Things that should be taught in school, but are not.

[AMDZen]

How about shit that shouldn't be taught in school? My 14 year old niece had a health class where one of her assignments was an art project to draw an MDMA pill. WTF does that have to do with the effects of drugs, etc?

Clearly, I mean how is it useful for a teenage girl to know what extasy pills look like? Personally I think it should just play out at a concert,

"I have a headache"
takes a couple when those nice guys said they're tylenol extra strength

Pretty sure I know what happens next.

Make her learn the hard way.

 

[SandEagle]

failure IS an option
Santa isn't real
money brings happiness
women are root of all evil
girls - make sandwiches
boys - rules of football
PS3 > XBOX360
personal hygiene
how to shift blame on others
children are not the future, robots are.

 

[AMDZen]

now when that creepy kid at the party says "heres an aspirin", she will know what shes being dosed with...

Beat me to it

 

[ShawnD1]

How about shit that shouldn't be taught in school? My 14 year old niece had a health class where one of her assignments was an art project to draw an MDMA pill. WTF does that have to do with the effects of drugs, etc?

Wow. That is arguably the worst lesson plan ever. Teaching drugs by pill appearance? So if the pill looks different, she would naturally assume it's NOT mdma.

One thing they should teach in school is what drugs do. I don't mean things like crime or make you kill people, but what it actually does. Why does this drug do what it does. If you took MDMA, would your body temperature go up or down? Why did it go up or down? If someone is abusing opioid pain killers, would you expect them to have diarrhea or constipation? Why? Write a paragraph explaining how alcohol, GHB, and barbiturates are similar and why they should not be taken together. Write a paragraph explaining why caffeine will not make a person less drunk; reference specific neurotransmitters.

 

[ussfletcher]

I was going to say "You can't be serious" but you started out with "Seriously,"...

But I have to believe you can't be serious.

I suppose my original comment shouldn't be taken literally, there is obviously a need for some libraries, like the Library of Congress, but the idea that every community has a library with hundreds of thousands of mostly unused items is a waste.

 

[AMDZen]

Wow. That is arguably the worst lesson plan ever. Teaching drugs by pill appearance? So if the pill looks different, she would naturally assume it's NOT mdma.

Most pills all look the same, just have different stack size, color and symbols on them. If you're given a lot of examples you would have the basic idea. It would be stupid not to show what some look like, obviously you can't cover them all - there are new ones all the time.

One thing they should teach in school is what drugs do. I don't mean things like crime or make you kill people, but what it actually does. Why does this drug do what it does. If you took MDMA, would your body temperature go up or down? Why did it go up or down? If someone is abusing opioid pain killers, would you expect them to have diarrhea or constipation? Why? Write a paragraph explaining how alcohol, GHB, and barbiturates are similar and why they should not be taken together. Write a paragraph explaining why caffeine will not make a person less drunk; reference specific neurotransmitters.

They teach all of that, at least I was in my HS 14-15 years ago.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

There is no doubt that this is true, however current efforts are leading towards a digitization of virtually everything. Also, the vast majority of people will never need any information that is not available on the internet.

I do possess a library card for the library of congress (and I have used it), and I have done research at other libraries as well.

Those efforts have been underway since the invention of computers and not much headway has been made. The reason is quite simple, there is no immediate profit to be found in doing so. The single step that would benefit the largest number of people would be to make available online, government publications currently held in government depositories in large libraries across the nation.

As long as you're happy with an Idiocracy, the bolded part is true.

 

[ShawnD1]

Clearly, I mean how is it useful for a teenage girl to know what extasy pills look like? Personally I think it should just play out at a concert,

"I have a headache"
takes a couple when those nice guys said they're tylenol extra strength

Pretty sure I know what happens next.

Make her learn the hard way.

My friend totally pulled something like that before. I asked for an Advil because my head hurt. He handed me a pill that was clearly made by a real company, so I took it. What he gave me was a super hard core high dosage prescription pain killer. I was right fucked for a few hours.

