What should children of today learn in school and from parents?

Great Debates
1

The best goddam education to ensure a potentially fantastic future for a child, career wise but also to be a balanced individual - what does it include?
Here are some areas I came up with:

Stimulate a desire to learn and a desire to do. Yes, unfortunately a bit abstract to teach, but so crucial for everything in life that I think it is worth pointing out. If someone has these desires then they can improve anything in their life. I guess the way to teach it is to be a role model.

Learn to enjoy sports because a good life assumes health, and study after study show that people who physically use their body are more productive and healthy.

Learn additional languages early on because children pick up language very easily and much interaction and opportunities (later on) rely on communication. In this I include writing skills. I think they should teach langauages already in kindergarten.

Learn to read early on because reading opens up a possibility for the child to seek out information by him or her self.

Social competence because so much today is depending on other people around you. Society is so complex that nobody can make it all by him or her self. According to an investigation (here in Sweden) the absolute majority of job positions are filled via personal contacts. Friends and contacts is also a crucial way to get information about what is going on. The best way to “teach” social competence is probably to let the child be with people who share similar interests.

Cooking because it is a skill needed pretty much every day.

In these days, I would definitely add; computer-knowledge. How to seek information and use both computers and technical gadgets in general - because those who e.g know how to properly use, say, M.S Word or who can “type with all their fingers without looking” (I don’t know the word in English) have a definite advantage when producing or presenting written text.

Speaking of presenting; presentational skills is often crucial to cummunicate ideas and opinions. The shyness (be it genetical or learnt) should be trained away from an early age so that individuals have the ability to speak up when they need to.

Natural sciences - but actually not the natural sciences themselves, IMO, but rather the rational thinking and the scientific approach (and principles behind stuff). For this reason I don’t think it is necessary to “split up” the natural sciences into “math/physics/chemistry/…” at least not until much later in school.

Here are some areas I think there is too much focus on or a faulty focus on in schools (at least in Sweden):

Literature - it seems to be of limited value later in life. Good for Trivial Pursuit but very few, others than those who continue to study or teach it, have use for whatever it was that so-and-so wrote.

History - should perhaps be taught from a more political and psychological perspective to understand why powers do what they do, and also to understand our role in the world and in the time.

Chemistry - why the heck did we learn that stuff? C6H12O6 - that’s sugar if I recall correctly. Of course, there is some basic stuff that is important to know, but on the whole it had too much emphasis.

I don’t know about religion in your areas, but (being an agnostic) I think the focus should be on perhaps philosopy and ethics rather than a belief system that the children are too young to make a fair decision on weather to believe or not anyway.

2

I would certainly put literature and history above sport. As long as history isn’t just rote memorization of battles and dates, it’s one of the most important lessons to learn for anyone who hopes to achieve anything in life. And I’d certainly encourage anyone to enjoy a good book rather than relying on the TV for entertainment.

Sport is certainly good for those that have an aptitude for it, but I’m sure that many of us have horrific memories of being forced to do it at school - I wouldn’t say that it’s essential to a “well-rounded” character, or whatever our ideal is. Perhaps some general education about how to be reasonably physically fit, but I would hate to see a reintroduction of the “flannelled fools and muddied oafs” approach to academic development.

No mention of arithmetic? I suppose that the calculator has made it obsolete, but it’s still useful to know the approximate values of things like prices.

I would extend cookery to “some sort of practical skill” - carpentry, metalwork, textiles, etc. In today’s society, cookery isn’t essential - it’s a useful skill to have, true, but one that most of us can live without.

Something creative should be included - art or creative writing. We don’t want to produce a generation of soulless button-pushers, no matter how skilful they are at it.

I agree that religious education/civics/social responsibility should be left to the parents, but unfortunately today it does fall to the schools to instil the basic values of society.

3

That depends very much on the child. Some children are ready to read early on, others are not–and forcing them to do things their brains are not ready for only damages them. When you force a child to learn something he is not ready for, it can lead to dislike and permanent inability to do the activity well.

