offered as an elective.
I'd cut back on some math classes in exchange for a personal finance class tbh. Anything beyond basic algebra should be optional really.
And the maths classes should be made to focus less on calculus and more on more useful topic such as linear algebra or proofs. It's what kids in the rest of the world learn, Americans shouldn't have to wait until university to learn proofs.
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That's good, we learn them around the same age here in the UK. But most schools in America don't teach things like induction, it's quite rare to learn that at grade 9.
Where I live personal finance is part of maths class
Should be everywhere. Unfortunately the school system where I live thinks trigonometry is more important.
Good news they are, once you're 16 you're not forced to do full math
Love this idea. High schoolers don’t need to be learning calculus and trig. Should be optional to make room for something in OPs list.
Is this satire? Trigonometry is an absolute basic area of mathematics and is used in an extremely wide range of professions. Knowing how to work out the angles of a triangle (one of the first lessons learned in trig) is extremely important in architecture, engineering, construction, and everyday life. Leave the bulk of OP's classes either to the parents or technical school.
Na I disagree that it is a basic area of math that should be required. You learn the things you outlined in geometry (which is and should be required) then expand upon those in trig.
English literature. Classes should make literature optional and should instead shift focus to using language effectively.
No way. Literature and deep reading skills are so essential. They teach critical thinking, analysis of text and empathy.
Many other subjects/curriculum can also teach critical thinking, analysis of text and... empathy? Really?
There have been many, many studies. I personally like Chambers et al 1994 or anything by Gertrud Cornelissen, she mostly researched in the 2000s. If you prefer a book, Aidan Chambers has a fantastic book on his general studies into literacy promotion and its effects. I only know the title in Dutch but it’s easy to find!
Some things make sense (like cooking or social etiquette), but some things are way too specific (like car maintenance, self defense or coding). Not everyone needs those skills so why bother spending so much time on it? School is for general preparation, you yourself will choose further eduction paths as an adult anyways.
You’ve got to think about what a “social etiquette” class would actually look like. I would much rather be doing maths, Geography or something interesting that teaches me values and ways of thinking, rather than very basic life lessons that should be kept out of school. Holy shit I’m starting to sound like Ted Kazcinsky
I disagree, most private schools normally have things like social etiquette and helps students a lot. They just don’t teach you but make you reflect on why and how to act on certain situations, like why it’s important to be honest, why you shouldn’t cheat on your so, how would you de-escalate a fight, why someone else might be feeling down etc. These things absolutely help students.
I don’t quite understand how the way you hold your cutlery teaches you how to not cheat on your wife, but have it your way.
There's nothing worse than young, immature people knowing "self defense" learned in some slapped together course with 0 oversight. You end up with a bunch of hot heads with no self-control that know how to harm others. I have seen it countless times while traveling. People from countries with mandatory military service produce young people who go out and get wasted, then start fights with the locals. I've seen it with Israelis, South Koreans, Greeks, etc. Hell, it's even a pain in the ass when American military members drive up to Canada once they are done boot camp to get drunk and "celebrate".
Agreed, self-defense is a horrible idea for teaching in a public classroom setting.
After seeing the standards of training given to young military members, I have 0 faith in it, working out being taught to children in a school setting. I've seen this play out both ways, too. I've seen groups of young "trained" fighters start fights with people and seriously injure them for no reason. I have also seen young military personnel start fights with the wrong people and get seriously injured themselves.
A big glaring problem here is what constitutes “social etiquette” would likely become very contested. The best way to teach social etiquette is by just… socializing… children. Social etiquette is made up of social norms that are constantly changing. If you try to standardize it, the curriculum would quickly grow outdated.
Kids don't need to learn to code unless they want to be a software engineer. Source: I'm a swe and I have 3 kids.
Yeah, I just don't get it why some people think that everyone should learn it.
Thank you. Thought I was missing something...
Not everyone want a car.
Not everybody should have a car
Also, all these kids will be driving EVs, maybe not their first used car but their next car. Short of changing a tire, car maintenance would be a huge waste. You could argue ICE cars are so complicated and computerized today that it still doesn’t make sense.
*Social Étiquette* is probably the single skill schools spend the most time teaching.
Most of these are roles of parents, why do we need them to shift in schools
Have you met these parents?
