Math: “when are we ever gonna use any of this in real life!?”
Later: “why didn’t they teach us how taxes work!?”
They did teach us basic tax in year 7 in Australia, donno if they still do
To be fair, these are very different skill sets. To this date, I’ve yet to have an urgent need to get the area under a curve.
FreeTaxUSA takes care of calculating my taxes. It only tells me well after I have purchased something in telling me what kind of records I should keep if I want to claim that thing for a deduction.
I could have used the latter more than calculus.
They really do ought to teach economics as part of compulsory education
Good schools do.
Privileged schools do. Don’t want the plebs letting daylight in upon the magic that is used to fuck them.
You’d figure if capitalism is as great and infallible as they say it is, they’d want to teach everyone all the details in school.
Or rather, I’d say by not teaching you how to capitalism they’re giving you the fish instead of teaching you how to fish, letting you get screwed over
I suspect if they actually did teach personal finance (in all schools), the labour pool would shrink tremendously and there’d be far less consumer purchases.
Probably actually. We had mandatory personal finance to graduate high school, and they gave us one major take away message – don’t spend more than you have. You could take out loans for things of course but your monthly payments plus everything else needed to be less than your monthly take home pay.
My school was a bit special though. It was a public school but it gave students a lot of freedom and was structured to be more like a college experience. My understanding is since then, the hammer has fallen and it’s become more “traditional”
They used to
Honestly, there should be a yearly class like english, math and science for “general education”. Like how to do taxes, basic first aid, how to apply for jobs/make a resume, what to expect when you rent an apartment, how and when you should seek therapy (and what it’s like), how to manage stress in a healthy manner, and very basic cooking.
I’m betting it’s not implemented because it’s incredibly hard to standardize and test this kind of stuff. But a general ed class would be nice for these types of things that don’t easily fit into another class.
Calculus is useful, but it’s significantly less useful in an average person’s daily life than knowing why their resume is getting instantly tossed in the trash at every single place they apply to.
And if we’re being extra honest, the government should just tell us how much we owe each year. Because they know.
They don’t., even if it’s just that different levels of govt don’t talk to each other
FUN FACT, the financial body in your government does your taxes for you every year, they use these numbers to see if you messed up, or if there was anything that they were not aware of that you put in your taxes, that they need to adjust for.
if you have nothing to claim outside of normal employment income, in many places, you can sign your tax return and send it in blank, and they’ll just do everything for you.
The biggest problem today (and I suspect even when you and I were in school) is that education is in the shitter for a good segment of the population.
In theory, school should be teaching how to learn, which includes skills like where to go if you need help with something, critical thinking, how to use public resources, etc. To a large extent, most of this I learned in college, not in high school.
My middle/high school was more concerned on passing exams than in actual teaching. And, based on articles I read today, schools are more concerns about making sure “woke doesn’t get taught” than in actually educating students.
Instead they taught us how to use graphing calculators to draw shapes and lines
A skill I only later used when developing a game jam engine using c++ for the windows terminal
So true! So much of my my schooling, specifically mathematics, has only ever been useful for programming. A few years ago I used Pythagoreans theorym to make sure my hole I dug for my patio had perfect 90° angles, and that is honestly the only time I’ve ever used anything beyond basic math outside programming.
My high school math was also entirely based on the graphic calculator. I spent most of the time playing dope wars.
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Taxes don’t require even High School level Math, much less something like trigonometry or high-level algebra.
On the other hand, personal finance should absolutely be mandatory in schools.
Taxes don’t require even High School level Math, much less something like trigonometry or high-level algebra.
You overestimate the minimum level of math required to graduate high school (in the United States).
When I went to school (about 20 years ago, at a suburban school in the North East), to graduate, you need to pass 6 semesters of math. You could achieve that by taking:
- Algebra 1 (2 semesters): very basic algebra
- Geometry (2 semesters): not sure if the remedial level covers proofs or it is just memorizing the names of shapes and how to calculate the area of them
- 2 math electives: very basic classes like Problem Solving, a class that teaches students how to read word problems and apply basic math skills to solve them
You overestimate the minimum level of math required to graduate high school (in the United States).
