What do you think should be taught in schools?

[Fien]

Not many useful things are being taught in schools these days and the common excuse is that teachers have to stick to a certain program and can't deviate from it. This is b*llsh*t if you ask me. There's time enough to slip in some values in those lesson programs and teach kids what's important and still meet the norms imposed by school boards. And if they have time to teach kids how to bowl and draw, they can definitely make time for the important things.

What do you think today's youth needs most?

[Fien]

Yes, I mean in general what kids should know before they leave school. I'm talking about starting with kindergarten (nothing major) but just teaching kids to respect others by not allowing anyone to be bullied or pushed around. I think the best environment to teach values though is high school, these children are older and a bit more mature and can grasp the seriousness of topics.
At university I can believe it's a bit more difficult. I couldn't imagine it happening at the university I go to because it's too big of a scale. There's an auditorium filled with 300 students and a professor up front declaring his views will not be paid much attention to. Unless he starts to bring up controversial topics.

However, implementing the teaching of values is a bit dangerous as well. 'cause there's no real control and you could be teaching kids extreme views or conservative principles.

I was thinking more along the lines of a first aid class (for when someone in their environment has an accident of some sort so they can provide basic medic care), sex education (not abstinence but real safe-sex education), how the political system of their country works or that of other countries for that matter, ... Useful stuff in today's world.

Of course trying to teach them good manners and respect towards other people would be extremely important, but then this might raise the issue of 'aren't teachers taking over the parents' responsibility?' Still I believe these things could be mentioned or discussed in class.

I had an English teacher who taught us to do what we believe is right and who showed us there are major world problems (like hunger, war, ...) and we shouldn't get carried away with teenage high school drama.

I think these things teach kids perspective and form a good base on which they could start working on themselves to become whoever they want to be.

[Trosso]

'However, implementing the teaching of values is a bit dangerous as well. 'cause there's no real control and you could be teaching kids extreme views or conservative principles.'

What's wrong with conservative principles?

[john]

the problem is it depends on what the conservative principles are generally they refer to draconian ideas from the far and extreme right.[or far and extreme version of capitalism which is a society based on the private acquisition of wealth.]

[Fien]

Both.

[Daniel]

ethics/morals, that is exactly what needs to be better outlined from an early age in my opinion.
i dont mean to offend anyone by these next few words, though i am sorry if i do :) to each his/her own.
what was never made clear to me, were the morals behind all the "stories" in the bible. sure keeping them in their story form would make holding the kids attention a little easier, i just wish the rights and wrongs were better explained within the story, or people were told exactly what the story meant in moral terms. At the moment, i see religion in schools as more of a brainwashing, not to force religion, but morals. Being a little more direct, in the reasons for why the stories are being taught, thats what i'd like to see before anything.

personally i was never interested in religion, as a child i saw them as (like above), simply stories. i dont remember ever realising the moral behind the story, i guess i owe my good nature to the brainwashing... though there are so many people out there whom it failed on, a bus ride into town proves that to me.

+ all this news of terrorism thats forced into our ears, perhaps a lot of the religious wars would be none existant if people didnt take religion so seriously, and realised them as more of a guideline to becoming a better person, rather than an absolute, be all and end all. although being an atheist is seen as bad by some, it does make for an easier perspective on things. plus i have no god to defend, giving me even less of a reason to participate in/become offended by any silly religious arguments.

lots more to be perfected when it comes to kids, though that'd be my start.

and as further comments mention, thinking for yourself, researching different viewpoints before laching onto the first one that comes your way. learning to do these from an early age could prove to make for a much "fuller" person, who believes in his/her "Own" ideas, rather than someone elses

[Armando]

Absolutely agree! I was raised a catholic but look at myself as an atheist.
I think schools should also teach more about respect! Because other people will always be a bit different from ourselves. Kids should learn to accept that and respect everyone.

[Optimus Skiver]

Do you mean teaching the college level philosophy course in grade school, or being vague and basic with ethical study at an early age to accommodate reading levels? It's a good idea to teach children different ethical theories and morality, but who is to say they will understand them? Half of my peers didn't understand them in college. It would be easy enough to teach one morality, but which one? I find that this class should wait until high school or grammar school, because it requires a lot of comprehension that you won't have prior when you explain the different methods earlier.

It's a very good subject, and I would recommend it be in the bare minimum of degree requirements, but children don't often have free thought yet, they're either programmed, or still being programmed and teaching difficult things may cause them to latch onto misunderstood philosophies--like how you see many undereducated people today.

[Jason]

They need to know and understand the Constitution, which an emphasis on the Bill of Rights.

[john]

only a small part of it they need to understand the contexts and reason behind it even more so.

[Ghrite]

Yeah they should teach kids how to be newbs but how to own noobs. And there is a major amount of room for improvement in schools in U.S., mostly pre-college ones though. There really should be limit of stupid you can be and be forced into a training program that increases one's intelligence.

[john]

I can agree to that.

[Bernhard Rosenkraenzer]

The key things schools should teach are, in my opinion:

* Basic skills needed to learn everything else (reading, writing, elementary math)
* Being able to think for yourself, not just accepting an opinion disguised as news for its own sake
* Where to find more information on subjects (knowing how to find e.g. data on Sodium in a periodic
table of elements is far more important than learning that data by heart!)
* Explain WHY things work the way they do (back when I was in school, we were forced to learn the square numbers for
numbers from 0 to 20 -- in the end, everyone knew that 16 squared is 256, but only few knew that you can calculate it
by just calculating 16*16 --- certainly NOT the way to go!)
* Show them that even the brightest people have made mistakes, and therefore "Person X says Y, therefore Y is true" by itself is
not a valid argument (that will make it much easier for them to question what politicians who are alleged experts in their field do)

If they know those, they'll be able to teach themselves the other important things.