SuziAngel Posted January 4, 2007 Share Posted January 4, 2007 If schools were to introduce life skills/current affairs classes (call them what you will), how many students would actually pay attention to them? Attempting to teach anything at the moment is a very arduous task due to the level of dispruption caused in classrooms nowadays. If you were given a lesson on stockmarkets, politics...etc. would you actually listen? Or would you get bored and become disruptive? The Poison Fairy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lionheart_0 Posted January 4, 2007 Share Posted January 4, 2007 :? Well i'm certainly not gonna learn about Biology and chemistry in the amount that i want to in the real world when i need it. Life skills are called that for a reason: you learn them as you live life. To me, learning life skills is something each person should find out on their own, and not tought because that would take all the fun out of living. what good is living life to discover and and be independent if we just have the that stuff shoved down our throats. Id rather learn about the stuff i need for a job in school, but learn how to get that job on my own. We should be somewhat know about this. Often parents don't teach enough about finances to their children and young adults can dig themselves into a pretty deep hole if they know nothing about credit cards and such. If ones parents aren't gonna help them, I'll tell you now, they don't have very good parents. @the above poster: You are absolutely right. I am in a peer tutoring class, so i basically help teach a class. These kids are the absolute worst. Every other day, half the class is sent out because they are so disruptive. Not to mention, they care more about social and financial things at the moment, they could care less about the work they actually do. Sig by IkuraiYour Guide to Posting! Behave or I will send my Moose mounted Beaver launchers at you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
issy2 Posted January 4, 2007 Share Posted January 4, 2007 But, Viktor, you've only mentioned things that will financially affect our lives. :( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unknownmasterofnothing Posted January 4, 2007 Share Posted January 4, 2007 I think it helps you figure out what you want to do in life, from the different subjects you take. They aren't really life skills, that would be like home economics. If you like math, you might want to go into finance and do the stock market, banking, etc. And before college you do usually take a economics class to learn about credit cards, loans etc... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Markup Posted January 5, 2007 Share Posted January 5, 2007 You don't get taught that? That pretty much scares me that I won't be taught those things. Although my brother taught me about how to use the stockmarket. ~MAK Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ctim Posted January 5, 2007 Share Posted January 5, 2007 I think the whole "Public Education" system where the government pays for your education is all messed up. I think that we need to go back to the school system of the 1800s-early 1900s where all schools were private. I think that your education means a lot more to you (thus learning more) if you or someone else (like your family) pays for it then if you just take it for granted. You would also learn a lot more "life skills" because your not going to school because you have to your going because you want to. You also would learn how to make a living at the same time because most of the students back then also were apprenticed to someone to learn a trade as there "highschool" education. Of course I am biased because I'm homeschooled. 91% percent of the people polled said they were liers. The other 9% lied to us. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andufusthebronze Posted January 5, 2007 Share Posted January 5, 2007 I have views on stuff like that in school, for example most of the time in french or spanish we waste our time learning to say: I have three brown cats, one of them is female. Simply because no-one cares! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Giordano Posted January 5, 2007 Share Posted January 5, 2007 I agree they should teach life skills and new subjects as well. I've noticed the schools here (and the rest of California) is that they teach you something one year, a few years later they teach you the same thing from square 1 but a stop a little 'higher' than the first time you studied it. THEN you dont learn it/remind of it until another few years and then you start from square 1 again and work up to the whole concept. The last step is high school, first step is elementry school. They should stop repeating the same things over and over again and teach us something worthwhile. :evil: "The cry of the poor is not always just, but if you never hear it you'll never know what justice is." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Obsessive_Passion Posted January 21, 2007 Share Posted January 21, 2007 Does anyone else think that we should learn important life skills in school? Things like how to make money, how to use the stock market, how and when to refinance, bills, how to buy a house, all about banking, credit, mortgage, consolidating, saving money, the job world, things like this that are very important in life out of school. Many of these skills are already being taught. I studied commerce for 3 years at school (years 8-10), and covered all of the mentioned topics and also an extra: politics. Sure, not everyone will want to study commerce. But these subjects are offered to be learnt, so the opportunity is there. Whether or not they choose it is really up to them. Yes, I agree, it's important to be familiar with these everyday procedures, but they may not apply to everyone (best example, the stock market - it's too risky for many people). If you're really in need of help, you can always contact government departments and financial institutions (banks, credit unions) for further information. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ambassadar Posted January 21, 2007 Share Posted January 21, 2007 History is an amazingly useful topic that schools absolutely butcher and make useless. I despised history in school yet I absolutely love reading history on my own. In school they want you to know a name and a date. When I learn it on my own I get to figure out who the people were, what made them tick, why things happened the way they did, what would I have done differently if I had been in the situation. What went wrong? What went right? Then the follow up question of why did things go right or wrong? This doesn't even have to be applied to nations or some random guy... If we want to apply it to how do we make money and street smarts then a great guy to listen to is Peter Lynch. He ran the most successful mutual fund on wall street during the 80's and early 90's. He averaged about 25% return a year if you invested with him. If you don't know about compounding interest yet I'll just say that is some SICK money!! When you read his books where he explains how he invests you get a ton of history. He loves walking through the history of companies that failed and explaining why they failed so when you are looking what to invest in you know what warning signs to look for. He also shows why companies do well and how to spot things that way also. You have to be able to understand how things fit into the grand scheme of things as well. Stocks like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are highly dependent on the government. If you don't understand basic concepts of how it works and why it works that way(the history of it) it can hurt you financially because you can't recognize things as well. Basically I agree with the original poster. A lot of classes are complete junk. I wouldn't necessarily say the topic is junk, I would just say the way they are taught is junk. