Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Don't Stay in School



British singer Boyinaband recorded this song about what he learned in school and what he didn’t learn. In a comment, he clarified:
"Don't Stay in School" isn't inferring students shouldn't stay in school, it's saying topics which aren't practically useful shouldn't stay in school. There are obviously a lot of benefits to getting an education, I'm just concerned that the topics are not prioritized well at all.
Now, I’m all for learning things you won’t need in your everyday life, but not at the expense of things you will need to know. You could say that money management, law, politics, first aid, and sex education are things that young people should learn from their parents, but that’s pretty difficult in modern families where everyone’s working or in school, or the parents don’t know that much about those things themselves. Besides, no one explains to parents that they are expected to take up the slack in real world education. Maybe someone should. There’s a lot to be said about building up basic knowledge of how the world works in literature, history, math, and science, so can we really drop those? I don’t know about other countries, but in America, if a subject is not on the standardized tests, schools most likely won’t be teaching it. What do you think? (Thanks, Edward!)

3 comments:

Jimichan said...

In the final analysis, we are all responsible for our own educations. A good education provides the basics; language, reading, writing, math, science, etc., and enables a student to pursue their areas of special interest themselves.
By all means, though. Students should be allowed to drop out after middle school, after they've mastered the basics. If they have no interest in further education, or no parents involved enough to push them, they can go out and get whatever job they are qualified for.

Barbwire said...

I put together my dream class to teach. It would have included how to find a job (write a resume, etc.), how to budget money, how to do your own income tax, how to plan healthy meals, how to do basic cooking, basic home repairs, what it really means to be married, to have kids, and a few more basic things like that. The closest I ever came was a class called "orientation and Guidance" for ESL students. There was no curriculum, so I taught was I thought would actually help the kids.

Anonymous said...

You are welcome. Nice to see that I can generate some comments for your blog without having to troll.

- Edward