# What should schools be teaching?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-schools-be-teaching/1022754
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [September 4, 2025, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-schools-be-teaching/1022754 "2025-09-04T17:10:30Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 10
### Author:  [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)
#### Post date: [October 14, 2025, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-schools-be-teaching/1022754/182 "2025-10-14T00:50:09Z")
> [@Johanna](#):
>
> I’d be pleased if Americans would learn a) that the Roman republic existed and b) its significance to the founders of the United States. To hear people talk you’d think there’d been nothing but empire all along. You’re right; to learn how the republic was replaced by the empire is a warning the moderns should heed.
I’m not sure on this.
I think learning Roman history is neither better or worse than French history, and there probably isn’t enough time in high school to do both in a way that has lasting impact.
This is a guess, but is this next paragraph approximately your idea:
Except in the most heavily Democratic neighborhoods, teachers cannot teach democracy good, MAGA bad. The students, or at least the parents, will rebel. But if you teach about Roman republic vs. empire, almost everyone will agree with the republic being better than the empire, and, with luck, when a Trump comes along, educated adults will be primed to figure out on their own that MAGA is strongly in the empire direction.
If that’s the idea, well, maybe. But I think the political effect on adults will be unpredictable. Those who recall a great deal of their high school history, of any kind, twenty years later, may tend to be Democrats. But I doubt having taken Roman history will be a big predictor. If you are emotionally primed to be a Trumper, it would be easy to come up with reasons why your old teacher was a doofus lib, and that the Roman republic was as bad as the empire. You might also decide that Trump is not really an emperor (much as I think he tends in that direction).
To put it another way, who you vote for is IMHO decided unconsciously, and even though I had two semesters of college Roman history, I doubt my unconscious examines that part of my memory store when making my voting decisions.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [October 14, 2025, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-schools-be-teaching/1022754/183 "2025-10-14T01:35:14Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#):
>
> Sometimes you have to teach what to think, and sometimes how to think, but I way on the side of leaning towards the latter.
Before that, even: You have to teach students to think, at all. Too many people are in the habit of, not even thinking poorly, but just not thinking at all.
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### Author:  [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)
#### Post date: [October 14, 2025, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-schools-be-teaching/1022754/184 "2025-10-14T02:16:38Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#):
>
> it would be easy to come up with reasons why your old teacher was a doofus lib, and that the Roman republic was as bad as the empire.
I mean I’m a doofus lib and I can come up with reasons that the Republic was as bad as the Empire.
Much like Athenian democracy was great if you were a wealthy Athenian citizen, Roman Republicanism was awesome if you were a patrician Roman citizen. Universal citizenship was a feature of the late Empire, not the Republic. The Republic was also as highly aggressive and expansionist as the Empire ever was. It wasn’t the Empire that burnt Carthage to the ground and subjugated Greece.
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### Author:  [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)
#### Post date: [October 14, 2025, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-schools-be-teaching/1022754/185 "2025-10-14T02:28:27Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#):
>
> I mean I’m a doofus lib and I can come up with reasons that the Republic was as bad as the Empire.
> . . .
>
> Universal citizenship was a feature of the late Empire, not the Republic.
Agreed.
And a doofus right winger could like the late Empire for having Christianity as the state religion.
History doesn’t have straightforward lessons (except maybe that it could always get worse — or better — or just different).
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### Author:  [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)
#### Post date: [November 5, 2025, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-schools-be-teaching/1022754/186 "2025-11-05T10:14:35Z")
And, for comparison, England is in the throes of yet another curriculum revamp:
> **[England curriculum should focus less on exams and more on life skills, finds...](https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/nov/04/england-curriculum-should-focus-less-on-exams-and-more-on-life-skills-finds-review)**
>
> Experts say pupils should spend less time in exam halls and more time on activities like life skills, sport and work experience
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### Author:  [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)
#### Post date: [November 5, 2025, 10:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-schools-be-teaching/1022754/187 "2025-11-05T10:52:56Z")
Exams for the sake of exams would be pointless, but the “pure mathematics” and “Roman history” of the OP are absolutely part of teaching students
> [@PhillyGuy](#):
>
> how to think
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### Author:  [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)
#### Post date: [November 5, 2025, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-schools-be-teaching/1022754/188 "2025-11-05T16:03:16Z")
> [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](#):
>
> As far as teaching practical skills, it would be easy to put together a curriculum that involves cover basic personal finance, writing a resume, basic interviewing and public speaking, critically evaluating news and social media, et cetera.
Could you do it? A full curriculum?
Would you want to be paid to do it?
> [@Fretful\_Porpentine](#):
>
> I don’t have anything _against_ teaching personal finance in high school, but one issue is that high school students aren’t usually at a point in life when they can put it into practice immediately, so what they learn may not stick
Very true. Ask for a show of hands your high school students who earns a paycheck, who has finances a car, who has a credit card, etc.
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