4 ms·

Ask HN: What should be taught in schools but isn't?

anshumankmr 6y ago
How to responsibly spend your own money, budgeting, living in your means
- jimmyvalmer 6y ago
  As if public school wasn't boring and stupid enough... the only inequality you need for budgeting is "keep it positive". Teaching any financing concepts beyond that is putting the cart before the horse (kids need "skin in the game", i.e., a salary, before learning mortgages, taxes, and diversification).
- tracer4201 6y ago
  Finance and some understanding of the economy should be taught as a course, or perhaps those concepts should be taught as “application” in a math class. One issue we have in the US is high school kids who take unfathomable amounts of student debt to land degrees that have little ROI. Of course that problem has lots of different dimensions, but one of the things we can do is teach kids how to think about money, savings, investing, and retirement.
  - jimmyvalmer 6y ago
    And "finance for kids" somehow equips them for running the regression that estimates the expected value of college? Realize that the kinds of people for whom post secondary education is financially net negative are generally the ones who've never mastered basic math.
    - tracer4201 6y ago
      I don’t have data to accept your generalization, and I think you’re arguing a strawman. Teaching kids financial literacy can help them make better informed choices, and for some of them, they might learn concepts like investing and planning for their future earlier in life as opposed to late.
      - jimmyvalmer 6y ago
        The strawman reared its empty head earlier regarding "financial literacy" (a vacuous notion) as a nostrum for pointless student debt. For whatever reason, you seem to think formalizing "buy low, sell high" and "keep your savings on the right side of zero" would somehow deter the general population from doing the opposite, rather than two things which would: learning a trade and mastering basic math.
        tracer4201 6y ago
        > you seem to think formalizing "buy low, sell high" and "keep your savings on the right side of zero" would somehow deter the general population from doing the opposite I’d be happy to provide specifics on what I “think”, but I’m not sure if it would be a productive conversation. You keep responding in bad faith. No where did I write anything about buying low and selling high or “keeping your savings on the right side of zero”. I don’t even know what that means. Can you please show me where I wrote that? It seems like you’re against teaching children financial literacy, and you don’t actually care to listen or understand what it might even mean. Your definition is teaching kids “buy low, sell high” - you are confidently uninformed on the topic. In all seriousness, your behavior in jumping to conclusions about what the other person is saying and trying to tell them they’re wrong without even hearing them out — this is cyber bullying. I’m going to stop engaging with you here, full stop.
zeeshanqureshi 6y ago
I think the 'how' is equally important as the 'what'. It is sad that our places of education are only about students memorising theories that are decades if not centuries old. When they must also encourage open discussions, freely asking questions, poking holes in existing theories, aimless search and discovery etc. They murder curiosity and I don't see that changing anytime soon.
- jimmyvalmer 6y ago
  Kids in the "usual suspect" nations of China, USSR, Singapore may not understand why integration rules work, but at least they demonstrate the discipline know them cold. Unless I'm hiring for an obfuscation campaign, I'd much rather get an incurious automaton who's committed basic facts to memory, than a free thinking know-nothing. Given the limited number (zero?) of hours US students study, any opinion-forming is going to be trite and ignorant.
  - zeeshanqureshi 6y ago
    Why is it normal to classify educated people solely based on employability? Is that all education is for? Also, all automatons may not be incurious, just as all free thinkers may not be devoid of knowledge. A dash of curiosity and free thinking might help challenge those assumptions.
    - jimmyvalmer 6y ago
      Yes, in star date 43156, humans no longer require money or employment. Until then, while market notions of human usefulness are not the only or best evaluation metrics, they are the only robust ones. My recommendation to kids is not to question first, but to learn how we stupid adults do things, then critique (much) later.

How to responsibly spend your own money, budgeting, living in your means

jimmyvalmer 6y ago
As if public school wasn't boring and stupid enough... the only inequality you need for budgeting is "keep it positive". Teaching any financing concepts beyond that is putting the cart before the horse (kids need "skin in the game", i.e., a salary, before learning mortgages, taxes, and diversification).
tracer4201 6y ago
Finance and some understanding of the economy should be taught as a course, or perhaps those concepts should be taught as “application” in a math class. One issue we have in the US is high school kids who take unfathomable amounts of student debt to land degrees that have little ROI. Of course that problem has lots of different dimensions, but one of the things we can do is teach kids how to think about money, savings, investing, and retirement.
- jimmyvalmer 6y ago
  And "finance for kids" somehow equips them for running the regression that estimates the expected value of college? Realize that the kinds of people for whom post secondary education is financially net negative are generally the ones who've never mastered basic math.
  - tracer4201 6y ago
    I don’t have data to accept your generalization, and I think you’re arguing a strawman. Teaching kids financial literacy can help them make better informed choices, and for some of them, they might learn concepts like investing and planning for their future earlier in life as opposed to late.
    - jimmyvalmer 6y ago
      The strawman reared its empty head earlier regarding "financial literacy" (a vacuous notion) as a nostrum for pointless student debt. For whatever reason, you seem to think formalizing "buy low, sell high" and "keep your savings on the right side of zero" would somehow deter the general population from doing the opposite, rather than two things which would: learning a trade and mastering basic math.
      - tracer4201 6y ago
        > you seem to think formalizing "buy low, sell high" and "keep your savings on the right side of zero" would somehow deter the general population from doing the opposite I’d be happy to provide specifics on what I “think”, but I’m not sure if it would be a productive conversation. You keep responding in bad faith. No where did I write anything about buying low and selling high or “keeping your savings on the right side of zero”. I don’t even know what that means. Can you please show me where I wrote that? It seems like you’re against teaching children financial literacy, and you don’t actually care to listen or understand what it might even mean. Your definition is teaching kids “buy low, sell high” - you are confidently uninformed on the topic. In all seriousness, your behavior in jumping to conclusions about what the other person is saying and trying to tell them they’re wrong without even hearing them out — this is cyber bullying. I’m going to stop engaging with you here, full stop.

I think the 'how' is equally important as the 'what'. It is sad that our places of education are only about students memorising theories that are decades if not centuries old. When they must also encourage open discussions, freely asking questions, poking holes in existing theories, aimless search and discovery etc. They murder curiosity and I don't see that changing anytime soon.

jimmyvalmer 6y ago
Kids in the "usual suspect" nations of China, USSR, Singapore may not understand why integration rules work, but at least they demonstrate the discipline know them cold. Unless I'm hiring for an obfuscation campaign, I'd much rather get an incurious automaton who's committed basic facts to memory, than a free thinking know-nothing. Given the limited number (zero?) of hours US students study, any opinion-forming is going to be trite and ignorant.
- zeeshanqureshi 6y ago
  Why is it normal to classify educated people solely based on employability? Is that all education is for? Also, all automatons may not be incurious, just as all free thinkers may not be devoid of knowledge. A dash of curiosity and free thinking might help challenge those assumptions.
  - jimmyvalmer 6y ago
    Yes, in star date 43156, humans no longer require money or employment. Until then, while market notions of human usefulness are not the only or best evaluation metrics, they are the only robust ones. My recommendation to kids is not to question first, but to learn how we stupid adults do things, then critique (much) later.