What Skills Should Be Taught At School

[Yu_Gi_Oh]

ahhhh.... so you wouldn't dispel the fallacy that supermarkets are full of win then then?

Shops that sell food do fulfill a fairly basic need though don't they? You don't have to send 'em to Asda but it's a bit of a fallacy to say that places to buy food are full of fail.

 

[Gmart]

full of win, full of fail?

I notice that we are moving towards more practical skills beyond the basics. Is there the possibility that we could just put aside the afternoon for activities, while the morning could be for academic study?

 

[kabbes]

Why is (very) basic finance/economics not on the list, despite the general feeling in the other thread that it definitely should be, in one form or another?

Put it on there right now.

Also: vector analysis.

 

[Gmart]

Why is (very) basic finance/economics not on the list, despite the general feeling in the other thread that it definitely should be, in one form or another?

Put it on there right now.

Also: vector analysis.

chrissie gave a synopsis in #28 which included it.

Why vector analysis?

 

[kyser_soze]

For instance, subjects like English should not be full of old Literature like Shakespeare and Pre-twentieth century dead writers; it is too hard and nothing to do with English skills.

Bollocks. IMO. We did English language - which covered off creative writing, grammar, different types of writing (journalism, fiction, business), and Eng lit as separate lessons, in which we did 2 Shakespeares, The Long and The Short and The Tall, some other stuff and had to write a 1,000 word piece on a genre of our choice (ah yeah, we did a load of classic sci-fi, Brave New World, 1984, Frankenstein and a couple of others which was the basis for the genre study); compare and contrast on both subjects...twas great, and there was a really, really well mixed bag.

I've got to say, a lot of the stuff on here I'd expect parents to have more of a hand in teaching, and the stuff about raising animals/plants we did in infant school...altho I'm very much of the opinion that education was better in the 70s and early 80s where I grew up then it is now...

 

[kabbes]

chrissie gave a synopsis in #28 which included it.

Why vector analysis?

Mostly because I am being facetious.

(But partly because I firmly believe that the entire underpinning of the way we teach maths from age 4 in this country is completely wrong. Children should be taught from the word go to conceptualize numbers, not merely see them as placeholders for "things". By the time we move on to the more abstract nature of maths, it is already way too late for 90%+ of people and they struggle. We shouldn't be teaching a 6-year-old that 2 + 2 = 4; we should be teaching them that (2,2) + (2,2) = (4,4).

I appreciate that this is another debate entirely and very technical one, however. And one that is very, very unlikely to ever result in any real-world changes. So we'll just stick to "facetious" for now.)

 

[Mrs Magpie]

I'm not sure anyone would describe my school as "happy"! It has been described as "failing"!!

Ours is "outstanding"...

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

I had a Raymond Chandler radio play (The Longer Goodbye) and some anime (The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya) to do.

 

[Doctor Carrot]

At the risk of sounding like a hippy I really think skills like developing and maintaining self confidence and esteem will be beneficial to not only kids themselves but society as a whole, self confidence is a skill that can be learnt. I believe there's a handful of schools that teach it and they have positive results.

 

[8ball]

Awesome nunchuk skills . . bo-staff skills . . computer-hacking skills . .

 

[Gmart]

Should drama be taught? Surely this should be an extracurricular activity? Should sports? Should activities be reserved for the afternoon maybe?

 

[jonH]

they should teach the kids what school's for.