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What was not taught in school that you realize, REALLY should have been? (Why?)
For me, things like Financial Literacy, Entrepreurism, Cooking and Sex Ed (and the Psychology of Relationships), were not taught. And I realize that I have had to spend quite a few years now bumbling through life with the rest of my friends, rather clueless. Yet, I'd always score high on calculus quizzes, in labelling body parts and I am an excellent speller. Oh! And I am really confident! : /
I feel I have useless superpowers in some areas and not enough power in others where I super need it. (Perhaps my ignorance is ripe for being picked on by predators in society...) Most of the things that I wish I learned, improved the quality of my life and mind once I did learn them.
What is your deal?
Enrico Petrucco 20+
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/simon_lewis_don_t_take_consciousness_for_granted.html
Also would be interested in teaching processes that identify and utilise the various methods of engaging with people:
http://www.worldcat.org/title/frames-of-mind-the-theory-of-multiple-intelligences/oclc/9732290&referer=brief_results
And to teach about (and make active use of - during teamworking) the various personality archetypes and how they clash and co-operate:
http://www.prismbrainmapping.com/what_is_prism.aspx
Would also have been good to understand how to practice many other life lessons in retrospective, but hey that's life!
cst commonsense
It just needs funding - the course is derived from 'life experience' and will work - just 18 days to re-invent any normal 17 to 22 year old.
see:-
http://www.commonsensethinking.co.uk/sft.html
For the Student
We take you on a journey of discovery. A journey that starts with yourself and ends with yourself gaining a new vision of the real world. Your virtual journey is hard and long and it takes you to many places, visiting many different organisations across the world, including large and small business, desert islands and peoples of different cultures. The going is tough but you persevere and you discover what makes these people and organisations work. You seek and discover the fundamental issues behind mans eternal adventure. You travel through Baltimore and reach out to the cosmos, after all, you are just a child of the universe and you are discovering new ways of thinking for yourself. As your journey nears its end, your last quest is especially long and hard, but eventually, although tired, you are elated, you have reached the summit of your climb. You realise that from this journey’s end your horizons have changed, and from this new vantage point you can see a great distance all around. You look again at the world and with new eyes and you see the world as it really is. You see clearly the paths to new horizons and new lands awaiting your discovery. Your strength is renewed, you are ready to take your first step along your own life-long journey. ... see the website for exactly how it works.
JP
Feyisayo Anjorin 50+
Education is meant to bring the vastness of knowledge to our awareness. So that we start from what we've been taught in the schools and then proceed to what we need to know to achieve our personal goals and visions.
No matter how good the instructions are in schools, real life will always be a different ball game; and you really learn about the approach that works for you (in your career) in real-life situations.
Juliette Zahn 50+
Bruno Carre
PS: Of course I wear the t-shirt! :-)
Genevieve Tran 50+
TJ Evert
I (half) jokingly share with my students that "health" class and driver's ed are the two most important classes they'll take in high school. What makes this humorous is that they are (usually) taught by the *least* inspired teachers in the school. There are exceptions, however - I've seen an *excellent* and inspired heath teacher (Joan Stear at Glen Este High School, for instance) work hard to innovate health instruction.
What makes these courses very difficult to teach are their adolescent attitudes toward these subjects. The more immediate the topic (especially as it pertains to risk-taking) the more defensive teens are towards it. It's as though they have to defend their mental "limitations" to risk-aversion. Viewed this way, it's easy to understand a teen's eye-rolling on subjects like safe-sex and defensive driving.
I find it shocking how little adolescent student know about finance. Part of this stems from their inability to see themselves retiring. For a group that thinks they'll "live forever", they have very little idea on *how* they'll finance that option.
Financial literacy, however, is an area ripe for education because it is one of the few domains that:
1) teen find inherently interesting
2) adults can demonstrate a clear mastery
This gives teachers a powerful - though small - window of opportunity to to have a relevant dialogue with their students.
