Courses I wish were taught in high school

[archerships]

If I could go back in time, and re-design my elementary and high school curriculum, it would be very different. Here's some of the courses I would strongly encourage myself to take, if they were available:

Business Law
Basic Electronics/Electrical Repair
Automotive Maintenance/Repair
Investing and Finance
Critical Thinking (Logic, Propaganda, Influence)
Statistics (how to interpret scientific literature, importance of double blind, controlled trials)
Comparative Religion
How to Start and Operate a Small Business
Basic Woodworking (Build a bookshelf, bunk bed, crate, etc.)
Basic Machining/Welding (Repair rust damage to a vehicle, gunsmithing)
Gun Safety and Marksmanship
Typing
Public Speaking
How to Run a Political Campaign
Sewing
Emergency Survival Skills
Cooking and Food Storage
Emergency Medicine
Product Design
Self-control (how to refrain from self-destructive behavior, such as procrastination, over-eating)
Physiology of Excercise and Nutrition
Economics
Evolutionary Psychology
Dating, Mating, and Relationships
Chemistry of Cleaning and Cooking

Some of them I did take, such as Typing, Public Speaking, and Shop, but I wish more of the others had been available. How would you redesign your curriculum?

Comments

[ex-ilk.livejournal.com]

I think you covered the bases there. I would add

Basic Computer Security

Now that we have a populace that feels the need to click on any and all attachments like they were christmas presents. So much of the above could be
easier with a little basic knowledge. (just be sure anti-virus industry doesn't have a hand in the curriculum)

[visgoth.livejournal.com]

Agreed on all counts.

[crasch.livejournal.com]

Yep, Computer literacy should be there..

[faustin.livejournal.com]

Hear hear!

This is what I wish I'd learned:

Electronics
Electrical Engineering
The Importance of Complying With and Following Through On Bureaucratic Paperwork
Spreadsheets
Cooking

[crasch.livejournal.com]

Yep, Bureaucratic Navigation would be a helpful course.

[jette.livejournal.com]

This is my specialty. I'm just starting realize that other people think it's magic.

Meh. Typo.

[jette.livejournal.com]

"to realize"

[slit.livejournal.com]

I always wanted to design a four-year "Skills for Adult Living" class that would include driver's ed, health, home repair, parenting, budgeting and banking, sex education, media literacy, conflict resolution, career planning, the whole lot of it.

(As a bonus I thought it would bypass the whole birth control-vs.-abstinence debate, because it would be packed under the framework of "things you need to know when you're grown up." Of course if teenagers choose to use their newly-acquired knowledge earlier, whether in fixing a toilet or inserting a diaphragm, that's their own business. :) Either way, you can't accuse the schools of "promoting" anything....)

[crasch.livejournal.com]

Oooh, conflict resolution, that's a good one.

You might be able to get away with packing sex-ed into an "adult skills" package, but I suspect that those who are offended by such things would still protest vehemently.

Personally, I think that tax subsidies and compulsory schooling should end. That way, if you don't like the school's sex ed policies (or evolution/creationism, etc.) then you aren't forced to pay for them, or send your kids to them.

[slit.livejournal.com]

I agree compulsory schooling should end (though in a way it already has, because homeschooling is so easy), but eroding tax subsidies for education leaves millions of parents (realistically: mothers) unable to work. Even if you account for the kids who can go to work with their parents, the ones who can stay home alone, the families that can afford other options for their kids during the day, etc. etc. you've still got a large contingent of parents who'd be left without options and I've never seen a satisfactory solution to their needs that doesn't ultimately rely on '50s-era "women should be at home anyway"-style thinking (or, worse, '20s-era "sterilize the poor"-style thinking).

[crasch.livejournal.com]

Well, I prefer institutions where people get to choose how their resources are spent.

Since my neighbors have no say in whether or not we have the child, or how it's raised (thankfully), I don't think it's right to force them to pay for its upbringing.

If my mate and I can't afford to pay for daycare/education, and if both of us want to work, then the appropriate decision is not to have the kid in the first place.

[slit.livejournal.com]

If my mate and I can't afford to pay for daycare/education, and if both of us want to work, then the appropriate decision is not to have the kid in the first place.

It's not possible to make such a one-time decision with any kind of confidence. Spouses die, or become disabled. People divorce. Partner A might lose a good-paying job, forcing Partner B to pick up the slack.

I say this as a homeschooling mom who likes spending time with my kid, and one who's wondered why two people with very demanding jobs decide to have kids they'll never see (When Neurosurgeons Marry: Next On FOX!). But I don't think that translates into the belief that a 9- or 10-year-old needs a _parent_ round-the-clock (even though they might need some kind of supervision), and I don't think working class kids just shouldn't exist period. I'd certainly like to see an overhaul of the school system to the point where it's unrecognizable, but take away state subsidies for caretaking (such that they are) and you instantly ghettoize millions of people, most of them women.

