Don't stay in school

System

What a great song! Most of what he says is true :eek:

I wasn't taught how to get a job true
but I can remember dissecting a frog daffodils at my school
I wasn't taught how to pay tax if my employer didn't do it for me i wouldn't either
but I know loads about Shakespeare's classics Shakespeare was quality
I wasn't taught how to look after my health true
Never spent a lesson on current events true
Let me repeat - I was not taught the laws for the country I live in pretty much common sense. You dont need taught that
I know how Henry the VIII killed his women. Divorced beheaded died, divorced beheaded survived glad that's in my head instead of financial advice i agree
but I was never taught my human rights Apparently there's 30, do you know them? Just looked you dont need to know them
Or how money works at all - where does it come from? Who controls it? How does the thing that motivates the world function? Good point
not taught how to budget and disburse my earnings true
Didn't learn how much it costs to raise a kid or what an affidavit is true and i've only just learned what an affidavit is
They made me learn that over basic first aid never done maths like that but i would choose first aid over it
Never taught present day practical medicines true
All this advice about using a condom but none for when you actually have a kid when you want one true
I'm only fluent in this language, for serious?
The rest of the world speaks two, do you think I'm an idiot? Good point! French was mandatory for me i studied it for years and i still cant speak it
So at 18, I was expected to elect a representative For a system I had never ever ever ever been presented with true

Those lyrics are off the web so if they are wrong dont blame me

missbiggles1

Flyonthewall wrote: »

Gee, thanks...

I did a bit on it, but it was quite a long time ago so can't remember exactly what we did. From what I remember it was on living and working conditions. Not any advancements, just this is how it was, they used a machine that looked like this for this purpose. I don't remember going into much detail about the Industrial Revolutions.

I may have papers with information on it, but that doesn't mean I ever read them or had to do anything on it lol. Or maybe I've been happy to forget how much I had to suffer through such boring lessons lol.

Not nearly as long ago as it was for some of us here, many of whom remember the subject pretty well.

Flyonthewall

missbiggles1 wrote: »

Not nearly as long ago as it was for some of us here, many of whom remember the subject pretty well.

Well maybe you did more on it than I did...or maybe you were more interested in it or taught it in a way that you remember it even now.

There are other subjects I remember far more on. Subjects you might know little or even nothing about.

Even if we were all the same age, schools all teach slightly different things and people remember different things. Quiz shows would be really boring if everyone was able to remember loads on every subject!

Jagraf

Strangely I remember being taught basics but not the classics. I wish I had more knowledge of history and literature.

I think we should teach kids to be able to draw on all aspects of learning and take more responsibility for learning, rather than finding other people to blame. Blaming school / parents / society / the government doesn't really help.

pollypenny

Jagraf wrote: »

Strangely I remember being taught basics but not the classics. I wish I had more knowledge of history and literature.

I think we should teach kids to be able to draw on all aspects of learning and take more responsibility for learning, rather than finding other people to blame. Blaming school / parents / society / the government doesn't really help.

You know, I really think that's what we try to do.

I remember English literature in my highly selective grammar school: we had character studies dictated to us. Now, we teach pupils to write their own character studies, initially from collecting evidence with simple charts. ( PEE - point evidence explanation)

That's just one example of skills we hope pupils will learn.

onomatopoeia99

This thread demonstrates that we all found different subjects interesting at school. I'd quite happily have dropped History, Georgraphy, RE, PE, Music, languages, Biology, English language, English literature and just left Maths, Physics and Chemistry, which I did when I got to A level but I had to study nine subjects at O level and some, like the two English subjects, were compulsory, as was a foreign language and a social science. We also had time-table filling junk like RE, Music and PE.

Not everyone wants to go on to do Engineering though, and there were plenty for whom their talents lay in different directions, so a different mix of subjects was appropriate, School is about providing the academic basics to build on for further study. The home is for learning about life.

Want to know about voting? Chances are a child will live with at least one adult that is able to vote who can explain to them that they need to write an X on a piece of paper. It does not need a lesson at school. I read the paper as a teenager and when I was working full time during the school holidays in the sixth form bought my own copy of the Times so I was politically aware at sixteen, but I educated myself.

Want to know about balancing a household budget? Well, you should have been taught basic arithmetic at age five, you don't need anything else to do it (still amazes me that people claim on here that they spend a lot of time each week running the household finances. What on earth are they doing exactly that takes all this time? I spend a few minutes a month checking what the bank balance is and that my salary arrived when it was supposed to and I know what I spend over each month so I know if I'm going to go under or over by the end of it without needing to check every five minutes.)

I would certainly argue that we should start teaching a second language from when children start school, not in secondary school. Just because the world speaks English does not excuse our laziness about it.

liney

Seems to me that many of the points made are a parent's responsibilty:
budgeting, taxes, voting, contraception, medication etc.


If he doesn't have the wordly knowledge to understand the costs in bringing up a child, then hes not old enough to have one.


Noone would ever know that they were interested in the classics if they weren't taught at school. Perhaps dissecting that frog caused a classmate to become interested anatomy, so they then went into medicine. Perhaps if he paid attention in school he might have picked up some French...

skattykatty

School? Just read, digest, explore, challenge and discuss Shakespeare:

Money? 'Have more than thou showest, speak less than thou knowest, lend less than thou owest'

Mental health? 'There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so'....'To mourn a mischief that is past and gone is the next way to draw new mischief on'...'This above all: to thine own self be true'

Human rights? 'If you !!!!! us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?'

Work? 'All the world 's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts'

Politics? 'The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool'

What's it all about? 'Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing'

PenguinOfDeath

Flyonthewall wrote: »

Not everyone has a parent or adult in their life to teach them that though. Plus, not all parents know the answers themselves.

It shouldn't be all down to teachers though. No wonder many are stressed and leaving the profession in droves.

Being part of being a parent or guardian of a child surely means providing them with life skills. Even if the adult doesn't have all the answers (who does?) they certainly should be able to find out for themselves, or get help. It would probably help the adult themselves too.

theoretica

Flyonthewall wrote: »

I did a bit on it, but it was quite a long time ago so can't remember exactly what we did.

Anatidaephobia wrote: »

I was taught first aid at school (not that I can remember most of it, to be honest)

I think not remembering the details of much of the stuff you did in school is true for nearly everyone - and why learning to learn and find out stuff you need is so useful. And why some points get repeated, and repeated, and repeated...

Also, what is interesting in school is heavily dependent on how good the teacher is - imagine how dull one of the teachers whose lessons you didn't like could have made the taxes you didn't yet need to pay.