What do you think schools should teach?

Critical thinking, logic, reason, and how to learn.

Any skill you can learn is good later in life [you’ll use it at least several times].
Logic sounds good but unless someone is prepared for it and can’t understand it it’s not gonna be of any help.
Moral is learnable unless you see them not fitting you.

School should learn kids bunch of things preparing them for life .. like some can pretend to be your friend just to stab you in the back .. making them be prepared for things like this always help.

Just two “subjects”: how to learn and how to think.

@tom_g, @janbb I certainly agree, but in what way do schools go about trying to teach this? Much has been made of the public school’s failure to teach the youngest generation these things in a way that adequately prepares them for college.

What responsibility do parents hold in the education of their children?

Kids are very capable of critical thinking and learning how to learn at a very young age. My kids only get this stuff at home, as it seems that they are learning facts act school.

As a part-time teacher to my kids (since for some reason I still send my kids to public school), I am merely a facilitator. I help my kids learn by answering questions with more questions and allowing my kids to work out how they might solve a particular problem.

Informal logic and reason is pretty important in my house. It can be simple at a young age, but the concepts go a long way.

The way schools are currently setup, however, probably makes this type of whole learning impractical. First, there is a teacher-student ratio. Then we have the standardized testing.

While I don’t have a precise answer to exactly how to do this, I am confident that we could accomplish this if we had the right priorities.

I do not think that schools should be teaching morals or values. That will just further reinforce the idea that only one way of thinking is right. Morals are too subjective to be taught in schools.

I am fine with what schools teach now, but I wish it was less structured by state exams and such. Teachers teach the test these days, and students learn to pass, not to learn.

Schools should teach reasoning and thinking skills.

Facts.

And practical life skills.

Everything that has to do with interpersonal skills.
Understanding and awareness of nature (flora and fauna) and how to deal with our Earth’s environment.
And lets start each day with lessons on love.

Whats wrong with the standard reading, writing and mathematics. I would throw in logic and how to do research as well.
And since morality is objective (social convention and courtesy are subjective) it would probably just emerge as a result of the above.

Circus skills, particularly dwarf juggling!

Kids should learn civics.

Schools should teach people to learn. They should learn to organize their thoughts and communicate effectively. They should be taught to be creative. They should be taught interpersonal skills including about relationships and sex. They should be taught various ethical systems of thinking. They should also learn how religions develop their moral systems.

There are content areas, too. Civics, health, history—as is seen fit by teachers with input from other stakeholders, literature, art, music, dance, physical education—all the usual suspects.

However, what I think should be different is that there should be different schools for different kids that come from families with various moral systems of thought. Students should be allowed to learn in the school that fits their morality.

Evolution.

They should really concentrate more on comprehension and understanding, and like said above, critical thinking.

@josie – Morality is objective? You droppped that like it’s a similar statement to “this place is warmer in summer”, but it’s not.

It’s not that I disagree (I don’t, at least not entirely), more that you have to support that.

There is a common assumption (demonstrated above) that schools should be teaching “life skills” – critical thinking, basic maths, language. This is, in my opinion, pretty uncontroversial. However, when one compares education systems across cultures, the basics are clearly a given.

In my opinion, education should be about bringing people to a point where they can create, regardless of their interests or focus. This means that education must me orders of magnitude more flexible than it currently is.

It’s not about what schools should teach; it’s about what people should learn. Beyond the basics, that’s a decision for the learner.

Education should be open, self-directed and, most importantly, free at all levels. If, for example, the US were prepared to commit ~50% of its entire federal budget to education for ten years rather than, as it stands now, to its military, the results would be, I believe, equivalent to the renaissance and the Enlightenment in terms of its results.

I think there should more teachers who train their students how to learn and survive the big, bad world, instead of just teaching the students how to pass the standardized tests. I also think none of the students should ever have to learn that if they’d given Mr. Selner a blowjob, they’d have gotten an A.

Unfortunately the world has gotten very complex. It’s not enough to have basic math skills, you need to be geared up to trigonometry and calculus early. There simply isn’t enough time in the school day to teach social values. That is the responsibility of the parents. If you want the schools to teach everything, you’ve abdicated your responsibility as a parent and should be looking at boarding schools where they have more time with the kids. Public schools need to stick with reading writing and arithmetic at much higher levels. Compare the schools in other countries that do better than we do and you’ll find a much better focus on the basics and much more time (including homework) on the primary subjects.

I definitely would have liked a mandatory finance ed class. I honestly didn’t know much about how credit worked until I left home.

