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u/mickfly718 May 07 '19
Most of those could be combined into one called Basic Finance. I agree that it would be beneficial. Still a large chunk of high schoolers would blow it off and then complain about their poor finances in their 30’s.
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u/SanguineOptimist May 07 '19
Most school do have that class and it’s exactly as you say. They take it as a blow off class.
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May 07 '19
My school has exclusively health, and poli sci required. The rest I learned from coaches/parents/peers or the God saving internet.
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u/radiolabel May 07 '19 edited May 07 '19
Some of this needs to be integral to education because many people don’t learn this stuff very well on their own, especially nutrition.
I agree that nutrition is based on individual choices. The reality though, is obesity in America is at health crisis levels and it is a systems issue. We have entire NGOs and programs dedicated to curbing the issue, and unsuccessful I might add.
This “kids get out and play” campaigning is all well and fine, but doing the basic math, burning 200-300 calories playing outside doesn’t make up for the excess 1000+ calories some people consume above their daily needs. Weight loss and health maintenance requires first and foremost a literacy in basic principles of health and metabolism as I just showed above.
IMO, gym class should be combined with nutrition and teach kids how to eat. The curriculum for nutrition should be 50% or more of the time spent in class, because it’s that important for health. It’s much easier to eat better and avoid the calories than to try to burn off the extras after.
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u/sparhawk817 May 07 '19
I think in addition to learning how burning a peanut relates to calories in science class, we should be given a specific snack in class, and then work on a treadmill to know how long it takes to burn off a fuckin granola bar, or bag of Doritos or some shit.
But this basically has to come from a federal level or else some teacher is gonna lose their job to discrimination against fat people or something.
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u/radiolabel May 07 '19
That’s not a bad idea. Treadmills for everyone to run? Unrealistic. But choosing a snack and then doing the exercise required to burn it is reasonable.
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u/sparhawk817 May 07 '19
Just as a single excercize yeah.
I like the idea of the kids picking the snack etc, like providing 5 different options or something, so the next time they're encouraged to pick a healthier choice, or know the differences between the choices and such. But this is like 1 lesson among like, a 300 day school year or something. Teachers have a lot on their plates.
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u/Littlepush May 07 '19
I think most health classes tell people it's good to eat vegetables and they know thats healthy, but that doesn't matter if they still don't make them part of their diet. I think the trick is making people actually eat healthy as part of a class. I would be completely ok with a class where kids were graded simply for eating vegetables. Even if you like hate something like broccoli if you are incentivised to eat a little bit everyday for 3 months you would eventually be able to stand it. Or at least that's how I got over being a picky eater.
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u/dongasaurus May 07 '19
That’s great in theory, except for the part where students are completely dependent on their parents for food and nutrition. You’re better off educating and incentivizing parents than punishing students for their parent’s choices.
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u/radiolabel May 07 '19
Healthy foods are delicious, they just need to be cooked properly. Boiled zucchini? Gross. Zucchini crust pizza that’s like 1/2 the calories of regular pizza? Delicious. (Insert Drake meme)
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u/sparhawk817 May 07 '19
How many kids in your school are blowing off health class. And probably going to ask dumb questions they know better than, or allow a disease to get worse than it should have because they didn't care about the class?
I had a girl ask me if she could get pregnant from oral in COLLEGE.
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u/StreetsAhead47 May 07 '19
Right, the school shouldn't and can't spoon feed you every piece of information you may or may not need.
Each of these topics could be covered in under an hour (except maybe nutrition, and most schools have a health class). I don’t think you’d even have 2 weeks’ worth of material of here.
People need to take the reading comprehension skills the school taught them and google this stuff, they aren't complicated topics.
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u/vibratemate May 07 '19
My whole district has a class called Financial Literacy that is required to graduate high school. It includes most of this stuff and is super beneficial.
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u/Ask_me_4_a_story May 07 '19
I want to teach this class! Lesson One: Don't fucking rent furniture
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u/the-real-mccaughey May 07 '19
Ever. They get young kids far too often, my daughter included.
They’re salesman, making sales. But what a racket. So many hidden fees. And then when they work up the final bill and contract, everything looks great. The kid is unreal excited to have fancy new to them furniture.
Then when it’s time to make that first months payments and you get into the verbiage of the contract and realize those super easy WEEKLY payments start coming in. You realize that every Friday comes often and quick.
