What should public schools teach?

Critical thinking skills and science literacy.   This is something that should start at first grade and be reinforced up til graduation.   I wouldn't expect a high school graduate, or even the average college graduate, to be able to read and evaluate every scientific study that comes along.  However, everyone should be able to keep a level of skepticism when digesting information and know how to take steps to verify the validity of news articles, arguments, etc.  Without critical thinking skills, it is much harder for someone to identify actual scientific information from snake oil.  And politicians will be held more accountable if people recognize when their claims and arguments are more manipulative than factual.

This answer is written from the perspective of the USA. Reading/Writing Mathematics Science Critical Thinking History The Arts Physical Fitness Foreign Languages Honestly, the old classic formula isn't the problem. Sure we can tweak the list a little, and adjust the specific curriculum of those various classes, but if the goal is to fix the education in the US (ie become competitive with other leading countries around the world) then focusing on the curriculum is a bit like trying to fix the national debt by cancelling funding for NPR. Even if in principle you a right, you won't make up the difference... forest for the trees...We need to focus on the real problems, which have to do with parents and teachers. If everyone were actually learning the items outlined above to a high level of proficiency, there would be no education problem in the USA.

What should public school teach? The "what" question is actually too easy to be answered. First, Math. Of course our children need math. This would enable them to survive in life, and make our world a better place too. Latesthttp://www.oecd.org/education/asian-countries-top-oecd-s-latest-pisa-survey-on-state-of-global-education.htm survey also tells that poor mathematics skills severely limit people’s access to better-paying and more-rewarding jobs; at the aggregate level, inequality in the distribution of mathematics skills across populations is closely related to how wealth is shared within nations. Beyond that, the survey shows that people with strong skills in mathematics are also more likely to volunteer, see themselves as actors in rather than as objects of political processes, and are even more likely to trust others. Fairness, integrity and inclusiveness in public policy thus also hinge on the skills of citizens.... I can go on. And then... science. Universities spend so many resources trying to teach the students critical thinking.... and failed. Several studies show that teaching science (and scientific method in general) would make students think more critically, much better than teaching critical thinking itself. Science makes us understand science. Not only science as knowledge, but also science as a tool to understand the world. And then... reading. Jim Flynn (the one who discovers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect) argues that you can increase your IQ significantly just by reading literature. He even argued that it is better than going to college. And then.... But wait. Math, science, and reading. There are all in our curriculum right? So, we've done nothing wrong then. But it can't be. We must be wrong! Our education sucks. There must be something wrong in our curriculum! Well... no. The curriculum is not perfect of course. But if we are trying to improve our education by focusing on the curriculum, we're just wasting our time. A better approach is to focus our effort to our teachers. What can they do? How can we improve their ability to teach? And how to improve our teacher's ability to motivate the students to learn? A good teacher should not make our kids (<-- it links to Marcus Geduld's great answer about why we are frustrated when learning something). This is one of the biggest problem in education.

I would love it if there was more emphasis on teaching girls abstract thinking and giving them a head start in the engineering world. The creator of Goldieblox toys made it her mission. ( She is an engineer and had the same issues that resonate with me. ) Check it out. http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2013/11/19/goldieblox_commercial_rewrites_the_beastie_boys_urges_young_girls_to_pursue.html

First the word teaching may be misleading.  Behaviorism has developed protocols for "operant conditioning" that produce results that resemble what people expect of teachers. Conditioning installs skills or behaviors that cab persist in memory, sometimes for life. Think Pavlov's dogs. Most of the Western model of education was established even before Pavlov on the basis of Prussian military conditioning of troops which was adapted to train a generation to serve in the Industrial Revolution. It was as you might imagine a strict system that might nor pas child protection laws today.  Horace Man adopted it into his version of the older religious Normal School that had been created to produce teachers like Mr Gradgrind of literature, Back then,"the sage on the stage" was a credible premise. Teachers "taught" obviously. It turned out that students "learned".any way they could to avoid the consequences at school and at home and all around the neighborhood. "It takes a village", either way. Today, "the sage on the stage", I grew up with has been replaced by "the guide on the side" , a minor evolutionary step beyond "facilitator" that was hot in the 70's. The sage on the stage was based on militaristic common sense and the assumption that results had everything to do with implemented protocol and any thing else could be ignored. "The guide on the side" is the result of research and repeated testing and revision to establish validation. It has demonstrated its effectiveness in some settings. When educational programs are established no district can afford the Cadillac version. Bare bones is what gets adopted and validation goes out the window. On top of that the font of traditional values has generally abandoned its strongest positions and apparently  opted for self=service responsibilities. There is much hand-wringing today over the loss of traditional values. I never expected progressives to step up and if they had  "tradition" may have been interpreted differently. I'm sure traditionalists worked saliently to save values, but in the end they simply lacked the sense it would have taken to make a valid case. The lacked the ability to discriminate the source of the values they wished to promote and the ability to distinguish the values to lead the wedge with. their failure is catastrophic, To finally get to my answer to this question--- Students arrive in kindergarten still well equipped to learn. By second grade they appear confused. Students today, have found little or no reason in the lives they live, or in the experiences the encounter, to introduce them to ANY motivational perspective they can use as an effective scaffold. Forget the entire canon of content past Elementary School., For what its worth, the changes taking place will require the motivation and skill of learning new material and skills every day and on the fly, because from here on out, believe me or not, the jobs that won't be automated will increasingly require rapid adaptive skills . Look around yourself at what time frames corporations are  looking at, just-in-time-manufacturing is old news,  and hfind out for yourself how big corporations expect to meet the demand for growth. and how quickly is everything the human race has documented iand saved n libraries and on data bases doubling? What will YOU need when  the number that represents everything that you could know and much of what you need to stay current on DOUBLES once or twice a day. Adapt to what the competition started doing 10 hours ago and before they do the next thing... Come up with something better before 6pm. every day! Ready, steady, go!

Give a person a fish and they eat for a day, teach that person to fish and they eat for a lifetime. The same is true for learning. Give them the tools to learn instead of forcing them to do the same unskilled tasks over and over. If they know how to learn they will, if you just throw information at them and expect it to magically stick you are delusional. Healthy eating is also important so why not teach it at school. Sugar causes a myriad of diseases. Pop will make your bones brittle. Eat good food, mostly vegetables. Limit fried food consumption. Watch the movie fat head. Exercise and meditation are proving to be very good for the body and mind. I am just watching a good google talk on concentration and meditation. Respect for all cultures and religions prevents extremists and that being used as an excuse to go to war. Also there is the IBM high school project where they take an extra two years but come out with an associate's degree. http://www.fastcompany.com/1692372/ibm-high-school-will-churn-out-it-pros

1 - courtesy 2 - civility 3 - discipline 4 - right and wrong 5 - table manners 6 - how to dress and act appropriately in a wide variety of situations 7 - how to get along well with others 8 - public speaking 9 - fair play 10 - most of the subjects currently taught with the addition of geography

Business skills - they're the most relevant life skills such as critical thinking, real-world math, politics, culture, self-improvement, working with others, planning, speaking, presenting, everything.