I often hear claims that schools should teach people “how to think”, but I rarely hear people go into detail about what that entails. It sounds good on paper, but I’m not even sure what most people are referring to when they say that as it’s rare that anyone provides details about what exactly should be taught.

So, apart from the idealistic aspects of education, I do believe that more common life skills should be taught, especially those related to economics, how bank accounts, credit cards, checks, insurance, etc. work. Not that the parents can’t teach that, but as a way to make up for people who maybe just didn’t get around to learning it from their parents. I agree with @Blackberry on this one.

At my high school, only the “ghetto kids” took home economics, and that bothered me. You’d be surprised how often I’ve come across a 20-something year old college student who doesn’t understand basic home skills because his parents have been wiping his ass his whole life. Things like home economics should be encouraged.

One of the best units we had in my English class junior year was when we learned about argumentative strategies, logical fallacies, and all that. It was one of the most informative things I learned in school and I still remember it vividly to this day. Maybe we should be teaching more of that and less of “I think the author’s use of the color red symbolizes the main character’s loneliness”.

And no, I don’t think they should be teaching morals and ethics. Leave something for the parents. Not everyone agrees on a valid and productive moral and ethical system and I don’t think it would be fair to impose one on students.

A grounding in logic and critical thinking would be nice. Then maybe some life skills and basic knowledge to build upon later.

My ideal highschool would teach the following types of classes:

Civics/leadership, financial education (including info on credit cards, loans, mortgages, etc), formal logic, math, history, science (focusing on scientific literacy), economics, gun safety (remove the taboo/mystery and I guarantee that accidental deaths will decrease), wellness/phys ed (with a focus on fun activities as opposed to arbitrary calisthenics), home and auto repair (for everyone not just the tech kids), a foreign language, English (focusing on grammar and spelling and reading)...

Just those things that are needed when you get out into the real world——practical things. A lot of what @Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard listed.

Add: courses in ethics and compassion.

Nice of you to ask this, now I will not have to respond to my detractors in that previous post, I can just put it all in here.

Schools should teach everything, all the facts and skills. However they should not implant opinions of any kind in their head or interfear with anything unrelated to learning.

A perfect example being that teachers should be allowed to teach that creationists usually believe in a very literal or totally literal interpretation of the bible, and that they believe the world is around 6 to 12 thousand years old. However, they should not be allowed to teach that the bible is to be taken literally and that the world is 6 to 12 thousand years old.

In order of importance, these are the things a highschool student should know already or be learning:

- Basic academic info (2+2, abc)
– Basic real world skills (file a tax report, change a light bulb, clean a baby, etc)
– Basic to advanced research and learning skills. (knowing if a source is good, etc)
– Critical thinking skills (process of elimination, peer review, logic, etc)
– Basic computing skills (hardware facts, operating systems, word processing)
– All the other usual things you would learn in high school normally.
– Advanced but general science (physics, particle physics, cosmology, etc)
– A few other things that fail to come to mind at the moment (no need to go too deep)

Teachers should be allowed and expected to implant as many facts as possible in a childs mind, however all opinion must be kept to them selves, except for special opinion lessons, where all and any opinion is both equally presented and challenged.

Things teachers simply should not be allowed to do:

- Put their opinionated twist on things.
– Present things as facts that are not facts.
– Implant religious or political ideas.
– Implant opinions on sexuality or personal choices.
– Make attempts to turn children in to snitches
– Make predictions about how the child will turn out.
– Attempt to teach what is right and wrong
– Attempt to instil any kind of obedience that is not directly related to the classroom
– Comment in any way on a childs appearance.
– Bring up anything regarding what students do in their free time.
– A few other things.

Basically, they are teachers. Not politicians, not preachers, they should teach facts, they should have minimal authority, and should act professionally.

If a teacher sees a student smoking crack they should tell the parents, and only the parents, if they see the kid still continuing to do it after that, they should do nothing. Teach facts and minimal interfearing and opinions.

sorry for crappy spelling, my spell checker is playing up

@poisonedantidote‘s answer brings up another question for me. What should schools use as discipline? (The normal suspension/expulsion, alternate methods?) What sort of behaviors should be disciplined? Should things that go on outside of school be the school’s business?

