Don't Stay In School

[michellec]

I don't think any of the subjects are generally unnecessary for students. Not everyone is going to end up going the same path and schools offer the education that fits everyone's levels as well as providing different extra curricular activities to help decide what you want to continue doing in the future.

 

School is more a foundation to build on than everything you need in life. Even after school, college, trade school, whatever you're always still learning new things beyond that. However if you didn't learn the basics you would be at a disadvantage to those that did. Should we teach more useful things in school? Probably, but I don't think it's wasted as the guy in the video believes.

 

I totally agree with Drox's post above. Also, if you really think you're gonna struggle starting out as an adult because school doesn't teach you the basics like billing, credit cards, whatever, then I suggest taking a gap year. Within that year, you'd have the time to prepare yourself for the real world.

[shoiep]

Also, if you really think you're gonna struggle starting out as an adult because school doesn't teach you the basics like billing, credit cards, whatever, then I suggest taking a gap year. Within that year, you'd have the time to prepare yourself for the real world.

^

Yes.

 

[BloodyKiller]

I don't think any of the subjects are generally unnecessary for students. Not everyone is going to end up going the same path and schools offer the education that fits everyone's levels as well as providing different extra curricular activities to help decide what you want to continue doing in the future.

 

I totally agree with Drox's post above. Also, if you really think you're gonna struggle starting out as an adult because school doesn't teach you the basics like billing, credit cards, whatever, then I suggest taking a gap year. Within that year, you'd have the time to prepare yourself for the real world.

 

This !

[Vy]

It might be different in the US, but...

 

We were taught our rights and duties in (literally translates to) Citizenship class. Laws included... kinda... because there's a bunch of them and there's a reason a lot of people drop out of Law school. (have you seen their books? fuck me)

 

We were taught basic economy in Economy class. Obviously they didn't teach about stocks because that's a very extensive subject in of itself.

 

How to get a job isn't something that you can really teach in school, you can simply throw them guidelines or sites which help you do this (which we had by the way). It all goes down to how you present yourself and your behavior, something you should learn outside of school.

 

I am pretty sure there are tax classes/courses in America? There are none in Lithuania, but it's pretty easy to do them here so...

 

You weren't taught how to vote? Like, how do you imagine "voting" class would work out? It's something that you should learn outside of school from your parents or by doing your own research. If anything, school teaches you how to research stuff which is an integral part of voting.

 

We have Home Education class where a bunch of 'how to take care of yourself' aspects are covered. Apart from that we had a bunch of visits by doctors who also gave various lectures about health, safety and so on.

 

How can you teach 'current events'? Dude, have you heard of the news? Again, how would that guy expect that class to work? Not to mention a bunch of people would start to bitch (rightly so) because it would more than likely be a very bias class, depending on the views of the teacher.

 

You weren't taught how to budget your earnings? Dude, ever heard of math class? Have a spreadsheet with how much you earn, how much taxes on average you pay and how much you pay for food and other essentials and put that money away just for that.

 

Class on 'how much it's going to cost me to raise a kid'? Is he serious? Math class maybe?

 

We had basic first aid class (non-mandatory though) in 12th grade. Most of us already had it because you need to finish the course to get your driving license. There's also a weird law that if you have that course you're required to help people who got into accident until the ambulance arrives.

 

"Or how to buy a house with a mortgage"... Math and Economy class? Does America have neither of them or something?

 

Oh come on now. I know for a fact that schools in America teach other languages. My emigrant friend speaks French, English and Lithuanian (duh).

 

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He don't seem to comprehend what school is. You have a class, often with around 20-30 kids in it and a single teacher to supervise them all. You can't make individualistic lessons nor can you cater to everyones needs. That's why school is very generic to start with. They teach you everything, because they aren't sure whether you're going to be a good doctor, politician, judge, programmer or technician. You can't have specialized courses either (for future judges, programmers, factory workers etc) because more often than not people change their minds or just don't have any kind of idea what they want to be.

 

Also, you can't brush off all teaching responsibility to your schools. You have your parents, who are mature (most of the time anyways) and experienced and can fill you in on some of the points he mentioned. You also have a fuck ton of free extra courses, classes for pretty much anything you can imagine. If you're a lazy shit and can't be bothered to look them up... well that's your problem, isn't it?

