This one isn’t rocket science. We spend billions of dollars annually educating kids in fields that will not apply to most of them. Has your calculus class helped you in life? Do you use chemistry daily? Why do we make this crap mandatory for ALL children to graduate?
I believe in education, but it needs a direction. The world NEEDS skilled trade workers. How about in high school, starting in grade nine we offer an additional path? Where half your day is spent learning a trade. HVAC repair, plumbing, truck driving, electrician, auto mechanic certification?
We really only need basic math, history, civics/econ, and English to thrive. The average person forgets most of what you learn 10 years after highs school anyways. Once kids are taught how to seek information correctly, all school does is teach them to memorize things for the short term they will assuredly forget in 5-10 years.
My plan offers students a path after highschool that will support a family, while bringing essential services to every community. Practical skills that can earn a living.
Imagine your child’s graduation with a high school diploma, and a Class A commercial drivers license, an electricians license, a plumbing certification, welding certification, etc.
The world needs academics, but it also needs worker bees!
There’s a form of this already in high schools and community colleges that promote the trades with articulation, concurrent and dual enrollments. These alternative career paths are integral to the economic success of our citenzry. Students are further encouraged to seek out trades by the promise of grants and full scholarships by invested unions. Of note, England has had the student choice system in place for a long time now and is a viable educational program.
It should be available in every highschool. Since K-12 is mandatory and many students toil away in classes with no future benefit, I do believe in reforming what units are mandatory, and the rest of the time be allocated to this. You can add a life skills class in there as well. I stand by my assessment that students deserve more choice. Thank you for your response!
Agree with everything you said. Id like to suggest adding back home economics and auto shop class. I loved both those classes and the amount of kids today that don’t even know how to boil water is mind boggling. We need to teach basic life skills again. Where i live, ~70% of students are either in state care or live with a non parent family member as most parents are incarcerated for murder, gangs, and drugs. These kids dont have the foundational skills needed to survive and it is so heartbreaking.
Many other countries have high school structures that you are talking about. Japan is one of them. The difficulty is that a 9th grader (14 year old’s) will then need to make a career decision, impacting the rest of their life. To combat this, internships and job shadowing should be available. Students could see first-hand what a job is actually like, instead of relying on media and propaganda. There should also be options for adults to easily go back to school if they would like a career change.
Children need a good grounding in academics, and being taught how to think. Your proposal fits better with a communist country. I wish I had taken chemistry. It would have been one of the most useful courses I could have taken. My mother forbid it (because I am female), and I listened. I wish I hadn’t. Aside from that, we should reinstate apprenticeships to provide the practical training you recommend. Yes, children forget rote learning, and things that don’t interest them. This is why the classroom is not really functional. They don’t teach to the level of each individual student either. I advocate Montessori-structured schooling.
As the owner of business that employs (and pays very well) tradespeople this would be a godsent. We have such a hard time finding people but constantly hear about soul crushing student loan debt for people making barely above minimum wage while we are begging for an experienced person that will make close to 6 figures after just a few years working in our trade!
I Agree with what you say. Those high schools that have trades programs (since the 1970s in some cases) have not always promoted those options in an appealing or viable manner to students. In some school districts these options are actually looked down upon and that needs to stop. Our world needs more qualified EMS technicians, we need more nurses we need more elder care providers, etc
These are all very important career choices and the shortage is so vast that many families are left stranded.
I teach early college courses to high schoolers and they’re begging for some “real world” math (balancing checkbooks, doing taxes, beginning investments, etc). They also want real world courses (shop class, how to do basic auto maintenance, etc). While that may sound “unappealing” to many adults today, these were taught to us when I was in high school. They’ve been replaced by chemistry (which not everyone needs), and high levels of math–again, not everyone needs calculus. Seems our common sense went out the window and we forgot these kids need to be able to READ ON LEVEL (which trust me, they cannot do) and do basic math and learn to WRITE for heavens sake. Only then will we have a competitive workforce. Think about this–in places in Europe and Asia students complete their “general education” before they’re 16 and we’re still giving it to them in college. We’re already behind and have never tried to keep up globally.
Bring trades back into the school systems. Many children don’t have the opportunity or access to a college education without ending up with high student loan debt. Create programs within our high school systems where our children can graduate high school with a certification in a trade program. (i.e. Electrical, Carpentry, Automotive tech, plumbing, HVAC, etc.)
In Southern California we had a center called SCROC
Southern California Regional Occupational Center, the had trade school classes. Juniors and seniors could leave school at 12:00 and go to classes that went till 4:00 pm. I took medical assisting. They had dental assisting, mechanics and others. My daughter went to a similar school in Northern California ROP, she took Fire fighting class. Not every High Schooler is going to college.
This would mean that we need to keep the Department of Education to dictate what is taught in schools. I am opposed to this and want the states to start controlling what is taught in their own schools. No more centralized government forcing policies such as Common Core on the nation.
Facts are in their phones, so memorizing facts is useless. Yes, learn HOW to think, not WHAT to think. Sheesh!
Absolutely. In addition to learning a trade in high school, prepare for this in middle school…what makes you happy?
Learn that gratitude is the attitude.
Learn cursive ASAP.
Know how to write a paragraph: state a point, support it, restate it. Inspire.
Write a narrative, a persuasive letter, and an argument research paper.
Study human nature and psychology. Learn decision-making skills.