Most people aren't complaining about the basics, it's that for all of them you're forced to keep taking harder and harder courses of those throughout school rather than hitting what should be the core and allowing students then to try many more varied courses to find a field they actually like so they aren't drowned in debt in college trying to find a major they like.
I see your point, and I believe part of the purpose of school is to give you a taste of various fields and types of knowledge so you can find what you like or are “good at,” and I agree that school isn’t always the best at doing that.
I don’t agree 100%- it’s sort of a given that you need to keep learning harder and harder courses because knowledge tends to Interrelate, even in specialized fields. If you decide to pursue engineering, architecture, science, plenty of technology, business, finance, many trades- you’ll likely need advanced math and it’s better to learn it for fre than pay hundreds or tens of thousands for semesters of math you don’t need. Going into engineering out of highschool I placed to where I didn’t need to take any non program specific math- with one required class I skipped being notoriously hard to get into and students “killing” a year or more waiting for their chance for example.
Science and math, trades and math go hand in hand. Wood work, metal work, it’s hard to do much with those with some geometry, algebra, and even trig or calculus. I’d say algebra and geometry are bare minimum fundamentals that any adult should have a good grasp of by the time they exit the mandatory school grades.
History is important for context and goes hand in hand. With civics (seldom if ever taught anymore in America at least.) f course kids don’t necessarily need to learn and relearn the same periods of history over and over in more detail on a rotating basis as there is a lot of history and types of history.
Physics and earth sciences and chemistry not only go hand in hand to math but are doors to many careers from trades to research and useful in daily life.
I use chemistry all the time- cooking, choosing methods and chemicals for cleaning the house or laundry, painting, crafts, handiwork, avoiding dangerous situations, understanding medicine and in survival situations etc.
these things aren’t just about careers but about life.
Physics are the fundamental rules of movement and existence. If you grasp the fundamentals you can understand and figure out most day to day physical things.
How to best heat food, safety in your car or on your bike, building, moving things around the house, fighting and self defense, risk assessment in general choices and so forth.
Chemistry, math, these also give you fundamental tools for problem solving and knowing the basics and using some thought can allow you to take the information on hand and make good decisions and get things done. History and social studies provide a sort of framework like that for social thought, politics, etc. though that’s more subjective or abstract.
I hated school when I was younger and saw so much pointlessness and waste but as I got older I realized how much opportunity there was, and I just didn’t use it well while I was there. My life could have gone very differently- not that I’m unhappy with how it’s turned out, but some things could be better or have gone better etc.
Overall you can’t win. School is already an easy 8 hours a day plus usually home work. To teach the basics and more they’d need more time or a more intense curriculum. Many kids struggle with what already is, and many more would be left behind if things were more intense. Longer hours can fit more but if kids are burned out- sometimes shorter hours give better results, and longer hours wouid rob kids of what life they have in youth and the time to self discover and explore the world independently, be with family, socialize etc.
most schools do offer clubs and extra curriculars to allow students opportunity to learn and explore outside the standard courses. Kids need to take advantage of that though for it to be worth anything.
Today I watched my friends kid face plant on stone after being told then yelled at 5 times not to run on the stone because they’d fall. After they fell they cried, calmed down, and then went back to running shortly. Myself and probably 90% of people on earth have our own experiences where we didn’t listen as teens or a teen didn’t listen and then the obvious consequences occurred. Even if you had the “perfect curriculum” good luck getting a highschool kid who knows better than you or “lives in a different world then you can understand” or whatever to follow it.
But there isn’t really one- as far as we know. Least not one that works and can be practically applied across a general mass audience.
If you tailor make the experience to each kid and their unique traits using intimate knowledge and keen insight into their wants and needs and likely path and psychology etc- maybe. That isn’t practical though. Even “grouping” kids who fit certain templates isn’t. Leaving ethics and other issues out of it.
What I think school REALLY does to prepare you for the real world is not in the classes and such.
It is a condensed and simplified world.