@poisonedantidote
Put their opinionated twist on things
Teachers already aren’t allowed to have opinions, seriously. I’m not even allowed to flip off cars on the highway—it could be a parent! No opinions for me, unless I’m on Fluther.
Present things as facts that are not facts
Whose facts do you propose we teachers stick to? Howard Zinn’s or 1920s scholars? 1950’s grammarians or UPI or AP? The Hooked on Phonics research or the Whole Language Research? Facts do not stand alone, they are open to interpretation. Interpretation of facts is not black and white. So just teach cold-hard facts, without any interpretation or critical reasoning because that might not be factual enough?
__Implant religious or political ideas__
I agree, but by whose standards? What happens when I’m banned by one parent from teaching Greek Mythology but it’s on the state standards graduation exit exam? 1 parent complains, 30 kids lose access to Greek Mythology. Most people wouldn’t consider Greek Mythology religion, but this parent did, so what happens when these kids take the exit exam?
__Implant opinions on sexuality or personal choices__
So, we should get rid of all abstinence based sex education curriculums developed by the Bush admin? It’s mandated by the government right now, teachers must follow this curriculum because it’s required, but it is opinion based. They don’t have a choice.
Make attempts to turn children in to snitches
Care to tell me the difference between snitching and informing for protection of self? A guy at my school sexually harassed a girl continuously, she was extremely scared of snitching, so she tolerated it for a year and half, along with her peers taunting her for being a slut… she was a virgin. Eventually she attempted suicide. Where’s the line? We don’t know the answer either.
Make predictions about how the child will turn out
Does that mean I can’t encourage a kid and say “you can do it!” or “if you really want to go to college, you can do it!” That’s a prediction… and many kids are starved for positive affirmations. If you mean negative predictions, I agree, but some kids react to negative predictions with increased motivation to ‘prove ‘em wrong.’ I don’t use negative predictions, but have seen a good number of kids thrive under that.
Attempt to teach what is right and wrong
In many inner city schools, the only indication of right and wrong the kids have, and the only support they have is from school. You really want to get rid of that? Right and wrong also includes my class rules (I have 3 rules: Be Respectful, Ready and Responsible, you want me to get rid of that?) Kids are flexible enough—they know what’s “right for home” and “right for school.” They are discriminating thinkers by age 7, they know. If I don’t teach them “right for school,” how can I teach anything??
Attempt to instil any kind of obedience that is not directly related to the classroom
This makes me think of grades for sports eligibility. Sometimes the only way kids keep up their school participation is because they need the 2.0 to play football or basketball. That’s not in my classroom, but 99% of the time what happens outside the classroom is really outside the teacher’s control.
Comment in any way on a childs appearance
Many coaches require their athletes to dress up for sports day and are fussy about how they dress. Other schools have uniforms and dress codes. I agree that teachers shouldn’t say anything opinion-based about clothes in general, but dress codes are still ways that schools decide how kids dress, similar to how corporates decide how their employees dress.
Bring up anything regarding what students do in their free time
What if the student brings it up? 90% of classroom management is rapport—ask any good teacher. Without rapport, teachers can NOT under any circumstance, teach the minimum, not even the facts you proposed. Rapport often comes from asking things like “What do you do for fun” or using examples drawn from the kids’ hobbies. If I have a lot of car lovers in class, I will use car analogies to illustrate a point. Or basketball, or skateboarding. Kids BEAM when they see their favorite hobby being used as an analogy to understand larger concepts. If I want information to stick, I have to know the kid to know how to make facts stick.
A few other things
Yikes… I like you @poisonedantidote, but I wouldn’t work at your school. It’s not the teacher’s fault, please understand that. They’re working very hard the best they can for a very flawed system. If you have to load your ammo up and shoot it somewhere, shoot it at the policymakers, and I’ll be right next to you.
sorry for the wall of text

@DominicX I like the idea of home ec for everyone, but what got taught at my school was horrible. We learned how to make jam. Freaking jam. Making jam is in absolutely no way an essential skill, and is more expensive than just buying a 3 dollar thing that’s premade, but we learned it. We also learned how to make Shepard’s pie, but with the intro that you just throw in all the leftovers – not, it came about at a time when all the leftovers people had were meat, potatoes, and some veggies, so those are the basic ingredients, but that you personally should just throw in all your leftovers and make some mac n cheese and kung pow chicken Shepard’s pie. We also learned how to plan a wedding, including identifying the 4 Cs of diamonds and a nice bit on arranged marriages and 1840s style courtship (not even exaggerating), but not how to care for an egg or sack of flour as a fake child (because making sure you have your dream wedding is so much more important than knowing how to keep a baby alive). So, good idea, but we need a serious revamp on the curriculum.

Maybe we should be teaching more of that and less of “I think the author’s use of the color red symbolizes the main character’s loneliness”. Yes. This. More of this. I have an irrational hatred of symbolism for this reason (and teacher’s refusal to admit that it is entirely subjective, so if the author hasn’t explicitly said that that example is or isn’t symbolism, you need to stop grading me down just because I disagree).

