Unfortunately, education can't be catered to fit every student.
I agree entirely that if you don't want to be a scientist you shouldn't have to do Chemistry.
As I've gotten older I've realized that the 'but it's general knowledge!' argument doesn't hold up against reality.
You don't need to know Pythagoras' theorem. You just don't. If it comes up in conversation and you don't know it, it's not the end of the world.

The problem is that many children don't know what they want to be. And the fact that people don't know has made it so that this drone-like first 18 years of life are necessary because society doesn't know what else to do with you because even you don't know what you want to do with you.

School is an excuse to teach children how to behave and act like adults while occasionally teaching you something useful along the way.
When I think back to my school days I don't remember information I learned, I remember the routine, being told to put my uniform straight, assemblies where we had to be silent and respect our teachers.

Maybe I just had a bad experience at school, but for me it was tedious and repetitive.

i agree but also disagree with you, i am in college and have maybe used 25% of anything i have learned in highschool but also its great to have some basic knowlodge of other things. I think that highschools needs to teach more basic life skills like saving money, how to write a check, how to do taxes and apply for loans and other basic like stuff too. I also think they should teach you basic car skills too.

C4s wrote i agree but also disagree with you, i am in college and have maybe used 25% of anything i have learned in highschool but also its great to have some basic knowlodge of other things. I think that highschools needs to teach more basic life skills like saving money, how to write a check, how to do taxes and apply for loans and other basic like stuff too. I also think they should teach you basic car skills too.

What im trying to say is that school should be somewhere where you want to go to and learn(I know plenty of kids including me that wish for snow days or such things), not a place where students hope that something happens so that they don't have to go. Highschool should be focused around what you want to do(elementary and middle school does not apply), for example if you want to be a car mechanic then you should not have to go through chemistry as mentioned earlier or go through calculus. While there are classes that everyone should take, you should not be forced to take them.

BonIver wrote Unfortunately, education can't be catered to fit every student.
I agree entirely that if you don't want to be a scientist you shouldn't have to do Chemistry.
As I've gotten older I've realized that the 'but it's general knowledge!' argument doesn't hold up against reality.
You don't need to know Pythagoras' theorem. You just don't. If it comes up in conversation and you don't know it, it's not the end of the world.

The problem is that many children don't know what they want to be. And the fact that people don't know has made it so that this drone-like first 18 years of life are necessary because society doesn't know what else to do with you because even you don't know what you want to do with you.

School is an excuse to teach children how to behave and act like adults while occasionally teaching you something useful along the way.
When I think back to my school days I don't remember information I learned, I remember the routine, being told to put my uniform straight, assemblies where we had to be silent and respect our teachers.

Maybe I just had a bad experience at school, but for me it was tedious and repetitive.

I agree young people normally don't know what they want to be so for having mandatory classes through elementary and middle school i understand, but when your in high school then by that point you should have made up or mind, or you need to, so at that point you should take classes that you will benefit from. The school system doesn't need to teach us about Pythagorean theorems or every scientific law, we need more of things that will prepare you for the real world like how to pay taxes or how to save up money to buy a car or a house.

Unfortunately the public school system in America is a colossal failure when it comes to actually educating, and feeding knowledge to the starved mind. Instead schools these day hand you answers and then test you on what they gave you. Got straight A's in High School these days? Guess where that gets you.Literally nowhere except sometimes a decent college or university. These days you need to just graduate and choose what to learn in a higher education facility, or have some fantastic knowledge outside of what these feeding machines called public schools give you.

Highschool is actually pointless outside of general knowledge /rant



In my case my school taught some actually computer courses like CIT Networking so i was able to get my CCNA, so there are a few gem schools out there.

Potion wrote Unfortunately the public school system in America is a colossal failure when it comes to actually educating, and feeding knowledge to the starved mind. Instead schools these day hand you answers and then test you on what they gave you. Got straight A's in High School these days? Guess where that gets you.Literally nowhere except sometimes a decent college or university. These days you need to just graduate and choose what to learn in a higher education facility, or have some fantastic knowledge outside of what these feeding machines called public schools give you.

Highschool is actually pointless outside of general knowledge /rant



In my case my school taught some actually computer courses like CIT Networking so i was able to get my CCNA, so there are a few gem schools out there.

My school has computer classes too. Im currently taking pre-ap computer science and i have taken computer education and programming 1, i am going to take ap computer science next year if i don't choose to do concurrent enrollement and goto a community college(half the day at highschool and the rest of the day at the college). If you dont know what pre-ap and ap mean... Pre-advanced placement which is basically a regular class but you just go through things quicker, for example in math one chapter section might take 2-3 days, in a pre-ap class you would take 1 day, and a ap class is a advanced class which is basically a college class that you can take in highschool and at the end of the year you can choose to take a ap test, if you pass then you actually earn college credit for that class.

The matter of the fact is though, its good in highschool to learn all of these subjects because plans change.

You might go into highschool thinking you want to be a mechanic, and by the end totally change your mind and realize that to do what you want to do now, you need 4 years of highschool chemestry, biology and math.

Highschool sets you up to make a proper decision when you are old enough to make that decision and for the most part tries to keep all of your possible doors open for that selection.

For instance, lets say you go into highschool thinking you want to work in an autoshop out of highschool. You then realize that you won't make as much money as you need, and you want to go to university for lets say a business program. You are going to need to go back to grade 10 math classes because you need grade 10 to complete gr11 and gr12 math, ect.

It just seems to make the most sense to keep some courses manditory for highschool.

Axe wrote The matter of the fact is though, its good in highschool to learn all of these subjects because plans change.

You might go into highschool thinking you want to be a mechanic, and by the end totally change your mind and realize that to do what you want to do now, you need 4 years of highschool chemestry, biology and math.

Highschool sets you up to make a proper decision when you are old enough to make that decision and for the most part tries to keep all of your possible doors open for that selection.

For instance, lets say you go into highschool thinking you want to work in an autoshop out of highschool. You then realize that you won't make as much money as you need, and you want to go to university for lets say a business program. You are going to need to go back to grade 10 math classes because you need grade 10 to complete gr11 and gr12 math, ect.

It just seems to make the most sense to keep some courses manditory for highschool.

School should prepare you for life, and by life i mean things like how to do taxes or how to manage money not what a Pythagorean triple. HIgh school should teach you things that you need to know in life, not things that you might need to now if you change your mind. College should be for teaching things like chemistry and calculus. You should not be forced to do something that you don't want to do. And for the most part, the classes that i take in high school are not going to help me in what i want to do. Yes it is good to have a "basic" knowledge of many subjects, but i would rather takes classes that i enjoy and want to learn about rather than being forced to take classes. I think that part of the reason that many students don't like a certain subject is because they are forced to take it. If i had never taken chemistry then i would not have ever hated it like i do now.

I think it's just nice to have a basic common knowledge of some other things. You don't really have to take advanced classes of subjects that you're not going to use, you just have to take basic courses.