You do pointless things because you are asked. Someone always has some power or authority over you and you don’t always agree or they aren’t always smarter or even capable. You are given only so much in the form of information and opportunity and the rest you have to find. The unifying truth across nations and time in humanity has always been the need to figure out how to get what you want, and how to keep it.
College isn’t a whole lot different. Ivy leagues aren’t generally sought because of better education- sure they often have elite faculty and more funding but- it’s more about experience and networking.
Soooo many jobs, even technical jobs, require degrees but you don’t actually need a degree to do the job. Many, a degree doesn’t make you any more likely to be better at it or even more likely to have the basic skills. A college degree says you play by the rules. You went to the place you were supposed to. You had money or got loans that make sure the financial world turns or you went through hurdles and paper work to get financial assistance. You checked boxes off a list and time managed and did things even when they seemed pointless. You took that semester of basket weaving to get those elective creds.
Here’s the not so secret secret. Prison is where we put people who can’t behave in an office. That’s basically it. You missed appointments or didn’t turn in paper work on time (failure to appear in court, failure to pay tickets, failure to correct citation, failure to report to PO officer etc…) you failed to follow rules even if they seemed pointless or it was reasonable not to (cannabis use, speeding alone on an empty “safe road” etc.) You behaved disruptively, you used violence either by your nature or because you had no other power against the other party etc.
It’s all a game. You generally need credit to buy a house. It’s hard to buy a new car for most people without it. Many can’t live day to day without it. You can’t get many jobs without it. You get a higher score for being a more frequent deadbeat. If you tried to borrow money from me every month, even if we are family, you don’t have “good credit” with me even if you pay me back. I’d tell you to get your life together. If you need to borrow money that often or you need to borrow money for a car etc. as an adult- you’re living outside your means or you are in a bad socio economic position or you need to do something.
You’re rewarded for borrowing because you make rich people money when you do. The more you borrow in life the more they make. The more their rich friends make because you’re probably borrowing money to give to them.
That’s how everything works just about. You are given a small reward or made to feel like you got a reward for doing things that support and perpetuate a system and feed money from the bottom to the top; or you are punished for doing things that disrupt or harm that system or refusing to participate- since if enough people simply don’t participate or falls apart. The people most benefited by the system at every level have every self interest generally to try and make sure everyone else uses and maintains the system so that they can continue to benefit. The people who actually want to disrupt it are usually the people who benefit the least and usually have the least power as individuals.
Schools is part of that system. Naturally as part of that system it seeks to perpetuate that system and instill in students the behaviors and thought processes and condition to enter that system and continue the cycle. It is also however true that school consequently does an excellent job, if one is mindful, of preparing you to enter that system. The system doesn’t require you to understand anything about it, it requires you to stay inside the lines. Even the “disruptors” tend to stay within the line no matter how “counter culture” or “anti establishment” they are because true “disruptors” of systems usually don’t make the news or become household names unless they are known as c
Criminals or martyrs. The media at large is part of that system- even if not directly controlled by- owned and beholden to that system and only able to benefit because they exist within the system. So school doesn’t really need to care about what you want to do. People with the skill, disposition, potential, and means to do what they want and find their passions in life generally do.
To borrow a meme- most people are NPC’s objectively in that sense even if subjectively they are not. That’s why average is called average. That’s why genius in a field is lauded. If it was so common it wouldn’t be.
The world has a huge share of mediocre and less than mediocre people. Ho hum. Perhaps sufficient for some use or another, able to contribute but not spectacular in abilities or character or drive.
Those people aren’t likely to end up doing much unless it’s given to them or they get lucky or have some transformative experience. Not every worse will be champion and lots of horses will never even win a race. Most probably will never even finish first. Call it their genes or their training or blame the jockey- doesn’t matter.
You can’t reach excellence. Excellence is self realized quality. Through drills and focussed training you can either get a persons best- whatever their individual best may be- or you can almost always train them procedurally to a task within their abilities. With the right training and the ability to follow a list, you can put most people on the moon if nothing goes wrong.
People want the exceptional life, or the great life, or the good life- but people aren’t always putting out exceptional, great, good, or even average. So much is subjective but the objective test? How can you objectively apply a metric for ability? Results. If you’re doing the job you love and have the life you want then you’re doing exceptional in general. The closer you are to that fulfillment, the better off.
