What classes should still be taught in high school

So this is actually a serious question. A group of other teachers and myself are trying to put together a pilot program that will help give high schoolers some real-world skills once they graduate. This would help both those who are college bound and those who are not. My initial thoughts are comp comp sci related skills: teaching some languages like Python, Pearl, Ruby, Java, etc. With as wired as our youth are, this seems like a natural progression of taking their tech savvy and making it marketable.

However, my gear head would love to bring back shop-type classes. I took a Marine Motors class in high school where we worked on small outboards. This was something of an elective for me, but other students who were enrolled in that particular program were making like $20 an hour part time in high school with many graduating seniors already promised jobs upon graduation.

What we're proposing is nothing particular new, but the twist is that we are going to try and create a culture where students are not "tracked" according to either being "college bound" or "not college bound" and where real world skills are valued as much as academic achievement. For instance, a student may be interested in becoming and engineer, in which case they'd benefit both from taking Calculus, AP physics, and, say, CNC machining.

Great ideas and I hope you are successful in getting them going. Two more that I would recommend:

1) Finances 101. How to balance a checkbook, how online banking works, how credit cars and credit applications work, how to finance and buy a car, how to save for big purchases and/or retirement, how compound interest can create a comfortable nest egg with little effort, etc.
2) Project management and working with others. In any job, you have to learn to work with other people and maintain a professional attitude. Too often, people get into the "it's all about me" mode when being more collaborative will work better in the long run.

-Rob

Teach birth control.

On a serious note, see what Mike Rowe has to say.

Look into Skills USA which is a national high school competition.

Skills USA video

Finances

And not the piss poor version of it most kids get from either A) Home Economics ("Make a budget and do this grocery purchase exercise" or B) Algebra ("Here's how to calculate interest. Ok, moving on....")

I know they are not in vogue.. but any kinds of "home ec" from balancing a chequebook to how to sew a button. Not all kids get the skills they need from home. It took me a while to learn how to iron a shirt

All students should go through at least one shop class and a home-ec class. Financial literacy should be mandatory too.

BTW, I loathe the college bound/not collage bound distinction. You might as well just impose a caste system.....Now I need to go look up the TED talk about this. Basically it's a doctorate level Mike Rowe lecture.

TL/DR there is a shortage of highly skilled labor, jobs that often pay better than degreed jobs, and the education system is deep in self serving denial.

Financial literacy.

Teach them what an IRA and 401k, along with the Roth varieties are. And the 4% rule and all of that. Teach them how much they'll make, and how much it costs to live.

Excel. I'm a risk professional with a degree in Mathematics. Most beneficial thing I ever did for my career? A blowoff elective class in high school that went over the Microsoft suite. Easily the best class I've ever taken.

Instead of shop and wood shop and stuff, how about "household E36 M3 that goes wrong at 3am when". Teach them how to fix a toilet, or sump pump. How to shut off the power to a room, or drain a water heater. Turn off the gas line. Stuff like that. Knowing how to rebuild a small engine has never helped me once in my life, unfortunately. But I sure wish someone had showed me how to patch drywall.

+10 for crap that goes wrong at 3am.

Basic reading, writing and arithmetic should be complete by high school.

Basic critical thinking. A grounded lesson on what the scientific principle is, how it can be applied to every day life. Most kids do not need to deeply understand the earth's crust or the make up of clouds... they are nice to have but unnecessary. Understanding the difference between truths and myths and being able to apply it would make everyone a little less dumb in whatever they choose as a discipline.

Everyday finance and risk management where kids learn how to manage money, invest and save for their own future. Lessons might include debt management and how to avoid it. What liability is and how it relates to the choices they make. Etc.

Food safety/preparation and nutrition. Everyone eats. From the look of most Americans... they don't know how. Even as a functioning adult it's hard to get good information in the sea of pseudo-science on this subject.

Basic life skills (Boy Scouts 101): How to treat a various kinds of wounds, CPR, how to make fire, fitness, self-defense...

Civics. It exists now so why does absolutely no one know how our government is supposed to work? Distill it down to the basics. How it's supposed to work, and the rights and responsibilities of the voter.

Millions of kids who say they will never use Trigonometry or English Literature are 100% correct. Unless you go into an advanced education in the sciences teaching a 10yr old about the properties of various kinds of rock is just cute. But they will use the banking system every day, apply a bandage, eat a burrito from 7/11, vote locally and nationally and need to make decisions about what is a real advice and what is a scam. Right now... it's up to parents (who don't know either) and life experience to tell them how.

