General What subjects are the biggest waste of kid's time in school, and what subjects should be taught but aren't?

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John Lee Pettimore

Further south than you
May 18, 2021
6,302
6,762
For instance, I think that kids should learn cooking in school. And for real, not just bullshit home ec for two hours a week when you're 12. I think it's disgraceful how many young people move into their first flat/shared accommodation, and they have no idea how to cook a cheap, easy, healthy, tasty, nutritious meal.

What would you have kids doing in school, that they aren't doing now? BJJ classes? Marching in formation? Volunteer work around the community one afternoon a week?

And what subjects do kids spend hundreds of hours on, and it's pretty much useless for the vast majority of them?

??
 

Leigh

Engineer
Pro Fighter
Jan 26, 2015
10,925
21,293
Maths
English (or whatever language your country speaks)
Sports

Everything else should be optional. You want your kids to learn something else? Teach 'em. I think it's pretty pathetic when people post Facebook memes about how trigonometry hasn't helped them but they wish they learned how to do their taxes or apply for a mortgage. You did - you were taught Maths and English. Read, you cretin.

I don't have an issue with the other subjects being taught. History, Music, Geography, Design Technology, Science etc are all fine subjects that will encourage growth.
 

TheFifthScallop

Who am I kidding? I’m a whore.
Amateur Fighter
Nov 15, 2015
5,833
7,373
Personal finance and how to manage money. The class should talk about the dangers of credit cards, debt, as well as helping kids understand how to manage money. It blows me away that this was not taught to me in school.
 

TheFifthScallop

Who am I kidding? I’m a whore.
Amateur Fighter
Nov 15, 2015
5,833
7,373
Maths
English (or whatever language your country speaks)
Sports

Everything else should be optional. You want your kids to learn something else? Teach 'em. I think it's pretty pathetic when people post Facebook memes about how trigonometry hasn't helped them but they wish they learned how to do their taxes or apply for a mortgage. You did - you were taught Maths and English. Read, you cretin.

I don't have an issue with the other subjects being taught. History, Music, Geography, Design Technology, Science etc are all fine subjects that will encourage growth.
Just because you learn math, doesn’t mean you’re going to understand how do your taxes or apply for a mortgage. That is one of the silliest things I’ve ever heard. Look at how many people on here, myself included, took English class yet struggle with sentence structure and punctuation.
 

Leigh

Engineer
Pro Fighter
Jan 26, 2015
10,925
21,293
Just because you learn math, doesn’t mean you’re going to understand how do your taxes or apply for a mortgage. That is one of the silliest things I’ve ever heard. Look at how many people on here, myself included, took English class yet struggle with sentence structure and punctuation.
Not just maths, I also included English and said you should read. The irony of you missing that is not lost on me.

Personal finance and how to manage money. The class should talk about the dangers of credit cards, debt, as well as helping kids understand how to manage money. It blows me away that this was not taught to me in school.
Have some accountability. If you had a good understanding of maths, you'd realise the impact of interest rates.
 

Filthy

Iowa Wrestling Champion
Jun 28, 2016
27,507
29,834
cooking is a pretty antiquated skill in the modern world...it's not something you "need" to do.

I think a semester of "agricultural education" is critical, but not taught. Maybe cut out that semester of "Music" in 8th grade and teach them what's involved in feeding yourself and a nation - and the global impacts of how you do those things.

Also think that gov't/civics class isn't taught any more and should be. I think it should be the focus of your 10th grade "Social Sciences" class.

But the most lacking (IMAO) are empathy skills and critical thinking. I think students would be better served by having a course on how we're all connected and we're in this together, and a course on how to decipher bullshit and defy your cognitive bias.
 

Filthy

Iowa Wrestling Champion
Jun 28, 2016
27,507
29,834
Just because you learn math, doesn’t mean you’re going to understand how do your taxes or apply for a mortgage. That is one of the silliest things I’ve ever heard. Look at how many people on here, myself included, took English class yet struggle with sentence structure and punctuation.
my new thing is that whenever somebody posts "I got a good deal on a car/house" I reply that you can't claim a good deal if you're not willing to publicly state the terms of the deal.

