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The more I see, the more I think we need a mandatory „Life School“ curriculum in classes. Financial literacy is just one issue, but all that stuff like media co

The more I see, the more I think we need a mandatory „Life School“ curriculum in classes. Financial literacy is just one issue, but all that stuff like media competency, scientific method, cui bono, negotiations, assertiveness, how to deal with bullies, mental health basics, economics 101, mechanics of addiction and manipulation aaaand so on, all explained by first principles, would go such a long way towards a better functioning society. Then again, that‘s not going to happen as it would eventually destroy whole industries and populist voter bases. I smell a non-profit I should do one day…

throwaway0a5e 5y ago
The state is the last institution I trust to design a "life school" curriculum. Remember, these are the people who require your drivers ed instructor to tell you to go 55 on I95 where the traffic goes 85. They're optimizing for covering their own butts while nominally educating people. They don't really care about truly education people so those people can go do to what will result in the best outcome for them. They'll do something self serving and asinine like tell students you should make minimum payments on high interest debt rather than ask for a financial hardship extension/reduction for government services/fees/fines (which in many cases are legally required to take that into account).
- smhost 5y ago
  That's funny, because public school is where I learned the difference between letter of the law and spirit of the law. We even did a "compare and contrast" worksheet with speed limits as one of the examples. Besides, the alternatives to public education are all worse.
  - iammisc 5y ago
    The indoctrination is so obvious when statements are made with no justification or even any attempt.
    - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
      I don't disagree. There are millions of people who went to charter schools, private schools or were home schooled who would take issue with his last sentence. They got fine educations. I'm a big believer in good parents making up for bad schools but you can't just hand wave away the productivity of all the professionals involved in schooling by saying "their parents cared they would have turned out fine wherever they went" (which is the typical retort).
    - DubiousPusher 5y ago
      You can hold this opinion without indoctrination. If you believe that inequality in education is wrong you will likely feel this way as creating a private system without inequality seems very unlikely. Not to say that public systems are necessarily equal. Obviously they can fail here too.
      - iammisc 5y ago
        Public schooling was created because the government was threatened by catholic parochial education being widely available. Catholicism has fewer cultural proscriptions than what the predominant waspy culture wanted. For example, Catholic schools in native American reservations didn't seek to undo Indian culture. This state of affairs was not acceptable and there was a chance said children would become catholic. Thus, the WASPs, unable to organize schooling in their own churches for their children at an affordable price (a problem which still exists today.. catholic schools are empirically cheaper than other christian schools), turned to the government as the only way to combat the papists. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_public_education_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_public_education_in... I am not anti public school, but I just take issues with the idea that public schools original purpose was for equality. As Thomas Sowell points out in "education in america", catholic schools do better than public ones for minorities even when accounting for socieconomic factors. This is probably why minorities disproportionately favor vouchers. Public schools leading to equality is today a 'fact' asserted with little empirical data and any attempt at refutation is met with all kinds of accusations.
        5y ago
- greggman3 5y ago
  know someone paying > $4k a year in car insurance because of speeding tickets from areas like that. Going the speed everyone else is going but over the speed limit. Life lesson I got from that was obey the speed limit even if everyone else is speeding.
  - godelski 5y ago
    Honestly the issue is bad law. Laws are social contracts. So if everyone is breaking the contract then obviously the contract needs to be revisited.
    - username90 5y ago
      Or the law was reasonable and people actually hurt society by not following it, so we have to enforce it better. In the case of speeding it is well known that higher speeds leads to more traffic deaths so we can easily calculate the death toll of people going 85 instead of 55 and implement appropriate measures to reduce that.
      - DangitBobby 5y ago
        Just like prohibition and its sequel, the "War on Drugs," this idea is a dud. When people show you they won't follow your laws, believe them. I mean ostensibly government is "by the consent of the governed," right? Why is your response to "consent denied" to force yourself upon them with renewed vigor?
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        AussieWog93 5y ago
        Just as a counterpoint, drink driving laws were widely disregarded in Australia in the 80's, and only now is it starting to become socially unacceptable. Just because everyone ignores or despises a law, it doesn't necessarily make it unjust or wrong.
- hogFeast 5y ago
  This includes financial literacy. Tbf, I have no idea what the average level of financial literacy is. But I worked in financial services and I can confirm that: having a lot of cash from a job in which you are supposed to have financial literacy (corporate lawyer, accountant, etc.) and/or working in financial services in which you have completed exams on financial literacy...does not mean you have financial literacy/will make reasonable decisions. It shifts your view of reality significantly when you are in your early 20s, just out of college having to explain basic elements of finance to: a financial adviser managing $100mm of other people's money, a corporate lawyer worth ~$10mm, [insert other horrific situations]. ...there is no other way to gain knowledge apart from learning, it is not some innate skill. But that supposes that people designing the course know what they are doing, this is a fairly ambitious assumption given that anyone who has financial competence is, generally, not designing courses for the state govt. And, ofc, lack of information isn't why