It’s harsh. It’s rough. No one likes it, not even me, but end of day, all other factors asides, you have what you want or you don’t. If you don’t, you either are on the road to having it or you aren’t. There isn’t a class for decisiveness or determination, discipline…you can learn those things doing almost anything- if you apply yourself.
Others decisions influence our existences but ultimately our lives are the product of choices we make so long as we have the freedom and equality in opportunity that others have.
And well- it’s silly to expect a kid to decide their future. Even if you pick something and don’t regret it- people change careers and such at 30,40,50+. College for most people is still very much a time of self discovery. Most kids that age don’t even know who they are. If you meet a 35+ adult who is the same as highschool or college that’s usually really sad. We grow. So even if you had more opportunity to explore in school your odds of knowing what you want are slim because knowing what is out there is only part of the puzzle, to know what someone wants you need to know who they are, and if you don’t know who you are yet you can’t really know what you want.
Worse- knowing you like something doesn’t mean you’ll like the careers or work in that field. Happens all the time. People get into the workforce and decide to go back to school or change careers because they can’t stand the work. And how could school prepare you for that? How will it give you both a wide but still functional sampling of courses AND a sufficient understanding of the workload, culture, day to day, stresses, pay and benefits etc. of each one to decide or just if you like it- but if you’d like to do that for work?
And then… study after study shows… even mature adults are terrible at knowing what we want or reconciling that certain things tend to be mutually exclusive.
From relationships to lifestyle, work, where we live and more- people tend to do terribly on tests comparing what we say we want to what actually makes us happy or the choices we make.
And THEN, we add in all the data that shows that we also tend to be happy.. because we decided to. Yeah. Odd but true.
Marriages and relationships generally come down to the fact that as long as the people involved WANT them to work, they will work. That’s what breaks people up and causes divorces more than infidelity or abuse or irresponsibility or thoughtlessness or incompatibility. It’s when two people decide they don’t want to be together. It isn’t worth the work or sacrifice. But what makes one person out of 7 billion worth much work or sacrifice at all? Why stay with a man who had a baby with another woman, stay with a woman who keyed your car or slept with your best friend…?
Why not go find someone new? Why not? Exactly. If you think that way, you’ll likely just do that. You won’t have the stable of term relationship. And what do you lose..?
Because for all we put into dating and mating- the work and effort and such- studies also show you are not likely to be appreciably any happier when you die if you lived single so long as you had hobbies and friends and some other fulfillment of needs. What?! Yeah. So we are terrible at knowing ourselves. Even with the extra emphasis it places on wanting to stay together, roughly half of marriages fail- despite a good 90% involving two people confident enough to vow to be together forever and to tie their legal and financial fates. But fun fact- that 50% stat is general.
It averages out as older people tend to be less likely to divorce and for example, those married young- like in their early 20’s, have a SIXTY percent divorce rate. Because of course. As stated, it’s hard to agree to be together for life or even a few years with someone who isn’t even fully realized as a person. Your marrying someone who will likely not exist in 1-5 years because easily into the 20’s most people
STILL have no real idea who they are or what they want in life. And those who do will generally then go be that person and do those things and get what they want.
Brining is back to the sad and simple facts from earlier. People who become astronauts generally know they want it and work at it. They have generally made the “right choices” in life and didn’t need much hand holding to get there because the personality of someone who does things like that is such. You are who you are. You can learn to go against your nature and with enough time and repetition it can become second nature- but a lazy person for example is always a lazy person even if will and routine allows them to do more than a lazy person naturally would.
There are people who love to work out. They will naturally wake up at 5am and naturally and gladly go to bed at 9pm. They do not like the taste of sweets and they live the taste of things dig out from dirt.
Then there are people who don’t.
Even if you don’t wake at 5 and live for that burning feeling after a long run and hard workout and even if you hate veggies and live junk- you can make yourself do the routine of the natural “goody goody.”
