In public school curriculums, there are several courses that should be required for a high school diploma:
A course in law should be required. There are literally thousands of laws that we, as citizens, are expected to obey, but nobody ever bothers to tell us what they are until we violate one. Such a course should have lessons in the Constitution, federal law, state and local laws (not just the ones where the school is, but a sampling of those throughout the country), codes and other regulations, as well as laws in other countries.
A course in economics should be required. Different sessions should cover personal finance and budgeting, taxes, investments, retirement planning, small business operation, plus some knowledge of macroeconomics. The current efforts at career planning, scattered and uncoordinated as they presently are, could be integrated into this course.
A course in parenting should be required. The concept that human beings somehow automatically know how to be good parents is clearly flawed. Even a small amount of training in this area -- for both males and females -- should produce remarkable benefits to our society.
A course in what used to be called "home economics" should be required for all students, male and female. It would be considerably better for our citizens to learn how to clean a floor from a class than from the ads on TV.
A course in ethics should be required. Morals should be left to the church, but ethics are universal, and a study of them by each and every student in the US would help immensely.
A course in typing should not only be a requirement, but it should be early -- probably in elementary school. This should be a relatively brief course, merely providing the fundamentals of using all ten fingers on a keyboard. Whether it is taught on a typewriter or a computer is immaterial.
Finally -- and most importantly -- there needs to be training in "independent thought". Students need to be given the ability, willingness, and confidence to start making decisions for themselves and drawing their own conclusions. They need to be taught that they can vote for the candidate with the right ideas rather than the one the polls predict is gonna win. They need to be taught that they have the power to decide whether or not they will smoke, drink, take drugs, or whatever, even if they are at a party where everyone else is. They need to be taught that they can buy shoes that fit, rather than the shoes that some sports hero is pushing on TV. They need to be taught that, to a large extent, they can decide and determine how their lives will turn out, rather than just letting it happen to them. And, yes, this needs to be a course; do you think their English teacher is going to give this lesson?
While many people feel that students should have to attend school longer, I do not feel that is a necessary outcome of adding the items above. I also feel that many things currently being taught should be dropped or changed:
Arithmetic should be taught completely differently from the way it was taught in the past. Students should be using a calculator from the outset; they will never, in their entire lives, need to do any arithmetic without one. Memorizing multiplication tables or learning long division is a complete waste of valuable school time that could be better spent on important things.
Mathematics is one of the most important things to be teaching. But what should be being taught is not the simple mechanics of arithmetic that a calculator can do for you, but rather how to apply that arithmetic to solve problems. Students need to be taught when to subtract and when to divide, and why.
Grammar is important, but it is likewise taught entirely incorrectly. At present, students are drilled for years -- through middle school and perhaps even into high school -- about the parts of speech, sentence structure, etc. Many, many hours are spent learning the various words for each part of speech -- interjections, prepositions, homonyms, etc. -- which will be of absolutely no use to them later in life unless they happen to be English teachers! What is important is writing well, not knowing the names for parts of speech.
The fundamentals of grammar should be taught only briefly in elementary school (that's why it's called grammar school!) and never taught as a separate subject again. Rather, students should be graded on grammar on everything they write for whatever course they're in.
Likewise, vocabulary and spelling should only be taught as distinct subjects in elementary school. In middle and high schools, classrooms should be equipped with dictionaries and computers should have spellcheck software, and the students should learn how to expand their own vocabularies. Of course, they will constantly be being exposed to new words in the course of their studies. Note that correct spelling is now more important than it ever has been, as illustrated in an experience related by Rod Fleming and by a poem, An Ode to a Spell Checker... But today being able to produce documents with correct spelling does not require rote memorization of words as it once did. Schools should be teaching students how to spell correctly using a spell checker, not continuing as though the things don't exist.
I personally am a big fan of great literature, but I must admit to some doubt as to its value in the public school curriculum. It could be argued that subjecting teenagers to the works of Shakespeare and Tolstoy does more harm than good, forever instilling in most of them the idea that such works are more boring drudgery than good reading. While reading skills are important, they should be taught in elementary school with primers, and the great works of literature should, at most, be in elective courses only.
History is a very important course. But the least important facts in history, the actual dates on which historical events occurred, are the very items history courses seem to revolve around. The rote memorization of dates in history is a waste of time, and should never be considered the key to passing a history test. What is really important in history is what happened, why, and in what sequence. It would be a considerably better idea to give a student a feel for the era than to force him to memorize the year.
Here's a thought to close with: I believe that, if these type of curriculum changes were made in our school systems, the students themselves would find education much more relevant to their lives. The dropout rates would fall, and students would apply themselves more to their studies.
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Of course, if you have questions or comments, you are welcome to send e-mail to me at palmk@nettally.com.