Obviously debatable. Here are my choices:
[ul]
[li]Applied Finance Math, or How to Balance a Checkbook[/li][li]Firearms 1: Basic Knowledge, Safety and Laws (prerequisite course for-)[/li][li]Firearms 2: Hands-on Instruction (elective, with parental approval)[/li][li]Citizenship 1: Local & State government (what district you live in, who represents it, and what their voting record was since the last election.)[/li][li]Citizenship 2: National government (who your senators and representative are, etc.)[/li][/ul]
I’m going to give this a little time to get organized around a single debate, but the scattershot approach rarely does well in Great Debates. I suspect that you will see this moved to IMHO.
[ /Modding ]
Applied Nutrition, aka Cooking 101
I can’t believe the number of people (of all ages) who are essentially forced to buy processed packaged crap or always eat fast food (or real restaurants, if they can afford it) simply because they have no idea how to prepare fresh food. Of my closest 15 friends, 3 can make a meal from scratch. I don’t know that I’d give it it’s own class exactly (since there’s barely enough time to teach reading and writing these days), rather I’d like to see it combined with the Nutrition portion of Health class, and maybe taught at the same time as fractions in math, since it’s a great way to apply addition/multiplication/division of fractions. Nothing fancy, just the basics - measuring, slicing, chopping, stirring, folding, searing, boiling, simmering, roasting and baking. Maybe grilling for extra credit. Teach these skills and people can follow any basic recipe.
(And yes, these skills, like balancing a checkbook and sex ed, should be taught to them by their parents. But it’s not, all too often.)
Critical Thinking.
Perhaps some schools do, but none I attended. It’s a skill I see as sadly lacking in this country.
And I agree with WhyNot about the cooking/nutrition.
How to think. Not, say, how to regurgitate some insignificant minutia about US history when the test comes, but to be able to defend your reasoning as to why or why not such minutia has any relevance today.
No, I did not like history class.
Edit: ^ Beaten to it!
Linguistics.
All English teachers should have at least a moderate background in linguistics. Enough with the language mythology already.
So far everything that has been suggested was taught to me in a class of 36 people in the Fifties and Sixties. The 24 guys in the class didn’t take the classes that taught nutrition, cooking from scratch, or check writing though. All of that was in Home Economics. I wish I had paid attention when we learned to can foods.
Government was taught in civics classes in the ninth grade. We also learned how to recognize propoganda techniques so that we wouldn’t be so easily swayed by everything out of a politician’s mouth.
I would love to see geography taught on a high school level. I know that it is taught in elementary school, but it doesn’t seem to sink in somehow.
And why not teach them a little emotional intelligence?
[quote=“Lumpy, post:1, topic:543385”]
[li]Citizenship 1: Local & State government (what district you live in, who represents it, and what their voting record was since the last election.)[/li][li]Citizenship 2: National government (who your senators and representative are, etc.)[/li][/QUOTE]
Ditto, ditto (mutatis mutandis for Canada, of course). There’s simply no education about this, at least in this province, as far as I can tell. I was lucky enough to have a class on the subject at the school I went to in Manitoba, but I think that was the exception.
How do we expect people to take part in their representative democracy, or even see it as something they’re involved in in some way, when they have no idea what it is, how it works, what it’s for, or what citizens can do in it?
Also, sex education. Quebec cancelled systematic sex education some time ago, which is just about the stupidest decision anyone ever made; the idea was that it would be integrated into all subjects (“Jean-Guy has sixteen condoms. If he gets lucky three times, how many…”). I know; it doesn’t make a lick of sense to me either.
The cohort this started with is now graduating, and I’ve read that sure enough, STIs are on their way up.
Insurance.
Insurance affects absolutely everyone and the general public is ignorant about what they are buying and why.
I think this debate would be more useful if we differentiated between what should be offered and what should be mandated. And if you think something should be mandated, what current mandatory thing should be removed? A Fine Art? That 3rd or 4th year of math or science? Foreign language? We don’t have near enough time to teach the things we are supposed to teach NOW and adding anything new in is just impossible.