The goody goody will do it everyday and love life and you won’t love it but you’ll do it. The goody goody will default to that behavior. When they are tired or sick or depressed or unmotivated or stressed they’ll do goody goody things. The lay person will default to lazy the moment their routine or will lower is taxed too far or broken.
Just about everyone can have abs or be fit and healthy and not everyone does or is. There aren’t secrets and it’s well known how to do it all. All it requires is minimal effort and consistency for most people. Yet here we are. Because the people who are going to do it don’t need to be made to do it. They don’t need cajoling or hand holding. They’ll do it either way.
That’s school. That’s life. Some people do and some people don’t. There are paths in life that are almost guaranteed to go well and in America they are well documented and open to basically everyone.
Luck and such play their part but in general you do these things this way. You take these classes and get these grades. You do these activities. You do these jobs and act this way at work. You do these things worth your money and have these hobbies and these priorities and if you do things that way, you’ll almost always do fine.
Those ways don’t make everyone happy though. I hate golf. I won’t play it even if it has hurt me in my Carter and business and social life. I don’t care. I won’t do it. If I did, and if I drive the car that guys my age who play golf drive and discuss the topics and live in the place and etc etc. then doors open. I don’t. So I have to open my own doors. When you are opening your own doors you are on your own and left to your wits and abilities. There is no class for not following the blue print. There is the blue print and then being on your own.
So school can’t teach you how to be happy, you can learn how from school, but learning and being taught aren’t the same.
School teaches what school needs to teach to fill its purpose and it is up to the student to learn what they need to learn. Your ability to figure out things on your own and fill gaps and get the “truth” out of what is in front of you in life to choose a path without all the details or advantages is something that only comes from you and how you interact with your environment. For help there you need things like family or mentors and wise friends etc. to help you discover the you that is most capable.
So I agree school isn’t perfect and I agree it can be improved and we should try, but I don’t entirely agree on all points of philosophy.
Not gonna read your whole thesis paper you wrote for some reason but to counter one point you said early colleges already need you to take core classes like maths. So even taking calculus+ math classes in high school like I did I still was forced to basically retake the same courses in college because they require you to take math. So high schools should stop forcing math past stat and shouldn't force science at all since its already a specialized field. History is fine and English is okay. Having harder or specialized courses available to those interested is fine but forcing kids to take courses that most won't need in college/life is dumb when school should be preparing kids for college/life instead of setting them up to go deep into debt finding a major in college.
If you do well enough in placement and/or have college prep classes in highschool you almost never need to take pre reqs like math and English.
Well- at least where I am from and when I went to school. Everywhere is different im sure.
I don’t agree 100%- it’s sort of a given that you need to keep learning harder and harder courses because knowledge tends to Interrelate, even in specialized fields. If you decide to pursue engineering, architecture, science, plenty of technology, business, finance, many trades- you’ll likely need advanced math and it’s better to learn it for fre than pay hundreds or tens of thousands for semesters of math you don’t need. Going into engineering out of highschool I placed to where I didn’t need to take any non program specific math- with one required class I skipped being notoriously hard to get into and students “killing” a year or more waiting for their chance for example.
History is important for context and goes hand in hand. With civics (seldom if ever taught anymore in America at least.) f course kids don’t necessarily need to learn and relearn the same periods of history over and over in more detail on a rotating basis as there is a lot of history and types of history.
Physics and earth sciences and chemistry not only go hand in hand to math but are doors to many careers from trades to research and useful in daily life.
these things aren’t just about careers but about life.
Physics are the fundamental rules of movement and existence. If you grasp the fundamentals you can understand and figure out most day to day physical things.
How to best heat food, safety in your car or on your bike, building, moving things around the house, fighting and self defense, risk assessment in general choices and so forth.
I hated school when I was younger and saw so much pointlessness and waste but as I got older I realized how much opportunity there was, and I just didn’t use it well while I was there. My life could have gone very differently- not that I’m unhappy with how it’s turned out, but some things could be better or have gone better etc.
most schools do offer clubs and extra curriculars to allow students opportunity to learn and explore outside the standard courses. Kids need to take advantage of that though for it to be worth anything.
