5 ms·

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 an

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
  There is definitely some fat to trim. For example, I remember spending almost an entire marking period studying the poems from Edgar Allan Poe. Nothing personal against the guy, but it's largely useless knowledge for the majority of people.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    I rebelled internally and hated much of my English courses. “There’s no way the author intended all that secondary meaning.” “I read that whole story and didn’t even find out if the Tiger was behind the door?!” “Who cares about the island kid’s glasses?!” 35 years later, the ability to write English has probably had at least the same amount of positive influence over my career as my ability to write C++ or Javascript. I should probably apologize to my high school English teachers.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- Ensorceled 5y ago
  Maybe? Making good, well rounded, happy humans should be the number one goal. Skipping a bit of everything else working towards that goal wouldn't hurt.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- cultofmetatron 5y ago
  I would definitely cut PE. Most of it amounts to moving around for 30 min and you get graded on wether you brought a change of clothes. Thats not to say PE couldn't be useful. Physical fitness was never my strong suit in highschool and PE did nothing to change that. After making a good salary in a startup, I worked with a personal trainer and learned about muscle hypertrophy, starting strength and general strategies for conditioning along with diet with particular goals. Maybe if we taught that stuff in PE, it would be worth keeping around.
  - Ensorceled 5y ago
    My PE class was actually contained a fair amount of that, just wildly out of date now. Just burning off energy/stress is probably a good thing for teenagers though ...
  - username90 5y ago
    Exercise is good for your brain, cutting PE will make most kids learn less even if the material you learn there isn't valuable.
- kelnos 5y ago
  Definitely cut PE; in most primary schools in the US it's just enforced exercise, and there's really nothing educational about it. I'm torn on foreign language. I think everyone should be bilingual, at least. But how it's taught in US schools is mostly useless. I took Spanish every year from 7th grade through 12th, but my Spanish even just a few years later was conversationally useless. I think kids should be learning a second language pretty much immediately when they start going to school, and there should be an effort to ensure it gets used outside that language class. (Easy if they only teach a single second language, but harder if students/parents get a choice.) We did have a home economics class at some point in either middle or high school. I don't remember it very well, but I think that could have been a good place to teach some basic financial literacy. What I do remember was a bunch of sewing projects, and while I do think sewing is an essential life skill (I still on occasion hand-sew things), I don't think learning how to sew a stuffed animal is more important than learning how debt works.
- fighterpilot 5y ago
  Cut compulsory foreign languages which for most people is just memorizing lists of data that they forget a month later.
  - ht_th 5y ago
    I did learn to read, write, listen, and speak three foreign languages in high school. Beyond learning vocabulary, there was not much memorizing going on. I still use two of these foreign languages regularly! I would rather we fix foreign language education rather than just cut it. Besides, why not teach parts of these "life lessons" during foreign language class? Might be interesting to compare home economics in different cultures.
    - fighterpilot 5y ago
      I also took 3 compulsory foreign language classes and retained maybe 30 words after the exams. I hated it and treated it as a memorization problem. It was a complete waste of my time due to a lack of interest. I don't think you could have fixed it for someone like me. The root problem was my disinterest in learning another language which I don't think is going to change with a different pedagogy. I'm just simply not interested in the prospect of learning that content, and trying to get that content into my brain was a matter of great subjective displeasure. That's why it should be opt-in. The people that are capable of getting value from it (you) join in and the people guaranteed to get no value due to a lack of interest (me) can do something else. The same thing shouldn't apply to critical/foundational classes like basic math. But foreign languages aren't that.
      - funcDropShadow 5y ago
        I'd say it shows the weakness of the teaching system, if you can pass by just memorizing. I guess standardized tests are to be blamed for that. In a decent foreign language class, treating it as a memorization excercize should let you fail. And in my experience it did.
  - funcDropShadow 5y ago
fighterpilot 5y ago
Excellent list from both of you. I'd add basic statistical reasoning to it.
- Ensorceled 5y ago
  Yes! The inability to properly quantify risk has literally killed thousands of Americans and Canadians this past year.