Well…no, I don’t, because I graduated HS in the United States…
You overestimate the level of math required to complete your taxes. Because there’s nothing more complicated than basic multiplication and division.
I agree. A 1040 is just a long arithmetic word problem.
I was disagreeing with you saying that high schools teach everyone trigonometry and advanced algebra.
I was disagreeing with you saying that high schools teach everyone trigonometry and advanced algebra.
Well, I didn’t say that so…
In my school personal finance was something everyone was required to take their freshman year.
Actually one of the best courses I’ve taken against this kinda thing was a “Logic” course in the philosophy track in college that had a huge section devoted to how media tries to manipulate a person. Not typical high school stuff but maybe it should be, and fully up to date for social media. There’s a practical course for the 21st century.
I’ve had a long ongoing rant/debate (not really a debate because we all pretty much agree with each other), that logic, and critical thinking should be the focus of earlier education. Sure, focus on the skills everyone needs, like writing and such, but when you get to highschool, we should be focusing more on core logic and critical thinking skills.
Teach a person a thing, and they’ll know it… maybe. Teach someone to think, and they’ll be able to figure out anything.
Let me first say i agree but also let me be little bit hopefully constructively critical.
There is something called (backwards) rationalism.
… a defense mechanism in which apparent logical reasons are given to justify behavior that is motivated by unconscious instinctual impulses. …
Rationalism also uses logic but not in sense as e.g. math of physic does. So logic is not enough in this broad sense.
So I think that basic science is the way to go in the early education stages alongside with teaching of accepting self critique and mistakes. Showing that everyone can be wrong and can become better at the thing by fixing their mistakes.
So in other words philosophy could make sense in high schools to some degree.
When I was in 3rd grade, I had a teacher who did a week-long lesson about recognizing propoganda. She talked about how talking or displaying something a certain way can alter how you think about it.
Looking back, this short propoganda course for 3rd graders wasn’t in any official lesson plan, wasn’t in a textbook, and may not have been on the up-and-up with the school.
It may have been, it’s relatively common for something like this to be included in coverage of Vietnam and the cold war. Current events related blocks are also often put in social studies curriculum and propaganda is a often a suggested tie-in.
While your teacher sounds like they went above and beyond, they probably weren’t working against the system. And that’s coming from a burned out ex-teacher. We have issues in our schools but for the most part curriculum designers are trying to help. For every terrible Florida-like headline depicting a leap backwards there are many steps forward taken under the radar
Yeah, this was a bit later for me but I remember a whole school year in like 7th or 8th grade that was all about dystopian literature and Nazism. Then it continued a little more in specific classes in HS. While I don’t remember an overt discussion of American propaganda there was a lot of discussion around 1984, Fahrenheit 451, and the portrayal of Jewish people in a book I can’t remember. Which I think broadly covers the ideas propaganda.
I know other groups read The Things They Carried (I think) which may have covered American propaganda more directly since it’s about the Vietnam war.
Corporate psychology…
There is also a danger in having a lack of understanding around logic, as Norm so eloquently shows us.
I was super fortunate to take classes with Sutt Jhally at Umass Amherst. That man changed my life for the better in every way possible.
Would have been more accurate with “your a sheep.”
Clearly the preferred lexicon is “ur”
I can’t really explain why but using the wrong “your” looks far worse to me than just typing “ur”. The “ur” people know what they’re about and I kinda respect it tbh. They’re not trying to impress anyone
Agree to disagree. But people who use “en” instead of “and” really triggers me.
It actually ended a relationship of mine after nearly a year.
I have never seen “en” instead of “and”. Oof. That’s… That’s definitely something. I try not to overtly judge the way anyone communicates but that one is indeed rough.
“En” is Dutch for “and”. Just saying.
Ende for the win! Also, pretty sure Afrikaans also uses en and I think also Frisian.
Dude, you don’t believe science. All you do is listen to TV saying what “scientists have said”. Don’t act like you believe climate change because you read hundreds of peer reviewed papers and built an informed opinion based on stats. The most you did was a Google search, if ever, and then read from a website from a government-funded institution that wouldn’t get funding if it said the “wrong thing”.
Spare us your condescension. You’re just in a cult 🫡
Lmao I kept waiting for the punchline as I read this comment and it never arrived. 10/10 love the projection
Science in school is to teach you how to think; The scientific method.