 

tl;dr Stay in school.

 

I've seen this video before, his thoughts were always the same as mine to begin with. Countless amount of topics we learn in school are completely unnecessary for the real world. I mean unless I become a historian of some sort, would I ever really need to know about the history of Greece. Yes it's a very interesting subject and I wouldn't be surprised to see some people to enjoy the topic. But the majority of people wouldn't really care about the current, past, or future of a completely unrelated country.

It's supposed to from your understanding about our world, how it evolved and what has changed. You barely touch on the topics anyways.

 

Some people say that learning all this stuff is to build your intellect to prepare for the real world. For example, memory is one thing they say is a skill learned through this teaching. But why would I want to gain memory from a subject I'm not interested compared to something I want to learn about and would be more excited about the subject.

How are they going to know what subject interests you? How would you go about making classes for thousands of kids based upon their interests? It's pretty much impossible to do that.

 

I once talked to my teacher about these unnecessary subjects we learn in school. My teacher said she completely disagreed of what we learned, she wished she could teach us more useful things like taxes, mortgages, and common sense. Some of these things could really be learned how to be used in the real world.

How can you teach 'common sense'? It's kinda crazy how they don't teach you how to do your taxes though. For us, it's logging into a site and filling in the information, which takes about 5 minutes & that includes getting up and actually looking up how much electricity, water and gas I used up.

[Vy]

It's 'taught'.

It's a bad habit of mine. I remembered to change it for the first few sentences.

[Spartan]

It's a bad habit of mine. I remembered to change it for the first few sentences.

 

Dude, do you literally monitor every thread you make for ages? I deleted my post like 10 secs after I made it...

[Vy]

Dude, do you literally monitor every thread you make for ages? I deleted my post like 10 secs after I made it...

Actually I am secretly a bot.

 

I refreshed the page and saw the notification that someone quoted my post.

[Goku]

@Vy Okay first of all, I love the little jab you take at America there. Nevermind the fact that the guy is from fucking England. Regardless, it still applies. It's amazing to me how ignorant you are acting based on that giant ass post.

 

To make things easier, I'm just going to quote your post and respond to shit in red:

 

It might be different in the US, but...

Again, dude is from England. Stop assuming shit is just about America

 

We were taught our rights and duties in (literally translates to) Citizenship class. Laws included... kinda... because there's a bunch of them and there's a reason a lot of people drop out of Law school. (have you seen their books? fuck me)

 

Again with the assumption. You assume that a class like that, is one that the majority of schools in both England and America, actually offer. In America, we were taught some of our rights in history class when we discussed the constitution. But that's about it really.

 

We were taught basic economy in Economy class. Obviously they didn't teach about stocks because that's a very extensive subject in of itself.

 

Most schools honestly probably do offer an Economy class, but as I said in my first post ITT, a lot of kids probably can't take it if they wanted to thanks to the requirements to take X amount of classes.

 

How to get a job isn't something that you can really teach in school, you can simply throw them guidelines or sites which help you do this (which we had by the way). It all goes down to how you present yourself and your behavior, something you should learn outside of school.

 

I am going to assume most schools are different, but our school required a semester of speech class, and our speech teacher did help us with things like how to get a job. And why should you learn how to present yourself and good behavior outside of school? They spend all this time telling kids that school is preparing them for the "real world".

 

I am pretty sure there are tax classes/courses in America? There are none in Lithuania, but it's pretty easy to do them here so...

 

To my knowledge, no. But again, this guy is from England so we aren't just talking about America. It is possible some schools offer some sort of tax classes, but I'd like to redirect you to my previous point that you have say 8 classes. You then have these requirement of what classes you have to take, and often that is something that isn't on the required list and some kids couldn't take it if they wanted to.

 

You weren't taught how to vote? Like, how do you imagine "voting" class would work out? It's something that you should learn outside of school from your parents or by doing your own research. If anything, school teaches you how to research stuff which is an integral part of voting.

 

You assume that there would have to be an entire class dedicated to voting. This could easily be covered in the same class about laws and similar things.

 

We have Home Education class where a bunch of 'how to take care of yourself' aspects are covered. Apart from that we had a bunch of visits by doctors who also gave various lectures about health, safety and so on.