One exercise I use when starting a unit on finance is to take a student's picture and digitally "age" it:
(http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/age-my-face-pro-make-yourself/id422704707?mt=8)
I then have them paste a copy on their folder and tell them:
"This is *you* in 50 years."
"This is the person who you're working for."
"This is the person who you're saving for."
Maybe because of this (more than in any class I've taught) students have told me "This class has changed the way I think about the world."
Genevieve Tran 50+
Bruno Carre
+ 1 for Sex Ed. I've made myself a t-shirt saying "I went 18 years to school and never learned anything about sex". It is an important element in one's life, why do we have to learn it by ourselves, why is such a taboo? The first time I had sex I was clueless.
- Collaborative achievement (vs Individual performance). Unless a job doesn't involve contact with other people (but which one doesn't?), collaboration is crucial. Schools put the A students on a pedestal. That is in my book individual performance rewarded. Big mistake as once we start our professional life, success mainly depends on how you work well with others.
- Courage. Meaning to dare. Meaning be prepared for failure, which can lead to creativity. Sir Ken Robinson's speech on creativity is a big wake up call. Courage also means that children would learn to trust themselves better, even if they are not A students, which means there is a bigger chance they will find what they love and strive to do it. How many people are unhappy in their jobs because it is not a calling but only a way to put bread on the table? I know this very well because I've been in this situation.
Good question :-)
Greetings
Bruno
Genevieve Tran 50+
I totally agree about the courage part. The whole staying in the box, colouring within the lines is a strange rule that comes about in teacher-directed classrooms, where not doing what the teacher says becomes an infraction. I think this is what discourages creative, lateral thinking.
Lots of times, listening to some instructions is just practical. But teachers shouldn't feel so insecure about their students' respect for them. Once, a student was sketching a bridge on his giant art pad, while I was explaining something completely unrelated and I took and held the pad away from him and asked him to tell me two things I said in the last 5 minutes. He did, with thoughtful, paraphrasing. I immediately returned the pad to him and said, "OK, continue, then!" That taught me :)
Genevieve Tran 50+
In all cases, TED and these conversations have helped a load in applying the smarts that were(n't) there to begin with! :)
Once for a journal piece, I dug into why the most successful school models around the world were the way they were. These were measured by local, national and international standards. Admin from all over the world studied these models; the Gates Foundation consulted with them etc. Despite huge differences in culture, $ per pupil spent, private or public, which courses were taught, level of snazzy technology, amount of extra-curricular offered etc. the bottom line for the most successful schools and students was that they had seriously caring, qualified, talented, aware and inexhaustible activist teachers; teachers trained and impassioned enough to understand how to steer and tweak a curriculum to challenge and prepare students for life. The top system, for example, according to PISA, is Finland, where every teacher has a Master's degree, undergoes 5 years of training (in Canada it's 1); few classrooms use technology beyond blackboards; few schools have prom or extra curricular things; they don't have standardized tests. In their economy, upward mobility is still a reality for every upcoming generation.
Also: alcoholism and suicide among teachers are the highest there. Like the end of a love story...:/
Amanda Butterworth
We all have a story that has made us who we are, sometimes when we relate to others with this in mind we can be more gracious and less easily offended. I think the world would be a different place if we were all taught (and actually grasped) that although we are unique and valuable beyond measure so is everyone else.
It's a good question and the responses are really thought provoking - thanks.
Amgad Muhammad
Katya Khripun
Spirituality is one subject I would like to be made official.
Jason Wolfe
I have many problems with the design of the schools and the idea that square rooms with 30 kids facing the supreme leader is the best way to learn and teach, but if there was one thing that I think about not learning and really wish I did, it would be growing food.
I wish gardening and food production was a mandatory subject. This is especially relevant for city kids who probably think that growing food is for houses with gardens but there is a lot that can be done in an apartment, like grow tomatoes in old 2L milk cartons. These food growing lessons could be stand alone but could be easily incorporated into other subjects such as home economics (obviously) and science, as well as art (dyes) and history (ethnobotany).
