AIBU to say they should NOT teach it in schools

[Calvinlookingforhobbs]

‘It’ being any problem that appears in our society... budgeting for adults, healthy eating, parenting skills, contraception, gardening, etc surely education and parenting are different?

personally, I think idiotic lessons like English literature and trigonometry ought to be dumped out until A level and left as something you chose to learn/options.

I don't see how either have been of any benefit to me as an adult. The hours I spent taking apart Shakespeare to study the meaning of his words have been no fucking help at all.

What WOULD have been helpful is learning to budget and general life skills.

The problem is that parents who can already manage the finances can teach their children. Parents who can't, won't. (Things like compound interest can be validly taught in Maths too).

Contraception - peer pressure and peer misinformation are major issues for teenagers. Better they are all given correct information together to avoid the stupid "you can't get pregnant first time" myths going around.

Gardening - I live in London and many families live in flats. Gardening at school might be their only opportunity to garden in their whole childhood.

OP I understand why you are posting but you are posting from an assumption that parents have the skills and means to fill the gaps. Engaged parents with access to suitable information can do this. Not every child has such a parent.

nic14271213 but maybe that’s just not good enough? Shouldn’t be demand more from parents (and support them to do better) rather than passing the buck to educational institutes?

I agree with you op.
I know they do pshe days with covers things like you've described.

My ds1 (14) not long ago did a few lessons on things like that but in groups of 6.
Much smaller than the 30 class size normally. The teachers also picked the group's so they picked kids all at the same level.

Imo I do think some subjects could be downplayed to make room for more pshe stuff. imho I would have less drama or music.

Those things were taught at my school 38 years ago. It's hardly anything new.

Sorry I misread.

Parents can only teach so much of their limited knowledge. School is there to fill in the blanks.

What about parents who don't (and won't) teach these skills?

Should we just accept that it's 'tough luck' on those DC and forget about it?

Blue Most schools seem to do very little drama or music now. That is a mistake, in my opinion. I've seen kids who are incredibly shy or have difficulty relation to others or expressing themselves finding drama or music immensely valuable in that respect, among others.

”Personally I think there are huge elements of Mathematics and Science that could be dropped and that more emphasis should be place on life-skills.” Shatners

I am very grateful that I had a specialist teacher teaching me home economics. It was a good subject, well planned and well resourced. It has been useful in life and helped me to get one with the more academic side of my life.

Also grateful for the one term course we had on child development in Yr 8. Often feel surprised at the questions that come up in Parenting because people don't seem to know what's normal to expect from a 2 yo or a 3 yo. Yes, parents should know and teach them, but clearly many parents don't know these things.

If MNers, who are probably on average more educated and better read than the average parent, don't know what is a normal level of stroppiness in a 3yo, then why assume everybody else does?

Ida And the shocked face is for what? Have a look at my additional posting at the top of this page and I elaborate.

Definitely more needs to be done to educate the adults parenting these children . Working in a bank I see many many people who have not got the foggiest how things work and are constantly getting charges and getting. Into debt and obviously that's the banks fault . Well that's what they tell us anyway they just can't manage their money or to budget And these same people are teaching our children the same ways . I wish more parent would take responsibility for life skills but if they haven't got them to begin with then School have to teach them. We did a workshop with y4 children last year and they loved it the teacher thought it was amazing and the children definitely learned more as it was someone different 'teaching' them. They even asked us to do an adults workshop for scams etc .

There are loads of life skills that could fit into the curriculum if it was more creative.
Maths could easily incorporate budgets, tax, estimates for carpets, measurements for curtains.
Healthy eating and cooking
Basic first aid should be taught alongside biology.

My children can get this stuff from me because I’m a reasonably engaged parent. But what about those who got home to Pot Noodle and an Xbox?

If you dump Eng lit and trig, then you limit childrens opportunities in adult life. There are plenty of adults in careers who do use seemingly obscure concepts and late teems is too late to introduce it and then expect them to learn enough that they could cope at university and in the workplace.

Education doesn't need to be dumbed down. If we ditch actual academic study in order to focus on doing the parents job, how will our dc compete in the workplace? They will be up against kids from other countries who have been properly educated.

What needs to happen is for the govt to stop interfearing and changing the system every five minutes and for parents to be responsible for teaching life skills.

I think there would be a place for it in schools.

Shatner - what bits of science . Scientific literacy is so important, we need more!! A lack of scientific knowledge/ understanding is why so many people believe either everything they hear if it's from a populist type celeb or nothing if it's from a 'scientist' (more commonly known as 'they') and they don't like the message.

If only parent would take responsibility. I lot will but a lot don't or just don't have the knowledge themselves I suppose it's a vicious circle.

Yes I think those skills should be taught. Because children that are not taught them by their parents are at a disadvantage. I learnt about pie and a silly symbol. What a complete waste of time that was. So boring and useless.

IWannaSeeHowItEnds you’ve eloquently said exactly what I am trying to!

IWanna Trig and algebra? I don't think it would be at all too late to introduce those FULLY into those who take Maths GCSE and then A level. I didn't say eliminate them entirely, but the amount of time we spent on algebra in 3rd year Maths was ridiculous. There are very, very few careers that requite you to use algebra or trig. In fact, algebra is often more useful in science than and trig more useful for architecture than maths.

That’s sort of what the best primary teaching was like in the 80s; topic work included all aspects from gardening to music. Maths included playing shops and role play/lifeskills scenarios.
But if you want 7 year olds to understanding complex grammar and abstract maths problems, along with intensive reading skills and IT, and tooth brushing, personal hygiene, healthy eating, disability issuesand global citizenship, the system becomes unworkable.
One person’s non-essential is another’s vital, and the endless squabbling continues.

contraception

Some parents won't discuss this with their kids and things change and new things come on the market that you don't necessarily know about.

There should be support for parents who struggle with life skills and some aspects of parenting, so they can pass on to their dc what they have learned. It's really not fair to expect schools to cover everything.

Sitting I'm not saying let's not do ANY physics. Or ANY chemistry. Or ANY biology. I just don't think that for the majority of people, ALL of it is necessary.

It wouldn't matter how much more you did at school. I'm afraid those sorts of people would still think that way no matter what they'd heard at school. Only recently there was a thread on MN about conspiracy theories and some of the stuff being spouted out there was frightening and many of them were my age and older when we still did separate sciences rather than co-ordinated or combined sciences.

That’s an idea, parenting classes before becoming a parent and then compulsory attendance throughout the 18 years of being a parent to help you update. Couple of hours a week, could be online. Passing tied to benefits to motivate.