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I'm a veteran homeschooler (15+ years), mom of 5 with 3 graduated (2 had 3.8 GPA, 1 had 4.0). I am still homeschooling grades 5 and 8 and have been thinking a lot lately about the subjects that are most beneficial and useful vs. superfluous.
I suppose it depends on what the student is naturally drawn to, specific gifts in an area of interest, and a chosen career path. May I ask what is your occupation?
HI SouthernProper,
I was disappointed you did not follow up, so I thought I would explain my reasoning.
My goal is to develop the critical reasoning and active expression of ideas and feelings.
Useful
* Algebra (which I will assume here as 1 & 2, Geometry, Trigonometry: Useful, because virtually professional job in a world filled with engineering and technology requires command of these. Any university work in Sociology, Public Policy, and Economics requires this background. Those working in construction who wish to advance beyond laborer need this background.
* English Composition: Most American students of high school age and even college age cannot write. In fact, their writing is borderline horrific. Writing is the expression of thoughts. Those youth protestors who cannot strong together cogent thoughts? I'll bet the farm they write as illiterately. Note: I left out History on this list. History is an amazing vehicle to teaching writing and critical thinking. But high schools do not teach it this way, preferring instead rote memorization and minimal writing.
* Physics, Biology, Chemistry: The Natural Sciences. Any future in engineering requires physics, the queen of the sciences. BioChem are increasingly important in a world examining the human genome and inventing new materials.
* Drama: Off choice? I defer to a brilliant friend of mine who felt drama was the most important class he ever took as it taught him, a natural introvert, to come out of his shell. Builds a public confidence that is so absolutely needed today.
* Art: Similar to drama. Artistic expression allows a channeling of the emotions locked up in the teen mind.
* Accounting: The organizational benefit of debits and credits. That taking spending on one thing means less for others. I was pleasantly surprised how it awakened my daughter.
* Computer Programming: This is 2017. It is a crime for students not to be able to do basic programming--something that can be easily integrated into math, science, and art.
Useless
* Sociology: This is the scientific of how society organizes itself. I think Sociology is great topic, but best left for graduate school, not undergrad and certainly not high school. College and HS Curricula around the US is dotted with highly biased indoctrination.
* Psychology: This is the scientific of human behavior form the human POV. Psychology theoretical roots are very sketchy. It is slowly being taken over by science. That said, it is a fascinating area. Like Sociology, best left for graduate school.
* Environmental Science: I spoke to a prominent Geologist the other day who lamented the choice many by the education establishment to push AP Environmental Science vs. Geology. Because the pre-reqs of AP ES is just one course in biology, the course is going to be a mish-mash of superficiality and political themes underlying public policy. My hats off to those who teach ES using their local environment, management debates, and on the ground research and testing. But the opportunity cost is high. No geology and no extra math or science course. ES would be a great graduate degree provided the background in economics, statistics and biochemistry is there.
I left out
* Economics. Best left for graduate school
* Statistics. Best left for undergrad
* Political Science: Hmmm...Political Philosophy or a sequence in Western Civilization would be better. Best left for Ph.D. programs.
With all the free time, from a stripped down curriculum. Let the kids free associate into social clubs, sports, and performance events. Or to have more time to stretch out the "useful"
I started the thread ... I wanted to know why people are weeded out of majors (since YOU brought it up). I kindly inquired, it goes along with the discussion at hand, and it's informative to me ... the OP! Imagine.
Yes, I went to college. I think I posted that earlier in the thread. My major was Criminal Justice, I wanted to be a Homicide Agent with the FBI, and I interviewed a serial killer.
Strange that you've called math courses useless and now you say you wanted to investigate crimes. Just yesterday I used the Pythagorean Theorem, learned over fifty years ago, to determine the straight line distance from a 32nd floor window to a point at ground level across the street determined by using the scale on a Google map.
...
In my experience, a lot of high school kids don't take English or lit class seriously. They have little interest in the books and even less in the papers you usually have to write about them - this is how these classes worked at my school, at least. But you learn important skills in classes where you need to learn to read, write, and to an extent speak, effectively. Writing and reading (and speaking) will never go away, at the least you'll be typing if not physically writing. They are important life skills and they're honed, or they should be, in English classes. In many cases, people will not take someone seriously if that person, like you said, can't even write or spell effectively on a resume or when they open their mouths and have terrible grammar.
I agree, but believe much of the reason they don't take it seriously is how it is taught. The way most writing, for example, is taught is does not produce readable copy. Early in my career we were sent to an advanced writing course. Most of the course wasn't about how to write, but about how not to. That we had to unlearn much of what was taught in school before we could learn to write. We even discussed how the rules of grammar taught in schools were not the real rules, but had been intentionally abbreviated to make them easier to teach rather than really correct.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SouthernProper
So they intentionally make the classes boring and irrelevant ... but if you stick it out, you're in?!
And now the schools are pushing STEM careers.
Schools aren't pushing STEM so much industry is pulling on the schools. In both my profession (through the professional society) and employer there is a recognition this country is not turning out sufficient STEM literate people. Partly why I come to this site is to gain insight because STEM outreach is officially part of my job as well as part of my professional association.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SouthernProper
I started the thread ... I wanted to know why people are weeded out of majors (since YOU brought it up).
....