Japanese kindergartens and elementary school have a lot more gardening than I grew up with but it would be nice if it continued on through all of secondary school as well.
Bring on the plants!
Genevieve Tran 50+
http://www.ted.com/talks/pam_warhurst_how_we_can_eat_our_landscapes.html
I feel blessed to have at least learned about cooking food at home, and all my friends and ex-boyfriends have been great cooks. In Canada, we do have a cursory experience with growing some bean plants in school, but as a serious life skill to cultivate and harvest regularly, that would rock.
Maybe some of the concrete on the playground can turn into a community garden for recess? Greenhouse in the winters! Instead of playground supervisors, horticultural specialists!
James Zhang 30+
Jason Wolfe
John Walker
John Walker
Henry Woeltjen 10+
You can always learn anything you don't already know...that's the beauty of being human.
Tim Petersen
As innocent as this may come across, it is not ao much innocence or niavete, as it is just believing people will not deliberately mislead me, especially instructors of education. Years ago, In European History at Grinnell College, I questioned the lack of truth and was very confused by the answer from the Professor. He did not lie, and I love him for that.
Genevieve Tran 50+
The inflamed tensions between China and Japan now over those islands between them have to do with both school systems not having done enough to educate current adults in charge to handle this with any sense of cool.
In Japan, few adults discuss (or know about) the Nanking Massacre; and Japan's Imperialist crimes against all of its neighbours, the citizens of which, many are still alive and angry. With Japanese heads of states pledging to go and visit the islands just to plant a flag, or the unclear stance on the impropriety of whitewashing textbooks etc. by the education ministry just threatens to drag this goo-brained foreign policy out further.
In China, the idea of victimhood is de rigueur for many, but of course the country itself has also suppressed countless territories and people much worse than in this case of the unihabited islands. Furthermore, why are mass demonstrations allowed to happen for causes like this, but not against the government itself? So many things to consider fishy.
I'm sure there are people out there with their cars and businesses burnt down, with restaurants and hotels empty because of mis-education and the inability for either system to be smart going forward--they should be the ones that are inflamed.
Tim Petersen
This is a great question and many people answered sincerely, too. I completely support teaching our children to tend gardens and purify water that was mentioned. Thanks again, and know i'll be following more of your posts and opinions. It's been my pleasure. I hope the people and country of Japan are healing. I am in support of their efforts to restrict and resist nuclear power. It seems as though much of the world is taking notice of their courage to protest. Tim
Henry Woeltjen 10+
Let me also note the danger in introducing complex ideas to children.
They do not reason as you and I do. Therefore, the "intended" idea may not be what you actually input.
carolyn johnson
Krisztián Pintér 200+
rick spalding
Krisztián Pintér 200+
example. imagine schools start to teach proper nutrition. how awkward that would be if 12 years old children realized that their parents know nothing about the subject, and they all eat crap. it would lead to tension within the family. and as we know, family is sacred, and we don't want the school to "interfere" with the family, do we?
Genevieve Tran 50+
can I ask you what kind of things you recommend for conspiracy believers to do, once they realize that it is all hopeless and out of thier power to fix?
rick spalding
rick spalding
2 Is to love your friends and family and support community. Truly keep a balanced mind. Any type of negative energy emanating from someone because they had a bad day, etc, truly rubs off to the people around them. I could go on and on about this also but I will try to wrap up this whole crude summation of everything. As you mentioned "hopelessness" many conspirators have been led down the wrong path (fear mongering tools). What better way to make someone feel catatonic, for lack of a better word, than fear. The endless capacity of our mind is the greatest tool we have, and many use it poorly or the wrong way. I am willing to continue if any1 is interested
Genevieve Tran 50+
I was more curious of how a said "conspiracy theorist" might practically go about employing the alternate set of knowlege that s/he has learned. For example, in order to change the world---if that is a goal etc.? Or, is it such a small group, thinking negative thoughts, that it ends up being defeatist?