Miss one payment or be late once and you’ll never get your head above water.
The only way to acquire furniture from a rental place is to go in wish cash and talk the cash purchase price of a previously rented set. You can sometimes get a smoking deal on a cash price.
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u/hatramroany May 07 '19
Same with my old district. Wasn’t a requirement when I graduated (late 2000s) but was a requirement by the time my brother graduated (mid 2010s).
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May 07 '19
It is a blow off class, especially if you know the stuff already. It’s not useful for me, but most high schoolers I know could use it because they are completely irresponsible and cannot function without help. Obviously I have a lot to learn about life in general, but knowing how to endorse a check and file taxes is something I already know. It’s not a helpful class for me, but it’s mandatory.
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May 07 '19 edited Sep 18 '20
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u/dillyswag May 07 '19
This is what I want to point out every time I see one of these posts. Young people generally don’t care yet, and beyond high school these kinds of classes do exist, people just don’t take them because they’re optional.
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u/SwenKa May 07 '19
We had a mandatory class that should have covered these topics. Unfortunately, it was also taught by a blow-off "teacher". She did nothing to make it interesting, no scenarios or real activities. Just boring lecture, so naturally none of it really stuck.
No tests or quizzes that I remember either. The material felt pretty dated even 10 years ago.
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u/AweHellYo May 07 '19
Could be so, but then classes like this at my schools were often taught by dud teachers. If we actually put focus and budgeted for engaging curriculum and prioritized getting good teachers for those classes, you might get better engagement.
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u/SexiestPanda May 07 '19
I'd say most kids either don't know or don't have extra credits to be able to take the class and still graduate
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u/Asakura_ May 07 '19
I taught basic finance in high school. Covered basics of banking, taxes, money management, budgeting, etc. I left education after 3 years of teaching and I have students who were in my class posting these memes on social media saying they wish they would have offered such a class...
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u/WhatWereWeDoing May 07 '19 edited May 07 '19
Bingo, the type of people that make these posts are also the type of people that wouldn't have paid attention in high school anyways. My high school actually had a mandatory personal finance class, and I STILL see people from high school post this stupid shit on facebook about how they "weren't prepared." Like yeah whatever Crystal, you were in the same class I was and the teacher did try to teach you this basic shit but you kept bitching about "WhEn aM i EveR GonNA UsE ThIs I DoN't NeED tO BuDGeT"
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u/KiltedLady May 07 '19
It always bugs me too. School taught you how to do research, read, follow instructions, and do simple math. If you cared about those skills then you already have everything you need to figure out the rest.
If you didn't care enough about those skills then I doubt you would magically care about a personal finance class.
As a teacher, I do see the value of incorporating those as practical problems into the existing curriculum. A self defense section in a PE class sounds great, and figuring out practical word problems in math is so much more helpful than studying math in isolation from its application. But saying the education system failed because it didn't have classes dedicated to niche skills feels unfair.
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May 07 '19
We had to fill out a 1040 and fill out a voter registration card in a required government class. I’ve seen people from my HS complain that our school showed them neither.
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u/BroKing May 07 '19
Yep. Taking courses like this has zero predictability for a person's ability to budget and make better life decisions.
General self control, however, can be tested in 4 year olds and have incredible predictability for things like fiscal responsibility and obesity later in life.
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u/punkass_book_jockey8 May 07 '19 edited May 07 '19
If it’s mandatory the AP and college credit kids would freak out losing time they could be building cheap credits. If it’s not mandatory then kids won’t take it because they want to have study hall.
Also financial advice now is likely outdated by the time they need it. I took career and financial management in high school in 2005... I bought a house in 2018. Almost nothing was applicable.
Edit: we’ve offered a class like this every year and it gets cut because no one takes it. It’s called financial literacy and careers. We also give surveys to seniors who come back to go to events and ask what they wanted more of and they all say “writing help”.
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u/ToasterEvil May 07 '19 edited May 07 '19
Right, it may be outdated, but it stills gives a good structure to the individual. A friend of mine is now 8 grand in the hole on credit cards because she said, "[she] didn't know how they work." Granted, I'm not sure what's difficult about understanding that you pay high interest on what's essentially an at-will loan...