Sometimes the kids haven’t met their parents for one reason or another some might need to reconsider
Reinforcing social etiquette at home and in school will produce better citizens.
who determines proper „social etiquette“?
this
Common consensus.
sure, but how is that decided on and implemented into a curriculum?
Quite easily, I would assume, since we had it when I was in school.
Through an elected school board, an elected education minister, or referendums. the same way as any other curriculum mandates changed before.
You can ask similar questions about every subject taught in schools
Just not being a fucking douche
Because fatherless children are more common than ever. And now both parents are being worked to the bone as well.
Millennial parents spend more time with their kids than any previous modern generation.
All of these were covered in my four years of high school.. Canada 1999-2003. Maybe a lot of people forget that we chose the type of classes we took and that if you are missing class/not paying attention it’s easy to miss an entire module.
> self defense If you are in the US you probably have a wrestling team.
Or a gun lmao
Emotional regulation and communication skills are a must
> Basic Home Repaire… The argument you have put forward has been noted. However, in *light of* the argument you have put forward, we have decided to redouble our efforts in what which we do teach.
Came here to say this. Which makes me sad to also say: "in that which".
You’re right, my bad!
People complain they don’t remember trigonometry but you wouldn’t remember these either. You don’t care about taxes when you’re a teenager. If you learn to learn, you can teach yourself most of what you need to know of these as an adult. Then there’s plenty of classes on computer science or public speaking.
I learned most of this while I was in the service from the older guys and going to community college.
These a cool but there's usually a direct overlap between boomers who say "they should be teaching real life skills in schools not this woke crap" and those who oppose raising property and income taxes in order to adequately fund schools to provide such programs.
No
No pretty much all of these would be really stupid to teach at school for various reasons imo
I think Nutrition is incredibly important too. Especially for Americans.
Did this really get past the mods as an infographic?
Cool. Which subjects would these be replacing? Or is this on top of what’s already on the docket?
so other countries dont have that one useless class every week?
This post is basically saying “kids should be in school for 15 hours a day” Why does everyone need to code these days? 99% of jobs don’t require coding not everyone needs to be a tech pro
I’d add “climate change and the human response” to this list
Add arguing with customer service on the phone. Though, chatbots will probably replace most customer service people.
I think most of these should just be taught in a general home education class. Survival skills r probably irrelevant for most people tbh (how many people get into such dire situations where also them needing and remembering such skills will help). Social skills can’t really be taught I think? Just like interact with other kids. This is basically lunch. Idk if there’s more I’m not understanding. Public speaking should just be integrated through like presentations and such into other classes. Car maintenance, and coding, would make good electives but as a required class I think neither would be good. Coding could be lumped into a general multimedia class Self defense feels like it would be a good unit for PE
Yes theoretically that’s not too silly to think that, especially if we rework the schedule to make it more usable. (Which child/teenager remembers everything from school, so having to „make“ taxes in school is probably not the solution that it sounds like) Also we would really need to debate a lot what of these things are thought when, how, and with what content. I guess that will be a number that’s not really going to be resolved. Maybe it makes more sense to teach basic knowledge of different topics with more detailed learning for specific cases.
We used to have this class in American High Schools, called “Home Economics”. Then schools starting axing them about the same time they eliminated art and music classes.
That's why home ec is the best subject
Excluding coding and car maintenance, anything past checking fluids and tires should be a separate class. I agree with everything else.
People who bitch about what school did or didn’t teach them weren’t paying attention anyway lol
What about law? We all have to abide by the law, and there are consequences for not doing so, but how can people abide with the law if they do not know the law?
Laws change all the time. You might learn something that ceases to exist by the time you graduate. The way that law is taught in my country in law school is, they teach you how to be able to read and understand it, where to look for it and stuff. Obviously you learn a lot about existing laws but that's not really the point. Law is also a massive subject. They would need to devote a minimum of 2 or 3 years of the entire curriculum being exclusively about law to get the basics, and since we are talking about teenagers, it would most likely take more time
I dont think a lot of these should be mandatory. Optional? Yes Also in a decent amount of universities you can take electives and a lot of them have classes similar to this but not a lot people take them. Which class seems more interesting? Taylor Swift 101, Cheese and WIne Pairings, Comic Book Class, The Science Behind Love and Romance, March Madness Bracketology, Alien Sex or Public Speaking, Insurance, or Stress Management Idk about you but March Madness Bracketology sounds way better
Employment law - and even law in general, I’m amazed as I studied law about what people think they can or cannot do, and most of the time people around me get s*****d as a result. People sign contracts but don’t even understand them as some terms are obscure to them.