I started reading young myself, and my kids are reading early too, but I am very much against making all children learn to read too early, as well as forcing academics at too young an age. Earlier does not necessarily mean better.

Also, history and literature are important. History is the story of people, of everything we’ve ever done–it is very important! Gotta go eat dinner now, perhaps more later.

4

I do not know about this part.

Religion certainly should be left to the home and/or religion itself. However, studying religion in a historical context absolutely should be done by the schools.

Basic values left to the home? No way. Left to the home there is too much chance for simple indoctrination (“here’s what I believe, you believe it too”). Philosophy and ethics should get a helluva lot more play than they generally do today. Those classes should not so much be about handing out rote answers to what is right or wrong but encourage students to think about all the factos going into such determinations.

Hopefully social responsibility would rub off from ethics/philosophy.

5

Yes, but a basic level of social responsibility is necessary before we can start teaching anything more rarified. Children need to learn that it’s wrong to steal, damage other people’s property, use violence as the first means of solving a dispute - the time for debating whether the Kantian or Utilitarian approach to why they shouldn’t do this is more satisfactory comes much later.

6

Teach them how to learn and how to teach themselves.

Money management skills.

Computer skills should include touch typing.

Creative thinking and creative processes.

Urban and wilderness survival skills

Basic nutrition and body training

Meditation, wabi-sabi, centering, empathy, compassion

All of this must be in addition to literature, math, languages, physics, and history.

7

Many of us have horrific memories of feeling stupid in math class. Many of us have horrific memories of being years behind in reading comprehension. Surely you would not suggest removing these subjects from the classroom?

In a society increasingly burdened by people who are so out of shape they can’t fit into a normal-sized chair, a little physical education is surely necessary. It’s preposterous to suggest that we should see to it that children know history but not bother teaching them how to stay fit and enjoy the abilities and potential of their own bodies.

Indeed, I would argue that the bad memories you speak of are often a consequence of physical education being far too undervalued. In too many schools, phys ed is an afterthought fobbed off on the worst teachers, who don’t know how to properly instruct it, and/or place all the emphasis in sport on extracurricular sports rather than curricular physical education.

Perhaps some general education about how to be reasonably physically fit, but I would hate to see a reintroduction of the “flannelled fools and muddied oafs” approach to academic development.

No mention of arithmetic? I suppose that the calculator has made it obsolete, but it’s still useful to know the approximate values of things like prices.

I would extend cookery to “some sort of practical skill” - carpentry, metalwork, textiles, etc. In today’s society, cookery isn’t essential - it’s a useful skill to have, true, but one that most of us can live without.

Something creative should be included - art or creative writing. We don’t want to produce a generation of soulless button-pushers, no matter how skilful they are at it.

I agree that religious education/civics/social responsibility should be left to the parents, but unfortunately today it does fall to the schools to instil the basic values of society.
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8

Sure, I don’t think anyone would argue kids should be taking exams in egg-boiling. But an understanding of nutrition, an awareness of the pitfalls in modern dietary habits, the issues surrounding intensive farming, etc., is all important knowledge. And there’s few better ways to teach it than through cookery.

9

That wasn’t my quote. I screwed up my coding.

10

Apologies

11

My reason for including cooking in the original post was, other than the nutritional aspects, that it is a skill you have use for in everyday life. Yes, with restaruants and TV-dinners you can survive without it but for example I, myself, suffer quite a lot from simply disliking cooking, and I live in the middle of a big city. I’m not angry at, or blaming, my parents, but it is a fact that I was never encouraged to participate in the cooking and I believe this at least is part of the reason for my disliking. BTW, I fully agree house-hold “repairing” should be added to the list, as well as some other interesting areas you bring up (I cannot believe I missed out on “money management”).
There have been some comments on the importance of literature (which I mean is exaggerated in todays schooling). I would like to hear your arguments for why this is such an important area? And please note that I definitely think reading is extremely crucial. What I think has too much emphasis is “reading classics” and knowing authors and language history. These are not un-important subjects, just a bit over hyped in proportion to how much use of the subject that the average person has later in life.
In addition, because some have mentioned it, I think also math is a bit over hyped. (And I should add that I have an M.Sc in science!) On the one hand it is very important for the technological development of a society, but on the other hand the chances for having use of, say, pythagoras formula or even formula for calculating the area of a circle are very, very small. I can see that these “unnecessary” things have to be taught at an early age because if someone does go into higher math or physics, it is such a complex subject that they will have to have started while young. But even the most successful CEOs or whatever-you-want are very limited in their use of math as learnt in school. One mathematical are I think should be more emphasis on, though, is “estimation” and mathematical/logical reasoning. (In elementary school there is too much emphasis coming up with the exact correct answer.)
Thank you all for your interesting input.