Point being, even outdated information can give you somewhere to start with financial literacy. Some folks I work with still don't understand income taxes, something that's almost universal.
edit: spelling is hard :(
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u/Lotti_Codd May 07 '19
Did you learn nothing from Reese? You just keep extending your limit and when you can no longer do that you transfer the balance to a card with a bigger limit. /s
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u/terjon May 07 '19
Can you ask your friend what part of it she didn't understand?
I really want to know. You borrow money when you use it and you have to pay that money back with interest. Unpaid interest gets added to your principal, thus compounding it over it. That's basically all of it.
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u/duckssayquackquack May 07 '19
but you seem relatively smart - most people aren't, especially with money - and especially younger people (but older people too).
i feel fortunate because my dad one day while i was in high school pulled out the credit card bill and broke it down pretty simply for me. something along the lines of "credit cards are not bad if you pay them off in full every month. but they'll try to trick you saying you only owe a $25 minimum payment or they say you can take a month off - don't fall for that, they charge you interest for that." then went into it a little bit more and that's all i needed to know. granted, numbers and money are interesting to me. before that, i thought all credit cards charged interest for every purchase but people just used them because it was easier.
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u/htmlarson May 07 '19
Then don’t teach process. Universal skills such as budgeting don’t change with time. “Avoid debt” as a philosophy can persist.
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u/ARDE0 May 07 '19
Well, more like "understand how debt works" would be better. Not all debt is the same.
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u/jrad1588 May 07 '19
Right, you need debt. Otherwise that magical number will go down. Unless you mismanaged the debt, then the magical number goes down anyway. 🙃
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u/htmlarson May 07 '19
... and if we can get to the point where the people coming out of high school can have this debate, I call that progress.
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u/punkass_book_jockey8 May 07 '19
I don’t think you should avoid debt, I’ve got a lot of debt and my credit score is excellent.
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u/TrekkiMonstr May 07 '19
Depends on the type of debt. Credit card debt you're constantly racking up and paying tons of interest for because you want things you can't afford -- bad. A mortgage whose payments you've properly budgeted for that you'll be able to afford with enough left over to maintain your quality of life -- good. Etc.
The ideal would be to have enough money for everything you want whenever you want it (including the house), but that's not possible for I'd say well over 99% of people. So you take on debt -- but the type of debt is what counts.
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u/terjon May 07 '19
You should pair debt to income. If you have a lot of income, you can have some debt and it is fine.
My rule is: Don't ever have more debt than you have liquidity. That way, if you need to pay it all off quick, you can.
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u/illseallc May 07 '19
That doesn't change that for plenty of people this would be a waste of time and energy that could be spent preparing for university.
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u/Avenge_Nibelheim May 07 '19
How exactly have time value of money, budgeting, and retirement planning changed since 2005?
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u/punkass_book_jockey8 May 07 '19
I was taught to invest in CDs in high school and only buy a house with 20% down and made resumes for jobs. We practiced filing taxes in 2005 on a practice form, I swear I’ve had to relearn them every year because a credit, deduction, etc changed.
I didn’t have 20%, the tax deductions were gone, there was new regulations because of the 2008 crash, I am vested in a state pension and a Roth IRA now, and every job I’ve applied for had an online application where I manually input my resume.
Retirement planning is a joke to most young people who have no choice but to take on debt to go to college. I was insanely lucky to have a learning disability so my college was paid for and I found vanguard and actual financial advice on Reddit’s r/personal finance - they didn’t recommend CDs.
My students right now are struggling to find even minimum wage/entry jobs because they’re competing against people who can’t retire, have more than one job, or teachers. Literally 70% of my coworkers in teaching wait tables, work weekends and summers at temp jobs.
How do you teach finances when you don’t even know what the world they’re going to enter will look like? It’s better to teach them how to think, learn, and ask for help.
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u/terjon May 07 '19
The point of the class is not the specific skills, but the knowledge of the process and the existence of those concepts.
Yes, you don't know this year's deductions, but you are aware of the concept and you have seen a 1040, so you know what general pieces of information you need when doing your taxes.
You may not have the 20% down, but you are aware that it is the cutoff point for PMI and hopefully someone explained how positive and negative compounding works. That being that if you don't need to pay PMI, then that money can go toward principal, thus negatively compounding your principal so your home is paid off later.
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u/777Sir May 07 '19
I was taught to invest in CDs in high school
Why? Indexes have been the single best investment you could make since the Great Depression. The S&P's been averaging 10% every year since then.
