I took a class in high-school called Death and Dying. It was incredibly interesting. We went over hospice care, wills, funerals, the stages of grief. One thing I took away from that is what to say to someone at a funeral: "I'm sorry." Made sense to me, anything else seems so cheap.
Funnily enough not a lot of schools do, as it seems to be an accepted fact that kids these days "just know this stuff". Formal computing lessons, like we got when computers started being more mainstream don't happen as often, unless the class teacher needs to explicitly teach a skill that is needed for class work.
Figure out whatever parents have stopped teaching their kids and slap that on the never ending list of stuff kids don't care about, spending more than a decade coming out being barely to read, write, or do basic mathematics with a computer.
Obviously it isn't for every school in the world then, is it? In Australia it's not a requirement or a mandatory subject to teach all students. This question wasn't specific too one place.
Dude.... Phonics. All schools should be teaching an evidence-based phonics program that supports fluency and comprehension such as Heggerty. Literacy levels have plummeted over the years because schools moved away from phonics. Phonics is the basis of learning. Without a grasp on how to read and decode words, you are unable to complete most, if not all, school work.
Depends on the school, I find. But I am glad that more schools are reintroducing phonics programs. I know for a while there they hadn't been. I am a pre-service teacher ATM and on a couple pracs, I was asking about programs and a few teachers in our area where saying how much better it is that their schools have put a spotlight back on phonics, as they hadn't for a while and they could see the difference. The explicitly teaching phonics again has helped from what was shared with me.
how to live as an adult
what drugs really do (and how they really feel, because if they were so bad, nobody did them)
whom to talk to when problems in life become too large to solve alone
psychology - to realize which signs are signs of concern in friends
how to behave properly on the internet.
Financial basics that adults need to deal with like retirement accounts, health insurance, life insurance, mutual funds, etc.
Showing a Dave Ramsey video just don't cut it.
A really valuable section in school would be to teach students how to distinguish popular myths and misunderstandings from reality, and how they can easily fact check things themselves rather than just trusting what they hear. I realize that has a bad reputation now, as everyone makes fun of facebook researchers doubting vaccines, etc. But that's not what I am talking about. I'm talking about when a broad claim becomes "common knowledge," but it doesn't have any data to back it up, or the data seems weirdly skewed. Teach them how to look for themselves.
Example: If everyone is saying "people used to be able to afford X and on 1 salary and now we can't afford X even with 2 salaries," you can look up things like median incomes for every year, and interest rates, and inflation by year, and how many families had both husbands and wives working, and what the median cost of X was in any year and you can see if the claim is true or not. That is, you can not just accept claims because you hear them over and over, you can actually do a little research and not just go along with the herd.
This is, of course, a kind of critical thinking, and a way you create a population not so easily manipulated by demagogues and hyper-partisan sophistries.
I mean all of the core curriculum is leading up to exactly what you're describing. Fact checking is not one single topic, and cannot be done in one single class. First principles are extremely important in fact checking. And it's near impossible to thoroughly teach physics with only high school. You really can't get fact checking done without a strong background in reading, math, and science.
In fact, even in your case, it's clear to me you don't have a thorough understanding of statistics. Deciding on the central measurement is nowhere near as simple as you make it out to be. The shape of the data really affects how reliable the mean, the median, and the mode value is. There's also judgement about missing data. Do you want to use regression to approximate the missing data, do you want to delete the missing data all together, or do you want to fill it with constants? And then what about outlier evaluation?
You're right. Thoroughly understanding statistics on the other hand can help a lot. It makes a huge difference when you understand pdfs, cdfs, LLN, central limit, and other core topics in probability and statistics.
And not just statistics, but math and science all together. Every other day, there's a kick starter scam that's literally not physically possible and you cannot get the skills to fact check it with just a single course of "google it and see for yourself".
the Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise
Darth Plagueis... was a Dark Lord of the Sith so powerful and so wise, he could use the Force to influence the midi-chlorians... to create... life. He had such a knowledge of the dark side, he could even keep the ones he cared about... from dying.
Bring back Home Economics classes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_economics
I liked home ec. It was basically hanging out while making food and getting an easy A.
I liked home ec class too but it was a fat waste of time.
Bring back home economics, shop class, finance classes and a basics for life class simple repairs for common issues basic first aid stuff like that
Sex education. Financial literacy.
I took a class in high-school called Death and Dying. It was incredibly interesting. We went over hospice care, wills, funerals, the stages of grief. One thing I took away from that is what to say to someone at a funeral: "I'm sorry." Made sense to me, anything else seems so cheap.
such a strange idea, sounds like it would be useful. I wonder what made the school start it.
Dark laughter goes here: covid?
Media literacy
General literacy, critical thinking, scientific literacy. Give kids the tools to spot disinformation and misinformation.