I believe an made climate change exists because the arguments and data presented make sense when seen through a critical lens.
If you have an alternative argument and data then I’d love to hear it.
It’s really hard to tell what’s sarcasm in this comment and what, if anything, isn’t.
Edit: never mind, reread it and realized you’re just a crazy person.
“I don’t believe in repeated observations, peer review, and constant updates based on new information all performed almost for free by underpaid academics. Instead I’ve based my beliefs on memes and infotainment paid for by billionaires and religious fanatics who have a stated desire to see the world end. I’m not in a cult though.”
it’s hilarious how none of the comments address the point of the post itself, instead all just attack the person with made up snarky retorts for going against the echochamber. Reddit lives on in our hearts
Yep. Exactly. I looked at the responses, and all I could think is “I can spend my whole day responding to all these strawmans from a brainwashed crowd, or move on with my life”. I believe I chose wisely 😄
Do you deny climate change exists?
Said like a Class-A Cultist.
“Are you one of us?”
Please keep posting, I love it 😂
“Do you believe 2+2=4?”
“SHEEEPLE MATH MEANS NOTHING TO ME”
If you have a superior method of assimilating information? Please do tell.
Please leave Lemmy. We don’t need the likes of you.
Do you know how research works? Nobody knows everything, and research very much assumes that fact.
Take modern computers. Do you think there exists a single person that knows how they work in entirety? From the most advanced software down to the intricacies of how electrons move through semi-conductors?
No. There doesn’t. And yet we have computers, what gives?
Science is more than just knowing everything there is in a field. It’s a collaborative effort. It’s works that build upon other works. It’s “we have done the hard stuff described in this paper that you can read, but our conclusion is…” and you operate based on that conclusion, if you don’t need to know the full details… and few people really need to.
You are completely clueless about how modern science, which drives and builds our entire world, functions.
#BUT JESUS SAYS…
Well, GMOs are almost exclusively used for extreme mass production of herbicide-resistant corn and soy, for biofuels and cattle feed. All of that is disastrous for the environment (and humans), so yes: GMO bad.
Source on it being disasyetous for the environment and humans?
Meat farming is likely SIGNIFICANTLY worse for the environment and even that is not disasterous by itself outside of local biomes (though it is one of the easiest things to reduce besides green electricity)
Funny enough, part of the reason meat farming is so harmful is because so much land is used to grow feed for cattle (that’s why huge chunks of the Amazon are regularly burned down illegally- to use that land to grow cattle feed). The pesticides and herbicides and artificial fertilizer are also pretty bad for their local environments. None of that is specific to GMO crops though.
2 seconds of Googling would have given you for example this article https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/time-to-rethink-corn/ but there are plenty more.
Fun fact: I learned about this stuff in University in the 90s already, where professors were big fans (of and too often working for) companies like Monsanto and Bayer and even then knew about the risks of the system.2 more seconds of googling gives you numerous scientific american articles that are actually relevant to the GMO issue.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stop-arguing-over-gmo-crops/
(I’ll admit I didn’t read all these due to a email register wall.) Regardless, the science is pretty much settled that GMOs are not inherently unsafe.
Your argument that GMOs are bad because GMO corn dominates the food system is dumb. It’d be like someone saying “Corn is grown almost exclusively by farmers, therefore: farmers bad.”
Maybe it’s not all bad, but there is no doubt that the main function of GMO is to resist herbicides, it seems logical to me, that using more, and more powerful herbicides is probably harmful to the environment. Also it is most likely same herbicides are harmful to the food chain that eat the resulting products, humans included. Which is why they are banned in EU.
Ah yes, technology is inherently bad because people use it for the wrong reasons.
GMOs aren’t bad, people just use them for the wrong things. But, I guess if all you want to do is make sweeping generalizations and not look for actual causes so you can find actual solutions… that’s entirely up to you.
You can absolutely argue that some of the practices are bad without saying the science as a whole is bad.
Sure, but that doesn’t make GMOs inherently bad. There are many, many amazing uses for GMOs such as golden rice, but unfortunately the ones using GMOs just happen to be the same ones who put profit before anything else. If anything, people should be pushing for GMOs that are naturally resistant to pests and infections so that they don’t need as much harmful shit sprayed on them.