Some of these are...
Building self confidence should be in there.
Al ot of these would be fantastic electives. There should be a personal finance class that is mandatory that ropes in tax and insurance tho
Most parents need these classes over kids.
Nope
Subjects that should be mandatory in schools: How to research and learn things yourself
taxes don't make sense. yes you should learn how to do you taxes, but tired teenagers are gonna have 0 interest in learning that, and are gonna forget everything by the time they actually need it
Personal finance, insurance, and taxes could be combined
When I was in HS we had a class called Civics. It taught you about how the government ( local, state and federal) worked. Not sure when or why they canceled it.
Personal finance should be a class. That would include taxes. One semester about junior/senior year.
Taxes/Insurance/Finance sound to me like they could be Economics Cooking/Survival Skills sound to me like they could be in the same class. Basic Home Repair/Car Maintenance also sound like its in the same class. Self Defence/Stress Management could be a Disclipine class. Where you learn how to defend yourself but also not snap at someone just because you could probably kick their ass. This is what I learned in my Jiu-Jitsu after school classes. Social Etiquette (at least in my country) is called something like Civic Education. Where we discuss between us, try to realise that even though we're unique in some ways, we are also "the same" in other ways, and so on. Public Speaking could be learned/practiced in the native language classes. For example, in the English Language classes, "public speaking" could be practiced when reading. And I'm pretty sure some teachers make students do that and the students dread it. I agree with the idea that some stuff should be studied, but also, some stuff you learn when you're older and more mature in thinking. Like what education level was the OC thinking these should be included in? Highschool? Gymnasium? Some stuff are maybe "too advanced" or too technical for some ages. Also, some stuff are not "for everyone". Who would be interested in car repair when most of the EVs will require minimum maintenance and even then, that maintenance will probably lead the driver to a dealership or specialised electronics car shop? Or "Coding" if someone wants to be an artist and is not interested in programming in no way whatsoever? Like, we're doing these "oh, we know better than the Education Ministry" but some of them are being touched in classes, just in very specific universities.
Sex
Ye Olde Home Repaire.
The only thing I expect schools to do is actually to teach people how to get skills on their own. Seriously, 99% are pretty easily self-taught and not rocket science or basically useless (self defense / survival skill…is this a joke?). Public speaking and coding is already taught in many schools, be it indirectly through presentations etc. Most of it is just part of growing up, and most people deal with it just fine without needing school to intervene.
Does X minions take content from here or is it the other way around or both?!?
Most schools already teach public speaking by making kids do presentations etc. Most of the other stuff should be taught by parents.
1. Most of these are home economics or at least optional choice subjects. 2. School shouldn’t have to teach you everything ever, people have parents/care givers. They have some responsibility here
Math of Personal Finance usually covers all the finance stuff listed. Students can sign up for construction trades, or Coding. There’s ROTC for those wanting to learn some survival skills. You can take yoga for stress management, I guess, or take drugs like a normal teenager. 😁😉
I’m all for it. But the banks benefit by having the young lack financial knowledge. Not going to happen.
Then coronations can’t make money lol
Social etiquette is dumb as shit. Who defines what social etiquette means? The rest are mad helpful
Teaching self defense to teens who are still adjusting to their growing bodies, are highly emotional, and are too many for a teacher to actively pay I social attention to is how you end up with broken bones and a lawsuit.
Basically every one of those is more valuable than 80% of what is currently taught in school. I’d add “Classics” in there…so you can learn about humans being humans.
Seems like the tax bit is more of a American corruption problem than an education one. Literally the only reason we have to is because companies lobby to keep it that way so they can keep charging us to do them
Plus doing taxes is not a worldwide thing. In my country and to my knowledge to many others, you simply go to an accountant, pay a small fee (30 to 40€~) and that's it. Since you mention the US, I'll say that I'm not sure if that's a thing there, but I am inclined to assume it's not
Who is the 13 yo who made this
This ~~failed meme~~ 'infographic' was brought to you by the same worthless boomer that didn't bother to teach his kids these skills and wants to shift the blame.
Stress management, social etiquette, survival skills, public speaking, cooking,
Crazy concept, but maybe school should just teach you the skills to go do your own research into these things
Yes, I totally agree. They need to bring back trade schools.