rick spalding
Oh and if you are a bible believer, this can't be stopped. That is why I find Book of Daniel and Revelation interesting. Not saying I believe it but God will come down fullfill the rapture and cleanse this earth. I personally can't believe in a personal God like that. Genevieve have you read Atlas Shrugged? If you haven't I would love if you took the time to read it and hear your thoughts. I can tell you are way smarter than me, I would love to to hear your thoughts on the book.
Antonio Robateau
But what I was waiting to hear is the natural law of Conflict of Interest. Conflicts of interest are any situations where one's personal interest or benefit negatively influences one's actions of benefiting another person's interest or benefit. It is proper for conflicts of interest to be publicly stated up front beforehand, but through its powerful influence it is kept secret so as to prolong the selfish advantage. This all springs from an attitude of (cold) war where everyone is your personal enemy and that you would be foolish to sacrifice for another person's gain willingly - yet that is exactly what love is!
In studying conflicts of interest and uncovering unknown conspiracies, I have devised the following litmus tests: 1)What do they say they want to do to benefit you? 2) What, if possible, could instead benefit them alone? 3) How easy is it for them to conceal this?
By applying this during the Gulf oil spill, I surprisingly discovered a HUGE conflict of interest actually prolonging the oil spill: 1) On the news were US Military personel in helicopters and boats all over the Louisiana beaches and coastline saying they will do everything they can to help the local fishermen and townsfolk stating BP would pay the bill, while at the same time there were absolutely no one at the spill site trying to stop the gushing crude! 2) The US Government had a HUGE self interest in that the disaster was caused by one of the world's biggest (Brittish) oil companies, the US had the power to stop the spill or just simply let it get worse to increase cleanup costs. 3) I bet we'd never see the total bill. So said, so done. Someone's rich!!!
John Walker
Dustin Rodriguez 30+
I do think that Sex Ed should be a year-long course which covers the whole of human sexuality, from its history and sociology through the biological aspects, on to the psychological and social aspects - which things are the way they are purely because society makes them that way and which are actually natural - and on through the wide variety of fetishes, the role of sex in different types of relationships, the fluidity of sexual orientation, and the nature of sex as a basic bodily function.
Brett Mangel
As Plutarch said, "The mind is not a vat to be filled, but a fire to be kindled."
By lighting kids imaginations, we can get them to take responsibility for their futures. And although curiosity may not be something that can be taught, it can certainly be encouraged and nourished.
By showing children the excitement of learning, what it can do for you, how much fun it is, etc, we can provide the children with the skills needed to take responsibility for their own learning.
The trick is to get our teachers to be entertainers and mentors, rather than autocratic dictators ruling over their own nation of 30+ students.
On the hand of specific knowledge though, I believe our schools should guide students towards skills that allow them to solve any problems (within reason) that may arise in their life. In the 21st century this includes programming, finances, relationships, as well as the basics of reading, writing, arithmetic and science.
In the 22nd century that may involve piloting spaceships and using teleporters responsibly, but by nurturing curiosity and allowing the children to have some say in what they will learn I think we can trust that they will attempt to learn the skills most pertinent to their lives and their futures without too many government mandates on a general curricula.
And I'll end with my favorite idea from Douglas Adams, that the trick is to ask the right questions, while I trust that the answers will logically follow and fall into place.
Dustin Rodriguez 30+
Smitha Suraj
Katya Khripun
Teaching skills like listening to others and to oneself, caring, being curious, defining what's important, decision-making and searching for answers would be great. But these are more abstract skills.
Among non-abstract ecology studies, physical and mental health, nutrition, social skills seem quite valuable.
Emil Johansson
Sara Callen
Randy Gibson
Randy Gibson