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I say it's economics and what the political parties are really about. If every child were taught something about spending within your means, America wouldn't be putting up with these horrendous giveaways and pork barrel spending we are seeing the past month from the Obama administration.
Children should be taught the basics of national economics. Corporations are NOT evil; they are the very backbone of our economic system. We should teach kids that corporations invest capital, provide innovations, make necessary goods and services, and create jobs. Government does none of these.
Children should be taught to challenge the notion that high achievers should be punished by being disporportionally taxed. Kids have an instinctive understanding of fairness. Try this exercise. Ask the students how they would like to study two hours every night, do extra credit projects, and stay after school for homework help while their classmates go home and do nothing but watch TV and play video games while eating chips and drinking soda, THEN have the lazy classmates receive the better grade? That's basically what's going on with the bailout of people facing foreclosure.
Along the same vein of fairness here's another game: Child A and Child B are running for class president. Child A promises the class that he will pay each a dollar if they vote for him. Child B just promises to work hard if elected, and pledges to try to get the whole class to work harder in school. Child A then steals a $20 bill from Child B, gives a dollar to each class member and keeps the rest for himself. Child A then tells the class how generous he is for giving them money and how Child B is selfish for not wanting to give. Yet it was Child B's money all along. The poorest kids elect Child A, because they wanted the money and didn't want to have to work hard. Child A wins.
Ask the students if they think the above scenarios were fair. Then explain to them that is exactly how the two political parties operate.
Here's a final exercise:
Two people each started a business. Person A spent money very carefully. He saved what he could then bought supplies for his business only when he had enough money. He worked hard, figured out how to draw new customers, served the customers well, and earned money. He then invested that money and opened three other stores, hired a lot of people who worked hard and satisfied the customers.
Person B didn't save enough money to buy a business but he lied about his income and fooled a bank into loaning him that money. He didn't work hard, didn't serve his customers, and didn't invest his money. Instead, he lavished his money on friends and on people who helped him lie to the bank to get money. When his business started to falter, he made up more lies, fooled more banks, and borrowed more money. Finally, he told the banks he wasn't going to pay them anymore, closed the business, and the few workers he had lost their jobs.
Teachers, you don't even have to mention political parties. You don't have to. Just tell them those things are really happening with the two political parties. Appeal to their sense of fairness, and encourage them to develop the political philosophy of their own choosing. If generations of American kids were taught wonderful lessons like this every day in class, our nation would be much more prosperous, there wouldn't be as much dependency, and above all, we wouldn't be electing the folks who caused our current economic problems to "solve" the problem.
I say it's economics and what the political parties are really about. If every child were taught something about spending within your means, America wouldn't be putting up with these horrendous giveaways and pork barrel spending we are seeing the past month from the Obama administration.
Children should be taught the basics of national economics. Corporations are NOT evil; they are the very backbone of our economic system. We should teach kids that corporations invest capital, provide innovations, make necessary goods and services, and create jobs. Government does none of these.
Children should be taught to challenge the notion that high achievers should be punished by being disporportionally taxed. Kids have an instinctive understanding of fairness. Try this exercise. Ask the students how they would like to study two hours every night, do extra credit projects, and stay after school for homework help while their classmates go home and do nothing but watch TV and play video games while eating chips and drinking soda, THEN have the lazy classmates receive the better grade? That's basically what's going on with the bailout of people facing foreclosure.
Along the same vein of fairness here's another game: Child A and Child B are running for class president. Child A promises the class that he will pay each a dollar if they vote for him. Child B just promises to work hard if elected, and pledges to try to get the whole class to work harder in school. Child A then steals a $20 bill from Child B, gives a dollar to each class member and keeps the rest for himself. Child A then tells the class how generous he is for giving them money and how Child B is selfish for not wanting to give. Yet it was Child B's money all along. The poorest kids elect Child A, because they wanted the money and didn't want to have to work hard. Child A wins.
Ask the students if they think the above scenarios were fair. Then explain to them that is exactly how the two political parties operate.
Here's a final exercise:
Two people each started a business. Person A spent money very carefully. He saved what he could then bought supplies for his business only when he had enough money. He worked hard, figured out how to draw new customers, served the customers well, and earned money. He then invested that money and opened three other stores, hired a lot of people who worked hard and satisfied the customers.
