Yeah it's more a list of what you don't learn if either the school was no good or the student did not pay attention whilst there- and more likely the latter.
If the complaint was that schools don't teach people skills like driving a car- a directly relevant practical like skill- as opposed to learning maths, then I could see the basis of the argument. I'd still rather we tried to educate people broadly though.
I can see an argument for learning some more practical skills as well. But I don't understand why maths is always the target of scorn though, surely people must realize that mathematics is the basis of basically all sciences, and that we'd be off pretty shit if there weren't any people pursuing those careers in the future.
Originally posted by Omega Vision
In my highschool there was a required Life Management Skills class that included most if not all of these things. But no one really took it seriously. That's the deciding factor in all education--whether you as a student make an effort to learn or not.
That's what shitty teachers would have us believe...
Originally posted by Bardock42
That's what shitty teachers would have us believe...
I just had a student yesterday from my last class who ended up with a grade in the 40s appealing for her grade. I basically flat out told her that she failed the class because she didn't take it seriously. I had a lot of students who did take it seriously and received excellent grades. In fact, I'm a pretty generous grader, so if you fail my class it means you probably weren't even in the classroom most of the time.
Originally posted by -Pr-
I finished school in 2000, but no, none of that was on the curriculum.
Surely "What taxes are for" was on the curriculum.
Anyways, I'll do the list and look at what we did and did not cover:
How to do taxes - This happens more or less automatically, but we covered it in High School Economy
What are taxes for - Grade school social studies
How to vote - Did not cover
How to write resume/cover letter - High School Norwegian class
Anything to do with Banking - Not sure what he's referring to, but savings, budgeting and shit? Covered in HS economy and grade school math
College loans - Covered when we're taught how to apply for colleges, etc
How to buy a house or car - lol no
Originally posted by UshgarakDepending on how you define "good", I would say it's pretty common for none of the things listed up there to be taught in the core curriculum sans "what are taxes", based on my own experience.
Yeah it's more a list of what you don't learn if either the school was no good or the student did not pay attention whilst there- and more likely the latter.
My high school was the best in the district, but I didn't hear anything from teachers about how to do the things listed in the OP until, ironically, I was placed in retard math in my senior year (I kept flunking algebra). It was called "applied mathematics" or some such, and the teacher taught us how to do taxes, how interest rates worked, what different types of loans worked- basically a lot about how money works. Definitely a hell of a lot more rerelevent and useful than algebra in hindsight.
It's kind of a complicated issue because there are multiple factors. College prep is one; we're obsessed with college here in the states and over the past 20 years there's been a shift in philosophy where a lot of schools are prioritizing subject matter that's more likely to be encountered in college (like algebra).
The second problem is standardised testing. As teachers live and die by the scores students get on standardized tests, they're incentivized to focus on material that's relevent to those tests... like algebra.
God, I hate auto-correct.
Originally posted by krisblaze
Surely "What taxes are for" was on the curriculum.Anyways, I'll do the list and look at what we did and did not cover:
How to do taxes - This happens more or less automatically, but we covered it in High School Economy
What are taxes for - Grade school social studies
How to vote - Did not cover
How to write resume/cover letter - High School Norwegian class
Anything to do with Banking - Not sure what he's referring to, but savings, budgeting and shit? Covered in HS economy and grade school math
College loans - Covered when we're taught how to apply for colleges, etc
How to buy a house or car - lol no
What taxes are for would have been covered in business studies, an optional class for the leaving cert (our final exam). The other stuff, not so much.