But there isn’t really one- as far as we know. Least not one that works and can be practically applied across a general mass audience.
It is a condensed and simplified world.
You do pointless things because you are asked. Someone always has some power or authority over you and you don’t always agree or they aren’t always smarter or even capable. You are given only so much in the form of information and opportunity and the rest you have to find. The unifying truth across nations and time in humanity has always been the need to figure out how to get what you want, and how to keep it.
College isn’t a whole lot different. Ivy leagues aren’t generally sought because of better education- sure they often have elite faculty and more funding but- it’s more about experience and networking.
You’re rewarded for borrowing because you make rich people money when you do. The more you borrow in life the more they make. The more their rich friends make because you’re probably borrowing money to give to them.
The world has a huge share of mediocre and less than mediocre people. Ho hum. Perhaps sufficient for some use or another, able to contribute but not spectacular in abilities or character or drive.
Those people aren’t likely to end up doing much unless it’s given to them or they get lucky or have some transformative experience. Not every worse will be champion and lots of horses will never even win a race. Most probably will never even finish first. Call it their genes or their training or blame the jockey- doesn’t matter.
People want the exceptional life, or the great life, or the good life- but people aren’t always putting out exceptional, great, good, or even average. So much is subjective but the objective test? How can you objectively apply a metric for ability? Results. If you’re doing the job you love and have the life you want then you’re doing exceptional in general. The closer you are to that fulfillment, the better off.
Others decisions influence our existences but ultimately our lives are the product of choices we make so long as we have the freedom and equality in opportunity that others have.
From relationships to lifestyle, work, where we live and more- people tend to do terribly on tests comparing what we say we want to what actually makes us happy or the choices we make.
Marriages and relationships generally come down to the fact that as long as the people involved WANT them to work, they will work. That’s what breaks people up and causes divorces more than infidelity or abuse or irresponsibility or thoughtlessness or incompatibility. It’s when two people decide they don’t want to be together. It isn’t worth the work or sacrifice. But what makes one person out of 7 billion worth much work or sacrifice at all? Why stay with a man who had a baby with another woman, stay with a woman who keyed your car or slept with your best friend…?
Why not go find someone new? Why not? Exactly. If you think that way, you’ll likely just do that. You won’t have the stable of term relationship. And what do you lose..?
It averages out as older people tend to be less likely to divorce and for example, those married young- like in their early 20’s, have a SIXTY percent divorce rate. Because of course. As stated, it’s hard to agree to be together for life or even a few years with someone who isn’t even fully realized as a person. Your marrying someone who will likely not exist in 1-5 years because easily into the 20’s most people
Brining is back to the sad and simple facts from earlier. People who become astronauts generally know they want it and work at it. They have generally made the “right choices” in life and didn’t need much hand holding to get there because the personality of someone who does things like that is such. You are who you are. You can learn to go against your nature and with enough time and repetition it can become second nature- but a lazy person for example is always a lazy person even if will and routine allows them to do more than a lazy person naturally would.
Then there are people who don’t.
Even if you don’t wake at 5 and live for that burning feeling after a long run and hard workout and even if you hate veggies and live junk- you can make yourself do the routine of the natural “goody goody.”
The goody goody will do it everyday and love life and you won’t love it but you’ll do it. The goody goody will default to that behavior. When they are tired or sick or depressed or unmotivated or stressed they’ll do goody goody things. The lay person will default to lazy the moment their routine or will lower is taxed too far or broken.
That’s school. That’s life. Some people do and some people don’t. There are paths in life that are almost guaranteed to go well and in America they are well documented and open to basically everyone.
Luck and such play their part but in general you do these things this way. You take these classes and get these grades. You do these activities. You do these jobs and act this way at work. You do these things worth your money and have these hobbies and these priorities and if you do things that way, you’ll almost always do fine.
So school can’t teach you how to be happy, you can learn how from school, but learning and being taught aren’t the same.
So I agree school isn’t perfect and I agree it can be improved and we should try, but I don’t entirely agree on all points of philosophy.
Well- at least where I am from and when I went to school. Everywhere is different im sure.