people make poor financial choices. One of the flaws of financial regulation (and economics) is assuming that if everyone had perfect information, they would make the same decision. This is equivalent to the guy who has a view on the death penalty and thinks anyone who disagrees with them does so because they don't have the "correct information". The issue isn't information, people know they shouldn't take out the high-interest loan when they have to speak to some sleazy guy in an ill-fitting suit at a strip mall (these heuristics work well). People take out these loans because of poverty and a lack of options (particularly in the US, massive unbanked population, large banks won't deal with poor people, unconscionable level of arbitrary fees that fine poverty). Unless the course teaches people how not to be poor, it is flushing money down the drain. (A side-note for the target reader: the reason why rich people make bad decisions also isn't bad information...it is usually a combination of greed and studying to get stupid i.e. subjects like economics. Wealthy people only see upside, they will believe utterly ludicrous shit that makes no sense because...hey, they are wealthy, and they got wealthy through those smarts (as an example, every wealthy investor I have ever met has gone through the "goldbug" phase...it is amazing how consistent this is). Again, you can't teach it. Ironically, if you combined the paranoia of a poor person with the risk tolerance of a risk person, you would actually have someone who makes decent decisions...but those two attributes tend not to be found within one individual.)
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- slibhb 5y ago
  I'm normally on the "damn gubmint" side of things but in public school we had multiple math teachers who explained why you shouldn't pay minimum payments. Pretty sure learning about interest was part of the curriculum.
  - mywittyname 5y ago
    Financial literacy was also taught in school. In fact a lot of "why didn't they teach this school?!?" stuff was taught in school, people just forgot or opted out of that class. I went to a shitty public school in the middle of nowhere and they taught us to budget, handle bank accounts, etc. We even had fake jobs with fake bills and had to make a household budget. They even offered a class with fake babies that girls had to carry around to teach them parenting skills. The problem with teaching life skills is that they are not retained if they are not relevant to a person's situation. Kids don't have bills or jobs; money is an abstract concept to them. With this in mind, financial literacy should not be taught in schools, it should be taught to 20-30 year olds who long since left school.
    - eatonphil 5y ago
      In my (not special) public school in the middle of nowhere, everyone (boys and girls) had to take multiple years of home ec: sewing, paying bills, understanding sexually transmitted diseases, and caring for a (fake) baby you take home. They were extremely easy classes taught by not-the-best teachers (often gym teachers) but still pretty informative and I did learn how to sew pretty well. My wife attended well-known private schools in the US and Korea and never learned these skills.
      - ultrarunner 5y ago
        Perhaps that is because those skills are stereotypical or political and not actually all that valuable for success in life. I highly doubt that your wife (or humanity in general) would fail to care for babies were it not for home ec classes. However, some groups may, for better or for worse, have opinions predicting what happens to teen pregnancy rates in the face of such experience.
- malandrew 5y ago
  These are also the same people that gave us the food pyramid.
- edgyquant 5y ago
  How is the school teaching kids to go the speed limit (instead of 30 miles over it) proof that the government is “bad.” School is supposed to teach kids what they need to know and once they have a basic intuition they can further look into things (like hardship extensions, etc.)
Ensorceled 5y ago
There were are ton of things I learned in Psych 101, Phil 101, Econ 101 that all should have been taught in high school. Your list is a great start. I'd add anger management (though perhaps mental health basics would cover this), practical logical fallacies, sunk costs, and basic law.
- eesmith 5y ago
  Every topic added means another must be cut. What gets cut? P.E? Foreign language? History? Math? Electives? English?
  - cascom 5y ago
    I don’t think it’s zero sum, there’s no reason most districts couldn’t add 2-weeks to the school year. That being said, they fact that reading math scores are so low in many places my pre-supposed “advanced” topics life financial literacy.
    - whatshisface 5y ago
      Adding two weeks to the school year subtracts two weeks from the things kids learn when they're not bored to death and controlled.
      - cascom 5y ago
        That could well be the case - though I think if you looked at most kids, two weeks less of video games could be found in their schedules
    - joshuaheard 5y ago
      Make the school year full time. It would give more time for these classes, make it easier on working parents, and give kids more time to learn. I would require basic law, accounting, and economics classes.
  - Unklejoe 5y ago
paulpauper 5y ago
I agree. Schools are not teaching actionable kills. Just memorize and regurgitate type stuff. no wonder so many kids find it boring. Little to no applicability to real world or life.
muffinman26 5y ago
Most of these were taught in required courses when I was in school, and I have no reason to believe this has changed: media competency - part of history class, including evaluating sources, history of yellow journalism, etc. scientific method - 6+ years of science class cui bono - this is apparently a fancy term for motive, which was discussed during history class (specifically explaining the judicial branch) negotiations, assertiveness, how to deal with bullies - a required part of working on group projects for 6+ years of life mental health basics, mechanics of addiction - health class Economics 101 is the only one on your list that was missing, and presumably a financial literacy course would cover this.
- kccqzy 5y ago