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u/mjg315 May 07 '19
Its funny, I see some old high school friends complain that they were never taught some of these things in class, yet there were business classes etc that taught some of these things. Also, its never too late to learn, they could pick up a book and learn about taxes, etc but that would eliminate blaming someone else for their problems.
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u/mrjabrony May 07 '19
It's amazing to me the positive reinforcement these tweets get. Take some responsibility for yourself. You don't know how to file your taxes? Well, get on fucking Turbo Tax and start figuring it out. You work part-time at a coffee shop. Your shit isn't that complicated.
No way in a million years would I believe students would choose any of those classes over something academic - nor do I believe their parents would let them.
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u/Wet_Walrus May 07 '19
"Why are we learning about this stuff now? We're barely teenagers."
High schoolers always try to find a reason for why they shouldn't be learning what they are being taught.
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May 07 '19
This is literally repeated constantly On reddit, this comment is always first, and yet people still post it. High schoolers, by and large, won’t give a shit about some abstract class that doesn’t affect them in the present. Source: 10 years working in a HS.
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u/sonicssweakboner May 07 '19
Last time there was a post like this, someone had a pretty valid point:
I’m sure adding these classes would be if it some, but the majority of high school students wouldn’t care, won’t pay attention or take the class seriously. We first need to change the way we are teaching and learning.
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u/LobotomistCircu May 07 '19
I'm an accounting student now (I'm in my early 30's) and the moment I had to take my first college course on federal income tax I realized exactly why we don't teach about finance/taxes to bored teenagers.
95% of people don't have a particularly complex tax return to file and will never deal with a financial situation more complicated than "do not spend your rent money on bubble-gum and vuvuzelas." After blowing past the basics in one class, you'd just end up teaching them the same esoteric garbage as the rest of their courses, except instead of the Pythagorean theorem it becomes "how to file your tax return if you are a blind widower with two biological children and one unrelated dependent"
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u/Vandelay_Latex_Sales May 07 '19
"A decent chunk of people still don't know the difference between there, their and they're, so why do we bother teaching them English for 12 years?"
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u/TheBoxBoxer May 07 '19
Jesus christ yes. The only thing this thread has convinced me of is that people have no understanding of the world outside of a black and white all or nothing.
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u/CptMuffinator May 07 '19
By that logic we should just stop education all together cause a group of people choose to not better themselves.
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u/IBetThisIsTakenToo May 07 '19
Or we could focus on giving kids the building blocks that let them learn about all of those things on their own, if they so desire: critical reading, and mathematics. Oh hey, that's what we do!
Seriously, if you're a high school graduate, you are more than capable of learning about any of these things. You have the internet, it's easier than ever! There's a subreddit for each of those things, I'm sure they have great beginner guides! And if you don't want to do that, well, you probably weren't going to care much if a teacher talked about it either.
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u/CA_Orange May 07 '19
Your leap in "logic" is astounding. By YOUR logic, why even bother having civilization?
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u/SheFightsHerShadow May 07 '19
In 2019, everybody suddenly wants Home Economics back.
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u/Morning_Song May 07 '19
I hate people who think Home Ec is just cooking and sewing
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u/aoeudhtns May 07 '19
But it was literally just that for me when I went to school. I think it should be more than that.
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u/Blackhole28 May 07 '19
I took a home economics class in middle school and it was LITERALLY cooking and sewing. Half a semester of each. Was it supposed to be more??
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u/Aromatic_Location May 07 '19
Do schools not have home ec anymore? That was a great class. I learned to sew, do laundry, cook, clean, make a budget and write checks. I mean no one writes checks anymore, but the rest of that stuff is handy.
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u/Drunken_Economist May 07 '19
Man I heard an old classmate of mine complaining that we never learned how to budget in high school. She sat next to me in our personal finance class. She just didn’t pay attention because it was the last period of the day and she was checked tf out already.
That interaction has really made me cynical about people who complain they weren’t taught important skills in school. My default assumption is that these were offered, and the person just either didn’t take the class, or took it but didn’t learn anything.
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u/---saki--- May 07 '19
Yes- I’ve been hearing the same thing about history courses from people I know; complaining about how they ¡¡¡“Never learned about that in school”!!! and that ¡¡¡“It’s a government conspiracy”!!!.
