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Hey Pandas, What Lessons Do You Think Should Be Taught In School? (Closed)
Apart from the normal lessons, what do you think kids today should be taught?
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Biology based on what we have learnt AFTER the 1950's.
Biological sex. Penis equals boy, vagina equals girl, is not accurate 100% of the time, and that is even before we introduce gender. The teaching of "fact" about pee pees and foo foos determining who you are is damaging people.
Taxes, finance, rent, how to get a job, THE SH*T WE ACTUALLY NEED TO KNOW
We learned those at my school. We had a compulsory class in year 10 called Economy and Society. We learned how to write a resume, how to look for and apply for a job. We did mock interviews with people from the community 'interviewing' us. We played a game like the game of life where we each had a persona and had to deal with the things as that character. We learned how to buy a house or a car, get insurance, apply for a rental etc. Also we had to do two weeks of work experience (I worked at a preschool). It was a great class, with one of my favourite teachers. It annoys me that not everyone gets that opportunity.
Please, please, PLEASE give us actual sex ed! I've only ever been taught abstinence, as per district policy, but my old health teacher took it upon herself to at least try to inform us about different types of birth control. We have never actually had any education on it other than that, and a basic overview of what STIs/STDs are. And all of that was from our teacher deciding that we needed to know, and the district couldn't do anything since she was retiring.
They should also talk about predators and how to get help if they need it.
Proper communication. Some kids just haven’t learned this, especially if they’ve lived in an abusive household where they may not have parents that are great role models.
It was in Grade 10 I learned about coercive, emotional and mental abuse. That was a hard class to sit in and concentrate, as every description the teacher was talking about I reflected on how I have been treated by my folks. Kids in all kinds of abusive households need a lot of work to understand what is healthy and not healthy. One thing that should definitely be mandatory is Psychology and there should always be Psychologists in the school to work with those who really need one but are not able to access one outside of school.
How to not be suicidal
I think it could help to give kids access to information about how and where they could get some help if they need it, without involving their parents first. Many times they need help because of their parents. They should be able to contact a local social service directly.
Your rights and freedom stated by the Charters.
How to report a right and freedom violation.
Tenant and Landlord rights and responsibilities.
Worker's rights.
I learned some of these in school because I was in a work education program that not very many kids got to be in. Some schools don't have these programs. But I think it's a great stepping stone:
At least 1 -2 week work experience stints of student's choosing of participating work sites.
Advanced computer skills.
How to calculate insurance rates.
How to invest money.
Making and putting a budget into action.
Figuring out which banks are best to have an account with and what accounts are best for your needs. (Parents can do this but they tend to be bias.)
An up-to-date guide on how to find jobs classified and unclassified (hidden job market), and how to contact employers to land interviews.
I believe Fine Arts and music should be mandatory. These areas can benefit so much in many ways. A lot of kids are experimenting with creativity. There are things in school kids can access that they can't at home, but may wish to try.
Gym should be about learning proper work out forms and more about inner workings of how the body works. When I was in Grade 12 Phys. Ed. it was mainly more like Health class. But there should be more visual demonstrations and activities.
Healthy communication and working as a team definitely should be better. School still fails to properly teach students how to share the workload and work together.
We did a lot of this in school through our Economy and Society class and Legal Studies. We did two weeks work experience and also completed online occupational rights and safety and worker's rights modules. Everyone had to try out each of the electives offered when we started high school. This was one semester of art, metalwork, woodwork, food technology, textiles, visual communication and design and ceramics. Then when we get to pick which ones we wanted in year 9+. We had both sport and PE classes in year 7 & *. Sport was about learning individual sports, whereas PE was connected to health. We would have a double period of PE and one period of health in the week. In PE it was about general fitness and staying healthy. We would do things like the beep test (sprints, with the time allowed to get to the other side getting shorter, shown by a beep on a cassette tape lol) and circuit training.
Young children should be required to learn to appreciate the entire world's populations and cultures. I would love to see an updated social studies requirement for first or second graders that includes watching TV shows about all types of families. Where and how they live, eat, work and play with open discussions and Q & A. Andrew Zimmern's "Family Dinner" for example. Most importantly, home schoolers must be included in this requirement.
So many years wasted on colouring the map of Canada and finding the capitals. At least in Grade 4 we all did research projects on countries of our choice. I chose Mexico.
Adult life skills. Responsibility, how to get a job, how to save money, how to earn money, how to pay bills, finance, all the things you actually need to survive. Not the square root of pi to the fifth power multiplied by the hypotenuse of xz divided by y which equals zxy.
Here’s some:
Being taught to properly care for animals , being taught how to do taxes, and being taught to not be a Karen (wow I didn’t know id have to add that )
Internet literacy: As in how to be safe on the internet, how to recognize legitimate information versus misinformation or propaganda, how to recognize scams, etc. I know some teachers cover some of this in unrelated classes, but it really should be a formalized, universal requirement and taught early on.
I wish I was taught what the internet is and what the heck a web address is. Back in 1998 my computer teacher just expected us to know. I didn't. People to me to put in an address in the internet bar. So I put in my street address. I didn't know. I knew how to use a search engine, finally. My folks did have dial up internet but I wasn't allowed on the internet for fear of what I might look up and pedos. Instead of teaching me, they sheltered me away from it.
Actual life skills. Like cooking or organization or something. Academics are important but so is real-world experience.
And gardening basics, more would benefit from knowing how easy and inexpensive growing some vegetables can be!
How to play video games right
Whenever I'm watching yt vids on say mc or doors and someone's a noob I want to yell into the screen BRO THATS NOT GOW U PLAY THE GAME
Thank you Julie S for the interesting post, sorry that some people use it for petty neverending arguments.
Thank you Julie S for the interesting post, sorry that some people use it for petty neverending arguments.