  These do not seem sufficient in my opinion. The reliance of history class to teach media competency in modern times for example very much depends on the quality of instruction. For an average teacher the history class would be filled with historical facts without reference to the modern times. Similarly, science class tends to teach knowledge (including knowledge of the scientific method) but not actually applying the scientific method to any real-life scenarios. Even with science labs, students might use the scientific method during class only, without extending it to decision making in life. Negotiations and stuff can be learned from group projects? No way. Group projects are primarily cooperative and students share the fruits of their combined labor. How does that relate to life scenarios like, negotiating a lease agreement with a landlord who has very different incentives? Or negotiating a job offer with a prospective employer when there is a clear mismatch in power between the two? It doesn't.
  - maximus-decimus 5y ago
    Given we don't even use the scientific method to determine the best subjects to teach, I don't think there will be a push to teach using the scientific method in real life scenarios.
    - 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
      >best subjects to teach Best subjects for what?
goodcanadian 5y ago
We had a class called "Career and Life Management" in High School. It was kind of trivial stupid stuff, but then again, it may have been useful to someone who did not get good information from their parents. Edit: quick google suggests it still exists: https://education.alberta.ca/media/160199/calm.pdf https://education.alberta.ca/media/160199/calm.pdf
- diydsp 5y ago
  As an older person, the issue i see is most of these aren't really a problem until later in life. E.g. adolescents can eat all kinds of bad food. It will have little real impact until roughly late 30s. Earlier financial literacy will help to a point, but bolsters are needed every decade. Same with family relations. Motivated people like me fine, but many families and people just don't get the right push and it hurts to watch people suffer needlessly.
  - whatshisface 5y ago
    If you look around you will see more and more far kids these days. It might not kill you to be a fat twelve year old but it can hardly be considered of no real impact.
  - BeFlatXIII 5y ago
    That’s the problem I have when people argue for the important ace of rigorous high school civics: the useful parts won’t prove to be useful until several years after graduation, so even a motivated student has ample time to forget (and the students know they’ll forget, so there’s even less motivation to learn in the first place)
    - diydsp 5y ago
      Exactly. The consequences are too abstract to rate as important.
  - Zababa 5y ago
    > E.g. adolescents can eat all kinds of bad food. It will have little real impact until roughly late 30s. 20% of teens in America are obese. I think you underestimate how much of a problem it is. Here's a source https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/childhood.html https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/childhood.html
satellite2 5y ago
I definitely agree that this kind of curriculum should be widely offered. I'm much more doubtful about the scope of the positive impact it would have. I think it's roughly the idea that lack of culture is caused by a distribution problem. I think internet more than showed that improving distribution works only up to a limit. There is a theory - the paradox of abundance - that paradoxally after you reach this limit you actually decrease access to the ones that need it the most. https://perell.com/note/the-paradox-of-abundance/ https://perell.com/note/the-paradox-of-abundance/
lordnacho 5y ago
While I agree everyone should know those things, everyone also went to math, history, English, and biology yet nobody remembers anything from them either. None of this content will help if people don't simply learn to appreciate knowledge, and when they do none of the content will matter.
- Retric 5y ago
  People remember a great deal from English, History, Biology etc. Anything used regularly like say touch typing sticks around. What they forget is generally unimportant details. So, most Americans will know the difference between a period and an exclamation mark. That Lincoln was president during the civil war even if they can’t the battles. Mice come from mice not grain. Basically the kind of basic facts that seem inherent until you realize you needed to learn them somewhere. And of course people who went further into Math, History, etc where building from foundations created in those years.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  A lot of school knowledge is too abstract and removed from life: biology class taught me about cell structure and DNA, not how to do first aid, or the difference between paracetomol and ibuprophere, it doesnt help me choose a health insurance, etc. People then those same people who supposedly learnt biology become vaccine sceptics: this 'knowledge' is not knowledge that was every used and proved real to them, its just collection of words they remembered and regorgitated in an exam.
Spinnaker_ 5y ago
I think people forget what high school is like. I had something like what you've described. It was called "Life Skills". Most students treated it like other courses - they didn't care at all and learned almost nothing. I'm someone who liked school for the most part, and even I treated it as a "just pay attention enough to pass the test" class.
- kaesar14 5y ago
  I totally agree. Do people really think a bunch of 16 year olds are going to pay attention to a class where you learn how to do your taxes or learn about the time value of money? The people who need this information the most were also 100% the last people on Earth who'd have paid attention to a class where it was taught, at least at my school. Our focus should be simplifying the way our systems are structured and protecting people from being taken advantage of by corporations who do know what they're doing.
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    Perhaps kids are bored because scholl is boring. If the school assignment was to find the biggest scam in town and file a lawsuit, way more people would listen.
- omginternets 5y ago
  Part of the problem is also that these courses are devoid of any real informational content. My experience with having been schooled in several countries is that kids -- including 17-year-old highschoolers -- tune in when the substance is there. I can assert with great confidence that the level of content in the average US curriculum is shamefully low. This is true in mathematics, to say nothing of "Life Skills".
2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
I'm torn on this. Do people really need to be spoonfed all information?
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  Were you born knowing how to draft contract, sue your employer and calculate equated monthly installments on a loan?
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
    No but I can navigate my world and use available resources to figure it out.
    - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
      And unless you are reading the original legal texts passed by parliament or filing the lawsuit yourself, someone is 'spoonfeeding' you Secondly, I can't read a health insurance policy and fully understand all of it's implications, and I doubt you can either unless you have some spesific traiing in the matter
    - funcDropShadow 5y ago
      It is a fallacy to think it is enough to know how to research stuff. In order to ask helpful questions --- in order to think --- you need facts that you know already. Additionally, you have to train your brain, similar to a muscle in order to use it effectively. E.g. a novice in chess would represent some of the figure on the field in his head at one point in time. Every figure would fill one "slot" of his working memory, whereas a more advanced player might represent certain configurations of figures and their positions in one slot. Even more advanced players might hold trees of possible futures of the current field in one slot. In order to acquire that ability, you have to train your brain and fill it with some knowledge, be it personal experience or theoretical knowledge. Being allowed to Google during a Chess championship won't cut it.
mjfl 5y ago
> media competency, scientific method, cui bono, negotiations, assertiveness, how to deal with bullies, mental health basics, economics 101, mechanics of addiction and manipulation These are all, in principle, taught at most public schools. The problem is students don't learn them.
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago
  I went to a solid Californian public school. Zero anything on mental health or addiction. Got the negotiation but through extracurriculars; the core programme stayed almost intentionally clear of anything remotely commercial.
- TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
  The problem is that by the time students start being taught them, they've been exposed to years of media and ad messaging influence which undermine them.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  I have lived in 3 countries, and have never met anyone who learnt their employment rights, unions, health insurance, or how to draft a contract at school.
nattaylor 5y ago
In 2003 in my high school social studies teacher set aside time each class to do this and tied to world events. He was getting up there in age and had horrible skin cancer but still literally sprinted down the halls after truants. He is my all-time favorite teacher, although I actually don't remember that many life skills from him :)
godelski 5y ago
I agree with this, but there is a big BUT. We need some changes in how we think. Specifically we need to recognize specialization. We often give the excuse of "It is their responsibility to understand the terms and services." But it's all lawyer speak and we need to recognize that not everyone is a lawyer. The same goes for finance. Using these excuses just allows for ample abuse. As an example of this, when I took out student loans they were sold to me as "fixed interest" (literal words used and it was at the typical point where you have the option to pick a fixed interest or variable interest rate). My dad and I had a conversation about fixed vs variable interests and the risks involved. But to our surprise later we found that it was "fixed interest repayment option" and not "fixed interest repayment rate." I wouldn't say my family is financially illiterate, far from it actually. But there's still predatory behavior like this that preys on more "Swiss-cheese knowledge" that a non-expert would have and a lack of understanding all the legalize (and my dad has a JD). So I do think we should make people more rounded in their knowledge, but we also need to do more and ensure that we curb predatory behavior. The disadvantage of making people more well rounded is that the excuse of "they should have understood" becomes more powerful. But no matter how good you are you're not going to beat a team of lawyers and psychologists that want to implement dark patterns. But then again, I think if people were more educated then this argument would be less contentious and we'd recognize that a single person is always going to be outclassed.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  This is a vital point, its not a fair contest if it's me in my spare time vs a team of worldclass layers fulltime. Any specialist worth their salt can mislead or scam a layman. In some idustries you go to jail, but in others its somehow an accepted practice.
SMAAART 5y ago
> as it would eventually destroy whole industries and populist voter bases. That is absolutely correct! Alas, let's look at the bright side, learning all those topics you mentioned in you "Life School" are only one google search away, free (monetarily); they only require an investment of time. People learn complex things like playing Fornite and Minecraft or understanding Baseball/Football and other sports the same way. Maybe it's a matter of twisted modern darwinism?
refurb 5y ago
What makes you think high school students will listen? This is my issue with these topics. Like most classes kids will do the bare minimum to pass and then forget it all.
LAC-Tech 5y ago
> media competency What does this mean, exactly?
ksec 5y ago
>I smell a non-profit I should do one day… Do It. I love this idea. My question is something like, would a non-profit be considered as start up? Think of funding and long term sustainability of an idea.
esalman 5y ago
You don't really need to teach so many things. The only skill one needs to master them all is critical thinking. To teach critical thinking to the students, you need teachers who are critical thinkers. It does not matter if you are in USA or Zimbabwe, one thing is common everywhere. Smart people who can think critically are not encouraged or incentivized enough to take up teaching as a profession. As a result we end up with this mess of education systems everywhere. It will probably take some generational changes or visionary political leadership to change this.
aspaceman 5y ago
People have been beating this drum for decades. The last time it got big, my state (Illinois) began requiring such a class. It's been required since and people think it doesn't exist. I wonder if such courses have quantum properties of some sort. The course teaches you things like paying your taxes, writing a check, how to vote, etc. People still complain it doesn't exist. I still have old classmates that make this same "They didn't teach practical skills in school!" posts. They even took the damn class with me. It's maddening.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago

The state is the last institution I trust to design a "life school" curriculum. Remember, these are the people who require your drivers ed instructor to tell you to go 55 on I95 where the traffic goes 85. They're optimizing for covering their own butts while nominally educating people. They don't really care about truly education people so those people can go do to what will result in the best outcome for them. They'll do something self serving and asinine like tell students you should make minimum payments on high interest debt rather than ask for a financial hardship extension/reduction for government services/fees/fines (which in many cases are legally required to take that into account).

smhost 5y ago
That's funny, because public school is where I learned the difference between letter of the law and spirit of the law. We even did a "compare and contrast" worksheet with speed limits as one of the examples. Besides, the alternatives to public education are all worse.
- iammisc 5y ago
  The indoctrination is so obvious when statements are made with no justification or even any attempt.
  - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    I don't disagree. There are millions of people who went to charter schools, private schools or were home schooled who would take issue with his last sentence. They got fine educations. I'm a big believer in good parents making up for bad schools but you can't just hand wave away the productivity of all the professionals involved in schooling by saying "their parents cared they would have turned out fine wherever they went" (which is the typical retort).
  - DubiousPusher 5y ago
    You can hold this opinion without indoctrination. If you believe that inequality in education is wrong you will likely feel this way as creating a private system without inequality seems very unlikely. Not to say that public systems are necessarily equal. Obviously they can fail here too.
    - iammisc 5y ago
      Public schooling was created because the government was threatened by catholic parochial education being widely available. Catholicism has fewer cultural proscriptions than what the predominant waspy culture wanted. For example, Catholic schools in native American reservations didn't seek to undo Indian culture. This state of affairs was not acceptable and there was a chance said children would become catholic. Thus, the WASPs, unable to organize schooling in their own churches for their children at an affordable price (a problem which still exists today.. catholic schools are empirically cheaper than other christian schools), turned to the government as the only way to combat the papists. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_public_education_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_public_education_in... I am not anti public school, but I just take issues with the idea that public schools original purpose was for equality. As Thomas Sowell points out in "education in america", catholic schools do better than public ones for minorities even when accounting for socieconomic factors. This is probably why minorities disproportionately favor vouchers. Public schools leading to equality is today a 'fact' asserted with little empirical data and any attempt at refutation is met with all kinds of accusations.
      - 5y ago
greggman3 5y ago
know someone paying > $4k a year in car insurance because of speeding tickets from areas like that. Going the speed everyone else is going but over the speed limit. Life lesson I got from that was obey the speed limit even if everyone else is speeding.
- godelski 5y ago
  Honestly the issue is bad law. Laws are social contracts. So if everyone is breaking the contract then obviously the contract needs to be revisited.
  - username90 5y ago
    Or the law was reasonable and people actually hurt society by not following it, so we have to enforce it better. In the case of speeding it is well known that higher speeds leads to more traffic deaths so we can easily calculate the death toll of people going 85 instead of 55 and implement appropriate measures to reduce that.
    - DangitBobby 5y ago
      Just like prohibition and its sequel, the "War on Drugs," this idea is a dud. When people show you they won't follow your laws, believe them. I mean ostensibly government is "by the consent of the governed," right? Why is your response to "consent denied" to force yourself upon them with renewed vigor?
      - deleted 5y ago
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      - AussieWog93 5y ago
        Just as a counterpoint, drink driving laws were widely disregarded in Australia in the 80's, and only now is it starting to become socially unacceptable. Just because everyone ignores or despises a law, it doesn't necessarily make it unjust or wrong.
hogFeast 5y ago
This includes financial literacy. Tbf, I have no idea what the average level of financial literacy is. But I worked in financial services and I can confirm that: having a lot of cash from a job in which you are supposed to have financial literacy (corporate lawyer, accountant, etc.) and/or working in financial services in which you have completed exams on financial literacy...does not mean you have financial literacy/will make reasonable decisions. It shifts your view of reality significantly when you are in your early 20s, just out of college having to explain basic elements of finance to: a financial adviser managing $100mm of other people's money, a corporate lawyer worth ~$10mm, [insert other horrific situations]. ...there is no other way to gain knowledge apart from learning, it is not some innate skill. But that supposes that people designing the course know what they are doing, this is a fairly ambitious assumption given that anyone who has financial competence is, generally, not designing courses for the state govt. And, ofc, lack of information isn't why people make poor financial choices. One of the flaws of financial regulation (and economics) is assuming that if everyone had perfect information, they would make the same decision. This is equivalent to the guy who has a view on the death penalty and thinks anyone who disagrees with them does so because they don't have the "correct information". The issue isn't information, people know they shouldn't take out the high-interest loan when they have to speak to some sleazy guy in an ill-fitting suit at a strip mall (these heuristics work well). People take out these loans because of poverty and a lack of options (particularly in the US, massive unbanked population, large banks won't deal with poor people, unconscionable level of arbitrary fees that fine poverty). Unless the course teaches people how not to be poor, it is flushing money down the drain. (A side-note for the target reader: the reason why rich people make bad decisions also isn't bad information...it is usually a combination of greed and studying to get stupid i.e. subjects like economics. Wealthy people only see upside, they will believe utterly ludicrous shit that makes no sense because...hey, they are wealthy, and they got wealthy through those smarts (as an example, every wealthy investor I have ever met has gone through the "goldbug" phase...it is amazing how consistent this is). Again, you can't teach it. Ironically, if you combined the paranoia of a poor person with the risk tolerance of a risk person, you would actually have someone who makes decent decisions...but those two attributes tend not to be found within one individual.)
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slibhb 5y ago
I'm normally on the "damn gubmint" side of things but in public school we had multiple math teachers who explained why you shouldn't pay minimum payments. Pretty sure learning about interest was part of the curriculum.
- mywittyname 5y ago
  Financial literacy was also taught in school. In fact a lot of "why didn't they teach this school?!?" stuff was taught in school, people just forgot or opted out of that class. I went to a shitty public school in the middle of nowhere and they taught us to budget, handle bank accounts, etc. We even had fake jobs with fake bills and had to make a household budget. They even offered a class with fake babies that girls had to carry around to teach them parenting skills. The problem with teaching life skills is that they are not retained if they are not relevant to a person's situation. Kids don't have bills or jobs; money is an abstract concept to them. With this in mind, financial literacy should not be taught in schools, it should be taught to 20-30 year olds who long since left school.
  - eatonphil 5y ago
    In my (not special) public school in the middle of nowhere, everyone (boys and girls) had to take multiple years of home ec: sewing, paying bills, understanding sexually transmitted diseases, and caring for a (fake) baby you take home. They were extremely easy classes taught by not-the-best teachers (often gym teachers) but still pretty informative and I did learn how to sew pretty well. My wife attended well-known private schools in the US and Korea and never learned these skills.
    - ultrarunner 5y ago
      Perhaps that is because those skills are stereotypical or political and not actually all that valuable for success in life. I highly doubt that your wife (or humanity in general) would fail to care for babies were it not for home ec classes. However, some groups may, for better or for worse, have opinions predicting what happens to teen pregnancy rates in the face of such experience.
malandrew 5y ago
These are also the same people that gave us the food pyramid.
edgyquant 5y ago
How is the school teaching kids to go the speed limit (instead of 30 miles over it) proof that the government is “bad.” School is supposed to teach kids what they need to know and once they have a basic intuition they can further look into things (like hardship extensions, etc.)

