Don't stay in school.

[crazyauntie]

This song has gone viral I think is a excellent message to schools all over the uk. One school has already listened
What are your opinions about it? Do you think our schools are providing adequate education or could it improve? I honestly think our schools systems should and could change if we are getting enough backing.

I agree with him over some points.
I do think stuff like financial management, rights and responsibilities and basic life skills ought to be an important part of school curriculums.
I also think that many schools work quite hard to do this.
I also believe that all the other stuff is important. History has lessons to teach us and is an inseparable part of our cultural heritage. Why do we have these rights and responsibilities? Geography and science teach us about our world. Why do we need basic hygiene?
We can't teach everything. Things can always be improved and I believe most schools are open to change and are constantly evolving.
Targets and league tables do put constraints on curriculums.
I also believe that some of it ought to be coming from home but that's a whole separate issue...

Tom Bennett's response nails it.

community.tes.co.uk/tom_bennett/b/weblog/archive/2015/02/07/don-39-t-stay-in-school-inspirational-teacher-bashing.aspx

Most of what he wants taught is already taught, some that isn't is easy to find out and the rest is hard to teach in a meaningful way. The stuff that he doesn't want taught is valuable.

" We do not teach because it appears to be immediately practical and useful; we teach because we are helping children to inherit their intellectual heritage, the pearls and rubies of science, art, the humanities. We don't teach it because we think it will help them change a plug (yeah, why isn't he raging about that? Or a million other things I’ll categorise as ‘handy to know’?) We teach them literature, and mathematics, and art, and science, and a dozen other taxonomic milestones, because they are valuable; because they are important. Because without their acquisition, this generation is dislocated from the last one and every one prior to that, and every cultural and scientific asset is lost."

Schools just cannot teach everything.

You say that some things he says are talked about in school not all schools teach it. He wants life skills to become mandatory. My sex education was how to put a condom on a banana. I was meant to be in one of the top schools in Britain. We wasn't taught about the pill or implant. For my friends and I we learnt that through our youth club. We weren't taught parenting, tax or our human rights. I personally think his idea is brilliant. David wants us to learn what we want to learn. He doesn't want us to learn what the government thinks we should learn.

This video may also give you some more insight to it.

But everyone has different ideas of what they want to learn.
There is also the issue of a difference between wants and needs.
I'm not sure many 14 year olds would 'want' to learn about how to pay tax but it is perhaps something they need to know about.
I agree that certain things are missing from the curriculum and there should be more consistency across the country but with a school system that has one teacher to about every 30+ kids, children learning what they ' want' isn't feasible.

crazy being taught about all forms of contraception and how to access it is on the curriculum. Part of a government drive to reduce teen pregnancy.

www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/283599/sex_and_relationship_education_guidance.pdf

Did you read the blog I linked to? You really should. How should you teach parenting to a teenager, hmm? Look at mumsnet, an entire website devoted to parenting and yet still not much consensus.

Financial education is now statutory too, by the way

www.parliament.uk/Templates/BriefingPapers/Pages/BPPdfDownload.aspx?bp-id=SN06156

Unfortunately it's not taught in every single school. I also read that blog post but that was posted before he made/posted any more videos. Parenting can be taught in schools and some schools do teach it. It's all well and good saying a school does teach these life lessons but other schools do not teach them. It's easy to say well my children's school teachers so it doesn't bother my family and I. But what about children who aren't getting taught these things? What about children without parents so they can't teach them life skills?

Also sex education is taught about heterosexual relationships. I know a lot of people who weren't taught about different sexuality.

Callooh have you watch this video

Bloody hell if we only taught kids what they wanted to learn then a lot of curriculum time would be spent on how to do make-up or make vines, or building stuff in Minecraft.

Kids are generally not the best source of info about what's best for them.

Noble I think you're taking this to literal. We now get a choice of certain GCSEs. Yes many children can't make that choice but with guidance from the schools and parents/carers they should be able to. We get the choice if we learn geography or history why not expand that choice to other subjects like maths or English. By the time you are 15 you know enough maths and English to make your way through life. So students may want to further their knowledge on maths or English. Some schools offer GCSE law or psychology but not all of them do. We need a new system that engages young people. We need more work shops so instead of taking parenting as subject why not provide a workshop day based on parenting. Why not in year 11 do a work shop on taxes and voting? It's all well and good saying it's easy to vote but a lot of young people do not see the importance to vote.

why not expand that choice to other subjects like maths or English

Because literacy and numeracy are important to the economy.

I can't speak for English, but as a maths teacher I know there are plenty of kids who would like to drop maths at 14 because it's boring or whatever, who would have doors closed to them later on which they would then realise that they would have very much preferred to have open. Maths is also a subject more than any other which increases your earnings potential over your lifetime the more you study it.

Why don't you start a thread on MN asking parents what they would like to see in a teen workshop on parenting then decide how easy that would be to organise?

It's all well and good saying it's easy to vote but a lot of young people do not see the importance to vote.

In Y11 kids are not able to vote. And once you say 'it's important to vote' what else is left? Any discussion of actual policy and you are likely to get hysterical parents writing to the Daily Mail about how schools are pushing a left-wing liberal agenda whether they are or not.

But there is also at lot of young people who enjoy maths and would stay on to do GCSE. You are taught enough maths by the time your 15 to do well in life. Not all of us want to know everything about maths. I love maths and considered it for a degree. I know many people who failed their maths GCSE and have a very well paid job. We need basic English and maths to get through life. We need a full understanding of parent, taxing and what not. In 2005 38% of voters were between 18-24. Surely that should be higher and we've got to ask our self why is it so low? It's probably because they don't understand why it affects them or how their vote can help. Some may consider it a waste of time. I'm sure you would love to have a class of young people wanting to learn maths instead of people being there because they have to. Maybe once they start taking GCSEs they could have maths/English once a week instead of once a days so they don't stop learning it?

Sorry x post. Yes I understand it seems there isn't much to teach kids about voting but maybe it should be some the lines of well when you're voting you've got to consider each parties policies. Also not many people know about spoiling there vote. They could learn about the basics of what each party generally stand for also you could look in to the history of how politics effects our lives now and why it's so important to vote?

You are taught enough maths by the time your 15 to do well in life.

Good luck applying for jobs without a maths GCSE to show that you are basically numerate.

Also, people who then continue to A-level maths earn more, even in non-mathsy jobs. It's thought that the skills taught in maths such as problem-solving and logical thinking are actually really useful in the workplace. Kids who think maths is just Pythagoras and trig and moan 'when am I ever going to use this in real life' are missing the point.
www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=314400

In 2005 38% of voters were between 18-24.

In 2010 this went up to 51% of 18-24 year olds turning out to vote without schools having to do anything. I don't think the problem with young voters is to do with lack of education, but with a sense of lack of relevance and that's a problem with the political parties, not school. If you want to increase turnout, then petition parties to court the youth vote with policies that affect them.

er well as he has a calculator on him he literally has the power to find this stuff out for himself. It matters more that kids can work out how to find stuff out for themselves, I mean he's asking those questions in the song so he's not daft....