 

[AstroManLuca]

PS3 > XBOX360

oh no you di'int

glorious PC gaming master race >>>>>>>>>>>>>> dirty console peasants

 

[AMDZen]

My friend totally pulled something like that before. I asked for an Advil because my head hurt. He handed me a pill that was clearly made by a real company, so I took it. What he gave me was a super hard core high dosage prescription pain killer. I was right fucked for a few hours.

Sounds awesome. Love me some painkills

But he should have told you what it was.

 

[ShawnD1]

Sounds awesome. Love me some painkills

But he should have told you what it was.

He thought it was funny to drug me without telling me. It probably was funny from his perspective.

I do something similar to that with benadryl. Any time someone has a problem, I offer them a benadryl. It does fix a lot of things, but it will also impair you as bad as drinking 4 beers. My gf can't even walk in a straight line after taking one.

 

[Anubis]

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/senior_year

 

[Atomic Playboy]

Personal finance, the US tax system and job interview skills are three courses I wish had been offered at some point in my education. They're useful for pretty much everyone; certainly moreso than a number of classes I took in high school or college.

 

[zebano]

Working as a team requires equal participation.

No, it really doesn't. At my job, ignoring the management, we have leads who will take requirements and write a spec, maybe sketch out a desired algorythm and code review the end solution, SEs who will do most of the work and test engineers who will either write tests to the specification or press buttons in daily smoke tests to be sure our latest build didn't break anything. Only one of those jobs really requires a huge amount of involvement, the others just take their specialized tasks and get them done, sometimes without even requiring much skill.

 

[SandEagle]

http://theoatmeal.com/comics/senior_year

hahaha that was awesome. except the uncle/credit card one. didnt understand that one.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

No, it really doesn't. At my job, ignoring the management, we have leads who will take requirements and write a spec, maybe sketch out a desired algorythm and code review the end solution, SEs who will do most of the work and test engineers who will either write tests to the specification or press buttons in daily smoke tests to be sure our latest build didn't break anything. Only one of those jobs really requires a huge amount of involvement, the others just take their specialized tasks and get them done, sometimes without even requiring much skill.

You seem to be confusing team work with division of labor. What you describe is not a team.

 

[ShawnD1]

hahaha that was awesome. except the uncle/credit card one. didnt understand that one.

The term "house poor" refers to people who have a very nice house but they eat shitty food and never take vacations because everything they earn goes toward paying off debts. Some people do that with cars, boats, etc. How many people in the AT garage drive a BMW but live paycheck to paycheck?

 

[Zedtom]

There should be courses on bullying and how to avoid being a victim. Not for schoolyard stuff, I'm talking about preparing people for the real world of corporate politics.

 

[ShawnD1]

You seem to be confusing team work with division of labor. What you describe is not a team.

School should teach kids that the best teams are entirely focused on division of labor and assigned responsibility. Two people should not be doing the same thing.
Think of it like a football team. The team is not 5 guys all trying to be the quarter back. You have 1 quarterback. There are guys who only block. There are guys who are expected to run into enemy territory and be ready to catch a ball. Each person is doing something different and they are responsible for the task they are given.

I would say that school indirectly teaches this by trying to teach the opposite. Teachers say you should bounce ideas off each other and discuss things. By the time you graduate, you will have learned that this absolutely does not work under any circumstance. Having everyone in the team discuss the same thing dramatically decreases productivity. If you ask one person what color car they want, they'll think for a second and say a color. If you ask a group of 4 people to agree on a color for a car, it will take them an hour to have it narrowed down to 2 colors and it will take a few more hours to get it down to one color. It's an important lesson we all learn in school - working with people is impossible, so it's best to avoid that by splitting up tasks. Assign tasks to people and let them do it however they want as long as it follows the rules. If you micromanage them, it will slow the process down a lot.