Wow mass downvote for stating an indisputable truth.
In a perfect world GMO would be to the benefit of all, including the environment. But unfortunately they are instead used to make more money on monopolized ecospheres around specific products. Allowing the use of herbicides the plants wouldn’t otherwise tolerate.
But GMOs themselves are not bad, its capitalists leeching off the rest of us.
GMOs will be necessary to reduce the environmental impact of humans, because they need less space and resources, saving more for the environment.
But GMOs themselves are not bad,
Yes that’s what I tried to say, they are not Inherently bad, they are only bad because of how the technology is mostly being used for profit.
GMOs will be necessary to reduce the environmental impact of humans,
There is absolutely potential for that, as I wrote: “In a perfect world” Meaning a world where the technology is not abused for patenting and designer herbicides.
GMO are banned in Europe for a reason
They aren’t exactly banned but you have to label than as such and no company wants to do that. But yes, all that for a reason
Not banned, but yes regulated. And the vast majority of the feed supply for raising cattle etc are imported GMO crops.
Mainly the reason is that people are idiots
Yep. This is a thing. Students will learn a lesson best when the student understands the value of the lesson to them in their lives.
This is one of the six basic principles of learning, it’s called the Principle of Readiness. You can read all about it in the Aviation Instructor’s Handbook alongside other smash hits as the principle of exercise (practice makes perfect) or the principle of primacy (first impressions matter). It’s that basic.
Establishing that value, giving the students the context and reason the lesson is valuable to the students is the teacher’s responsibility. And I noticed that most teachers forget this somewhere around the 7th grade. Way too many of my teachers answered “Why do we need to learn this?” with “Because it’s required to get your diploma.”
Practice makes perfect is a lie. At best it’s 99.(9)%. The rest is a stubbed toe.
It is effectively a lie; “Practice” only makes perfect–or improvement at all–when there is some sort of feedback mechanism to judge performance. It is possible to practice something incorrectly, build the habit of doing it incorrectly, and then you will perform it incorrectly. This is why I see the math teacher habit of sending students home with lengthy assignments of problems to work to be taken up and graded like a quiz is bad practice; give students time to practice and build skill before you start punishing poor performance.
THANK YOU.
It’s so refreshing to hear this from people. practice is great, but if you’re doing it wrong and nobody tells you that, then you’re going to get great at doing it wrong. Constructive criticism is GOOD, being told you’re doing something wrong is GOOD - so long as these things are paired with suggestions for improvements, or being shown how it can be done better/more correctly.
Practice is worthless without some way to measure whether you’re actually getting better at doing what it is you’re trying to learn.
So, they were right? They do not use it, thus they don’t need it?
Oh they definitely need it
I was sarcastic.
I had a teacher that said: “at school you’re not here to learn about history and science, you’re here to learn how to learn”
GMOs are unsafe
Actual usage of GMOs IRL is mostly to promote plant resistance to RoundUp (glyphosate) which is definitely unsafe.
When people list off positions they disagree with like this, they always miss the mark on one or two…
Yes. I have real concerns around GMOs in terms of genetic patents and danger to food security via reduced cultivar diversity. I don’t think GMOs are all-bad, but not all concerns about them belong in the same bucket together.
Do you think that the people who believe in this bullshit wouldn’t believe it if they were provided evidence or something?
They don’t work on evidence. They work on vibes. They believe what they believe because they want to, not because it makes sense.
That’s why it’s so hard to argue with these idiots. You can’t logic a dumbass out of a position they didn’t logic themselves into.
No, you have to meet people where they are. You have to question their position until it becomes untenable and they give up. It never feels like a victory, but you have to hope that eventually it will make a difference…
You have to question their position until it becomes untenable and they give up.
That’s called “sea lioning” now, though.
You can do that, and I wish you luck
If you argue with an idiot they will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.
If you argue with an idiot they will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.
Reminds me of the one about the pigeon playing chess.
For the uninitiated:
“Never play chess with a pigeon.
The pigeon just knocks all the pieces over.
Then shits all over the board.
Then struts around like it won.”