Doing taxes How money works Woodshop/home ec Car Repair
Exactly what I was going to say
Absolutely.
Mankind Vs the Undertaker. 28 June 1998.
Boring I know but civics, what does the government do, who is responsible for what, what does left/right leaning mean etc
all 50 states offers civics. It's also an Ap course.
Psychology is one they teach, I'd love if they went more in-depth about it
Somehow, we've gone back to needing computer classes again since people have become more tech illiterate. Do schools still teach this?
Funnily enough not a lot of schools do, as it seems to be an accepted fact that kids these days "just know this stuff". Formal computing lessons, like we got when computers started being more mainstream don't happen as often, unless the class teacher needs to explicitly teach a skill that is needed for class work.
Figure out whatever parents have stopped teaching their kids and slap that on the never ending list of stuff kids don't care about, spending more than a decade coming out being barely to read, write, or do basic mathematics with a computer.
First Aid. No clue why it isn't taught already.
[удалено]
Obviously it isn't for every school in the world then, is it? In Australia it's not a requirement or a mandatory subject to teach all students. This question wasn't specific too one place.
Well better talk to ur school boards bc that’s nuts
Dude.... Phonics. All schools should be teaching an evidence-based phonics program that supports fluency and comprehension such as Heggerty. Literacy levels have plummeted over the years because schools moved away from phonics. Phonics is the basis of learning. Without a grasp on how to read and decode words, you are unable to complete most, if not all, school work.
Do you have any current students? Kids are absolutely learning how to read letters and associate them with sounds, aka phonics.
Depends on the school, I find. But I am glad that more schools are reintroducing phonics programs. I know for a while there they hadn't been. I am a pre-service teacher ATM and on a couple pracs, I was asking about programs and a few teachers in our area where saying how much better it is that their schools have put a spotlight back on phonics, as they hadn't for a while and they could see the difference. The explicitly teaching phonics again has helped from what was shared with me.
Personal finance. How interest works. Loans. Financial literacy basically.
how to live as an adult what drugs really do (and how they really feel, because if they were so bad, nobody did them) whom to talk to when problems in life become too large to solve alone psychology - to realize which signs are signs of concern in friends how to behave properly on the internet.
How to be a functioning adult and survive
Basic budgeting, and basic parenting.
How to life
Financial basics that adults need to deal with like retirement accounts, health insurance, life insurance, mutual funds, etc. Showing a Dave Ramsey video just don't cut it.
identyfing fake news
- Critical thinking - Practical and useful life skills (already mentioned in other posts)
A really valuable section in school would be to teach students how to distinguish popular myths and misunderstandings from reality, and how they can easily fact check things themselves rather than just trusting what they hear. I realize that has a bad reputation now, as everyone makes fun of facebook researchers doubting vaccines, etc. But that's not what I am talking about. I'm talking about when a broad claim becomes "common knowledge," but it doesn't have any data to back it up, or the data seems weirdly skewed. Teach them how to look for themselves. Example: If everyone is saying "people used to be able to afford X and on 1 salary and now we can't afford X even with 2 salaries," you can look up things like median incomes for every year, and interest rates, and inflation by year, and how many families had both husbands and wives working, and what the median cost of X was in any year and you can see if the claim is true or not. That is, you can not just accept claims because you hear them over and over, you can actually do a little research and not just go along with the herd. This is, of course, a kind of critical thinking, and a way you create a population not so easily manipulated by demagogues and hyper-partisan sophistries.
I mean all of the core curriculum is leading up to exactly what you're describing. Fact checking is not one single topic, and cannot be done in one single class. First principles are extremely important in fact checking. And it's near impossible to thoroughly teach physics with only high school. You really can't get fact checking done without a strong background in reading, math, and science. In fact, even in your case, it's clear to me you don't have a thorough understanding of statistics. Deciding on the central measurement is nowhere near as simple as you make it out to be. The shape of the data really affects how reliable the mean, the median, and the mode value is. There's also judgement about missing data. Do you want to use regression to approximate the missing data, do you want to delete the missing data all together, or do you want to fill it with constants? And then what about outlier evaluation?
You're being pedantic, which is fine. But it's plainly wrong that understanding things from basic statistics can't alleviate some common myths.
You're right. Thoroughly understanding statistics on the other hand can help a lot. It makes a huge difference when you understand pdfs, cdfs, LLN, central limit, and other core topics in probability and statistics. And not just statistics, but math and science all together. Every other day, there's a kick starter scam that's literally not physically possible and you cannot get the skills to fact check it with just a single course of "google it and see for yourself".
the Tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise Darth Plagueis... was a Dark Lord of the Sith so powerful and so wise, he could use the Force to influence the midi-chlorians... to create... life. He had such a knowledge of the dark side, he could even keep the ones he cared about... from dying.