Unpopular Opinion

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"Stuff school should have taught me" material is actually stuff your parents should have taught you. (lemmy.world)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

94 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Schools shouldn't be treated as these magical places where you're put in at some age and over a decade later you emerge a complete human being. You have parents and you spend more time at home than at school for a reason: you're supposed to learn from your parents.

A school can potentially give you a degree of financial literacy instruction. Your parents should be the ones paying your allowance money and driving you to the bank to get your first checking account. A school can teach you how to cook something. Your parents should be the ones eating your food and helping you cook it better. A school can show you some level of DIY. Your parents should directly benefit from teaching you how to fix the sink when it gets clogged. A school can tell you what kinds of careers exist. Your parents should love you enough to tell you that either your career ambitions or your financial expectations need to change. A school can tell you how to build a resume. Your parents should be the ones driving you to your job interview and to your job until you buy your first car. A school can give you a failing grade when you do poorly on a test. Your parents should be able to make you face the real, in-the-moment consequences of doing something wrong.

Expecting a school, public or private, to teach you everything you need to know is a grave mistake. You need people in your corner who are taking an active part in raising you all the way to adulthood and beyond. If you have kids yourself, that goes for them as well. If you aren't there for your children, to teach them the things that schools don't teach because they can't mass produce the lessons to nearly the same quality that you can give them, they'll blame you and the school for having failed them. And they'd be right to lay the blame at your feet.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

I'm from Eastern Europe so my take might be country specific and factually wrong from US perspective.

I also like to think about this from the teachers perspective. The common sentiment of why do we learn X when it won't be necessary for day-to-day life later is such a misplaced sense of disappointment on the kids and the parents part.

As an educator it's true that one's teaching with their whole being - be that e.g.: attitude and other non strictly subject related attributes. But in the current system - where the output requirement for high school does not include knowledge about the taxes, loans and other common sense skills - it's pointless to expect anything else from the teacher than what's in the curriculum.

Currently the point of high school is to get you prepared for your final exams (SAT in the US) in order to pursue higher education. That's it. If the teacher is better than average then you might get something else in the process. Something more than just knowledge about a subject.

I agree that getting skills to adapt to challenges should be emphasized more than lexical knowledge. This is not embraced by the current curriculum in Hungary but this is my point exactly. It's a systemic issue that cannot be fixed by expecting more from teachers.

EDIT: english can be hard.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago

Here in the US, it was common for my high school teachers to lament the curriculum they had to work from but still stick with it. The purpose of schools here is pretty similar, as well: prepare you for college so you can do what you really want to in life. Lots of people seem to think that you should be taught everything that is appropriate for your age in school, but I disagree. That's forgetting the role of your parents.