Ensorceled 5y ago

There were are ton of things I learned in Psych 101, Phil 101, Econ 101 that all should have been taught in high school. Your list is a great start. I'd add anger management (though perhaps mental health basics would cover this), practical logical fallacies, sunk costs, and basic law.

eesmith 5y ago
Every topic added means another must be cut. What gets cut? P.E? Foreign language? History? Math? Electives? English?
- cascom 5y ago
  I don’t think it’s zero sum, there’s no reason most districts couldn’t add 2-weeks to the school year. That being said, they fact that reading math scores are so low in many places my pre-supposed “advanced” topics life financial literacy.
  - whatshisface 5y ago
    Adding two weeks to the school year subtracts two weeks from the things kids learn when they're not bored to death and controlled.
    - cascom 5y ago
      That could well be the case - though I think if you looked at most kids, two weeks less of video games could be found in their schedules
  - joshuaheard 5y ago
    Make the school year full time. It would give more time for these classes, make it easier on working parents, and give kids more time to learn. I would require basic law, accounting, and economics classes.
- Unklejoe 5y ago

paulpauper 5y ago

I agree. Schools are not teaching actionable kills. Just memorize and regurgitate type stuff. no wonder so many kids find it boring. Little to no applicability to real world or life.

muffinman26 5y ago

Most of these were taught in required courses when I was in school, and I have no reason to believe this has changed: media competency - part of history class, including evaluating sources, history of yellow journalism, etc. scientific method - 6+ years of science class cui bono - this is apparently a fancy term for motive, which was discussed during history class (specifically explaining the judicial branch) negotiations, assertiveness, how to deal with bullies - a required part of working on group projects for 6+ years of life mental health basics, mechanics of addiction - health class Economics 101 is the only one on your list that was missing, and presumably a financial literacy course would cover this.

