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Old 04-27-2015, 05:11 PM
 
Location: Foot of the Rockies
90,316 posts, read 120,475,124 times
Reputation: 35920

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Quote:
Originally Posted by sirron View Post
I once fostered a kid who could not tell me who was on the one dollar bill.

Students who were applying for work at the university could not tell me what local municipality they lived in for tax purposes. They handed me their checkbook and asked whether it was a checking or savings account so they could fill out their direct deposit form.

So yes, basics need to be taught at some level.
Frankly, I think questions like "who is on the one dollar bill?" are trivia questions. I had to think about it a moment myself. I can tell you who's on the one, and the five, but I can't even with some thought who is on the $10 or $20. But really, so what?

I've known adults who didn't know what municipality they lived in.

Checking and savings accounts aren't as clear as they once were; most checking accounts are interest-bearing.
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Old 04-27-2015, 05:14 PM
 
2,700 posts, read 4,925,221 times
Reputation: 4577
Because the USA is not a great country contrary to what people say.. We are becoming or have become the worst at quite a few things and the rest we end up near the bottom of the list....
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Old 04-27-2015, 05:25 PM
 
Location: Foot of the Rockies
90,316 posts, read 120,475,124 times
Reputation: 35920
Quote:
Originally Posted by tnff View Post
While they may teach really basic coins and values, many do not teach personal finance such as different forms of bank accounts. Interest rates. Inflation. How to balance a check book. Loans and payments. Never mind higher order stuff, but just the basics are not taught at many schools.

I got that stuff in jr. high and high school. Some of it was in economics class. My kids did as well. In fact, in 6th grade, they got to order checkbooks and they used some sort of "funny money".

Maybe at a basic level in 5th grade health, but seldom after that. There are way too many other mandatory subjects they have to get in for this to come up.

(Re: nutrition) Health is mandatory in both MS and HS in my district. I'm positive my kids had some nutrition ed, plus they both took home ec classes that taught this as well.

Does any high school teach critical thinking? Mostly they seem to teach the opposite: Sit down, shut up, do as you're told. Don't think. Don't ask questions. Most schools absolutely do not want or support critical thinking but drill in compliant drones.

I think that's a subject that's hard to teach, and comes as a by product of teaching research, etc.

Oh how I wish that was true. But many/most high schools have dropped those classes. I learned more valuable skills in shop that most of my other classes, but there are few shops classes in high school any more.

Again, my district has shop classes in MS and HS. It is required in MS to take the elective "wheel", 6 wks in each of several areas, including shop. My girls liked it. In HS, they had to take one "practical arts" class; my girls chose home ec, but some girls did take shop, and some guys home ec. Not like when I went and "girls take this; boys take that".

Lucky you. But that does not mean schools around the country do the same thing.

My district now requires a personal finance course. They didn't have it when my kids were in HS. It can be taken online.

Well, assuming they were even available, if they were like my kids, they were taking the other required classes to graduate. There are only so many hours in a day. Does a kid really need four years of HS English? What if we cut just one year and focused English class more on business English that is used every day rather than diagraming sentences and English theory? Replace that with a semester of shop and a semester of home ec. What if we gave up one semester of foreign language and taught personal finance? What would happen is we would not lower people's grasp of English, nor exposure to foreign language and culture one bit, but would add a lot of critical skills.
Have you looked at your HS' curriculum? My kids had a number of options in English. As I said, they were required to take one practical arts elective, and they also had some free electives. I would not recommend giving up English for shop/home ec, and I certainly don't think an entire semester of "personal finance" is needed. These kids aren't going to be investing money or buying houses for probably at least 10 years, by which everything will have changed.
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Old 04-27-2015, 05:38 PM
 
5,472 posts, read 3,212,936 times
Reputation: 3930
Go back to the President Ronald Reagan Legacy... from the time he was Governor in California through his Presidency.

Ronald Reagan's Educational Legacy
Certainly, a Must Read Item



President Ronald Reagan, being the darling of the Right Wing Republican Group- we see a continuance of his ideals, as a furtherance in destroying education across the nations !!!!!!

Quote:
Mr. Reagan's educational legacy. As governor and president he demagogically fanned discontent with public education, then made political hay of it. As governor and president he bashed educators and slashed education spending while professing to valued it. And as governor and president he left the nation's educators dispirited and demoralized.


Quote:
Mr. Reagan was far more successful in giving corporate managers unprecedented influence over the future of public education. Reagan's avowed purpose was to make America more competitive in the world economy. But corporate executives dabbling in public education had no discernable influence on America's competitiveness. But the influence of big business did undermine the power of parents and locally elected school board members. It also suggested that it was far more important for schools to turn out good employees than good citizens or decent human beings.


History tells many things of why current conditions exist as they do, it further tells why the Right Wing ideologies being promoted are devastating to the American System and the Model of Society and most certainly the education systems in America.

We had many things which came into play which change the tone and trajectory of this nation, including the acts of the Nixon Era on forward. We can look at the Big Business being placed ahead of a society who once valued ethics and who once had a conscience mindset of value unto what is the American Nation. We saw GHW Bush, push the New World Order, and in doing so, we saw further neglect and decline of the American nations, We witnessed and experienced the later GH Bush, leave a country on the brink of economic and financial ruins, while leaving too a Middle East problems in complete chaotic disarray. We saw big oil make astronomical profits with the gouge point for citizens facing the result of oil being $147 a barrel. Along with an infrastructure which has no concern for the maintenance which was overtly necessary due to the crumbling of infrastructure across the nation.

