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In the spirit of this article, I have found a number of other things which are no longer needed in the school curriculum and serve only to stress incoming stude

In the spirit of this article, I have found a number of other things which are no longer needed in the school curriculum and serve only to stress incoming student. 1. Writing (already mentioned): Seriously, hard stuff and obsoleted by keyboards. 2. Reading: reading is hard, you need to know hundreds of thousands if not millions of words and exactly what they look like. Obsoleted by screen readers. 3. Arithmetic: Boring, terminally boring, requires memorization of multiple tables or an understanding of the very basic concepts behind it and makes people hate maths. Obsoleted by computers. 4. Algebra: Not terribly difficult (unless you are a math major) and nobody really uses it. Besides, we have mathematica. 5. Calculus: See point 4. 6. Mathematics: See point 5. 7. History: Long, hard, requires memorizing information on so many dead people. What is the point. Obsoleted by books (or audiotapes as the need arises). 8. Science: Seriously, have you seen physics. Soooo hard. Obsoleted by computers. 9. Schools: After points 1-8 what does this do anymore? 10. Thinking: Oops. Still waiting for MIT.

derefr 18y ago
There could be school without any of that stuff, and still be useful: philosophy, ethics, comparative religion, psychology (personal and social), logic and rhetoric, and perhaps an extra language or four.... Teaching should start with the "why" of life, not the "how." I mean, you can throw science and history courses in there, but they're really just "here's a bunch of facts that came from the past that you must regurgitate", so their value in enabling clear thought is low (unless, with science, you actually started by teaching the scientific method, then required students to verify anything that was taught using redundant, double-blind experiments...)
thorax 18y ago
While I don't agree with the article, it's not 100% fair to compare the requirement of this motor (or communications) skill with all those unrelated studies of human knowledge.

derefr 18y ago

There could be school without any of that stuff, and still be useful: philosophy, ethics, comparative religion, psychology (personal and social), logic and rhetoric, and perhaps an extra language or four.... Teaching should start with the "why" of life, not the "how." I mean, you can throw science and history courses in there, but they're really just "here's a bunch of facts that came from the past that you must regurgitate", so their value in enabling clear thought is low (unless, with science, you actually started by teaching the scientific method, then required students to verify anything that was taught using redundant, double-blind experiments...)

thorax 18y ago

While I don't agree with the article, it's not 100% fair to compare the requirement of this motor (or communications) skill with all those unrelated studies of human knowledge.