Simple question: Why aren't students being taught to the laws they're expected to abide by as adults? We'll teach them how to play instruments, how to draw and paint, calculus and physics, but we don't give them any instruction on what taxes they're expected to pay, or what laws they're expected to follow.
Laws are subject to change and only relevant to the resident culture. Furthermore they have vocational value for a limited and shrinking portion of the population. All of the other subjects taught in school are perpetually and globally relevant.
I've always wondered about changes I would make to the education system if it were up to me. I seriously think that the last 2 years of high school should include some type of life-advice class. A class that teaches young adults basic time and money management. Perhaps let it take up an elective, calculus or physics. Either way, there should be some type of class that prepares these kids for life. I even wish basic car maintenance could be a part of it, but that may be a little too extreme. I just feel sorry for people that get screwed over by mechanics and body shops.
I think the ideal would be to have compulsory personal finance, and programming classes that aren't just HTML fluff. Teach critical thinking+life skills.
Financial literacy education is a must in today's world. People grow up without any concept of how to spend and manage money in an age where you can rack up debt with little effort.
This is assuming that the only purpose of the education system is to prepare the youth to work. My line of reasoning here is that we should prepare young people to be a part of society. Knowing what's expected of the individual from society, and how to fulfill that should be an important aspect of education. That isn't to say that education shouldn't at all focus on vocational skills, or those that are "perpetually and globally relevant," but perhaps they should focus a bit more on teaching youths about society and what we expect from them and leave a bit of the vocational and in-depth studies to higher education, no?
Personal finance is a mandatory class in my school. I see the reasoning behind it, but the class is way too simplistic and seems garnered more towards middle school students than high school seniors. Most of the stuff that is "taught" is already common knowledge or can be discovered through google. It's a shame, as a class like that could really help prepare students for the real world.
Prefer those lessons be learned by breaking laws so they can send people to privately owned prisons. They don't want an educated populace they want a populace that knows enough to do a job and feed the machine. Create a lot of debt and support all the money making systems they created including the prison system Rocket River
We were taught both. They offered a personal finance class that dealt with taxes (as well as accounting) and a law class (as well as one on government). And yes, it was a public school. The private school near me did not offer any of those courses.
I teach at a vocational healthcare school and we do a class on business writing and I always throw in some personal finances, taxes, retirement, etc. normally while teaching the students Excel. I've been told by my students that they did receive a class on personal finance but it was pretty much a waste. When it comes to concepts like credit, investments, compound interest, etc. they are clueless. Not sure what high school currciulum looks like these days but personal finance should be a requirement IMO every year.
I'm pretty shocked that personal finance is not a required class. I didn't have to take one. My school offered a quasi-personal finance class but it r****ded its content to compensate for the lowest common denominator at my school. I think the class was called Dollars and Cents.
personal finance and public speaking should be part of any curriculum from kindergarten thru high school
you probably intended a giggle out of that, but just in case you did not: I had like five *years* of Texas History going through TX public schools. LOL. Hasn't come in handy yet, but I'm still open-minded. OP, great thread. Personal finance, IMHO, would be a great part of K-12. I *did* have a history teacher (8th grade) who tried to teach us the stock market. He did a pretty good job actually. He gave us fake money at the beginning of the year, showed us how to follow stocks, so we each actually managed a portfolio as an investment, and we were graded on how we did by the end of the year. That was one weird dude, but he was a great teacher.
Home economics got a reputation as a girls' class and fell by the wayside, but that'd be the place for that stuff. Yes, schools should do a better job of it. I also think they should teach a real class on Religion, though it's probably impossible in our public schools with the way things are.