 

A lot of schools do offer a class like that. Such as health class, or home economics that covered things like how to cook/bake or how to take care of a child. But again, that wasn't a requirement, and most kids couldn't fit it into their schedule.

 

How can you teach 'current events'? Dude, have you heard of the news? Again, how would that guy expect that class to work? Not to mention a bunch of people would start to bitch (rightly so) because it would more than likely be a very bias class, depending on the views of the teacher.

 

I am pretty fucking sure that some schools do offer a current events class. You also seem to assume that your average kid is going to actually watch the news. And your point of teach being bias is just plain silly. It is the teacher's job to be unbiased in their teachings. It is called being a professional, and teachers have lost their jobs for not being professional.

 

You weren't taught how to budget your earnings? Dude, ever heard of math class? Have a spreadsheet with how much you earn, how much taxes on average you pay and how much you pay for food and other essentials and put that money away just for that.

 

Jesus christ Vy...Yes, math class will help you with these things, but you again assume the average kid is going to know to actually go about doing a budget.

 

Class on 'how much it's going to cost me to raise a kid'? Is he serious? Math class maybe?

 

Lol, again Vy, math class will help with doing math (shocker, I know) but something like this would be covered in that home economics class I mentioned, which I again remind you most kids can't take/don't take.

 

We had basic first aid class (non-mandatory though) in 12th grade. Most of us already had it because you need to finish the course to get your driving license. There's also a weird law that if you have that course you're required to help people who got into accident until the ambulance arrives.

 

Cool. Still doesn't change that fact that something like this isn't usually taught. There are likely some schools that do offer it, but it isn't a requirement.

 

"Or how to buy a house with a mortgage"... Math and Economy class? Does America have neither of them or something?

 

*cough* not just america *cough*. Feel like I've already addressed this so moving on.

 

Oh come on now. I know for a fact that schools in America teach other languages. My emigrant friend speaks French, English and Lithuanian (duh).

 

Hey look, another America comment. Someone should inform David that he's apparently from America. But yes, schools do offer a foreign language. However, I'd like to again make my point like I did earlier ITT, and that I don't believe was made in the video, that schools focus too much on memorizing, rather than learning. I took 3 years of spanish class. My first year, the teacher actually did teach us some things, but the majority of the information was stuff memorized for a test, and later forgotten. My second and third year, the teachers spent more time gossiping with the kids, and whatever things I "learned", was again memorized for a test. And this applies to nearly every subject, not just foreign languages.

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He don't seem to comprehend what school is. You have a class, often with around 20-30 kids in it and a single teacher to supervise them all. You can't make individualistic lessons nor can you cater to everyones needs. That's why school is very generic to start with. They teach you everything, because they aren't sure whether you're going to be a good doctor, politician, judge, programmer or technician. You can't have specialized courses either (for future judges, programmers, factory workers etc) because more often than not people change their minds or just don't have any kind of idea what they want to be.

 

Also, you can't brush off all teaching responsibility to your schools. You have your parents, who are mature (most of the time anyways) and experienced and can fill you in on some of the points he mentioned. You also have a fuck ton of free extra courses, classes for pretty much anything you can imagine. If you're a lazy shit and can't be bothered to look them up... well that's your problem, isn't it?

 

It doesn't matter if someone is going to be a doctor, judge, plumber or whatever. You can still teach them basic real world things, such as budgets, how to take care of yourself or a child. And yes, you can have specialized courses that help with becoming a programmer or judge. They do have them, but it isn't a requirement.

 

From the time a child is 5-6, till they time they graduate at 18, they spend the vast majority of their life in school. So I would say it is very fair, to say that the duties of teaching responsibility and things falls between both the schools, and the parents. I don't really understand what you're getting at with the lazy shit comment. You spend these 8 hours a day at school, memorizing shit for a test. Then go home and spend another 2 hours (if not more) doing homework. Lets assume that a school has class from 7-3. Kid gets home at about 3:30 or 4. Then spends 2 hours doing homework. Its not 6. They eat dinner, its say 6:30. Assuming they have to be up at around 5:30-6 to get ready for school, that means they'll need to go to bed at around 9 or 10 to get a proper nights rest. Which leaves them 3 or so hours to do whatever, and often times this will include other school related things. Tldr of this point- You spend so much time at school, you shouldn't have to be too concerned with taking outside classes while growing up, to learn basic things.