Still today, we see the legacy of the Reagan Ideals, being engaged by the Jindal destruction machine, to the tune of 80% cut to the LSU Education system. All in following the Reagan Ideals in his aim to be thought of as the Republican Poster Boy. His compatriot in disaster making, Scott Walker has invoked cuts to wreak havoc on Education in Wisconsin. All along the lines of the Ronald Reagan Right Wing Ideology as it assaults education.


America need a new ideology by one who not only respect the American People, but Equally so Respects the Nation.


President Obama has pushed for many items for Education Reforms, Lower tuition, cutting education loan interest and pushing for A Regeneration of Support for Education Across American, when he spoke of RESTORING no cost community colleges, Republican Reaganites became furious at the mere mention of providing education to our citizen populations and at each point and turn he is fought by the ideologies of Republican Organization.


America people need to look and think and act with expressed concerns to diminish the Reagan Legacy, it become easier to do, when one is aware of what they are fighting against. Understanding what set these things in destructive motion, is the point of understanding, where people can learn how to reverse it and move back to being a nation which respects is people, respects the institutions of learning, and bring our people back to valuing the ethical content of what is learning and what is within learning.

Beware, the madness of those driven by the confabulate mentality borne on the Reagan Legacy, will fight, but one has to understand the value of our future generation is worth the fight, and certainly worth the efforts it will take to defeat the Legacy left by Ronald Reagan, and push to return American into a nation aiming to make
good citizens or decent human beings who are learned individuals, ready, cabable and willing to contribute to making and sustaining American in being a Great Nation which respects its citizen population to the highest.
In doing so, it will become again an American people who can compete at the top with any people from any nation around the world, in education, business and what it takes to make a better society and world community.




Last edited by Chance and Change; 04-27-2015 at 06:37 PM..
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Old 04-27-2015, 05:56 PM
 
10,075 posts, read 7,505,559 times
Reputation: 15500
All this economic talk about needing classes, no one brought up the simple monopoly game that families can play after dinner instead of watching tv? That teaches kids how to count, and if the parent's are ambitious, they could build in interest rates too . Like, each pass of GO by the landowner, the properties are "owed" 1% interest, and the person who lands on the house has to pay that interest?
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Old 04-27-2015, 06:29 PM
 
2,286 posts, read 1,999,003 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by andywire View Post
Good question. You would be surprised how many young people I have worked with who cannot do addition or subtraction without the use of a calculator. Forget about multiplication. It really does cause problems when people have to go running for a calculator for everything. Better than causing screw ups I guess, but they still manage to cause problems.
Not just in high school either. I've taught calculus at a pretty high-ranking public university, and they let everyone use calculators on exams there. Even when giving very basic quizzes, for example something as easy as compute the derivative of f(x) = 3x^4, most of the class pulls out a calculator and starts hitting buttons. I just stand there thinking wtf is going on. For people who don't know calculus, the arithmetic involves multiplying 3*4 and subtracting 4-1.

Anyway, I agree it would be nice to teach useful things like finance in high school, but I'd bet half the teachers don't know anything about an IRA or what they're investing in in their 401k (or 403b I guess).

Personally, I know I somehow got through school without really learning long division. I'd seen it in 3rd grade or whenever it's initially taught but never really got it and wasn't forced to relearn it. When I took Calculus II in college, I ended up teaching myself polynomial long division so I could do partial fraction decomposition, but that's a good 10 year gap for something pretty basic.

As far as nutrition, I don't remember if it was ever taught to me. I remember once having a conversation with a couple teachers about what I ate, but that's it. Either way, I'm not sure this is the best idea to teach in school anyway. Every year, people's opinions flip on which things are actually good for you and which ones give you cancer. When I was in school, everyone thought fat was the devil, so if I'd learned nutrition back then, I'd probably be on some horrible low-fat diet.
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Old 04-27-2015, 07:20 PM
 
Location: Whoville....
25,386 posts, read 35,466,787 times
Reputation: 14692
Quote:
Originally Posted by tickyul View Post
#1 Kids don't care,
#2 parents don't care,
#3 schools can't or won't get rid of mot of the bottom-of-the-barrel teachers.
Schools don't have to. They flush out on their own. 50% of teachers leave the profession within 5 years. This is not an easy profession.
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Old 04-27-2015, 07:23 PM
 
Location: Portland, OR
424 posts, read 380,258 times
Reputation: 686
lol is this seriously a question? This country cares more about war and tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy than 'trivial' things like education......
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Old 04-27-2015, 07:25 PM
 
Location: Whoville....
25,386 posts, read 35,466,787 times
Reputation: 14692
Quote:
Originally Posted by SoCalCpl2 View Post
Because the USA is not a great country contrary to what people say.. We are becoming or have become the worst at quite a few things and the rest we end up near the bottom of the list....
China is rising and we are falling. That's just the way it goes. Civilizations only last so long before the next civilization rises. Our day is done. It's someone else's turn.
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Old 04-27-2015, 08:10 PM
 
17,183 posts, read 22,836,530 times
Reputation: 17473
Quote:
Originally Posted by JimGarrison View Post
Within one-three years once we removed God from the public schools in 1962/1963, our test scores have been decreasing. As our Jewish Rabbi's would say, coincidence is not a kosher word.
Your reasoning is faulty. The population of students taking the tests has changed. The numbers are larger and more kids who are poorer take the tests and don't perform as well. When I went to graduated HS in 1962, many kids did not take the SAT because they were in either business or vocational tracks. Now everyone is shunted into college prep and takes the tests.

A (Mostly) Brief History Of The SAT And ACT Tests
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