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlueLancer Posted January 21, 2007 Share Posted January 21, 2007 If schools were to introduce life skills/current affairs classes (call them what you will), how many students would actually pay attention to them? Attempting to teach anything at the moment is a very arduous task due to the level of dispruption caused in classrooms nowadays. If you were given a lesson on stockmarkets, politics...etc. would you actually listen? Or would you get bored and become disruptive? When it comes to your future, why not? If I had those classes when I was getting an education I probably would've been an A straight student, Instead I got mostly B-C and a few A's. Listening to those lectures could help you a lot later in your life, any smart student would listen carefully. They're not teaching you hypothetical theories and random facts. In those classes they teach you how to earn more money for a house, a car or whatever you need/want. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justin_m23 Posted January 21, 2007 Share Posted January 21, 2007 :shock: this is amazing, i didnt think economics and finance were 'life skills'. when i think life skills, i think of things like being able to survive in social situations, knowing the difference between right at wrong etc etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SuziAngel Posted January 21, 2007 Share Posted January 21, 2007 BlueLancer, there should be more people like you. :D I guess when I wrote my original post, I was thinking about the majority of students (in my experience), as opposed to sensible few who actually want to learn. The Poison Fairy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
____ Posted January 21, 2007 Share Posted January 21, 2007 :shock: this is amazing, i didnt think economics and finance were 'life skills'. when i think life skills, i think of things like being able to survive in social situations, knowing the difference between right at wrong etc etc.social skills and morality is something personal. There's only so much you can learn about either in a class - the rest is generally up to you to fine tune. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
issy2 Posted January 21, 2007 Share Posted January 21, 2007 :shock: this is amazing, i didnt think economics and finance were 'life skills'. when i think life skills, i think of things like being able to survive in social situations, knowing the difference between right at wrong etc etc. As far as I'm concerned knowing the difference between right and wrong cannot be taught. It can be encouraged, but in the end it's the mind of the indivudual who decides on their personal moral code. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justin_m23 Posted January 21, 2007 Share Posted January 21, 2007 this is true, which is why it is not taught in schools :lol: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
insane Posted January 21, 2007 Share Posted January 21, 2007 Most objective life skills are taught in school (economics for example). However, most life skills are subjective and teaching any one life skill in a board approved matter is going to end up forcing beliefs down student's throats. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pc_Grey_Fox Posted January 21, 2007 Share Posted January 21, 2007 Well, the original poster seems to be talking about financial things affecting people's daily lives, and in that case I completely agree. I never learned these things... nobody has had the time to help me understand some of these things. I mean, I'm 18 and I've literally just learned 2 months ago how to pay bills. I really wish someone had shown me how to do this because I got stuffed with a $20 fee for not doing something right. At least I learned that one first, screwing up the next bill would have been a $200 fee... Point is, I was never shown how to handle the daily financial tasks everyone goes through in their lives, and I was never told who to talk to about it. Everyone just assumes you know, and yet many teens (and quite a few adults) don't know about things like savings accounts, doing income tax properly, credit cards... These are extremely valuable life skills... at the very least, if you teach in school people can't say "Oh, I didn't know!" because they did. Sucks to be you if you didn't pay attention in class. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
One Too Far Posted January 21, 2007 Share Posted January 21, 2007 i dont think you can be realy teachd al life skils or you wil be in school for 2 years extra (maybe not a bad idea?) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darkmage099 Posted January 21, 2007 Share Posted January 21, 2007 Debate/competitive speaking/speech-writing, it is so incredibly useful. I can BS my way through anything! I can write effective speeches in less than 40 minutes with minimal evidence. Trix.--quit WoW as of 12/07Thank you 4be2jue for the wonderful sig and avatar! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tzone92 Posted January 21, 2007 Share Posted January 21, 2007 I have a very extreme view on our education system all together. The way I see it, we shouldn't be taught 90% of the material past grade 9 or so. Along the lines, I have found most of the material to just be repeated anyway (especially in sciences and histories). As long as we're going to have an educational system in place, we might as well make it useful. So yes, I agree with you... In an extreme sense. I say get rid of everything past mid-high school and start fresh. Let the students have more control over the classes they take, let them pick courses that will be useful to them in the particular lifestyle they want to lead. I'd keep going and reveal my even more extreme opinions, but people will start to question my sanity :ohnoes: I think the main reason that kids don't have complete control over what classes they have is so that they might take a class that they wouldn't normally pick, enjoy it, and eventually have a career that could be introduced with that class. you know there is a place called outside, better graphics 100% pvp and no fee to play :-w Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Markup Posted January 21, 2007 Share Posted January 21, 2007 I'm not sure but I think we learn it at my school. My brother learnt alot of what you listed in, I think, economics. Ring a bell? Anyway if you don't learn this at school then I will be annoyed. ~MAK Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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