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Alright, I need some room to vent out some frustrations with the current form of public education.
Many jobs do not require college degrees. You can walk out of high school and attain them. For these people who don't wish to pursue higher education, many of the classes they took in school become worthless. Military-bound students, for instance.
Why can't the public education system focus more on life-long worthwhile knowledge that everybody can use - rather than on core classes aimed at getting kids into college?
Instead of making sciences a necessity, why not home economics? How many people walk out of high school knowing how to write a check and balance a check book?
Nationwide, we're seeing a financial crisis especially amongst younger adults who over-use this weird thing called "Credit". To some, it's free up-front money that you pay back later if you want.
So many children get their high school diploma - and they're clueless of the real world. Cooking, cleaning a house, maintaining a car, balancing a checkbook - why can't classes that teach these subjects become requirements. Each of these is almost necessary when you live on your own, but right now, if your parents stink at it, then you're going to!
I still don't see the point of having memorized the first 100 elements of the periodic table. However, it was a part of a mandatory Chemistry class. Avogadro's number is only useful in helping my sister with her chemistry homework.
Does anyone agree, or am I alone in thinking that our public school system is lowering the bar for those not pursuing college?
Am I crazy to think that many of the credit problems in America are direct result of poor parenting and a lack of financial classes available in public education?
Am I crazy to think that many of the credit problems in America are direct result of poor parenting and a lack of financial classes available in public education?
This is about the only thing I agree with you. Check writing, cooking, cleaning a house, maintaining a car, balancing a checkbook are jobs that parents should be teaching. Those students who graduated not knowing these things have had their parents fail them.
However, that being said, when I was in school a few years ago (I'm 36) my school was pretty good. For Jr. high home ec. was mandatory. This included learning how to sew, cook, iron, and how to apply fingernail polish. As a male, this was EXTREMELY important for me to learn
Anyways, we also had shop.
In HS, we had both college prep classes and regular classes. We had shop, trades, and auto classes. For 11th and 12th grade, you could also go to class half-day, and then spend the other half at the local community college learning auto repair.
College prep was decent. My high school was in the same city as Purdue University so as you could imagine, the standards were high and once you graduated, college classes were an easy transition.
While I'm not big on science for everyone outside of an overview so people know and understand how the universe works (I might add that my HS was so cool that it actually had it's own planetarium.), I now feel like math should be mandatory for everyone.
Military bound? Even as low as the infantry mortarmen need to know how to compute the trajectory of the round that their firing. Chemical specialists need to compute the kill zone of chemical weapons even down to the company level in case said company gets some chemical rounds landing close to them. Everything from wind to temperature is included.
I think both real-world knowledge and academic knowledge is important to build a well-rounded individual. The basis of our educational system, however, is to create an individual that is useful in helping forward society-- scientists to make new inventions, mathematicians to create new formulas, artists to further our culture and cultural influence. It was originally assumed that financial responsibility and home economics would be taught by parents and a child's family. This was all fine and dandy back int he 1950's when home economics was important and people didn't live on a credit card-based system. However, with the Boomer generation and the rise of zealous feminist movements, the art of how to maintain a family and how to have a balanced personal life was traded for bar-hopping, take out meals, and software-education. It used to be that mothers would teach daughters how to cook and mother and father would sit on the living room floor to teach baby how to walk, talk, and read to them. What have we now? Take-out Chinese or pizza throughout the week, no set eating schedules, and Leap-frog learning pads taking the place of parents teaching their youngin's about shapes, colors, and animals.
Perhaps it is time to reform the educational system and include the subjects that are being neglected by families. But personally, I think it's time to reform our society as well.
My granddaughter asked the same thing about Math and Chemistry. Why? I told her that when she had children, she would be able to at least have a slight knowledge of what they needed to do their homework. Plus, she could see the advantage of being able to say that she did well in the hard course. She buckled down and became quite good in Math.
We are beginning to see a return to some of the more practical courses like shop, home ec. bookkeeping, etc. This is a lot better than the idea that everyone should be prepared for college.
I agree that there needs to be a balance. I believe that people need a well-rounded education, but there should also be more of a focus on real-world skills to help prepare all individuals for life (both those who do and do not want to go to college). Also, allowing students to choose to learn more about technical careers, etc. would really be helpful.
The problem is now with the no child left behind act, everyone is focusing only on those subjects that are on these "benchmark" tests, and much of these extra courses and offerings are being cut. This is really hurting all students. I do therapy with students who live in a shelter for kids who have been removed from their parents by the state. We had to move our therapy group to 6:15pm because 2 of the kids start school at 8am and don't get back to the shelter until 6:00 because they have an extended day to prepare them for these tests. That isn't helping anyone.
There are a lot of great technical programs offered at high schools around the country where students can take things like auto tech, culinary arts, ROTC, animal science, medical tech, engineering, criminal justice, various computer certification courses, cosmetology, etc. Back when I was in high school, I am 32, these classes were kind of a joke but now they are excellent and I encourage students, especially those that are not going on to college, to take them. You can leave high school with certification in some areas or well on your way to an associates degree in others.