Honestly that is exactly the wrong way to do that. It will never work to question a position of someone so entrenched. If you are really interested in this look up cult deprogramming.
It’s hard to say, because we’re talking about a hypothetical where they actually learned this stuff as kids. If they properly understood the material, maybe they’d end up being logical and sensible.
As they are now though, yeah, it’s a lost cause.
It can also depend individually and on their upbringing.
My hope is that education can get anyone out of that kind of upbringing
Well said.
They don’t work on evidence. They work on vibes. They believe what they believe because they want to, not because it makes sense.
This is the big one. They start with a conclusion then go on a scavenger hunt for anything that agrees with it. And as we all know, you can find anything on the Internet.
And where a more reasonable person might see how hard it is to find a reputable source that supports your claim and deduce that maybe the information isn’t out there because the theory is wrong… instead these people run to the conclusion of “if the information isn’t readily available out there to support my idea, it’s because it’s being suppressed in a big conspiracy!”.
These are usually the same people for whom the government is somehow both completely inept, bumbling, and stupid while also being capable of carrying out the most widespread, comprehensive, flawless conspiracy ever imagined.
Sounds like arguing with a religious person.
Honestly? I’ve found that people on both sides of these arguments can be people who aren’t working with evidence, but are basing it off of “vibes”, or even hearsay.
It really depends on what you are talking about. Arguments from the other (non fully vibes) side change depending on if they are arguing a tankie, antivaxxer, flat earther, or other conspiracy theorist… et cetera.
based
Which kids said this specifically?
We had these classes and people are still stupid. Your point?
People are stupid because they didn’t (and weren’t forced to) learn in these classes.
Oh they were forced, that’s the issue. That ensures knowledge exits your brain as soon as the exam is over.
That’s not learning, that’s just memorization.
Oh that’s what you meant, sorry.
But then again, how do you force someone to “learn” and not “memorize”? The way stuff is taught could definitely use improvements, but it’s still very hard to make sure something has actually been learned.
It’s interesting, and I think we can examine college for an answer actually. I don’t remember half the things I was taught in my technical classes. I don’t know anything aside from basic calculus anymore. But what I do understand are the underlying concepts, even if I don’t know the calculations anymore.
That’s what we need to target, somehow. I don’t know how though, honestly. You need some sort of repetition, and what at have now doesn’t work. Maybe if we tie in more real life examples?
It’s very difficult, possibly one of the biggest difficulties facing people. I’m definitely not qualified to give an answer, but we should pay students more and give them more freedom to figure out what works for every child.
we should pay students more and give them more freedom to figure out what works for every child.
I’m assuming you meant teachers (?)
Anyway yeah, imo one of the biggest issues right now is that you can’t expect one person to teach well to 20+ students simultaneously. My best learning experiences in school have been with small classes, where the teacher could actually focus on people who understood less and ensure everyone got at least the very minimum required from an argument before moving to the following one.
Oops, yeah, meant teachers
If these classes aren’t required then we would have an Idiocracy (even more so than what we currently have)
They cheated to get grades.
There’s a whole culture in America celebrating carelessness, doing poorly in school, and idolizing people who got successful doing nothing except breaking the rules
Back in the 80s and 90s this was already a thing. Being a “rebel” and being “too cool for school.” If you did too well at school you were a nerd and that had some social stigma.
Maybe today it is worse with social media and online gaming.
In the 90s I purposefully did slightly worse in school as a way to fit in. No one seemed to like the people who did really well.
People have always been stupid, but not like this. Not what we have going on today
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Because internet didn’t existed back then to congregate and enable people to say whatever they want.
Before you could be that stupid, but probably would be the only one in your neighborhood so any stupid thoughts would be kept to yourself until you eventually move on, but now if you think earth is shaped like a half eaten donnut, you bet your ass you will find a community of other weirdos with that same belief and they will feed themselves more stupidness and become louder and louder.
Honestly I’m one example myself, when I was a teenager back in the 90s/2000s I really liked those Japanese emo style music(Visual kei), but since no one else around me had ever heard about it and no one was interested on it I had no one to talk about it, then I just moved on, but if it was today I have no idea what kind of creepy teen I would have become, honestly for me it was a blessing haha
*sheeple