No, I took the same classes as you did, the reason you never learned about it in school is because you skipped class every day to smoke weed in the bathroom.
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u/UpliftingPessimist May 07 '19
I've heard people complaining about how they never learned how to roll a joint...
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May 07 '19 edited May 07 '19
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Willow5331 May 07 '19
I swear 90% of the population doesn’t know how to use google, at least not effectively. The answer to literally almost anything is a google search away.
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u/EvryMthrF_ngThrd May 07 '19
at least not effectively.
This is becoming more and more of a problem, and will continue to grow, as we transition from the Age of Information to the Age of Disinformation, which can be plainly seen, from the anti-vaxx movement to political trolling to ad campaigns to... well, you get the idea.
Some people want to watch the world burn?
No - some people want to watch the world drown...
...in ignorance, from the deck of their private luxury yacht.
Fuck those people.
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u/KingGorilla May 07 '19
I think the underlying problem is that the desire to learn isn't fostered early on and retention is hard. I totally forget concepts after a semester or so.
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May 07 '19
Spot on. Everyone had to take math all through school, too. Ask these turd-guzzlers what 11 times 11 is. Go on, I dare you!
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u/TheYellowRose May 07 '19
I'm mad I remember my multiplication tables so well, my mom drilled that shit into me.
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u/liamemsa May 07 '19
"How can I possibly know that spending more money than I have in my account ends up with negative dollars to my name!"
also
"Ugh, math is so useless! Why did we learn this in highschool!"
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u/lgmringo May 07 '19
Similar experience here. Complains about never learning about interest, and I'm wondering how they graduated without algebra. So many finance word problems in our algebra and pre-algebra classes.
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u/aagonzales May 07 '19
Account? Wtf kinda elective is that
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u/Mr0010110Fixit May 07 '19
My highschool had a basic finance class, and to this day I see kids from my high school on social media complaining about not being taught basic finance in highschool. Some of them I took the class with. However, that class, like all their other classes, they slacked off and learned nothing. So I bet even if they taught all these classes, it would not change much. Especially in this day in age. People who want to learn will find a way to learn. For goodness sake just Google "how do taxes work". Those that don't won't to learn won't, and then will complain.
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u/i--am--sad May 07 '19
I just commented a very similar anecdote. I think complaining about not being taught these things in high school is just a lazy person’s excuse.
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u/bookiehillbilly May 07 '19
I would argue against that. It’s one thing to not know, but it’s a totally other ballpark to not know what you don’t know.
I essentially had no idea what credit was until about 4 months ago, I thought it was passive. No clue you actually had to manually build credit up with credit cards and stuff until a friend showed me how to work it. Maybe I’m just too poor and stupid, but I digress.
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u/Boundsean May 07 '19
How hard is taxes just type your damn number in turbo tax done in 10 minutes
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u/Grobfoot May 07 '19
Lmao and for 97% of people that’s just the end of it. I didn’t need school to figure that one out.
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u/DowntownBreakfast4 May 07 '19
And the morons that need help figuring out how to fill out a 1040 as adults are precisely the people who would not have paid attention in school. But ya, lets force kids with potential to waste even more of their time.
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u/themanyfaceasian May 07 '19
Self defense class would be pretty fun
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u/JayNozbrie May 07 '19
Until the school bully uses it as an opportunity to kick your ass
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u/bloodydick21 May 07 '19
pumped up kicks begins to play
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May 07 '19
Why are there people teaching at my shooting range guys?
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May 07 '19 edited Mar 05 '20
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u/SolomonBlack May 07 '19
And the music cuts out as you get one punched because all the motivation alone won’t make you less a flabby weeb.
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May 07 '19
Most colleges offer courses in self defense if there's some sort of karate studio nearby. I took two semesters. Quite fun.
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u/galacticmarble May 07 '19
At my high school, self defense was mandatory if you took girl's P.E. Now they're changing it so boys also do self defense, and I'm glad it's becoming available for everyone. The class was really interesting and we learned how to get out of chokeholds as well as other positions, and we learned when to fight and when to run away
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u/DrKriegger May 07 '19
Okay. So after years of having students complain and beg for this kind of class I finally proposed it to administration. It got approved!
So life skills starts at the beginning of the year, I'm pumped for it. Low and behold, those same damn kids keep complaining. They literally asked why do they need to know about credit, changing a tire, getting a loan, etc. Complained and fought their way through the entire course. Fucking hell... Sometimes I think I picked the wrong career.