Rightly or wrongly, the idea behind weeding out is to eliminate those who don't have what it takes to succeed in a STEM career as early as possible rather than expend resources getting them halfway through only to find they've hit a brick was and can't advance. Pretty much anyone who has graduated in a STEM field can remember at least one weed out class. The one where the professor starts the first class with the old joke -- "look at the person on each side of you. Only one of you will be here by the end of the semester." Only, the professor isn't joking. And the next three and a half months are pure h-e-$-$ as singly, and sometimes twos and threes, people drop until less than a third are left. That was the introductory course. The real courses got progressively harder from there. Of the lecture hall full of us who started on day one, four graduated with a degree in that field. The others either changed majors to something other than STEM or dropped out completely.
When someone says math is not important, have no idea of what they are talking about. Earning Stem Degrees, will only be successful with the ones that took those Math Classes that so may seem to think are unnecessary. And in the business world, the minimum wage clerks even need some understanding of math, and the top management needs a lot of knowledge of math to ever reach their level of employment.
Those that think, reading is not a needed and English classes are a waste, are not aware of the real world.
These and many other subjects, are a requirement for the jobs of the future. Much more than the jobs of the past. They tell us that in just 10 years the jobs people will be working at have not even been invented yet, is how fast the world of work is changing.
Home arts, which was elective at the high school level, and which I never took, didn't include anything I hadn't already learned at home. That would have been fairly useless, from a replication standpoint, had I taken it. Ditto wood shop, as I was the daughter of a carpenter.
Other than PE and precalculus, everything was useful to me. I didn't really need precalculus, but I took it anyway. I don't use it in everyday life, and I didn't need it for college. I didn't take PE because I was in sports, but it would have been useless to me if I did take it. Sociology and psychology were just electives, and the people who signed up for them were very interested in the subjects. Working in criminal justice and counseling, the psychology course was definitely useful to me.
I was in honors, AP, and pre-AP English all throughout high school. I've always scored high on civil service exams. All of those exams required a good grasp of spelling, grammar, and reading comprehension. Some of them required basic algebra. I think the people who usually fail these exams struggled with English in high school. Even if you can manage to barely pass a civil service exam for law enforcement, firefighting, or some other public safety field, a low score means that you likely aren't going to be hired. Employers start at the top and work their way down until all the openings are filled.
Now that I think about it, I never use advanced geometry. I've only ever needed basic geometry that I had already learned in middle school.
Strange that you've called math courses useless and now you say you wanted to investigate crimes. Just yesterday I used the Pythagorean Theorem, learned over fifty years ago, to determine the straight line distance from a 32nd floor window to a point at ground level across the street determined by using the scale on a Google map.
It is unbelievable the things we see today, and from somebody who is supposed to be teaching! Can't even get a simple point, maybe I should have written it in 1st grade language.
The most useful subjects are the ones in which the process is emphasized, not the content.
All content given depends on the person and is secondary.
However, nowadays things are backwards. The content has taken first place and the person is secondary.
Rightly or wrongly, the idea behind weeding out is to eliminate those who don't have what it takes to succeed in a STEM career as early as possible rather than expend resources getting them halfway through only to find they've hit a brick was and can't advance. Pretty much anyone who has graduated in a STEM field can remember at least one weed out class. The one where the professor starts the first class with the old joke -- "look at the person on each side of you. Only one of you will be here by the end of the semester." Only, the professor isn't joking. And the next three and a half months are pure h-e-$-$ as singly, and sometimes twos and threes, people drop until less than a third are left. That was the introductory course. The real courses got progressively harder from there. Of the lecture hall full of us who started on day one, four graduated with a degree in that field. The others either changed majors to something other than STEM or dropped out completely.
Yes.
My son was told that "old joke" by both his bio & chem professors on the first day of each class. He's on a pre-med track, as so many are, their first semester of their freshman year of college. We will see if he can hack it.
His bio professor told the class that it didn't matter what they thought they learned in their HS bio class or if they got a 5 on their AP exam; they would know if they had what it would take to be successful in this class and every other class they would have to take in order to stay on the track & before they took their first test in HIS class.
Had a convo with my kid after he had his first bio & chem tests. He prefaced telling me his grades with: "Well, in bio? 1/3 of the class failed, average grade was a 62%. Highest grade was a 92%. Chem was just as bad. Average grade was a 66% and close to half of the class failed. Highest grade was a 90%"
You know that's leading up to "so the terrible grades I got? They were good, compared to everyone else". Thankfully? He got a 92% on his bio test & an 87% on his chem.
He said that kids dropped out of both classes right before the tests & after.
Yes! It is like mathematics is used by schools to eliminate people rather than educate them.
I don't think their intent is to eliminate people from going into those careers, but rather having a high standard by making people put a lot of effort in math theories, even though the person is not going to use them themselves.
An elementary student might say, "why do I have to learn this if I can just use a calculator?" Well, the point here is not to know what for example 25 x 12 equals to, that doesn't have any meaning, but that he can learn how to think to solve the problem.
Sorry for the confusion. It wasn't advanced grammar. Just grammar and composition. Pretty standard stuff.
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OK....? Basic grammar (parts of speech) is gradeschool material. (Or is supposed to be.) What you need to know for HS composition is stuff like dangling participles, parallel construction, and so forth. So, they didn't teach you that kind of thing?
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