@linguaphile I am attacking the policy more than the teachers here, just that teachers happen to be at the front line…. Ok, lets build a text wall….

1— At my school you get to flip off whoever you like on the highway, if it’s a parent, then fuck em, hard luck.

2— I propose teachers stick to the facts that science currently has a concensus on, and that they change these facts as and when science learns more. As for interpreting facts, I have no idea what you mean. Everest is 8848 meters high, what is to interpret?

3— In my school, the only choice parents would have is if their kid goes or not, if they don’t want you teaching them the facts of Greek mythology they can pull the kid out of class. You would not be allowed to teach the mythology as “true”.

4— You get to teach the facts of reproduction, STD’s and contraception according to what science can demonstrate, you don’t get to say that girls kissing girls is not right or anything like that.

5— Teachers do not get to say “ok, everyone is punished until someone tells me who did it”. No turning them in to rats, you either catch them red handed or investigate.

6— No predictions, period, even positive ones. “you can do it” would not be allowed, “try harder” would.

7— Your clas rules are yours to keep, that would fall under obedience regarding the classroom. You get to tell them Hitler had lots of Jews killed, but don’t get to tell them if that was good or bad, they decide it for them selves or are told by the parents.

8— Sports would play no part in education at all. You get to tell the kids to shut up and stop interrupting, you dont get to tell them to stop listening to their mp3 player and study, as long as they do not disrupt the class, they can not be told what to do.

9— Sports would play no part in education at all. If a kid wants to come to class with green hair and piercings and dressed in black, it’s their choice. If they wear a massive sombrero that stops people behind them seeing the blackboard they must remove it (classroom obedience) however you can’t make them remove a baseball cap or other reasonable hat, because you think it is “bad manners” or “offensive to god” or something like that.

10— Hobbies are irrelevant, interests are irrelevant, if a kid starts talking about what they do outside of school, they are told to stop talking in class and save it for the playground.

“A few more” ....

- Education is optional, after the age of 10–11 or so, if you don’t want to go to school you don’t have to anymore. You can leave sooner if you can pass a very basic test showing you can read and do sums.

- You are informed of the facts of life, if you study hard you get a good job, if not… there is the door, enjoy whatever it is you end up doing. You are either capable to take the skills offered and make something of your self, or you are not capable. Survival of the fittest.

Regarding my school…

There would be no pens or paper or books. It would be replaced with computers and projector screens.

If a student attacks a teacher, school policy says you defend your self any way you see fit.

Teachers producing good students get paid very well, while others are paid less and eventually dismissed if performance remains bad.

Tests would be very hard, you will frequently be tested on things that have not even been mentioned in the classroom yet, and will be expected to know how to find out what you need to know without help from the teacher.

Sports, excursions, and other such activities would fall under the “school club”, not the curriculum, if you want to play football you can, but it will have no bearing on your chances of passing classes.

Many extra additional classes would be available for those who want them, e.g. plumbing, carpentry, engineering, and so on.

Yes… my school would be very unconventional, we would produce a lot of crack addicts and idiots, but we sure would produce some of the best thinkers money can buy.

Sorry if it sounded like I was attacking teachers, it is the policy makers I have more of a problem with, but when describing the situation, “teachers” is much simpler to use than “the policy makers”. It is implied teachers are now acting the way I propose due to changes made to the policy.

I know this all sounds insane to you, but I sware it makes sense to me. Have some lurve!

EDIT: just be glad that I’ll never be elected in to a position of power.

You made your point—this is the way you think schools should be. Okay, I have one question. How would you reconcile these two?
Teachers producing good students get paid very well, while others are paid less and eventually dismissed if performance remains bad.
Tests would be very hard, you will frequently be tested on things that have not even been mentioned in the classroom yet, and will be expected to know how to find out what you need to know without help from the teacher.
In one, you’re holding a teacher completely accountable for success or failure but in the other, you’re holding students accountable. What if a teacher has a classroom full of kids from families who don’t value education and who don’t give a flying fig—are they still accountable? (According to Bush/NCLB, yes). I do like the concept of kids teaching themselves, though—they retain information better and become more independent.

As for facts… the Science/Math/Engineering/Tech fields are mostly cold hard facts, yes, but history, literature, grammar, sociology (the humanities) are not fact-based. Up until 10 years ago, Columbus was a good guy. The North is not always the good guy in the Civil War. You can end a sentence with a preposition, sometimes. Etc.