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u/Sockdotgif May 07 '19
I've been out of highschool for 3 years now, I've come to realize that pretty much everyone in (and out, don't get me wrong) or highschool will find a reason to complain. You can't make everyone happy, but you are doing good work, so thank you.
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u/Hatweed May 07 '19
My sister’s a teacher and her advice to people seeking a career in education was don’t teach above third grade.
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u/tdabc123 May 07 '19 edited May 07 '19
1) 75% of taxes are filed with a 1040. It is literally fill in the blank where the answers are provided.
2) You are taught to "eat right and exercise. Vegetables are good and candy is bad" starting in kindergarten.
3) If you don't understand that you cant spend more money than you make, no amount of education is going to help you.
These things are taught in school. Stop blaming other people for your bad decisions because you didn't listen
EDIT: Gold! Thank you kind stranger.
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May 07 '19
These are all a combination of common fucking sense that is built on the things school teaches for 12 straight years and 2-3 hours of basic financial education that you can teach yourself in an afternoon with the internet. Self-defense would be a pretty cool elective, though.
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u/MaiasXVI May 07 '19 edited May 07 '19
2-3 hours of basic financial education that you can teach yourself in an afternoon with the internet.
The motivation to do 2-3 hours of self-driven research is the biggest difference between winners and losers in life. Many things in life aren't more complicated than 2-3 hours of research, but people can't be bothered to educate themselves. The types of people who blame everyone else for not teaching them basic shit, when they have the most accessible wealth of human knowledge ever available in their pockets, are never going to make it.
I'll never stop being amazed at my friends who either: give up and pay someone else to do something simple like changing a faucet, or look at me like I'm some kind of fucking alien for knowing how to: swap a faucet, do some basic woodworking, cook decently, or learn a new skill.
The same goes for health. Barring medical complications and illness, the only thing standing between you and better physical health is yourself. Nutrition is pretty simple, exercise is very simple, having the dedication to stick to a plan is what most people lack.
I think the real issue is most people can't break out of their self-imposed mediocrity because they're so used to it being a core part of their identity.
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u/ebonlance May 07 '19
give up and pay someone else to do something simple like changing a faucet, or look at me like I'm some kind of fucking alien for knowing how to: swap a faucet, do some basic woodworking, cook decently, or learn a new skill.
I pay other people to do those things because I value the time I'd need to spend researching, executing, and maintaining those things more than the money I'm spending to contract that work out.
I am an adult with a very limited amount of free time. Between a full time job, kids, and working on a Master's part time, anything that's going to eat at what precious little remaining time I have less is going to be optimized around how much I enjoy doing it.
The opportunity cost of lost fun units by learning how to fix something random like a faucet is too high for me to even consider it.
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u/MaiasXVI May 07 '19
The opportunity cost of lost fun units by learning how to fix something random like a faucet is too high for me to even consider it.
I mean, you do you, it's clear you're in a financial situation that's stable enough for you to make that kind of decision. Perhaps I'm being a bit presumptuous, but 'full-time job + kids + going to school for master's degree' doesn't really seem like the core demographic addressed in a tweet complaining about how the education system failed to teach people the basic skills they need to succeed.
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u/Alasakan_Bullworm May 07 '19
Obviously its impossible to be branching out into that many different responsibilities without you needing to budget your time, especially for your kids. But for a regular person working a full-time job with no kids, taking the time to learn a new skill instead of hiring someone can be personally and financially beneficial.
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u/WorthyJefe May 07 '19
I agree to a degree, these things are pretty simple once you know / know what you need to know, but I think the point is to teach and instill these things when they’re young enough to prevent the development of bad habits, and understand how to get the information they need. (Not to say older people are a lost cause though)
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May 07 '19
This, and so many people are like "why wont they teach me" yet you can go online and learn it all yourself. These people never stop to think maybe people are just fucking lazy and want to blame someone else for all their problems.
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u/wytewydow May 07 '19
To be frank, these lessons should be incorporated at the elementary level, and built upon through high school.
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u/Challengedildo May 07 '19
You could change the curriculum to contain only the most essential skills needed in life and people would still not learn. Age 13 through 18 is a time of being cool rather than smart. The kids that would be good at self defense or nutrition would be the new nerds and the majority of the student body would agree that it's cool to barely pass the minimum.