Basically give them tools to make decisions about the real world around them and leave the specific classes for specific disciplines. By high school kids can choose Math/Science, Politics, Literature, Arts/Music, Language, etc based on their own aptitudes and interests so I'd make all of that ala carte on top of the basics.

I think any kind of class with a hands on component and an emphasis on figuring stuff out is valuable. It doesn't matter if it's a wood shop class or a cooking class. The most valuable skills learned are those that give confidence to actually do something and figure out how to fix it when things don't go according to plan..

I don't think the problem is that we are teaching too many classes, budget cuts and focus on standardized testing is taking away funding and attention from the diversity of classes and resources students should have access to. High school needs to give each student the tools and motivation they need to go forward. There are basic subjects and knowledge all kids need, but then other people need the specific subjects that will be best for them.

Need the core curriculum: Reading, Writing, Arithmetic. Also science, history, and literature/media.

Basic life skills: how to cook, manage money, do taxes, avoid unwanted pregnancy and STDs, understand the potential risks of certain life choices (drugs, alcohol, diet, etc.), and be familiar with foreign languages and cultures.

Students need opportunity to study: Shop (mechanical, auto, wood, etc), to prepare and encourage people who may want to go into skilled trades - we will never outsource auto mechanics, construction, or infrastructure maintenance; tech/programming; athletics; performing arts.

The most valuable class(es) I took in high school was drama. I learned public speaking, working with other people to achieve a tangible goal on a limited budget, adapting on the spot to unexpected problems, carpentry, and operating professional level light and sound equipment.

Also,

Thermodynamics. No, every kid coming out of high school doesn't need to understand a heat engine, entropy, etc. But... the basic laws are really berkeleying simple and very easy to apply. They are very applicable to daily life, and they help protect people from scams.

Really, I should just rephrase that to say all basic scientific laws. Conservation of mass, energy, etc.

How to shake hands, make eye contact and basic manners. These skills seem to be lacking in a LOT of the youth that I see today. Sorry, maybe this should go in the rants thread...

I agree with everything Huckleberry said.

I wish someone would have taught me about how to manage money back then. Parents never take about it, school never addressed it. It just wasn't talked about. Of course I graduated in 97, learned to type on a typewriter and didn't touch a computer until for years after graduation. So my nine year old is more computer literate than I was in highschool.

Huckleberry wrote: Millions of kids who say they will never use Trigonometry or English Literature are 100% correct. Unless you go into an advanced education in the sciences teaching a 10yr old about the properties of various kinds of rock is just cute. But they will use the banking system every day, apply a bandage, eat a burrito from 7/11, vote locally and nationally and need to make decisions about what is a real advice and what is a scam[...] Basically give them tools to make decisions about the real world around them and leave the specific classes for specific disciplines. By high school kids can choose Math/Science, Politics, Literature, Arts/Music, Language, etc based on their own aptitudes and interests so I'd make all of that ala carte on top of the basics.

I mostly disagree. The higher level stuff can certainly be elective, but really what these classes are is the most effective vehicle for teaching these practical subjects that students will need when they become adults.

Civics and being a responsible citizen - that is social studies/history. It needs to be a part of it to demonstrate not only how to be a part of the system but what the effects of the system you are a part of have been and can be.

Real advice vs. scam - that's English/Literature. That's where you learn how to understand people's arguments, what types of argument someone is using, when those arguments are flawed, and how to form effective communication of your own. This is where you learn to identify how impartial or biased news sources are.

Critical thinking and evaluating claims - that's Science. It's doing experiments and learning to use and apply the scientific method (which takes a lot of time to do effectively).

Math - in real life people need a bit more than basic arithmetic. Trigonometry? Probably not, but mid level algebra where you can easily do single-variable problems and understand percentages and interest. An understanding of multi-variable equations, even if you don't really know how to solve for more than one unknown.

No, people do not need to know what world leader signed what treaty in what year. They do not need to know what the significance was of what symbolic metaphor in what piece of literature. The do not need to know the properties of a specific rock and how it forms. Thing is, that's not really what most teachers are actually trying to teach. They're trying to teach the underlying skills and principles that allow you to come to those specific details.

The problem is, it's a lot easier to test and grade teachers on if their students know the properties of a type of rock than to test if that students can apply the scientific method.

