I’ve thought about this before, and after having watched an SNL skit entitled “Don’t buy stuff you can’t afford,” I decided to make this post.
The short skit starts out like various loan consolidation commercials with two couples lamenting over their financial situation when Chris Parnell comes out to pitch his book, “Don’t buy stuff you can’t afford”
This reminds me of an idea that I had once about things that ought to be taught in high school. Forget home economics. I had two really good idea about things that need to be taught in highschool at some point to teach students about important things.
First idea: Finance for everyday life: This would be “Don’t buy stuff you can’t afford” in unabridged format. Home ec, tends to be quite old-fashioned in many areas. Learning how to mend clothing or whatever the hell they do. Someone needs to come along and teach children things about finances that their parents probably end up doing so poorly. Teach students about the downsides of debt and the way credit cards really work. Help them learn to navigate the real-world in the context of financial success.
Second Idea: Learn how to vote correctly: By this I mean, learn how to tune out all of the politcal bullshit that is in our society. Teach the younguns to see and recognize political cheap-shots and learn to vote based on educated research. Gay marriage? Take a good look at your personal beliefs. Will this really affect you? If not, don’t consider it.
What? Are you talking about pregnancy or sex, just the problems associated with adultery. Have you HEARD about how well abstinence programs work? Not so well. I can’t presume to know exactly what you’re saying here though. But as far as pregnancy goes…wear a condom. That’s much more effective than the non-existent myth of abstinence.
I figure every high school graduate should be required to take a few courses:
Household 101 - The modern equivalent of Home Ec. How to cook a meal, change a tire, do a load of laundry, check for a blown fuse.
Finances 101 - How to apply for a credit card or a loan, manage a savings or checking account, fill out a tax return, make a budget, etc.
Medical 101 - Emergency first aid, basic medical knowledge, sex ed (lesson 1 - sex can be a lot of fun; lesson 2 - sex can have some very serious consequences; lesson 3 - you shouldn’t have sex because somebody else wants you to)
Legal 101 - Basic legal knowledge including what your legal rights are
Common Sense 101 - Assuming such a thing can be taught. But it would be worth at least making an attempt. Point out to students that not everything is what it seems and not everybody says what they really mean.
Job 101 - I think every graduate should learn a trade. Whether it’s repairing TV’s, baking bread, replacing windshields, painting houses, fixing a broken toilet, whatever - I just think it’s a good idea for everybody to learn at least one marketable skill. If they don’t use it as a job, they can at least use it at home.
Suuuurre. You ONLY want to teach kids to think logically, and you’re not trying to push an agenda.
After all, the only “bullshit” is coming from your opponents. YOUR ideals are completley rational and sane, and should be taught to all kids in school.
My father teaches middle school Social Studies to all Gifted classes at this late point in his career. He goes over current events with all of them, teaching them how to spot media bias and agenda-setting, and does a unit on planning home budgets and balancing checkbooks.
I once wrote a computer simulation of the Canadian lottery “649”…
With every click you spend $60 bucks on tickets, the computer picks the winning numbers and totals up how you did. You can click and click and click and eventually you realize how unlikely you are to ever win anything substantial.
They should run this simulation in a classroom for an hour. After thousands of clicks nobody will have won anything (probably).
I’ve also had the computer keep track of the alternative of investing the money at a moderate interest rate compounded. Very instructional!
I know Robert Fulgham had this in one of his books, and I never figured out who did it first or if it was just synchronicity, but I really honestly did have a very cool teacher once who wore two buttons on his jacket. One said, “Trust me! I’m a teacher!” and the other, of course, “Question Authority”.
How to drive, how not to drive (and why), your rights as a citizen, how to find out when someone is attempting to abridge said rights, fertilization, birth control, how to spot a scam, how to get a job, how to write a resume, how to dress at your job, how to deal with difficult people professionally, how to type (swear to god), how to use a computer, religion, respect, tolerance, patience, how to enjoy exercise, how to swim, debate, basic math, how to do basic math in your head, nutrition (how to read a nutritional label), how to sing properly.
How to vote is IMO bullshit. Maybe you mean what to do at a polling place and how to register? I’m just going to assume you meant that and you’re not seriously considering force-feeding our junior citizens some gym coach’s personal politics.
I believe most of these things and all of the things in Little Nemo’s post are far more important than writing cursive, literary criticism, persuasive essays or trigonometry.
No, I think traditional subjects are also very important. But I think schools have placed so much emphasis on teaching students facts, that they forget to teach students how to use those facts. Knowledge is worthless without some wisdom to go with it.
To own up to it, I posted some harsh things here but I decided against it after I posted it, so I deleted it on edit. That’s why my last post says redacted, because I didn’t feel I had enough time to make it decent.
I don’t know about this. Perhaps the OP was just worded wrong, but I semi-agree with the idea of teaching kids how to vote. Or more correctly how to make an informed vote. Probably because Dopers are on the whole a lot more aware of politics and world events, but it is staggering how many people don’t really know what their candidated actually do. Don’t bother to really look at the voting history…or if they do, they don’t bother to look at the context. Sure perhaps he voted down this tax reform bill, but that was because the alternative would have been to cut music from all schools. Teaching kids how to find out about the candidates and the issues that come up during an election is as important as teaching them how to register. Like anything else though, this has a huge opportunity for someone to push their own views, but then so do a lot of classes in HS.
I had finished high school by 1970. The best advise I got from a teacher was, “Don’t waste any time memorising anything if you know where to look it up.”
Since then that has become even more important but at work people come to me to find information because they don’t have the habit of doing it. Most weeks someone will get me to find out something that they “can’t find” or “isn’t available” or "there are no records, " but it will turn out that they are looking in the wrong place, using the wrong tools, getting the syntax wrong, lacking imagination or lots of other errors.
I do little mini seminars at work about how to find things on the web and I am constantly disappointed by how recent graduates look at information gathering. If it isn’t in the assigned texts it doesn’t exist.
So research skills would be my focus. You don’t have to know anything, you just have to know how to learn what you need to know.
Basic logic.
Basic propaganda techniques: how to use 'em, how to spot 'em, how to figure out why someone else is using 'em.
The practical stuff already described.
Civics would be nice to bring back. Nothing about political bull, just instilling the right to vote, where/when to do it. How to register to vote and selective service.
Also, a hearty endorsement for the balancing a checkbook class. That, along with simple stuff like reading the interest rate on a credit card, filling out the 1040ez, and applying for student loans is one good class.
Another is a take off shop class entitled “Handyman Lite”: How to change oil, change fuses, fix broken doors/drawers, and some light plumbing and electrical work.
Personal Finance- How loans, interest rates, taxes, retirement funds, gambling, job benefits, insurance, depreciation, income, etc. affects your money.
Skepticism- The search for the truth (or the closest thing to it) among the media, politicians, advertisers, businesses, etc. What is bias, what are extremists, what is hype.
Diversity- How race, religion, sex, wealth, education, beliefs, morals, attitudes differentiate us and how we can all get along. Tolerance, bigotry, etc.
When I was in middle school they had a finance class in math. They had people come in and teach us how to balance a checkbook, set a budget, and how credit cards work.
Unfortunately, the kids in that class are still idiots. So I have no idea how well those classes everyone is suggesting would work.
I do like the idea of a “new” Home Ec, with things like changing fuses (in cars and houses), light plumbing, how to change oil, how a car works (the general gist) etc. I know too many people who do stupid things like pay $500 because of a busted serpentine belt, when the belt is actually only $60 and so you get raped up the ass in “labor” costs.