High School Education- Subjects that you've found have no value

[mb7299]

I had a conversation with someone about the value of a lot of the classes taught in public schools. Its kind of flooring how little of value a subject like Math has for the majority of people in the real world. I've actually taught math at the JH level in the past and my knowledge stopped at about the middle of 7th grade year, you don't use it you lose it. Anyone else find a subject to be absolutely useless in their adult lives that was forced upon you in High School?

 

[Clark]

And you're a teacher?

I guess that helps explain the dumbing down of America.

To answer your question about math, it isn't about using advanced formulas in your every day life, it's about using the critical thinking skills you acquire by taking those types of courses.

 

[Judoka]

I had a conversation with someone about the value of a lot of the classes taught in public schools. Its kind of flooring how little of value a subject like Math has for the majority of people in the real world. I've actually taught math at the JH level in the past and my knowledge stopped at about the middle of 7th grade year, you don't use it you lose it. Anyone else find a subject to be absolutely useless in their adult lives that was forced upon you in High School?

I'm glad you weren't my teacher...

 

[cyclonespiker33]

I didn't take it in high school, but Art

 

[mywayorcyway]

Yikes....that opening statement has disaster written all over it.

Everyone needs math skills to succeed. Everyone. You don't need to be a math wizard, but you do need the basic skills to have any success at anything. Everything uses math in some way. A junior high level math education won't get you far.

I've been helping people get their GEDs through a volunteer program for four years. Of the hundreds of people that have come in, I have had one person who had already passed the math portion but needed help getting through the others. Every other person that came in needed help getting through the math portion.

 

[CycloneErik]

I had a conversation with someone about the value of a lot of the classes taught in public schools. Its kind of flooring how little of value a subject like Math has for the majority of people in the real world. I've actually taught math at the JH level in the past and my knowledge stopped at about the middle of 7th grade year, you don't use it you lose it. Anyone else find a subject to be absolutely useless in their adult lives that was forced upon you in High School?

Does not compute.

 

[Clark]

I didn't take it in high school, but Art

see even there, there's value in fostering creativity. I'm not creative at all, so the arts weren't really my thing but society needs creative people and people who think outside the box.

I can't think of a single course that my high school offered that didn't have some positive impact. The closest for me would be the Ag class since I don't work in that industry but even there, we live in an ag state, you should probably have some basic understanding of it.

 

[bos]

Im not sure there were classes in high school that werent of some use to me overall. College is a different story.

 

[Todd]

typng

 

[CtownCyclone]

This is how people end up with credit card debt and terrible mortgages - they don't understand the math behind it.

 

[DeereClone]

It floors me that someone would say math isn't important - critical thinking and problem solving should be part of every job out there.

P.E. was pretty useless, but other than that I think our curriculum was about right. I would err towards more STEM type classes, but think arts, language, and other areas of study have value, too.

 

[jkclone]

I think some are misinterpreting what the OP meant. Math was by far the worst offender when it came to learning useless stuff. While there are benefits from using the critical thinking skills there are also many topics that aren't addressed that would be much more useful.

To turn the question around the one thing that is missed is financial literacy. The amount of people who don't even have basic understanding of these subjects is embarrassing frankly.

 

[bos]

This is how people end up with credit card debt and terrible mortgages - they don't understand the math behind it.

That and poor judgement in general. Some folks just arent critical thinkers.

 

[Bret44]

see even there, there's value in fostering creativity. I'm not creative at all, so the arts weren't really my thing but society needs creative people and people who think outside the box.

I can't think of a single course that my high school offered that didn't have some positive impact. The closest for me would be the Ag class since I don't work in that industry but even there, we live in an ag state, you should probably have some basic understanding of it.

I was about to find you and then proceed to slap the **** outta you, but you redeemed yourself.

 

[SCNCY]

Every subject in high school that you take is a you take out of it what you put in. You can make a case for every subject taken, but if you don't bother to actively use it, it becomes worthless for that individual. For example, I took two years of Spanish because I had to take a foreign language. Since then, I have never used anything I learned in my life since then. It could have been valuable to me if I took it seriously and continued to find ways to make it a part of my life.

But for me personally, things that did not add any value to my career would probably be the sciences. I liked what I learned in those classes, but I don't use any of it in my daily life or job. I work in the business world, just FYI.

Switching gears a bit, i don't think this is required, but I think some kind of coding should be a required class in high school.

 

[Gunnerclone]

PE

 

[mdk2isu]

This is how people end up with credit card debt and terrible mortgages - they don't understand the math behind it.

But those things aren't taught in math classes. I don't think they are really taught at all in high schools, at least they weren't in mine.

 

[3GenClone]

I had a conversation with someone about the value of a lot of the classes taught in public schools. Its kind of flooring how little of value a subject like Math has for the majority of people in the real world. I've actually taught math at the JH level in the past and my knowledge stopped at about the middle of 7th grade year, you don't use it you lose it. Anyone else find a subject to be absolutely useless in their adult lives that was forced upon you in High School?

I bet most don't even realize how often they use math in every day applications. If you want to be a home owner you need basic math skills to figure out those "honey-do list" projects.

 

[bos]

PE

PE made me fall in love with wiffle ball and dodge ball. I cant knock it.

 

[Mr Janny]

I think some are misinterpreting what the OP meant. Math was by far the worst offender when it came to learning useless stuff. While there are benefits from using the critical thinking skills there are also many topics that aren't addressed that would be much more useful.

To turn the question around the one thing that is missed is financial literacy. The amount of people who don't even have basic understanding of these subjects is embarrassing frankly.

This. I don't know how it was in other schools, but my high school had a single class on this. It was only 1 semester, and it was completely an elective. Not very many people took it. It was basically balancing a checkbook, a for fun stock exchange exercise, and a living on a budget exercise. All good things, but could have been so much more. Could have gone into investing, saving, credit, mortgage, etc. None of that stuff is too advanced for high school kids, and they'd be able to use the information immediately. I never understood why our school didn't focus more on that.