Blows my mind how often I hear that "I got a good deal. The dealer paid more than blue book for my old car, and my payments stayed the same." Multiply the monthly payment by the number of months in the loan. That's how much you paid, and I'm not even going to bother with opportunity cost.

clowns.
 

Filthy

Iowa Wrestling Champion
Jun 28, 2016
27,507
29,834
Not just maths, I also included English and said you should read. The irony of you missing that is not lost on me.


Have some accountability. If you had a good understanding of maths, you'd realise the impact of interest rates.
its hard to have accountability if you have no accounting ability.

:)


I'll see myself out.
 

John Lee Pettimore

Further south than you
May 18, 2021
6,302
6,762
cooking is a pretty antiquated skill in the modern world...it's not something you "need" to do.

I think a semester of "agricultural education" is critical, but not taught. Maybe cut out that semester of "Music" in 8th grade and teach them what's involved in feeding yourself and a nation - and the global impacts of how you do those things.

Also think that gov't/civics class isn't taught any more and should be. I think it should be the focus of your 10th grade "Social Sciences" class.

But the most lacking (IMAO) are empathy skills and critical thinking. I think students would be better served by having a course on how we're all connected and we're in this together, and a course on how to decipher bullshit and defy your cognitive bias.
Critical thinking skills are SORELY needed. Particularly how to recognise propaganda and how to effectively check sourcing. Look at how many adults take their political worldview essentially exclusively from bullshit Facebook memes and Faux Noise lying bobbleheads.

I don't think cooking is antiquated either. I knew a LOT of early 20-somethings who basically lived on cheap takeout because they had no idea how to make a stir fry for dinner.

??
 

Filthy

Iowa Wrestling Champion
Jun 28, 2016
27,507
29,834
I don't think cooking is antiquated either. I knew a LOT of early 20-somethings who basically lived on cheap takeout because they had no idea how to make a stir fry for dinner.

??
fresh/healthy choices are just as easy to get from UberEats, it's a deficit of critical thinking skills that lead the 20-something to get Taco Bell instead.
 

kaladin stormblessed

Nala fanboy
Apr 24, 2017
17,627
20,132
Just because you learn math, doesn’t mean you’re going to understand how do your taxes or apply for a mortgage. That is one of the silliest things I’ve ever heard. Look at how many people on here, myself included, took English class yet struggle with sentence structure and punctuation.
and paragraph. youre not too keen on paragraph spacing :p
 

John Lee Pettimore

Further south than you
May 18, 2021
6,302
6,762
Great question. Yes. I was one of the people who did listen in school.
When I was 14/15, I doubt I would have listened to lessons about credit cards. I was still doing chores around the house to get a few bucks to go to the movies. :smile:

Wish someone woulda sat me down and showed me how much money I'd be flushing down the toilet over a span of years by being an idiot teenager who got an overdraft the second he could do it, though. That was a lesson that sucked to learn.

??
 

TheFifthScallop

Who am I kidding? I’m a whore.
Amateur Fighter
Nov 15, 2015
5,833
7,373
Have some accountability. If you had a good understanding of maths, you'd realise the impact of interest rates.
I don’t think that’s true though. I knew a lot of people who were exceptionally good at math, but had no concept of how to spend/save their money. These people still struggle today. Just because you’re in advanced calculus, doesn’t mean you’re going to understand finance.
 

John Lee Pettimore

Further south than you
May 18, 2021
6,302
6,762
fresh/healthy choices are just as easy to get from UberEats, it's a deficit of critical thinking skills that lead the 20-something to get Taco Bell instead.
Ubereats?

I can make a healthy and tasty meal for the ubereats delivery fee. And it'll be plated up before the uber driver appears.

??
 