kccqzy 5y ago
These do not seem sufficient in my opinion. The reliance of history class to teach media competency in modern times for example very much depends on the quality of instruction. For an average teacher the history class would be filled with historical facts without reference to the modern times. Similarly, science class tends to teach knowledge (including knowledge of the scientific method) but not actually applying the scientific method to any real-life scenarios. Even with science labs, students might use the scientific method during class only, without extending it to decision making in life. Negotiations and stuff can be learned from group projects? No way. Group projects are primarily cooperative and students share the fruits of their combined labor. How does that relate to life scenarios like, negotiating a lease agreement with a landlord who has very different incentives? Or negotiating a job offer with a prospective employer when there is a clear mismatch in power between the two? It doesn't.
- maximus-decimus 5y ago
  Given we don't even use the scientific method to determine the best subjects to teach, I don't think there will be a push to teach using the scientific method in real life scenarios.
  - 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
    >best subjects to teach Best subjects for what?

goodcanadian 5y ago

We had a class called "Career and Life Management" in High School. It was kind of trivial stupid stuff, but then again, it may have been useful to someone who did not get good information from their parents. Edit: quick google suggests it still exists: https://education.alberta.ca/media/160199/calm.pdf https://education.alberta.ca/media/160199/calm.pdf

diydsp 5y ago
As an older person, the issue i see is most of these aren't really a problem until later in life. E.g. adolescents can eat all kinds of bad food. It will have little real impact until roughly late 30s. Earlier financial literacy will help to a point, but bolsters are needed every decade. Same with family relations. Motivated people like me fine, but many families and people just don't get the right push and it hurts to watch people suffer needlessly.
- whatshisface 5y ago
  If you look around you will see more and more far kids these days. It might not kill you to be a fat twelve year old but it can hardly be considered of no real impact.
- BeFlatXIII 5y ago
  That’s the problem I have when people argue for the important ace of rigorous high school civics: the useful parts won’t prove to be useful until several years after graduation, so even a motivated student has ample time to forget (and the students know they’ll forget, so there’s even less motivation to learn in the first place)
  - diydsp 5y ago
    Exactly. The consequences are too abstract to rate as important.
- Zababa 5y ago
  > E.g. adolescents can eat all kinds of bad food. It will have little real impact until roughly late 30s. 20% of teens in America are obese. I think you underestimate how much of a problem it is. Here's a source https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/childhood.html https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/childhood.html

satellite2 5y ago

I definitely agree that this kind of curriculum should be widely offered. I'm much more doubtful about the scope of the positive impact it would have. I think it's roughly the idea that lack of culture is caused by a distribution problem. I think internet more than showed that improving distribution works only up to a limit. There is a theory - the paradox of abundance - that paradoxally after you reach this limit you actually decrease access to the ones that need it the most. https://perell.com/note/the-paradox-of-abundance/ https://perell.com/note/the-paradox-of-abundance/

lordnacho 5y ago

While I agree everyone should know those things, everyone also went to math, history, English, and biology yet nobody remembers anything from them either. None of this content will help if people don't simply learn to appreciate knowledge, and when they do none of the content will matter.

Retric 5y ago
People remember a great deal from English, History, Biology etc. Anything used regularly like say touch typing sticks around. What they forget is generally unimportant details. So, most Americans will know the difference between a period and an exclamation mark. That Lincoln was president during the civil war even if they can’t the battles. Mice come from mice not grain. Basically the kind of basic facts that seem inherent until you realize you needed to learn them somewhere. And of course people who went further into Math, History, etc where building from foundations created in those years.
ClumsyPilot 5y ago
A lot of school knowledge is too abstract and removed from life: biology class taught me about cell structure and DNA, not how to do first aid, or the difference between paracetomol and ibuprophere, it doesnt help me choose a health insurance, etc. People then those same people who supposedly learnt biology become vaccine sceptics: this 'knowledge' is not knowledge that was every used and proved real to them, its just collection of words they remembered and regorgitated in an exam.

Spinnaker_ 5y ago

I think people forget what high school is like. I had something like what you've described. It was called "Life Skills". Most students treated it like other courses - they didn't care at all and learned almost nothing. I'm someone who liked school for the most part, and even I treated it as a "just pay attention enough to pass the test" class.

kaesar14 5y ago
I totally agree. Do people really think a bunch of 16 year olds are going to pay attention to a class where you learn how to do your taxes or learn about the time value of money? The people who need this information the most were also 100% the last people on Earth who'd have paid attention to a class where it was taught, at least at my school. Our focus should be simplifying the way our systems are structured and protecting people from being taken advantage of by corporations who do know what they're doing.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  Perhaps kids are bored because scholl is boring. If the school assignment was to find the biggest scam in town and file a lawsuit, way more people would listen.
omginternets 5y ago
Part of the problem is also that these courses are devoid of any real informational content. My experience with having been schooled in several countries is that kids -- including 17-year-old highschoolers -- tune in when the substance is there. I can assert with great confidence that the level of content in the average US curriculum is shamefully low. This is true in mathematics, to say nothing of "Life Skills".

2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago

I'm torn on this. Do people really need to be spoonfed all information?