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
There is definitely some fat to trim. For example, I remember spending almost an entire marking period studying the poems from Edgar Allan Poe. Nothing personal against the guy, but it's largely useless knowledge for the majority of people.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  I rebelled internally and hated much of my English courses. “There’s no way the author intended all that secondary meaning.” “I read that whole story and didn’t even find out if the Tiger was behind the door?!” “Who cares about the island kid’s glasses?!” 35 years later, the ability to write English has probably had at least the same amount of positive influence over my career as my ability to write C++ or Javascript. I should probably apologize to my high school English teachers.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
Ensorceled 5y ago
Maybe? Making good, well rounded, happy humans should be the number one goal. Skipping a bit of everything else working towards that goal wouldn't hurt.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
cultofmetatron 5y ago
I would definitely cut PE. Most of it amounts to moving around for 30 min and you get graded on wether you brought a change of clothes. Thats not to say PE couldn't be useful. Physical fitness was never my strong suit in highschool and PE did nothing to change that. After making a good salary in a startup, I worked with a personal trainer and learned about muscle hypertrophy, starting strength and general strategies for conditioning along with diet with particular goals. Maybe if we taught that stuff in PE, it would be worth keeping around.
- Ensorceled 5y ago
  My PE class was actually contained a fair amount of that, just wildly out of date now. Just burning off energy/stress is probably a good thing for teenagers though ...
- username90 5y ago
  Exercise is good for your brain, cutting PE will make most kids learn less even if the material you learn there isn't valuable.
kelnos 5y ago
Definitely cut PE; in most primary schools in the US it's just enforced exercise, and there's really nothing educational about it. I'm torn on foreign language. I think everyone should be bilingual, at least. But how it's taught in US schools is mostly useless. I took Spanish every year from 7th grade through 12th, but my Spanish even just a few years later was conversationally useless. I think kids should be learning a second language pretty much immediately when they start going to school, and there should be an effort to ensure it gets used outside that language class. (Easy if they only teach a single second language, but harder if students/parents get a choice.) We did have a home economics class at some point in either middle or high school. I don't remember it very well, but I think that could have been a good place to teach some basic financial literacy. What I do remember was a bunch of sewing projects, and while I do think sewing is an essential life skill (I still on occasion hand-sew things), I don't think learning how to sew a stuffed animal is more important than learning how debt works.
fighterpilot 5y ago
Cut compulsory foreign languages which for most people is just memorizing lists of data that they forget a month later.
- ht_th 5y ago
  I did learn to read, write, listen, and speak three foreign languages in high school. Beyond learning vocabulary, there was not much memorizing going on. I still use two of these foreign languages regularly! I would rather we fix foreign language education rather than just cut it. Besides, why not teach parts of these "life lessons" during foreign language class? Might be interesting to compare home economics in different cultures.
  - fighterpilot 5y ago
    I also took 3 compulsory foreign language classes and retained maybe 30 words after the exams. I hated it and treated it as a memorization problem. It was a complete waste of my time due to a lack of interest. I don't think you could have fixed it for someone like me. The root problem was my disinterest in learning another language which I don't think is going to change with a different pedagogy. I'm just simply not interested in the prospect of learning that content, and trying to get that content into my brain was a matter of great subjective displeasure. That's why it should be opt-in. The people that are capable of getting value from it (you) join in and the people guaranteed to get no value due to a lack of interest (me) can do something else. The same thing shouldn't apply to critical/foundational classes like basic math. But foreign languages aren't that.
    - funcDropShadow 5y ago
      I'd say it shows the weakness of the teaching system, if you can pass by just memorizing. I guess standardized tests are to be blamed for that. In a decent foreign language class, treating it as a memorization excercize should let you fail. And in my experience it did.
- funcDropShadow 5y ago

fighterpilot 5y ago

Excellent list from both of you. I'd add basic statistical reasoning to it.

Ensorceled 5y ago
Yes! The inability to properly quantify risk has literally killed thousands of Americans and Canadians this past year.