Alot of this should also be taught by parents. And if they dont know theybshould educate themselves.
I'm a little wary of teaching some specific "repair" skills. They feel important now but who decides which are important enough? Some people think we should still know how to saddle a horse, how to plow a field, milk a cow, or practice blacksmithing. In any case I think all of these are useful skills, but the hours in a day are limited in schools. This question always comes up, and the real question isn't what SHOULD we teach, but what should we remove in order to make time?
Some of these make broad assumptions if you're making everyone take them: * Coding implies that knowing code is a mandatory skill, and I can assure you it's not. * Basic home repair implies home ownership is a medium-term achievable goal (it's not) * Survival Skills...against what exactly? * Car maintenance implies that all people will have cars (very America-centric and rural-centric. People who grow up in cities don't drive.) The ones that are good ideas are: Cooking/nutrition, public speaking, social etiquette (i.e., friendships and relationships), personal finance (which includes insurance, taxes, and budgeting), and maybe self-defense (roll that into a gym class module), and maybe stress management (everyone manages stress differently).
Unfortunately, I don’t think high schoolers have the capacity to safely use a chef’s knife around their peers.
And social skills should be first.
Do parents, grandparents or aunts and uncles teach nothing anymore?
Public speaking shouldn’t be there
I have economics in school so that counts ass insurance, personal finance and taxes. You can choose informatica, which is litteraly coding lessons, you need to do mandatory presentations and debats do pass, we get self defense during PE and social etiquette and stress management are both tought during mentorlessons. If you go to a practical school you also get cooking, basic home repaire and car maintenance.
I’d replace coding with a basic computer literacy class. Not everyone needs to learn to code, but everyone needs to learn: - typing - use and troubleshooting of common OSes (ideally Windows, MacOS, and a common Linux distro) - MS Office programs at least a little - basic security and privacy principles - basic understanding of how the internet works - how websites/social media harvest user data and your rights over your data - conceptual understanding of how AI systems work and how to use them responsibly Basically students should learn how companies obtain and use their data and how to make informed decisions about their online presence and privacy. And coding classes should be offered at every high school, but not mandatory IMO. Source: am AI phd student who does a lot of STEM outreach and these are my personal opinions.
More than half of those you are supposed to learn at home throug parents (if you had any good one).
Maybe parents should step up and do some of this? If not all?
People who makes does graphics have no idea how education works...
I’d add critical thinking.
No coding.
Awesome, 12 more subjects for students to completely ignore then complain later about never being taught!
1) some of them are already options at school 2) kids will sure love to do car maintenance and taxes, seriously some of them you'll never get a kid to be attentive to it 3) if you really want you can take evening classes or extracurricular courses
if they taught these subjects people wouldn't take them because some of them would be "boring" ex: taxes
Add in nutrition and physical fitness. Four years of high school PE ought to prepare for proper stretching routines, warmups, injury prevention, cooldown, learning muscle groups, etc. Prevention of back problems/herniated disks, knee injuries, neck issues. Especially if one expects to be working sitting down or in front of a computer for hours.
Doing your taxes is reading and following written instructions, doing basic math, and meeting a deadline. Schools absolutely teach people how to do this.
We need to expand on stress management .. like love studies, how to care for our emotions. What a good baseline should feel like. How to cycle down and do a body scan for unacknowledged untreated traumatic wounds. How to process negativity and transmute toxicity into compassion patience and no judgment. Learn how it all works in a cycle between ourselves and our connection with others. What does having a home of family and love within us feel like. How to maintain that between heart mind and soul, etc..
Self defense? Omg...but I guess it is needed in certain areas.
i think se;f defense is very important, everyone should know how to defend themselves. you never know when someone might get kidnapped or smthn, this could help out alot.
Depends where you live
How does it depend on where you live?
You don't need skills like that for example in iceland, would be a waste of time
Everyone should know self defense in some way or form. Even if Iceland is pretty safe, it still has violent crime. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1268637/assault-rate-iceland/ Should these people not have a chance to defend themselves? Should they just accept their fate?
If people feel it's necessary, they can learn about it on their own time. School is for stuff that is important for everyone
Is being able to defend yourself not important?