Birth control? On a serious note. How to lay a concrete slab for your Garage Mahal. That could be appreciated here.

Make them frame up one wall say 8 feet wide and eight feet high. Then sheeting and siding on the one side. Then wire up one circuit with an outlet and a light switch and a light fixture. Then plumb in a sink. Hang and finish drywall. Install the fixtures. I know how to do this basic stuff and it has literally saved me thousands of dollars by not having to call somebody. Then another class for cars. How to do brakes, change fluids, replace a seal. With youtube and harbor freight all people lack is the confidence to try.

The most useful classes I had were: Math, typing and TV Repair.

gearheadmb wrote: Make them frame up one wall say 8 feet wide and eight feet high. Then sheeting and siding on the one side. Then wire up one circuit with an outlet and a light switch and a light fixture. Then plumb in a sink. Hang and finish drywall. Install the fixtures.

This is one of the reasons Drama was the most useful class I ever took. Aside from plumbing a sink and sheeting/siding, we had to do all that, plus painting, as a regular part of set construction.

Oh, heres a good one: Nutrition. Your health begins and [often] ends with nutrition.

Like, we can solve diabetes and a lot of cancers, not to mention heart disease and a whole host of other "E36 M3" if everyone just became vegan. Good luck with that though; the information has been available since the 1920's but still almost no one is vegan.

A class on wants versus needs. Whether it's disguised as civics, home ec, a math, something. Teach them that there are useless degrees, and that the world needs ditch diggers too. Except put it more politely than that.

Anyone with a degree in Dr. Who or medieval Slavic history is going to have one hell of a time finding work and will just grow up to be a debt slave. That needs to be stopped. Hobby versus career degree. The difference between "that's cool I want to learn about that" and "this is what I want to do for a living". At 25k plus per year, it's important to know the difference going on.

Birth control and drug education from something more than an abstinence point of view might help to cut down on kids having kids and could work its way into helping the opioid epidemic.

Teach a realistic civics class. It's great, you know the theory of checks and balances and maybe the branches of government, but they don't work in real life like they do in text books. Lobbyists, corporate personhood, international agreements like NAFTA and the god forsaken TPP, the electoral college and why it's important.

At least locally, I've met boxes of rocks smarter than the high school graduates and college grads, which makes it seem like such wasted potential.

Maybe teach them how to lose and cope with not getting their way. Basic stuff they should have learned in preschool that seems to be missing entirely from young adults today.

And somehow, someway, despite all the teaching to the test and all the testing, remind them that no one will give a berkeley about their test scores in life, and they'll rarely if ever run into another standardized test again.

A skills based program such as ASE certification or an A&P has more benefits than just providing a specific marketable skill. Even if you don't use it there's a lot to be learned from having that particular knowledge as it assists developing a deeper understanding of the modern work environment.

My current job consists of marketing ERP and ECM software but I spent 10 years in manufacturing, R&D, and field support of aircraft. When a prospective client calls me to assesses if we are a fit for their needs, I can speak intelligently about how our product fits into their business paradigm rather than just make promises and quote technical specifications then hope we can milk a ton of modifications from them.

Other than that programming skills are always good to develop as it promotes critical thinking and complex problem-solving. I'm not sure about the market for that anymore as significant portions of that work are being globalized, although my company is committed to keeping our work in house.

Something like FSAE or SAE Heavylift (my personal background) would be cool to do too as it applies a number of engineering principles and teaches students the basics of manufacturing and design compromises.

In addition to all of the good stuff above, how about…

Relationships – How to pick the right person / the high cost of getting it wrong.

There are a lot of good ideas here. My 14 year old daughter loves math and says she wants to be a college math professor. The profession may change, but she still likes math.

Sooo this weekend I will have her help me do an alignment on the FX16. What data do we need to collect? How will we do that? What tools will we need/use? What do we want the data to look like when we are done and why?

When she was younger I had her help calculate the amount of paint needed to paint her room. Simple area calculations. She did great!

I think HS should be reformatted to be a a video game where the kid graduates after having made it past the correct number of levels and surviving a number of pitfalls like being expelled, dropping out or becoming a parent.

There would be no single path to reaching the end as one kid might follow with the mentality of a tradesman and another as that of a doctor. You could build the online dating right into the program.

If the matrix were done right, you would avoid people gaming the system by using other peoples experiences as they would not apply beyond their personal results. You want people to consult with peers, but not be able to directly apply their results to their own HS game.