12

Yet you wouldn’t encourage them to go outside and enjoy themselves whilst playing sports? Can you do without literature? Sure, you’re just uncultured. Can you do without sport and exercise? No, you end up obese.

13

Turn that around. Can you do without exercise? Sure, you’re just obese. Can you do without literature? No, you end up uncultured. How is that argument any different?

The reason, though, that I think literature should be taught is to cultivate a love for reading. Nearly everyone in the developed world can read: That’s not a problem. But only a small percentage enjoys reading. And it’s only when you enjoy reading that it starts being really valuable for further learning. And if it’s possible to teach a love for reading (which is admittedly debateable), the best way to do it would be to expose kids to good books. You don’t necessarily have to assign “classics”, just because they’re old, though most classic books are classic for a reason. Contemporary books are fine, too, so long as they’re good.

As for sports, yes, exercise is important. But sports are not synonymous with exercise. I don’t compete in any sort of sports at all… But I walk or ride my bike everywhere I go, and I go hiking every chance I get. But how would you introduce that into school?

14

I would add a basic grounding in finance, with highlights on popular scams and pitfalls, like rent-to-own, pyramid schemes, paycheck advances, credit “protection”, the downfalls of credit card debt and poor credit. Plus how to make a budget, save for something, calculate interest, and how to do your taxes. Knowing how to properly manange money can be one of the biggest determinants for whether you’ll get ahead in life or struggle from day-to-day, and while some of the trouble people get into is due to their own lack of motivation to improve, there’s a surprising number who don’t seem to realize how not paying bills will mess them up, that rent-to-own is NOT a cheap way to get things, that if you sent $5 to everyone on the list you will NOT get rich, etc.

15

But kids and teachers often disagree on what books are “good”. We could probably all name at least one classic book that we didn’t enjoy, but were forced to read for school. If the purpose of literature classes were to instill a love of reading, they would have kids reading Harry Potter books, or other books that are currently popular.

Yes. The competitive nature of sports turns a lot of us off to exercise.

Agree 100% with Gaudere on finance, though not sure if the parents or the school should teach that. Probably both- there are a lot of parents out there who don’t know how to manage money, either. And there’s an assumption that if you’re smart or do well in math classes, you will somehow wave your antennae and pick up how to manage money out of the ether. I’ve known enough college physics and astronomy majors with good GPA’s and credit card debt to know that that doesn’t work.

16

You can’t. So you introduce exercise that you can do in school. Namely team sports.

17

Which puts too many people off any sort of exercise, because they associate it with the humiliation of team sports.

18

There are non-team-sport forms of exercise that can be done in schools. Dance of various kinds, aerobics, yoga, weightlifting, martial arts, and running come to mind. There are also one-on-one games like tennis or table tennis.

19

Which begs the question, why are kids being humiliated in Physical Education classes? I suspect that the lack of respect the course is given by most administrators, parents, and the students has something to do with it. We wouldn’t tolerate children berating or castigating those who have difficulty answering a math question so why is such behavior tolerated in P.E.?

Marc

20

This is very politically incorrect, but I think part of the problem has to do with people of very different skill and interest levels being in the same PE classes. I think there should be different ability levels of PE, just like there are for other required subjects. There should also be more alternatives to team sports offered, like the ones I mentioned.