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Any consideration or proposal on subjects to be taught in school should start from the observation that the median student in a public school can, a year after

Any consideration or proposal on subjects to be taught in school should start from the observation that the median student in a public school can, a year after the end of high school, read proficiently at most what is offered in middle school, can do sums and subtractions, and certainly cannot do anything with angles, sine and cos, and you get the idea. So, the answer to the question "why doesn't school teach [writing, taxes, fiscal responsibilities, civic duties, the law, etc.]?" can be found in the capability and ambition of the median student. And 50% of students are worse than the median student. This applies to regular public schools, private schools or programs for gifted students have different scopes and expected quality of students.

cultofmetatron 3y ago
> So, the answer to the question "why doesn't school teach [writing, taxes, fiscal responsibilities, civic duties, the law, etc.]?" can be found in the capability and ambition of the median student. I took honors level classes in english. I would argue that constructing a persuasive essay or writing a story is going to be much nore approachable that what I spent most of my highschool english classes dong. (reading shit and writing analysis of it). With that in mind, I don't know if I can agree with the notion that it is modulated to the capability of the median student. That said, its obvious why taxes are generally not covered. if you're straight out of highschool, you probably have a standard w2 which means 10-20 min filling a return in some tax software. If you run a consultancy like I do and have several sources of income, the knowledge required to do your taxes is too complicated to teach in high school. In my case, my accountant takes care of that. lastly, we don't teach about fiscal responsibilities, civic duties or the law because they wat us to be consumerist little sheep.
- borroka 3y ago
  I used to ask people what they had studied in school, posing specific questions. I tend to be in the company of (former) mid-level or above students. One question was: which writers did you cover in your English/Spanish/Farsi/French/etc. classes? Nine times out of ten, the answer was, "I don't remember." I was a top 1% student and I remember well the writers we studied. No need to ask them about sin and cosine. But I had to take 6 chemistry exams in college/Master's, and even though I was in the top 1% of students, I remember virtually nothing of anything I studied related to chemistry. And before anyone says "when you open a chemistry book, memories will flood your brain," I did, for multiple subjects, and I saw no flood, only drought.
  - HPsquared 3y ago
    That's funny, I remember all the chemistry, geography, mathematics, etc. No interest in the literature stuff whatsoever. EDIT: It might have been due to the curriculum, perhaps if they had chosen authors which resonated a bit more (or at all) I'd have remembered some of it.
balderdash 3y ago
I think it has less to do with the ambition of the median student, but the expectations placed upon them (by parents, peers, schools, society, employers, etc.)
- borroka 3y ago
  Theoretically, perhaps, empirically, it is quite unnatural, and therefore unusual, for a young pre- and post-puberty person to be interested in writing, mathematics, literature, physics, taxes, technical drawing, and all the subjects that are taught in school. So, not only do you have to be interested, but you also have to have a fair amount of talent to get something out of your many years of schooling. In some societies, that ambition, when not "natural," is acquired by proxy from parents, accompanied, sometimes, with a dose of self-hatred, stunted growth, and poor social skills' development. A valuable trade-off for some.
  - balderdash 3y ago
    I'm not sure I follow or are we saying the same thing? I totally agree that what's taught in school is not typically of natural interest to many teens/pre-teens, but what's the alternative?
    - borroka 3y ago
      The unpopular, but, in my opinion, best alternative is to reduce the hours/years of mandatory schooling. But many are not ready to admit that going to school, after certain minimum targets are reached, is a waste of time for many, from a purely educational point of view. Consider this: if achieving some greater than minimum educational targets was considered by "society", or people who did not get those higher than minimum target themselves, something to aspire to, something that would make a difference in one's life (after accounting for "ambition", inclinations, and intellectual talent), why there are almost zero viable opportunities (and interest!) for adults to make up for lost ground or opportunities? Some may say, "it is because they have families, less time, work etc.". But how many spend hours upon hours watching football or drinking with their besties or buddies talking about nothing at all? It is all quite hypocritical. Yes, "society" says that school is good, important, necessary for a fulfilling life, but in practice it is not considered to be so, after mandatory schooling is over. Let's get rid of this intolerable hypocrisy and let people follow their inclinations.

cultofmetatron 3y ago

> So, the answer to the question "why doesn't school teach [writing, taxes, fiscal responsibilities, civic duties, the law, etc.]?" can be found in the capability and ambition of the median student. I took honors level classes in english. I would argue that constructing a persuasive essay or writing a story is going to be much nore approachable that what I spent most of my highschool english classes dong. (reading shit and writing analysis of it). With that in mind, I don't know if I can agree with the notion that it is modulated to the capability of the median student. That said, its obvious why taxes are generally not covered. if you're straight out of highschool, you probably have a standard w2 which means 10-20 min filling a return in some tax software. If you run a consultancy like I do and have several sources of income, the knowledge required to do your taxes is too complicated to teach in high school. In my case, my accountant takes care of that. lastly, we don't teach about fiscal responsibilities, civic duties or the law because they wat us to be consumerist little sheep.

borroka 3y ago
I used to ask people what they had studied in school, posing specific questions. I tend to be in the company of (former) mid-level or above students. One question was: which writers did you cover in your English/Spanish/Farsi/French/etc. classes? Nine times out of ten, the answer was, "I don't remember." I was a top 1% student and I remember well the writers we studied. No need to ask them about sin and cosine. But I had to take 6 chemistry exams in college/Master's, and even though I was in the top 1% of students, I remember virtually nothing of anything I studied related to chemistry. And before anyone says "when you open a chemistry book, memories will flood your brain," I did, for multiple subjects, and I saw no flood, only drought.
- HPsquared 3y ago
  That's funny, I remember all the chemistry, geography, mathematics, etc. No interest in the literature stuff whatsoever. EDIT: It might have been due to the curriculum, perhaps if they had chosen authors which resonated a bit more (or at all) I'd have remembered some of it.

balderdash 3y ago

I think it has less to do with the ambition of the median student, but the expectations placed upon them (by parents, peers, schools, society, employers, etc.)

borroka 3y ago
Theoretically, perhaps, empirically, it is quite unnatural, and therefore unusual, for a young pre- and post-puberty person to be interested in writing, mathematics, literature, physics, taxes, technical drawing, and all the subjects that are taught in school. So, not only do you have to be interested, but you also have to have a fair amount of talent to get something out of your many years of schooling. In some societies, that ambition, when not "natural," is acquired by proxy from parents, accompanied, sometimes, with a dose of self-hatred, stunted growth, and poor social skills' development. A valuable trade-off for some.
- balderdash 3y ago
  I'm not sure I follow or are we saying the same thing? I totally agree that what's taught in school is not typically of natural interest to many teens/pre-teens, but what's the alternative?
  - borroka 3y ago
    The unpopular, but, in my opinion, best alternative is to reduce the hours/years of mandatory schooling. But many are not ready to admit that going to school, after certain minimum targets are reached, is a waste of time for many, from a purely educational point of view. Consider this: if achieving some greater than minimum educational targets was considered by "society", or people who did not get those higher than minimum target themselves, something to aspire to, something that would make a difference in one's life (after accounting for "ambition", inclinations, and intellectual talent), why there are almost zero viable opportunities (and interest!) for adults to make up for lost ground or opportunities? Some may say, "it is because they have families, less time, work etc.". But how many spend hours upon hours watching football or drinking with their besties or buddies talking about nothing at all? It is all quite hypocritical. Yes, "society" says that school is good, important, necessary for a fulfilling life, but in practice it is not considered to be so, after mandatory schooling is over. Let's get rid of this intolerable hypocrisy and let people follow their inclinations.