Person B didn't save enough money to buy a business but he lied about his income and fooled a bank into loaning him that money. He didn't work hard, didn't serve his customers, and didn't invest his money. Instead, he lavished his money on friends and on people who helped him lie to the bank to get money. When his business started to falter, he made up more lies, fooled more banks, and borrowed more money. Finally, he told the banks he wasn't going to pay them anymore, closed the business, and the few workers he had lost their jobs.
Teachers, you don't even have to mention political parties. You don't have to. Just tell them those things are really happening with the two political parties. Appeal to their sense of fairness, and encourage them to develop the political philosophy of their own choosing. If generations of American kids were taught wonderful lessons like this every day in class, our nation would be much more prosperous, there wouldn't be as much dependency, and above all, we wouldn't be electing the folks who caused our current economic problems to "solve" the problem.
Great idea, but the teachers also get dollars from child A.
Children should be taught the basics of national economics. Corporations are NOT evil; they are the very backbone of our economic system. We should teach kids that corporations invest capital, provide innovations, make necessary goods and services, and create jobs. Government does none of these..
Unfortunately, they are taught the exact opposite, and not just by the public education system, but through continuous main stream media indoctrination, and constant anti-capitalist propaganda from the Democratic party. Since a large percentage of our voting population lack the critical thinking skills necessary to withstand such a continuous onslaught, the end result is the current bunch of BUFFOONS we now have occupying the Whitehouse and Congress.
No. The number one thing to teach children is to think about the world in a critical way. That's how innovation and creativity happen. Your idea is to indoctrinate them into never criticizing capitalism. That's just a form of fascist education. Nothing wrong with capitalism, or with the concept of the corporation, but those are human inventions, with real-life implications, and need to be held accountable and consistently improved upon. Without critical thinking skills on the part of its populace, a nation is doomed.
No. The number one thing to teach children is to think about the world in a critical way. That's how innovation and creativity happen. Your idea is to indoctrinate them into never criticizing capitalism. That's just a form of fascist education. Nothing wrong with capitalism, or with the concept of the corporation, but those are human inventions, with real-life implications, and need to be held accountable and consistently improved upon. Without critical thinking skills on the part of its populace, a nation is doomed.
Agreed. I agree with what the OP says in the first couple of lines - that we should be teaching economics at an earlier age. Not necessarily the ultra-complex stuff, but just some of the basics...things like the stock market. The vast majority of students, myself included, were staring dumbfounded when the teacher or the textbook was describing the causes of the Great Depression - some economic knowledge would have helped to understand it more clearly. The rest of what the OP said is essentially jamming capitalism down students' throats. The last thing we need is another generation of greedy Wall St predators.
No. The number one thing to teach children is to think about the world in a critical way. That's how innovation and creativity happen. Your idea is to indoctrinate them into never criticizing capitalism. That's just a form of fascist education. Nothing wrong with capitalism, or with the concept of the corporation, but those are human inventions, with real-life implications, and need to be held accountable and consistently improved upon. Without critical thinking skills on the part of its populace, a nation is doomed.
Your idea works in college and high school level. Elementary school level should be devoted almost exclusively to reading and math so that they'll have the basic skills they'll need to continue learning. Too many students enter high school and college (sports stars) with less than a 3rd grade reading level. It's like Art,...give the student the basic skills and then let them express their thoughts and individuality.
The absolute lesson kids are NOT learning, is that they and they alone are responsible for their actions. To a great extent it starts when they start school, but once they have entered high school, and adulthood beyond they and they alone are 100% responsible for their actions, and they and they alone pay the consequences.
Agreed. I agree with what the OP says in the first couple of lines - that we should be teaching economics at an earlier age. Not necessarily the ultra-complex stuff, but just some of the basics...things like the stock market. The vast majority of students, myself included, were staring dumbfounded when the teacher or the textbook was describing the causes of the Great Depression - some economic knowledge would have helped to understand it more clearly. The rest of what the OP said is essentially jamming capitalism down students' throats. The last thing we need is another generation of greedy Wall St predators.
1) It's a great point about teaching kids how the stock market works from an early age. Then investing would become a mainstream thought among the lower classes. When you have that, all the class-envy crap won't work as well.
2) See the idea that prosperity = greed is one of the many canards put up by the left that is harmful to people. Capitalism IS the best and fairest system ever devised. But if you notice, I don't tell them that, I let them discover it through logic and their own sense of fairness.
Public education in the U.S. has become a lunch stop between day care centers and the mall, on the public dime. We don't need no stinkin edjumacation man, we got socialism.
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