[crasch.livejournal.com]

I want women and children to get out of the ghetto too. However, I think that tax-subsidies for schools are a big part of the reason people remain in the ghetto.

We both agree, I think, that public schools have many failings. Why do those failings persist, despite decades of political promises to "reform" the schools? In my view, the fundamental problem is that of all state-enforced monopolies: if your customers are forced to pay, what incentive do you have to change crappy policies? After all, you get the money either way. (Also, politicians like schools for indoctrination purposes.)

I expect that as long as schools are allowed to force people to pay, they will continue to perform poorly. If schools were freed, however, I expect innovation to bloom, and costs to go down (as less money is wasted on bureaucratic layers). In the end, I think "ghetto" kids and mothers would have a much better chance of breaking out of poverty than they do now.

It's not possible to make such a one-time decision with any kind of confidence. Spouses die, or become disabled. People divorce. Partner A might lose a good-paying job, forcing Partner B to pick up the slack.

Yes, this is true. Life involves risks. However, how do you know that subsidizing the risks of childbearing is the best way to spend the money? For example, how do you know that it wouldn't be better spent investing in new businesses? After all, if people have good jobs, they can afford to pay for schooling themselves. Or perhaps it would be better spent reducing other risks--for example, perhaps I would use the money to fund peace activist work, which might, in turn, help prevent the U.S. from waging a costly war.

Even if I were to spend the money on hookers and beer, on what ethical basis do parents have a higher claim to the money I've earned than I do? As far as I can see, the basis of the claim is: "there are more of us than there are of you. You have three choices a) pay b) move c) go to jail." While that is better than justifications in times past ("God says I'm King. Pay up, peasant, you're not going anywhere") I prefer to minimize institutions that rely on that justification as much as possible.

[ninjalawyer.livejournal.com]

Great list. I'd love to open my own school someday and have kids taught a course list that looks a lot like that.

[crasch.livejournal.com]

Thanks! If you every do create such a school, I look forward to seeing the curriculum.

[avphibes.livejournal.com]

Good list. I've always wondered why personal finance isn't required high school curriculum. Or even just some kind of "basic skills of living" course, to cover the rudimentary things that confront a person when they are living independently.

I also wish to god that more art schools would require practical business and legal courses. I know too many people who graduate with a lovely portfolio and no clue what to do with it.

[crasch.livejournal.com]

Yep, I agree--we need more business savvy artists.

[chronicfreetime.livejournal.com]

Forget all this practical stuff; I want to see a grade-school course in discrete mathematics. It seems that if you wait until college to expose people to discrete math, it's often too late for their brittle minds to learn.

[crasch.livejournal.com]

I may be wrong, but I suspect that when it comes to discrete mathematics, most grade schooler's minds aren't going to be particularly flexible either.

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

I find it ridiculous that people study Calculus before Logic. A properly taught philosophical course on logic early on would prevent much adult stupidity.

In high school they could do philosophy of science.

[linley.livejournal.com]

If schools taught all those things, when would students learn to read, perform basic math, about science and history, etc.? I agree that these skills are useful, whereas some of the things taught in elementary and secondary school now are not, but still. Students only have so much time.

What I wonder is why children aren't being taught some of these things at home. For instance, most parents should have a clue about cooking and food storage, although in this age of fast food it appears that fewer and fewer do.

Schools absolutely need more critical thinking throughout the curriculum, as well as more examples of how the basics students are learning apply to the real world. But with everyone teaching to goddam standardized tests, I doubt we'll see that anytime soon.

There's a really interesting article in the September issue of Harper's Magazine called "Against School" in which a former educator argues that mandatory schooling is designed to make sure that children never grow up--that they remain a mindless horde, ready to follow whatever the government says to do. I am leaning more and more toward homeschooling my future progeny every day.

Homeschooling

[sarahshevett.livejournal.com]

Do it!
You will never regret it.
Our only regret is we didn't do it sooner. And we are about the slackest homeschool teachers you can imagine.
But we still did a better job than he was getting in pubic school.

Re: Homeschooling

[lucystag.livejournal.com]

Wow, I always thought WE were the slackest homeschoolers ever...
I've never been to school in my 16 years, though. My dad the nutty libertarian claimed it turns you into a zombie...So this works for me.

[crasch.livejournal.com]

If schools taught all those things, when would students learn to read, perform basic math, about science and history, etc.?