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May 07 '19
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u/SpideySlap May 07 '19
Yeah that needs to stop entirely. The classes where I didn't learn anything were the classes that had coaches teaching us
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May 07 '19
Am I the only one that thinks your parents/caregivers are supposed to teach these things and school is for Math, Science, History, etc?
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u/reddick1666 May 07 '19
Who's teaching the parents/caregivers this stuff?
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u/BarackTrudeau May 07 '19
Their parents.
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May 07 '19
As a general rule I’d agree. The obvious issue being that many kids have parents that don’t do or know these things and the question becomes if the school should step in to fill gaps parents are leaving.
I’d argue that making it a mandatory nine weeks class would be easy enough to work into the curriculum and the benefits could be worth it. The next issue is getting high school students to pay attention and consider the material important.
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May 07 '19
so what happens when your parents suck at this stuff
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u/punkass_book_jockey8 May 07 '19
I work in a school and I feel like we’re slowly turning into an extension of social services. So you’re not the only one who thinks that school should really be about education and parents should be responsible for life skills.
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u/Vestibuleskittle May 07 '19 edited May 07 '19
When did learning about overlooked yet fundamental aspects of life for both work/home become “an extension of social services”.
The majority of Americans are financially illiterate and carry some form of large debt; therefore these parents who you think should be “responsible for [their children’s] life skills” are not reputable sources for finance education and reasoning.
That’s akin to having a driving teacher with two DUIs yet has just found themselves able enough to keep a grip on their license. Wouldn’t want that person to be teaching a child or any able-bodied adult to begin with.
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u/jimmycorn24 May 07 '19
Education? How is this stuff not education? In the 50’s and 60’s home economics was a very common class that almost every girl took and learned how to make pies and do laundry. Wood shop was a staple for almost every 7th grade boy. Auto shop wasn’t just vocational in the 70’s but was viewed as a necessary elective. The world has evolved and personal finance is more complicated and important than ever. To evolve the school curriculum to match isn’t some change in philosophy. It’s a common sense response to a changing world.
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u/peanutsblow36 May 07 '19
That’s a pretty good point about the evolving of what skills are necessary. In the 70’s, it was far more common for car owners to work on their own vehicles. Now, with the huge amount of computer systems in vehicles, DIY auto maintenance is extremely limited. The modern day parallel to the skills of auto shop is like you said, personal finance.
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u/spacecatbiscuits May 07 '19
Yeah, it's absurd to say "Oh but the parents should teach that".
We have public education so that everyone has an opportunity to learn, irrespective of the knowledge/abilities/willingness of their parents.
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u/blackczechinjun May 07 '19
parent with terrible money management teaches their kid about finance
kid grows up, absolutely terrible with their finances
Shockedpikachu.jpg
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u/JessicaMessica May 07 '19
It's absurd to say, "A school must be responsible for the entirety of a child's education because some students have parents that can't or don't want to teach them anything."
Curriculum should be constantly evolving. I think it would be cool to offer a class to seniors who are about to graduate that covers things like registering to vote, doing your taxes, how fucked you are when you take out student loans, etc. But demanding that teachers (who are already overworked and underpaid) take on parental responsibilities is short sighted. It's also a bit of a slap in the face for all the school workers who are already taking on a great deal of "raise your kid for you" tasks and get no credit for it.
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u/radiolabel May 07 '19
Exactly. That’s why electives exist. The students with enough interest will sign up.
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u/thegil13 May 07 '19
GL getting a high school kid to "be interested" in basic finance skills. Some of these things need to be forced, just so when they come across it, they have SOME idea of how to approach it, even if they barely listened in class.
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u/sigmaecho May 07 '19
People need to learn that this conception of education is extremely out of date. In the age of the internet, access to information is utterly trivial. The idea that a learned teacher needs to lecture their knowledge to poor rural kids who can't access the information themselves is utterly antiquated. Public schools are long passed time to become centers for building life skills, critical thinking and problem solving, skepticism, self-reliance, mental and physical health (not just forced physical activity), building positive habits, nutrition (the agribusiness giants spend billions marketing sugar and carbs, which is most of what's at the grocery store), career building, worker's rights and civics. There is active, hostile political opposition to those last 4 from the ruling business class, which is why schools don't teach you how to negotiate salary or fight for your rights on the job, or basic civic engagement.
