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What are some important things about preschool?

What can be done to make the education system teach the most important things to our kids?

  • Many people complain that a lot of what is taught in schools is not going to be relevant to most people in their adult lives. Regardless of how you feel about that - what are some really important things that we should be teaching our kids in school, but aren't? Follow up to Top answers to this question are all "soft skills": curiosity, social dynamics, interpersonal relationships, curiosity, hard work, creativity, financial health, service, etc. How can the education system be changed to incorporate these "important" things so that they are "important" parts of school curricula?

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    In my experience (as a leader of professional development and as an educator), one of the first steps should be to make environments for educators similar to those we want them to create. This means that educators should be encouraged to be creative and take risks, work in teams and improve social relationships with other adult stakeholders, and be in a position to be role models to students and others in the community. Often in American public schools, educators' work is degrading, beyond the scope of one person, and sadly, done in isolation. There are also very few professional structures that would attract people into the career; teachers are never promoted, are treated similarly regardless of experience, education, and past results, and have an increasingly poor career outlook. I see innovative work practices at many successful American companies-- Google, Amazon, Facebook, etc.-- but very few in the public sector. If we want schools to encourage the kind of high level skills required in adult life, we must invest more in educators. Currently the most glaring "thing" we teach in the American public school system is that we don't value education. If we could use schools to show the value of a rich intellectual life and the pleasure of learning, these values would improve in the community at large.

Lisa Cohen at Quora Visit the source

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emotional intelligence (personal stability, and defense techniques)

Margaret Weiss

The following five classes should be taught in all U.S. schools: 1. Critical Thinking (cultivating critical thinking in children can help achieve a host of other goals as it is the base of many important skills) 2. Life Skills (balancing a checking account, how and why to save money, how much air pressure to put in your tires to save on gas, table manners - all of the little things we encounter in life) 3. Civics (it may seem old fashioned, but in order for a nation to flourish it is critical that its citizens understand the theoretical and practical implications of citizenship and their rights and duties) 4. Theme-based History (I am a history lover, but chronological history is basically a bunch of trivia. The true value of history is enabling people to learn from it and, as a result, make better decisions in the future. Teaching history based on themes - wars, colonization, economies, democracies, etc. - can really draw out history's patterns, which will arm us with the lessons necessary to not repeat the mistakes of the past.) 5. Entrepreneurship (although most people will not be an entrepreneur, inspiring those that can be is one of the most critical tasks a society can undertake since entrepreneurs lead us into the future; those that will not be entrepreneurs can still learn valuable lessons that they can take with them into adulthood) So what classes do we cut to make room for these new ones? While the suggested classes below definitely have value in our society, I do not believe they compare to the five above given where our country is and what it needs. 1. Art (great extra-curricular activity that should not be part of the core curriculum) 2. Music (great extra-curricular activity that should not be part of the core curriculum) 3. Gym (great extra-curricular activity that should not be part of the core curriculum) 4. Chronological (i.e., traditional) History (replaced by theme-based history)

Jeremy Smith

This depends entirely upon what you determine "the most important things" to be. In my opinion, the education system is failing miserably at doing anything but fill impressionable minds with useless nonsense, because 90% of it is going to be of absolutely no value to them in later life. All it does do is issue them with a ticket to stand in an employment queue, with no absolute guarantee that they will eventually "get a decent job". Their childhoods are thus stolen from them in an effort to force them conform to certain norms and standards, but even then, this does not ensure that they are actually literate or able to communicate and articulate effectively once they are released from these "institutes of learning". What is the use of "education" if there is no back-up plan to ensure that all this (wasted) time is rewarded with a full and fulfilling life once it is over? The only thing that can be done with the present education system is to abandon it. The whys, wherefores and the alternative are brilliantly explained by John Taylor Gatto: an ex-educator in his books "Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling", summary here: https://educatorsthinkspace.wikispaces.com/Dumbing+Us+Down,+John+Taylor+Gatto and "Weapons of Mass Instruction", read/download here: http://antioligarch.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/john-taylor-gatto-weapons-of-mass-instruction.pdf

Keith Taylor

First, yes, there are teachers who teach for the right reasons and who are good at it. That said, get rid of the education major in universities.  A) It's the easiest major on campus. Though it surely attracts people who really want to teach for all the right reasons, the education major is merely the institutionalized means to get the "right" creds (even though majoring in education means sacrificing knowledge for lesson planning). The bad: it also attracts students who want summers off, think teaching will be easy, or who really can't make it in a rigorous academic major. B) Do we really want the weakest math students in college math classrooms teaching math? English? Science. They are. C) People learn to teach by teaching and through mentorship. D) The education major teaches recipes, not serious thinking. Nor does it nurture a love of the subject matter at hand, whether it's math, science, literature or history.

Carol Frome

"curiosity, social dynamics, interpersonal relationships, curiosity, hard work, creativity, financial health, service" Almost by definition, few of these things can be taught in schools as they exist today. These are qualities/skills that you need to succeed in the real world, but schools are far removed from that reality. The most successful, compassionate, confident, creative students I've seen as a teacher have always had a rich, varied lives outside of school supported by mature adults.

Micah Sittig

TED carried a couple of pieces from Sir Ken Robinson. http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/ken_robinson_changing_education_paradigms.html Lisa, your last paragraph is close. We do not value education. We do not value the education of our educators. Remember that 'ole saw, "Those that can, do. Those that can't, teach." It is the underlying belief of Americans. Is it because the educated become 'higher classed'? My brother calls me the "over educated failure" because he's managed to make his first million, and clearly, as an educator, I have not. I'd like to see us alter the way we track students... individual growth can be charted, with the web, now. I don't see it happening, because change isn't what we do best. But!!  We have to find a way to be better for our kids.

Melody Polson

I think our grading system should be improved.. In most of the exams kids have options and they choose the easier one to get more marks. But grading system should be such that it should make the students to try difficult one to get more marks. Marks should be given according to difficulty level of the questions. By applying this type of grading system below average students will get passing marks easily and it will be a challenge for toppers to obtain full marks...

Dishant Sheth

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