For me, I would make all math after Geometry optional–and offer both a 2 year and a 3 year path to get through Geometry. I would get rid of the 4th required year of science and English. That would open up space for some of these electives that people are suggesting, but I would have them be electives–if a college bound kid wants to take 7 academic courses each year and learn the other stuff from the internet, let him. But do have other options, such as the ones mentioned.
Applied Nutrition I would make compulsory, but, as I said, in elementary school (when they’re learning fractions), not high school, and as part of the Nutrition portion of Health class, not a separate class. I believe, based on my own Home Ec class (which isn’t offered in high schools in my district anymore) that I could teach it to a group of 30 in about two weeks (10 days), given a 45 minute class period once a day. A smaller group, say 15, would take me only one week.
I don’t believe I’d need to get rid of anything to do this, merely tighten up the Health class itself a bit (do we need to color pictures of penises? Really?) but if I had to choose something, How To Take the Standardized Tests goes bye-bye. I know, I know, but it’s my dream and I’ll dream it by my rules. 
Basic statistics; I’d rate that as far more important than, say, geometry. People don’t try to fool you very often with bad geometry; they do try to fool you with bad statistics.
I think most of the things mentioned so far should be taught in the home.
- Cooking
- Finances
- Insurance
- Voting
- Critical thinking
- Insurance
Surely there’s a role for the parents in all of this. Schools should stick to academics and leave the touchy-feely stuff for the parents.
That begs the question of whether parents are qualified to teach any of those subjects, and whether they are inclined to do so.
EDIT: I notice that Firearms I and II are not on your list of things to be taught at home.
.
Not a debate, just IMHO
I would like the following course work to be taught in two sequential semesters in the junior year of a typical US high school.
Let’s call it ‘Life Skills’, or somesuch.
Fundamentals of Nutrition and cooking. (How to make your own -simple- healthy meals and not just junk food)
Fundamentals of Banking. (How banks and etc work. What is a checking account and how to open one. How to budget. How to get a loan. How to read a credit card application and rules)
Fundamentals of Insurance ( Differences: pros and cons of various forms of life insurance. Types and uses of car insurance. )
Fundamentals of Investing.
Fundamentals of current working government.
All the other years and semesters can be taken up with science, as far as I am concerned. If you learn science, you will have to learn how to read. If you learn science, you will need to learn mathematics. If you learn science, you will need to learn critical reasoning. If you learn science, you will need to learn history.
[Says the guy that majored in Philosophy]
We don’t typically have guns in the home here.
I think there’s a difference between what should be taught, and what should be taught well.
I’m rather surprised you want firearm classes taught in a school system that obviously can’t even teach math or reading. I think the result could possibly be worse than not teaching it at all.
Regarding everything else that was mentioned, I started learning that stuff in first grade. In first grade, I had a class that had critical thinking posters and stuff around the room. The first thing I ever cooked for school was in the 5th grade. I had civics and government classes (with quizzes on who our representatives were) in 7th grade. I took accounting classes in 11-12th grade.
Mostly everything mentioned is already being taught, but I guess not being learned.
I don’t recall lessons on Critical Thinking, other than a few ‘story problems’ where we figured out a mystery. Perhaps it is being taught now, and perhaps the lessons just haven’t ‘taken’, based on the proliferation of Conspiracy Theorists and Nigerian Scams.
Nutrition was touched upon as a segment of Health, but was not its own class. I don’t think actual cooking classes are needed (and indeed, I never cooked in school), but a robust course on food theory and nutrition would be useful.
Government was required in high school, and that covered Civics.
What about the parents that don’t teach those things?
Dump all requirements for: Math past Geometry and Algebra 1, Science past Biology and Chem., and PE as taught today past 8th grade. Bring back Home Ec. and Shop classes in force. Vocational tracking for non-college bound kids, and that should be a substantial percentage of your student body. Stop pretending that a college education is for everybody. Everybody has to take a basic Home Ec. class and a basic Shop class. (I was an advanced student in high school, and the single most useful class I took was Bachelor Foods, aka Cooking For Jocks.) Re-write the Economics curriculum to include all the practical stuff, and dump all the theoretical shit that nobody ever uses, like the Laffer Curve. Make PE teach useful shit like martial arts instead of square dancing.