Stuff you wish they taught in school

[GhostWriter16]

Pre-calculus is pretty useful if you're going to go on to even a science field. And Trig actually is important to physics, which means Trig plays a role in most sciences too (all that special equipment runs on physics!).

So what about someone who wants to be involved in a Law, History, or English related career? Do they really need Trig beyond looking better on a college transcript?

 

[Antilogic]

I think it's time for Advice Krugman!

The only thing funnier than right-wing "economics" is right-wing mischaracterization of Krugman.



As for teaching in schools, applied mathematics is a must. Personal finance was not taught, and we had a one semester combined government and economics class. It was absurdly terrible, and I learned little (I had already picked up on a little outside of class, and not much was taught). A comparative governments class is too much to hope for.

I would like history taught in more detail and, what's the word... not wrong? Correctly? Not grotesquely oversimplified? Although, I credit my free-time reading to covering up the shoddy background I got in public schools, so at least I got a hobby out of it.

Finally, a general philosophy of science, technology, policy, etc. class. I've found that most people don't understand the difference between facts, hypotheses, and theories. Most people don't understand the interplay between the knowledge fields, engineering, and the rest of the world.

 

[Truronian]

So what about someone who wants to be involved in a Law, History, or English related career? Do they really need Trig beyond looking better on a college transcript?

Do they need it? No. Is it useful? yes.

It's also a likely that if someone has difficulty with trig in secondary school maths then they are going to struggle to get the grades and degree levels needed to become a (successful) lawyer. Logical thinking and all that.

 

[GhostWriter16]

Do they need it? No. Is it useful? yes.

It's also a likely that if someone has difficulty with trig in secondary school maths then they are going to struggle to get the grades and degree levels needed to become a (successful) lawyer. Logical thinking and all that.

Indeed true. Naturally, its just a personal thing, but I can figure out a ton of crap in my head (I did a large portion of Algebra I in my head, figuring out the answers to crap without even really knowing what I was doing or how to do the actual formula, and sometimes I could get an answer without getting anything else.) Algebra II (Same class as trig in my school) is simply too difficult to do in your head, and the problems are simply overwheming. As such, I don't feel like I need it, and I feel burdened by it when I'd much rather devote my time to History, where I'm taking college level classes in my high school (AP) and getting the highest grades in my class, and English.

 

[Zelig]

Indeed true. Naturally, its just a personal thing, but I can figure out a ton of crap in my head (I did a large portion of Algebra I in my head, figuring out the answers to crap without even really knowing what I was doing or how to do the actual formula, and sometimes I could get an answer without getting anything else.) Algebra II (Same class as trig in my school) is simply too difficult to do in your head, and the problems are simply overwheming. As such, I don't feel like I need it, and I feel burdened by it when I'd much rather devote my time to History, where I'm taking college level classes in my high school (AP) and getting the highest grades in my class, and English.

Setting the bar for math worth learning at "stuff that can be done in your head" is incredibly low.

Repeatedly bringing up trig isn't helping your case here, basic trigonometry is very basic math.

 

[Silurian]

How to spot mad women

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Indeed. If you can't do sin 30 degrees = 1/2 EDIT: In your head, of course, I feel sorry for you.

 

[Jehoshua]

public schools?

I would see no problem with that. Besides my country only has state neutrality in religious affairs, so long as it doesn;t mandate a state religion or impose a religious test for public office its perfectly legal.

 

[Silurian]

Indeed. If you can't do sin 30 degrees = 1/2 EDIT: In your head, of course, I feel sorry for you.

no Cosine 60

I have used the trig a learned doing O-level maths (old UK qualification for 16 year olds) far more than the Gaussian elimination etc I was taught for my engineering degree.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

cos 60 degrees = sin 30 degrees, n00b.

Gaussian elimination is handy for solving systems of linear equations, however.

 

[MantaRevan]

The only thing I would agree with from the above is managing money. I don't necessarily mean making a budget but there are a lot of finance related things that I don't understand such as taxes, social security, investing, insurance and all that. These are facts that you could actually teach someone.

Childrearing, choosing a partner, dealing with emotion, I think a lot of these are just based on experience and theoretical ideas which can vary greatly depending on what certain experts think.

I couldn't agree more.

 

[MantaRevan]

i wish schools properly imparted orthodox catholic teaching to their students.

why???

 

[Cutlass]

I wish schools properly imparted orthodox Catholic teaching to their students.

Why would you want such an anti-American thing?

 

[Jehoshua]

I see nothing anti-american with it, not to mention if it was percieved that way by americans I couldn;t care less since I am Australian (incidentally religious teaching occurs in state schools in Australia).

As to why, well that should be obvious. Because a) its simplt not taught properly to Catholic kids in the west and b) because all those non-catholics listening in would learn something important, (and perhaps get a nudge in the right direction so to speak )

 

[Silurian]

cos 60 degrees = sin 30 degrees, n00b.

n00b is that some thing to do with a tangent

Gaussian elimination is handy for solving systems of linear equations, however.

I have never used this at work.



But one thing I was taught as part of my degree was approximate calculations.
This would be use full if taught younger especially to help people realise the had stupid answers.

(When I did my degree in the early 80s the PCs were not very powerful and calculations were done by hand or with Fortran on the main frame and get the answer the next day. We were taught methods of approximating the sizes of things to save iterations)

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Another thing. I wish the schools would do less fearmongering about the Internet. The way they made it sound is that if you go on some social network site a rapist will pop out of your monitor. I hate social networks but for other reasons.

 

[Cutlass]

I see nothing anti-american with it, not to mention if it was percieved that way by americans I couldn;t care less since I am Australian (incidentally religious teaching occurs in state schools in Australia).

As to why, well that should be obvious. Because a) its simplt not taught properly to Catholic kids in the west and b) because all those non-catholics listening in would learn something important, (and perhaps get a nudge in the right direction so to speak )

It's anti-American because it's unconstitutional as well as harmful to all basic American values. It's also harmful to religion as a whole. There's nothing that discourages people from faith more than being told you have to have it.

 

[Jehoshua]

Why would I care about the american constitution in what "I wish was taught in school", as I have already said I am australian, I don't care in teh slightest if its unconstitutional in America or Saudi Arabia.

As to it discouraging people from faith, actually all the statistics show that places where faith is taught properly (classical catholic education for example) have a higher retention rate, and rate of people entering the faith. Even the average Catholic school (which has terrible catechesis) still has a higher retention rate of Catholics than a run of the mill public school.

 

[cardgame]

Make music a compulsory subject, even if only for once or twice a week. It's a great outlet to have when you're stressed and can really help build self-confidence.

You must have had a different style of music class than the one I'm familiar with. It really had almost nothing to do with music, just music history and a bit of practical info like FACE/ACEG etc

 

[squall78]

Trigga what? I don't think most students need to advance that far in maf.