[Goku]

Double posting just due to the long ass previous post:

 

Here is his response to comments, a lot of which is exactly what people ITT have brought up.

 

[video=youtube_share;BJIu7pE0lBA]

[XeNo]

God I hate this kids videos with a burning passion. He literally is just continuously rephrasing the question of "Why do we learn these things in school but not these other things that I find important?" while missing the entire point of learning 'pointless' subjects in school. He has the education, but lacks the ability to analyze I suppose why that education is valuable? I have no idea, but it's pretty obvious why we learn a large range of topics in school that many people will often ignorantly call 'useless topics'.

 

First and foremost, if you think there's something you are learning or learned in school that you will NEVER, EVER, apply to life in any way shape or form, you're incorrect. The very fact you learned something means you retain it in some way, shape, or form. Most commonly I hear advanced mathematics courses are 'never going to be used', meanwhile they don't recognize what they're learning from them. Lets take a pretty basic 'advanced' math course most highschools/college degrees require you to take: Physics. What do you learn in physics that you think you will never apply? While it may be true that you will not use the algorithms, the numbers, the angles, the cos/sin/tan of degrees in everyday life, you are still learning something that retains with you for the rest of your life. When you look at a window washer platform on the side of the building, and you see one of the ropes snap, imagine your head what it looks like, you can can't you? You know which way the platform is going to swing, you know it's going to not just flop down and remain straight, you know it's going to swing because of momentum. You know that it's going to swing back the other direction, but not go as far because gravity + momentum slows it down so it never swings all the way back to its original position. You know how much force is behind it judging off of what it's made out of/whats on it, how fast it's swinging. All of these things you probably know and go "That's common sense" but try and explain it to a 5th grader. Hell, try and explain it to some kids that never took those classes or could even fathom them. You will have a hard time.

 

The reasons for this is simple, the classes so many kids and this guy see as useless information 'we will never use and are forced to learn' form the basic fundamentals of understanding how the world works. You don't have to memorize the algorithms or the math, but think of them as definitions of a brand new word you're learning in the dictionary of life. You may use words that you could precisely define in your everyday life, but you know what they mean and how to use them properly in a sentence. What you learn in school is the same.

 

History classes teach us what the mistakes the human beings of the past have learned from. Again, there's information you probably learned in history that you don't even recognize you learned but you apply to your everyday life. Most importantly is the quote mentioned previously in this thread, if you don't learn from the past you are doomed to repeat it. If you honestly think something hasn't been tried before, you fight valiantly to give it a try and don't handle being shot down very well, correct? What if you learned it had been tried before, and failed miserably, then you're more receptive to alternatives. History has thousands of years of people trying something and failing, and even if we are more technological advanced, there's fundamentals there that can be still learned from and adapted to work today. See Sun Tzu's Art of War as a perfect example, written in 5th century BC and still have viable strategic war tactics that are used even today.

 

The point is that school teaches fundamentals that you require to learn more information, and if you don't memorize the details, you understand the concepts and that's the important part that school is meant to teach you. The fact you are CAPABLE of learning something more advanced, means school did its job. If advanced learning was not mandatory for various subjects, I guarantee you there will be people completely unaware of how a pendulum works or why shadows aren't pitch black when they're 'blocking light'. The generations will be come more stupid the more we give them the freedom to do pointless things they prefer or learn something important. You don't have to enjoy learning, as long as you learn SOMETHING while you're in the class. If everyone expects everything to be easy and only learn what they want to learn, they will become one dimensional, boring, and people will fail to learn anything outside of their perfect bubble comfort zone. It's crippling to a race to allow TOO MUCH freedom when it comes to development (as we've seen with some of these ignorant mothers who refuse to put their kids in any kind of hard work environment and they become spoiled brats), if you want to advance, you have to learn from past mistakes and you have to be willing to learn something you may not enjoy, but know it's going to serve some benefit somewhere else in your life.

 

The chances are, this kid has all the tools to learn how to sign a voting ballot, and an understanding of the world to know what he'd like to see in it. That's thanks to the amount of world context and information that school "forced" into him. He maybe didn't enjoy it, but he's sure as hell benefiting from it.