What should our kids learn at school

Some suggestions on what our kids should really learn at school. The recession is not only show casing the failure of the economic systems but also the failure of the educational programs at learning institutions.

How are 11 million Americans going to find jobs, when there are no jobs to be had? The big buzz on the internet via social media traffic is all about how to find another job. What is the advice to job seekers when the employment market has radically changed?

I was watching Fred Wilson talk about disruptive industries. He made a good point about education going through a major change. So many more kids are being schooled at home. Parents are realising that the educational system is not serving their children.

That decision, whether to school a child at home or not, is not something I would want to argue about. It’s a personal decision. The only question I have is whether the parents who have lived through an educational system that has not kept up with the times will be any better in understanding what their children need to cope with in a changing world.

There are two main elements to this current problem. The first one is that there are dwindling job numbers and these will not be resurrected. As an example, the auto industry is shedding jobs on their assembly lines. That is people who have been trained to bolt a mirror onto a car will not get a job like this again.

The auto industry is going to shrink. There is no doubt. The consumer is not going to buy a new car every year. Those days are over. Thousands of jobs on assembly lines will be lost forever. What will happen to the people who used to do those jobs? And there are many more examples of this.

In other words, the jobs that provide people with low skilled work are shrinking. What that means is that kids who were neglected by the formal school system will not have work.

The second element is that the educational system is focused on bringing out academic high achievers. That is, the focus is on educating young people ready for University or College.

Those that can’t cope with this are left to drop out and do some basic courses in vocational colleges. With other words you achieve high academic honours or go and do hair dressing. The system is geared towards ten percent of the population.

What would I suggest for a school curriculum? Reading, writing and speaking your home language. Reading, writing and speaking a world language such as English, if this is not your home language. And reading, writing and speaking one other world language such as Mandarin.

Number skills which includes the most important element of how to balance your bank account! Many courses on world cultures, traditions, religions, gender issues and how to accept and respect each others differences. Many years of training on this. Our world is shrinking. We need to teach young people how to deal with it.

Business skills such as sales, marketing, advertising and financial skills. Teach them about politics, how to look after the environment and other elements that will allow them to become good citizens.

Everything about computers, how to fix them, how to program them and as basic as how to type. The most important tool in the world right now is totally neglected in the school syllabus.

Knowing how to use Windows is not enough. Young people must learn how to set up blogs, interact on social media and how to look after themselves on the internet. Include mobile phone skills in this. In fact have one module that discusses new technology and software as it happens.

Creative thinking and how to tackle problems and hurdles that life throws at you. Back to some of those subject they taught in the classical times. How to think through moral issues and learning some ethics. Bring back Plato!

So where do traditional subjects like Geography, History, Maths, Physics etc fit into this model? There’s no harm in adding some kind of academic stream to a school system at a much later stage.

But we don’t need the entire school system to focus on teaching young people these subject There are a tiny percentage of kids who have the aptitude to become scientists. Why does everybody else have to suffer through the same curriculum?

Will all this general knowledge be lost then? Of course not. It’s available at a click of the button on the internet. Why do we need to spend years on drumming it into young people’s head when they can find the information in seconds? Teach them where to look. That’s all that’s required.

It would require a huge rethink of the education system. It’s beyond the capabilities of the existing educational authorities who are focused on seemingly wanting to improve the current offering. Regrettably, that’s not where the focus should be.

What to do and suggest? Maybe parents could take over a bit of that function again. Teach your kids how to think creatively and to problem solve. Encourage them to learn another language. Teach computer skills at home and provide them with moral and ethical codes.

That could be something!