The problem is that many students have no idea what they want to do at that early age, and many even graduate high school with no idea. I, for one, majored in communication and am now a guidance counselor, after going to graduate school. I agree with PP that courses in high school are there to make well-rounded individuals and introduce kids to all kinds of things so that they can start to find their niche. We can not realistically ask a 16 year old kid to decide his life long career!
Although there are requirements, as students get to the later years in high school they do have more options as to what they want to take.
If anything, the options for courses like you are talking about are getting better. Now, I will say that things like Home Ec are a thing of the past in most places and I wish that was not the case but it is being replaced with these more specialized courses.
Alright, I need some room to vent out some frustrations with the current form of public education.
Many jobs do not require college degrees. You can walk out of high school and attain them. For these people who don't wish to pursue higher education, many of the classes they took in school become worthless. Military-bound students, for instance.
Military-bound students should be the ones most highly focused on science and mathematics coursework! While the modern soldier still does his/her share of potato-peeling and other low-skill manual labor and PT, the majority of combat and support functions require a working knowledge of very high-tech equipment from osmotic water purification systems to satellite-uplinked computer targeting networks. The thought that our soldiers don't need a working knowledge of the chemistry, physics, and mathematics behind their weapons and support systems is a complete fallacy.
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Why can't the public education system focus more on life-long worthwhile knowledge that everybody can use - rather than on core classes aimed at getting kids into college?
Instead of making sciences a necessity, why not home economics? How many people walk out of high school knowing how to write a check and balance a check book?
Because it takes 35 seconds and 3rd-grade writing skills for the average person to figure out how to write a check. 5 minutes and 4th-grade math skills to balance a checkbook. The majority of "life skills" can be aquired through dedicating 2 minutes of your time to reading the instructions or asking a passer-by or employee how this ATM/gas pump/deposit slip/balance sheet/Certificate of Deposit/stove works.
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Nationwide, we're seeing a financial crisis especially amongst younger adults who over-use this weird thing called "Credit". To some, it's free up-front money that you pay back later if you want.
That's a problem of irresponsibility, not education.
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So many children get their high school diploma - and they're clueless of the real world. Cooking, cleaning a house, maintaining a car, balancing a checkbook - why can't classes that teach these subjects become requirements. Each of these is almost necessary when you live on your own, but right now, if your parents stink at it, then you're going to!
None of those examples should require a class. Your car's instruction manual contains detailed instructions for performing every type of routine maintenence necessary (oil/fluids/changing brake pads), including some advanced techniques (changing battery, replacing splash plates, spark plugs, valves) that most people would leave to a mechanic. Sure, the first time I changed a tire or my oil I got filthy and took 45 minutes longer than necessary, but I figured it out without needing some sort of class instruction!
As for cooking and cleaning, following the instructions on bottle or simply reading the recipe always suffices. Now, your made-from scratch souffle might not turn out perfect the first time, but that's not worth wasting valuable class time which could be used to teach you things you can't easily learn from a book (or a label on a bottle of bleach.)
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I still don't see the point of having memorized the first 100 elements of the periodic table. However, it was a part of a mandatory Chemistry class. Avogadro's number is only useful in helping my sister with her chemistry homework.
Unless you want to be a chemist. Or don't know what you want to do, but suddenly find yourself intrigued by the interactions of the elements and the science behind modern-day chemistry.
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Does anyone agree, or am I alone in thinking that our public school system is lowering the bar for those not pursuing college?
Am I crazy to think that many of the credit problems in America are direct result of poor parenting and a lack of financial classes available in public education?
You're probably not alone, but I think you are mistaken. If you do not intend to go to college or work in a high-tech field, you can still benefit from knowing the physics behind electricity (and thusly why you should not stick your finger in a light socket--not just because someone tells you it's dangerous, but because you know that the amperage is sufficient to overcome the resistance of your skin and induce a voltage difference across your heart which may interrupt your own internal electric impulses, stopping your blood from flowing, starving your system of oxygen and allowing waste products to build up until your cells cease to function, your brain activity flatlines, and your id ceases to exist)
I believe that highschool courses should be MORE physics, math, and chemistry-intensive to educate people about the world they live in as well as giving them the opportunity to pursue high-skill jobs if they so choose.
Because it takes 35 seconds and 3rd-grade writing skills for the average person to figure out how to write a check. 5 minutes and 4th-grade math skills to balance a checkbook. The majority of "life skills" can be aquired through dedicating 2 minutes of your time to reading the instructions or asking a passer-by or employee how this ATM/gas pump/deposit slip/balance sheet/Certificate of Deposit/stove works.
You never worked in a bank did you? You'd be amazed at the amount of people who cannot manage this 4th grade skill. And I'm talking from doctors to retired senior citizens. LOL. My math class in 7th grade was built around balancing a check book. Everything we learned became information that needed to be entered in the check book and our "test" for each lesson was whether or not the book balanced at the end of the month. That was probably the most useful math class I had as a student.
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You'd be amazed at the amount of people who cannot manage this 4th grade skill. And I'm talking from doctors to retired senior citizens. LOL. My math class in 7th grade was built around balancing a check book. Everything we learned became information that needed to be entered in the check book and our "test" for each lesson was whether or not the book balanced at the end of the month. That was probably the most useful math class I had as a student.