No, it doesn’t sound insane—just a different angle than I would take. I am very concerned about developing the whole child and full-range literacy/critical reasoning skills. Although, I would love to put the unmotivated couldn’t-care-less kids in a different wing and let them figure themselves out. :D

@poisonedantidote

I read everything you wrote and I agree with about 90% of it, and this part stood out to me the most: If they wear a massive sombrero that stops people behind them seeing the blackboard they must remove it (classroom obedience) however you can’t make them remove a baseball cap or other reasonable hat, because you think it is “bad manners” or “offensive to god” or something like that. It’s so. fucking. true.

I also agree with your ideas about sex ed, and absence of personal opinions in the classroom.

@Aethelflaed

I honestly don’t know what the home economics class was like at my school; not a single one of my friends took it; it was that unpopular.

And I completely agree about symbolism; it seemed most of my literature classes were loaded with symbolism. We were supposed to be writing about what the author never intended and I almost couldn’t do it except for the fact that I loved my English so much. I know she loved that stuff, but it seemed so useless and asinine to me.

@linguaphile

Teachers that do not show the students how to figure things out without help as well as others would be the ones to earn less. The key would be giving them the tools to figure out how to pass the test.

Side note:

Regarding abstinence, you would still be able to teach that it is the most effective way to avoid STD’s and unwanted kids, but must stil teach the bacts.

Also…

This is not etched in stone. Yes I take it seriously, but if a teacher slips up and puts a bit of opinion on something one day, it’s no big deal. If they tell a kid “you can do it” or “you will never amount to anything” once or twice, we can let it slide.

@poisonedantidote – eduation reflects the kind of society people want to live in. I don’t want to live in yours; it’s unfair.

@poisonedantidote There’s a lot of research lately on how the current system has taken ‘curiosity’ away from students. I just did a 25 page research paper for one of my classes this summer on this topic.

Harvard/Stanford/UCBerkeley did a joint research where they studied how a large number of kindergarten kids reacted to a certain toy.

For Group A, the teacher came into the classroom all excited about a new toy that could do 7 things. She told them the toy could do many things and showed them all 7 things that the toy could do. Then left the toy and left the area- the kids were observed.

For Group B, the teacher came into the classroom all excited about a new toy that could do 7 things. She told them the toy could do many things and showed them only ONE thing that the toy could do. Then left the toy and left the area- the kids were observed.

The consistent result was: Group A kids: did not show further interest in the toy, tried a few things then were bored and found other things to do, did not develop bonding with each other or the toy. Information was given to them so they determined that was the only information available and did not develop excitement about the information.

Group B kids: became curious then as a group, discovered all the other things the toy could do. They bonded with each other and the toy, developed their own critical reasoning and cause-effect skills. They were enthusiastic about explaining what the toy could do and wanted to know more. They were allowed the joy of discovery and were more interested in their learning.

I find that to be true whether the kid’s 5 or 18. Our Teach to the TEST culture has taken away the joy of discovery and self-reliablilty factor from education and I can see the marked difference in my classroom.

If I could change the whole system, I would drastically increase the opportunities for developing Group B’s skill—so yes, I agree with your concept of making kids learn how to find information themselves. I tell my students that their brains can hold only so much, but if they know how to find information, the world’s at their beck and call.

@linguaphile Thanks for your contributions in this thread; it’s really interesting to read about education from the perspective of a teacher.

I especially liked what you said about curiosity. I agree that more chances for students to discover on their own in the classroom would be welcome. I have to add that I think this would have to be accompanied by a slower pace of work. In my experiences in high school, I was too busy trying to get everything done that was due and study the material for the tests coming up to spend any time caring about the subject beyond what I needed to know for the test. I think this is a huge problem in schools; keeping the kids too busy with the testing material doesn’t allow for time to be curious beyond that. It also has the result of learning in short term memory only – via “cramming” – and not retaining the information in the long term.

@Mariah And thank you for your reply! Oh yeah, I see overworked kids in my school too. I do consider myself somewhat a “rebel teacher-” I teach what they need to know for the tests, state standards, etc.. yes, but at least once a week I’ll turn Socratic and use the week’s topics to lead an open discussion on how the week’s topic is relevant to the world. It’s amazing what kids come up with then they’re allowed to think out loud. I love it- they end up teaching me! One example is we had a discussion about how MacBeth relates to today and one kid came up with how Star Wars could be Shakespearean in structure and argued his point very well with sustaining examples. Another kid made cutouts of arms for every football and volleyball victory we had that semester to hang in the hall by my door (emulating Beowulf). Those are my favorite moments, but they’re so NOT testable. :(

Unfortunately, I’ve seen a shift in the last 2 years—the kids nowadays are showing very little interest in open discussions and I’m hearing from my classmates in my online education classes that other regions of the country are experiencing the same thing. I wish I could figure out why. sigh.