Last edited:

kaladin stormblessed

Nala fanboy
Apr 24, 2017
17,627
20,132
the point of school should be about engaging children and having them use, and more importantly, enjoy using their brain


controversial but important topic. and admittedly, i havent put too much thought into it since i have no desire to have children. but in terms of large scale changes, id go with sex education. it should be done differently than it was in the 90s and at a younger age
 

John Lee Pettimore

Further south than you
May 18, 2021
6,302
6,762
the point of school should be about engaging children and having them use, and more importantly, enjoy using their brain


controversial but important topic. and admittedly, i havent put too much thought into it since i have no desire to have children. but in terms of large scale changes, id go with sex education. it should be done differently than it was in the 90s and at a younger age
Yeah sex education should be integrated into the general curriculum from early on, and sex positivity should be taught as well. Kids should learn about love, intimacy and respect, not just look at photos of venereal diseases and then go home, log onto pornhub and think that's what sex is.

Also, the religious freaks can shut up and deal with it. There is absolutely no justification at all for kids getting their sexual "education"/morality from the Bible or the Koran. Religion is given far, far too much respect in schools.

??
 

Filthy

Iowa Wrestling Champion
Jun 28, 2016
27,507
29,834
Ubereats?

I can make a healthy and tasty meal for the ubereats delivery fee.

??
exactly. but your cost/value judgment isn't the same as someone who's working full-time graveyards and doing 12 credit hours of engineering classes.

like I said, antiquated. Not obsolete, but going the way of personally-owned cars.
 

NotBanjaxo

Formerly someone other than Banjaxo
Nov 16, 2019
8,305
17,709
cooking is a pretty antiquated skill in the modern world...it's not something you "need" to do.
I strongly disagree with this, I believe it's a skill everyone should have by the time they reach adulthood.
 

John Lee Pettimore

Further south than you
May 18, 2021
6,302
6,762
If you join the Army at age 20, they teach you step by step how to make your bed, tie your shoelaces and brush your teeth. They do that because a LOT of parents are legitimately so shit that they "raise" a kid for two decades and at the end of it, he doesn't have even the most rudimentary life skills.

There's a definite argument could be made that if every kid was taught how to do this basic stuff at school, then the ones who are unlucky enough to not have parents who teach them this simple shit, don't enter adult life so far behind. If you have to buy takeaways for every single meal and you don't practise basic personal hygiene or run a washing machine because nobody ever taught you that shit and emphasised it, you're set up for nothing but failure.

??
 

Filthy

Iowa Wrestling Champion
Jun 28, 2016
27,507
29,834
I strongly disagree with this, I believe it's a skill everyone should have by the time they reach adulthood.
skill they should have, or one that outweighs all the other things they need to learn?

there's only so many semesters of school, and making everyone spend an entire semester on something that you can get certified to do in a week seems over-the-top.
 

John Lee Pettimore

Further south than you
May 18, 2021
6,302
6,762
skill they should have, or one that outweighs all the other things they need to learn?

there's only so many semesters of school, and making everyone spend an entire semester on something that you can get certified to do in a week seems over-the-top.
An entire semester? Where did you get that from?

??
 

Filthy

Iowa Wrestling Champion
Jun 28, 2016
27,507
29,834
If you join the Army at age 20, they teach you step by step how to make your bed, tie your shoelaces and brush your teeth. They do that because a LOT of parents are legitimately so shit that they "raise" a kid for two decades and at the end of it, he doesn't have even the most rudimentary life skills.

There's a definite argument could be made that if every kid was taught how to do this basic stuff at school, then the ones who are unlucky enough to not have parents who teach them this simple shit, don't enter adult life so far behind. If you have to buy takeaways for every single meal and you don't practise basic personal hygiene or run a washing machine because nobody ever taught you that shit and emphasised it, you're set up for nothing but failure.

??
that's not why they do that...it's for standardization. Even if you know how to tie your shoes, you learn to do it The Army Way.
 

John Lee Pettimore

Further south than you
May 18, 2021
6,302
6,762
exactly. but your cost/value judgment isn't the same as someone who's working full-time graveyards and doing 12 credit hours of engineering classes.

like I said, antiquated. Not obsolete, but going the way of personally-owned cars.
Not many 20 year olds work anything close to that kind of schedule.

??