What subjects should kids learn at school?

[Holdfast]

I agree with those who have suggested as broad an education as possible...

... the trouble is that intellectual curiosity is forced out in an endless swathe of testing that serves only to generate the appearance of utility, rather than being intrinsically important. Children then stop enjoying learning, as would anyone forced into a clearly redundant & system-centric rather than person-centric activity, and the process of becoming thoughtful & curious people halts before they've matured as an individual because they associate learning with testing.

They emerge with bits of paper that enable them to get jobs (or not), or to get into university (where most of them continue falling into the same trap of thinking it's about getting a qualification/job prospect rather than expanding their mind).

Only a minority retain any sense of mental vigour, unfortunately. I was lucky that my parents, while certainly very keen on my getting all the bits of paper required, also taught me a healthy cynicism regarding the actual true value of those qualifications (a mere necessary hurdle) compared to being able to think.

Of course, as a concept, the idea of testing progress against an external standard is sound. The trouble is the quantity of the testing, and the validity and meaning of the standards currently used, at least in the UK.

 

[Strider]

I'm just mystified that people would want to talk about education this much. This kind of talk bores even though of us who are teachers. Go to grad school to be a teacher, you'll never wanna talk about this shit ever again

 

[Holdfast]

I'm just mystified that people would want to talk about education this much. This kind of talk bores even though of us who are teachers. Go to grad school to be a teacher, you'll never wanna talk about this shit ever again

Yeah, I assume/know you're just kidding around here, but frankly, this attitude is way too common amongst teachers in actuality.

Partly because of the demoralising nature of large chunks of the bureaucracy, partly because the pay is relatively poor, and to be honest, partly because of who the profession can attract. Every profession/trade has its jobsworths but in most jobs, doing the job "just enough" isn't a major problem (apart from creating inefficiency and therefore affecting the bottom line).

But with some professions, and teaching is one of them, it creates major systemic issues when this attitude becomes widespread. Anyway, in a sense, this whole issue is academic to me (pardon the pun), since I don't have kids and am fairly unlikely to. But I do teach (a very little) at university/post-grad level myself, as well as running a regular course for prospective students, and it's annoying to see how narrow much teaching is, how focused it is on measurable end points (even if the validity of those end points is questionable) and how it feels like it's undervaluing the resource they have coming through their classes every year.

Children and young adults are forced to jump through hoops rather than actually thinking. Naturally, it could be argued this is excellent training for the lives most of them will be leading, but I personally find it a shame.