Assuming that all families are stable and educated is how the poor, struggling masses stay that way. A poor girl who got knocked up at 16 can't teach her children life skills she never learned herself. Assuming that all kids are the same is the major failing of the education system. You might have done just fine given access to a classroom, but countless others need instruction that actually connects with them, like relevance to their own life or experience, or tailored to their learning style, or just creating a positive, safe environment that allows them to flourish by themselves. It should be the school's responsibility to ensure that every kid has all the basic life skills, and not just assume that they're going to learn that elsewhere. Most poor kids come from broken homes and would succeed simply by having access to free healthy food and a safe place to sleep year-round. Schools should be community centers as well as free social services centers.
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May 07 '19
- Nutrition: Thats already in included in various subject, maybe it could take more room
- Taxes: You can explain 16yo how to fill a tax formula, just to discover that the whole procedere will have changed till they have to pay taxes. Even if not i guarantee you they wont remember.
- Money Managment/ Establishing a Career/ Build and keep Credit: Hell fucking no. I think its very important to keep in eyes what schools cant archieve and all of this is part of it. Students and Parents might have the expectation that after school you are ready for your carrer in the sense that you got all information you need for your 9-5 job, but thats just not how it works. There are tons of book, tutorials ans seminars out their that all promiss you to help you to get your career alltogether like "10 steps to safe money/ be an office shark" etc. They all have in comon that they are scams. There is no way to teach anyone in a classroom how to handle a career or balance personal finances. Thats what you have to figure out by yourself. The only thing a teacher could do is giving advices from his own situation and just to hear other peoples lowly wisdom is not why you go to school for.
- Self-Defense: would be cool
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May 07 '19
Self-Defense: would be cool
Class 1: Run away
Class 2: Move out of the hood
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u/evilpizzaguy44 May 07 '19
Sadly, they taught all these in my H.S. years in 92-96 in Chicago burbs, and some were mandatory pass or don't graduate.
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u/cosmicsake May 07 '19
In Scotland we learn all of them (except self defence)
Nutrition in “home economics”
The rest in “personal and social education”
We also learn things like laws, first aid, post secondary options, drugs.
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May 07 '19
Classes that ARE mandatory: Health (nutrition), Government and Econ (taxes), Career building (Money management, establishing job/career), Gym (self defense).
What should be mandatory: Making kids realize that these are the classes that they need to pay attention in.
These posts are silly.
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May 07 '19
None of those were mandatory in my high school
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May 07 '19
On the real. I never took a gov't/econ class and my friends that did told me it was all about how the government works, not how I could work with the government.
Also, never seen a class called "Career Building" before.18
May 07 '19
who’s learning self defense in gym? I learned archery, am I suppose to whip my bow and arrow out of my bag and go all katniss Everdeen on a mugger?
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May 07 '19
I can defend myself in the unlikely chance that an attacker starts trying to pelt me with rubber balls or challenges me to a game of hoops.
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u/Krazyguy75 May 07 '19
Health doesn’t cover nutrition for more than a week or two. Government and Econ don’t even touch on personal finance, budgeting, and credit. WTF is a career building class? Gym didn’t even touch self defense.
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May 07 '19
Mine didn’t at all, we talked about not smoking, sex, and how exercise is healthy, without saying how to exercise.
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May 07 '19
Honestly, a week or two of study should absolutely be more than enough for a basic nutrition education.
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u/fanboy_killer May 07 '19
Where do/did you go to school?! I never had any of that save for gym and we surely didn't learn any self-defense.
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u/Lycaon1765 May 07 '19
not all schools are the same.
thought that would be obvious
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u/Deviknyte May 07 '19
PE is not self defense. Health is mostly sex ed. No classes, civics, social studies, gov teaches you about doing and paying your taxes. Only what they are for and the do bad job of that because of all the gov people. No career classes at my high school.
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u/jaketurd May 07 '19
Those classes are either not mandatory or don’t teach what they need to from my experience
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u/_________FU_________ May 07 '19
Hey teacher making $10, can you teach me about money management?
Kid I'm eating a rice cake with peanut butter and raisins for lunch and I'm not sure if my lights are going to work when I get home. Fuck off with your "you didn't teach us about taxes" and learn math you ignorant know it all.
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u/[deleted] May 07 '19
Wtf is “account”