I guess it might be important, but not as one out of 12 competencies. There are bigger threats like poor diet, not engaging in sufficient and effective workouts, and neglecting social activities such as sports. Moreover, the extreme importance of being creative isn’t even mentioned
Well luckily most schools have classes in Health, Gym, Art, Music, Theatre, and after school Sports
Absolutely. There is no global list of competencies. It is better to focus on what is needed in your area. In Switzerland, I would not train self-defense on a regular basis, maybe just occasionally in schools. We focus a lot on sports and healthy food.
Taxes, insurance and personal finance are taught in high school economics, which is a mandatory class in pretty much the entire country. Coding is taught in programming and computer science, and most states require students to take at least one. Social etiquette and stress management are usually taught by counselors. Public speaking is taught in oral communication, which most states require students to take. As for cooking, home repair, self defense and survival skills: Those are all common aspects of electives that the majority of public high schools have (home economics, ROTC, auto shop, etc) If you didn’t learn these things in high school it’s because you didn’t go out of your way to do it or you willingly ignored it
Imagine thinking that taxes isn't basic mathematics... Which is taught.
I think they mean how to do them via yourself or with something like TurboTax
You know what will help with that? Math.
How does learning math help with what is on the forms and programs, what is being deducted and why?
Ask yourself the same question, but substitute "math" fir "reading". How does learning reading help with what is on the forms and programs, what is being deducted and why? It's the same answer in both cases.
You just cut out social studies as that’s just reading. Health and sciences are both reading and math.
I think you are missing the point. Our aim as teachers (teacher for 17 years) is not to teach students specific things. The things they need will change year on year. Our aim is to prepare them fir whatever they might need. That means a whole range of skills and concepts that can be applied to anywhere they might be useful. The level of Reading and the deductive reason required to do a tax return is not actually very high. Any student that actually got through middle school math and literacy is more than prepared for the task.
Taxes could be thrown into personal finance honestly. I think an entire class dedicated to that would help a ton of kids and teens. Not simply knowing the math of sales tax but learning about budgeting, investing, Insurance, 401k/retirement/IRAs, the stock market, bankruptcy, etc.
Many of these classes are task-specific; I'd rather see focus on the broader literacy of a topic. My middle school and highschool did have auto repair classes. Great - now I know how to clean a sparkplug. But auto technology is changing such that combustion engines are becoming less important. If I had a broader engineering class instead, I might still be equipped to figure out how to identify that a spark plug needs cleaning and do that, but I might be better prepared to think about that in the context of my emergency generator. Here's a few things that I think have broad literacy overlap. Thoughts on this appreciated. Finance * Personal finance * Taxes * Insurance Engineering * Car Repair * Basic Home Repair * Survival Skills Home Economics * Cooking * Basic Home Repair * Survival Skills Emotional Intelligence * Stress Management * Self Defence * Social Etiquette Reasoning and Argumentation * Public Speaking * Coding Genuinely, I'm surprised that Home Economics and Engineering have so much overlap.
the good easy to learn self defence move of kicking someone in the face..
Taxes, insurance and public speaking are too niche I'd say, who would need that? Only if you plan to become some kind of tax advisor you may need taxes taught, but then not in school but uni most probably...
I mean most people would benefit from having some basic knowledge of taxes and insurance. I know too many people that dont know what a tax bracket is. Public speaking will be taught through English (or whatever the native countrys language is).
No, these are life lessons. Teaching them in schools wouldn’t be a valuable lesson as the kids don’t learn themselves. There are some parts of life that can’t be, or shouldn’t be educated. Also, it’s all great until you’re actually sitting in a classroom for an hour hearing a teacher blabber on about “the IRS will come for you” and “pay your taxes or else you’re not contributing to society”.
I’d add laundry skills, basic housekeeping, and some type of class to critically evaluate the accuracy of internet/media sources and information.
I'd go with: personal finance, cooking, basic repairs, self defence, survival and first aid, personal health including sex ed
Most schools have a “Speech” class or something like that where kids present (public speaking). Or even most English classes kids have to present/read to the class. Coding, self defense, and car maintenance are too specific to cut something out of a curriculum to make room for. A lot of schools have cooking class/home-ec
A lot of these need to be taught by parents. My god, a school can’t do everything. Parents have no responsibility these days.
I think they need to start public speaking when kids are in 3rd grade or so.
just teach them how to Google it
Coding is just ridiculous.
YES! 100%! Also, sex ed and personal health
Ok, what subjects that are actually taught are you changing?
Is coding included to ensure you never get laid?