 

[Aikouka]

Personal finance, the US tax system and job interview skills are three courses I wish had been offered at some point in my education. They're useful for pretty much everyone; certainly moreso than a number of classes I took in high school or college.

I'd like to see a Health & Fitness class as well. I had a health class, but it was mostly to teach us not to do drugs, smoke cigarettes or drink alcohol. I think I learned more when I accidentally went into Anandtech's Health & Fitness forum than I ever did in school. Either that or I hated the fitness portion of PE (aerobics, weight lifting, etc.) so much that I just wanted to forget about them. I mean, I'd much rather play a sport and get a work out than actually work out to work out.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

School should teach kids that the best teams are entirely focused on division of labor and assigned responsibility. Two people should not be doing the same thing.
Think of it like a football team. The team is not 5 guys all trying to be the quarter back. You have 1 quarterback. There are guys who only block. There are guys who are expected to run into enemy territory and be ready to catch a ball. Each person is doing something different and they are responsible for the task they are given.

I would say that school indirectly teaches this by trying to teach the opposite. Teachers say you should bounce ideas off each other and discuss things. By the time you graduate, you will have learned that this absolutely does not work under any circumstance. Having everyone in the team discuss the same thing dramatically decreases productivity. If you ask one person what color car they want, they'll think for a second and say a color. If you ask a group of 4 people to agree on a color for a car, it will take them an hour to have it narrowed down to 2 colors and it will take a few more hours to get it down to one color. It's an important lesson we all learn in school - working with people is impossible, so it's best to avoid that by splitting up tasks. Assign tasks to people and let them do it however they want as long as it follows the rules. If you micromanage them, it will slow the process down a lot.

Division of labor is important to all teams. However, there is more to a team than each member doing their assigned job well. In your football example, a team with each member executing their assigned task perfectly can be beat by a team who understands enough about each others job to determine weaknesses that can be exploited. A good quarterback knows he should listen to his team mates. In other words, information and perspectives flow both ways. Efficiency isn't the goal. the best outcome is.

 

[crashtestdummy]

I can't believe no one has said this yet:

Correlation does not imply causation.

Teaching how to understand underlying causes beyond simply saying "A happened, then B happened. A must have caused B!" I see it endlessly lacking in people around me, and I feel we would be far better off as a society if we taught that at an early age.

 

[Schadenfreude]

Sadly enough I see most people simply forget the things we've learned in high school, I know I certainly I do; it's notsomuch a question of teaching something in school, but how to make it stick/apply to your daily life, IMO.

(Edit: It might be my school district, but I did feel that I had a very well-rounded education with a wealth of resources available to me if I ever felt the need to further my studies, our high school district was very well-regarded and also well-integrated w/ the local community college for available programs as well so I guess I lucked out.)

Having said all that, I'd say Judo.

Self confidence? Check.
Self defense? Check.
Competition? Check.
Discipline? Check.
Breakfalls? Check.

I've practiced Judo for years and this is my motto for advocating Judo as a style; I'm a grown-ass man - I haven't been in a single fight in my adult life, but I fall a lot.

 

[infoiltrator]

Compound interest.
Budgets.
Vehicle costs.
Critical thought and reason.
Latin.
Consumer marketing awareness.
Health and Hygene, personal, public, historic.
Courtesy as a social and political influence.
Self presentation
How to use a cook book.
Local government.
Calorie counting.

 

[AMDZen]

Compound interest. - economics
Budgets. - economics
Vehicle costs. - basically economics
Critical thought and reason. - critical thinking
Latin. - maybe but french and spanish are offered, which is a good place to start
Consumer marketing awareness. - nah
Health and Hygene, personal, public, historic. - health class
Courtesy as a social and political influence.
Self presentation
How to use a cook book.
Local government.
Calorie counting. - health class

We had all of these classes.

WTF kind of schools did you guys go to exactly? I went to a low budget POS school and I was taught half of the things you guys are bringing up. Some shitty ass schools I guess