ClumsyPilot 5y ago
Were you born knowing how to draft contract, sue your employer and calculate equated monthly installments on a loan?
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
  No but I can navigate my world and use available resources to figure it out.
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    And unless you are reading the original legal texts passed by parliament or filing the lawsuit yourself, someone is 'spoonfeeding' you Secondly, I can't read a health insurance policy and fully understand all of it's implications, and I doubt you can either unless you have some spesific traiing in the matter
  - funcDropShadow 5y ago
    It is a fallacy to think it is enough to know how to research stuff. In order to ask helpful questions --- in order to think --- you need facts that you know already. Additionally, you have to train your brain, similar to a muscle in order to use it effectively. E.g. a novice in chess would represent some of the figure on the field in his head at one point in time. Every figure would fill one "slot" of his working memory, whereas a more advanced player might represent certain configurations of figures and their positions in one slot. Even more advanced players might hold trees of possible futures of the current field in one slot. In order to acquire that ability, you have to train your brain and fill it with some knowledge, be it personal experience or theoretical knowledge. Being allowed to Google during a Chess championship won't cut it.

mjfl 5y ago

> media competency, scientific method, cui bono, negotiations, assertiveness, how to deal with bullies, mental health basics, economics 101, mechanics of addiction and manipulation These are all, in principle, taught at most public schools. The problem is students don't learn them.

JumpCrisscross 5y ago
I went to a solid Californian public school. Zero anything on mental health or addiction. Got the negotiation but through extracurriculars; the core programme stayed almost intentionally clear of anything remotely commercial.
TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
The problem is that by the time students start being taught them, they've been exposed to years of media and ad messaging influence which undermine them.
ClumsyPilot 5y ago
I have lived in 3 countries, and have never met anyone who learnt their employment rights, unions, health insurance, or how to draft a contract at school.

nattaylor 5y ago

In 2003 in my high school social studies teacher set aside time each class to do this and tied to world events. He was getting up there in age and had horrible skin cancer but still literally sprinted down the halls after truants. He is my all-time favorite teacher, although I actually don't remember that many life skills from him :)

godelski 5y ago

I agree with this, but there is a big BUT. We need some changes in how we think. Specifically we need to recognize specialization. We often give the excuse of "It is their responsibility to understand the terms and services." But it's all lawyer speak and we need to recognize that not everyone is a lawyer. The same goes for finance. Using these excuses just allows for ample abuse. As an example of this, when I took out student loans they were sold to me as "fixed interest" (literal words used and it was at the typical point where you have the option to pick a fixed interest or variable interest rate). My dad and I had a conversation about fixed vs variable interests and the risks involved. But to our surprise later we found that it was "fixed interest repayment option" and not "fixed interest repayment rate." I wouldn't say my family is financially illiterate, far from it actually. But there's still predatory behavior like this that preys on more "Swiss-cheese knowledge" that a non-expert would have and a lack of understanding all the legalize (and my dad has a JD). So I do think we should make people more rounded in their knowledge, but we also need to do more and ensure that we curb predatory behavior. The disadvantage of making people more well rounded is that the excuse of "they should have understood" becomes more powerful. But no matter how good you are you're not going to beat a team of lawyers and psychologists that want to implement dark patterns. But then again, I think if people were more educated then this argument would be less contentious and we'd recognize that a single person is always going to be outclassed.

ClumsyPilot 5y ago
This is a vital point, its not a fair contest if it's me in my spare time vs a team of worldclass layers fulltime. Any specialist worth their salt can mislead or scam a layman. In some idustries you go to jail, but in others its somehow an accepted practice.

SMAAART 5y ago

> as it would eventually destroy whole industries and populist voter bases. That is absolutely correct! Alas, let's look at the bright side, learning all those topics you mentioned in you "Life School" are only one google search away, free (monetarily); they only require an investment of time. People learn complex things like playing Fornite and Minecraft or understanding Baseball/Football and other sports the same way. Maybe it's a matter of twisted modern darwinism?

refurb 5y ago

What makes you think high school students will listen? This is my issue with these topics. Like most classes kids will do the bare minimum to pass and then forget it all.

LAC-Tech 5y ago

> media competency What does this mean, exactly?

ksec 5y ago

>I smell a non-profit I should do one day… Do It. I love this idea. My question is something like, would a non-profit be considered as start up? Think of funding and long term sustainability of an idea.

esalman 5y ago

You don't really need to teach so many things. The only skill one needs to master them all is critical thinking. To teach critical thinking to the students, you need teachers who are critical thinkers. It does not matter if you are in USA or Zimbabwe, one thing is common everywhere. Smart people who can think critically are not encouraged or incentivized enough to take up teaching as a profession. As a result we end up with this mess of education systems everywhere. It will probably take some generational changes or visionary political leadership to change this.

aspaceman 5y ago

People have been beating this drum for decades. The last time it got big, my state (Illinois) began requiring such a class. It's been required since and people think it doesn't exist. I wonder if such courses have quantum properties of some sort. The course teaches you things like paying your taxes, writing a check, how to vote, etc. People still complain it doesn't exist. I still have old classmates that make this same "They didn't teach practical skills in school!" posts. They even took the damn class with me. It's maddening.