I was having a very interesting discussion a couple of nights ago with a lady where I am staying and we were reminiscing about our school days - which were actually about fifteen years apart as they are somewhat older than me.
School is all fine and good and there is a lot to be said about the academics and the sciences and I am not suggesting otherwise but in addition to that, kids need more and to be better equipped for life beyond school and to some extent a more pragmatic approach needs to be taken concerning education. Roughly speaking these additional, but necessary, skills broadly fit into two categories.
Domestic
- Cooking (we used to call it home economics
- Needlework / Handicrafts
- Home Budgeting
- Financial Planning / Saving Money
Societal
- Community Responsibilities
- Taxation - Local and National
- How Banks Work
- Where to find help
- Employment and Earnings
These are things we kind of need to know, to a greater or lesser degree, depending on how our lives work out. It does appear that at least some of this was done in the past, but it is less so nowadays.
Of course school timetables are under pressure and teachers are pushed to get results and so these things do get squeezed out, but that doesn't change the need for such knowledge to be imparted. In Poland there is a class that is loosely translated as "Society" where much of this is covered and especially the latter list.
The responsibility of schooling, as well as raising children generally, is to raise up mature adults and surely this is more of the brief than the imparting of academic knowledge, which all to often bears little or no relation to real post-school life. This begs the question of what is more important academic subjects or preparation for life.
Academic topics are essential; without biology and chemistry there would be no doctors. Without history we would not understand our identity or develop critical thinking and without studying our domestic language (and others) written communcation would be limited or non-existent and thus the list continues.
Not all children are academically-minded and so it could be argued that rather than wasting time on (ultimately useless) stuff that they will never grasp their time could be better spent and likewise as those more academic ones can find space as there subject field narrows and becomes more specialised the higher it goes.
Just something for us to think about.
As always stay safe and well my friends.