Well, I plan to homeschool my kids too, so what they would actually learn would depend upon what they were most interested in. But I would encourage them to learn about the above, if only a two week "overview", so that they would know where to look if they needed further information.

I also think that math, history, and reading would be better taught in the service of the child's own interests or goals. For example, maybe the kid wants to buy a bike. Say he decides to mow lawns for the summer to earn the money. How long will it take? Well, how many lawns can he mow/week? How much will he make per lawn? How much will the gas/oil for the lawn mower cost? The need to learn basic math and perhaps algebra will be immediately apparent and useful, and therefore more likely to stick than artificial exercises divorced from the child's interests.

Thanks for the reference to Harper's article. I'll have to look it up.

Yeah, but..

[sarahshevett.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on alot of these, and I did take shop classes throughout school.

But who would you trust to teach a class on dating marriage and relationships? I mean, who has the textbook?
I don't trust anyone with this info.
Really...

[crasch.livejournal.com]

Perhaps it would've been better labelled as "A list of things I wish I had learned before age 18". Perhaps some of them, such as dating/marriage/relationships, would be best taught outside of a class.

[chutzpahgirl.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised your high school didn't include either Economics or sewing. I mean, I could teach you to sew. It's much easier than it looks.

I definitely echo the need for skills for adult living class. I was amazed when my own brother didn't know how to do his own laundry upon entering college.

Oh and Gun Safety and Marksmanship and Emergency Survival Skills are standard parts of the HS curriculum if you grow up in rural Colorado (I didn't, my boyfriend did).

rural public schools

[joe-tofu.livejournal.com]

We didn't learn Marksmanship but my school did teach us wilderness survival skills. (Actually that was kind of fun. The Navy has a base in the mountains near my home where they teach pilots how to survive if they are shot down over the taiga. They took us out there for a 3-day camping trip each year of junior high and taught us how to kill squirrels and build fires that the Russians can't detect.)

Anyway, aside from that, I was going to back up the point somebody made that rural public schools are TRAPS built to churn out hillbillies and prevent anybody's mind from expanding out of a certain box. I am so going to homeschool my children when I have them.

This is probably biting off more than I can chew but... do any of you homeschoolers have recommendations for books or other materials about how to homeschool?

[crasch.livejournal.com]

I can't remember now whether my high school had an economics class. If it did, I wouldn't have taken it because, at the time, economics seemed as dry as dust. Plus, it would been taught by one of three guys, coaches all, who taught the "social sciences". Let's just say that teaching was not their forte nor primary interest.

Sewing may have been offered via home ec classes. I wouldn't have taken it because sewing was, you know, girl stuff. Plus it seemed boring, and I didn't see any need for it. (Why not buy my clothes?)

I don't understand how people emerge from childhood, let alone adulthood, not knowing how to do laundry. I mean, you can learn how to do it by reading the back of the soap box.

[jette.livejournal.com]

As I may have said, I am homeschooling a teenager this year. I'm adding this to my memories.

[crasch.livejournal.com]

Cool!

[jette.livejournal.com]

Scratch that homeschooling, he got accepted to the high school he really wanted to go to, so we're letting him do that. I'll have to supplement with your list, though.

how to use your brain

[joe-tofu.livejournal.com]

So much of the stuff i'm learning in MBA school is stuff i should have learned in high school. it's all about analytical thinking. We take cases, which are just stories, and use different kinds of tools to understand and discuss them - math, logic, brainstorming, and so on. Except for accounting and finance classes there's really nothing "business" specific in the MBA curriculum. This should not be something hidden in a corner of america's universities, as it were, only for "business" students to discover.

[crasch.livejournal.com]

Yes, I agree. Business/life skills should be much more widely taught.

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

My list would be very similar.

I would also include: "How to Buy Things": how to find good deals, reliable products, how to avoid the trap of deceptive marketing, etc.

And another one: "Personal politics": what makes people like other people, how popularity works, how to make friends, how public opinion works, how to generate hype, how to make yourself loved/feared, how to compromise one's principles with how one will be perceived, etc. along with a practical lab for learning to pick up cues: visit some place for one day and try to guess who likes who, who trusts who, etc. (though it might be impractical... maybe simulations would be better)

At the Media Lab, there is a course called "How to make (almost) anything"

[crasch.livejournal.com]

Yes, those are good additions. The "how to make anything" course sounds like fun.

Public Schooling Offers more than Private

[(Anonymous)]

I would first like to start out by saying hi!! Public school's give you just about every class you would need and want is offered to you, and you get to work on your social skills that you can't do in a private school. Even though private schools are easier on your schedule it is not for sure that it will offer you what you need to learn.