Poll : Schools not preparing kids for lifle

[TN Mama]

Interesting article from MSNBC

 

Schools not properly preparing kids for life

[Lizzie in Ma]

have a great Saturday!

[Snickerdoodle]

This is one important reason in our choice to hs. I have been chewing on this exact thought over the last year (my kids are very young).

 

"A lot of kids, when they get out school, are kind of lost," said Jamie Norton, a firefighter in Gridley, Calif. "When you get out of high school, what are you educated to do?"

[Night Elf]

I completely agree. I graduated from high school in 1986 and the only class that really gave me a boost for adult life was typing. I remember my mom insisting I take that class and I was not happy. But if it wasn't for typing, I probably would have had a tougher time getting a job out of high school.

 

I did attend college 2 years after high school. Again, typing was the only real help. College was NOTHING like my high school and I was woefully unprepared.

 

I'm watching my dd16 going through the public school system and I'm worried about her future. The only classes she's had so far that I see as truly helpful are the cooking classes she's taking because she is interested in being a pastry chef. I need to get her into typing as well.

[Tammyla]

Thanks for the link.:lurk5:

[elegantlion]

I completely agree. I graduated from high school in 1986 and the only class that really gave me a boost for adult life was typing. I remember my mom insisting I take that class and I was not happy. But if it wasn't for typing, I probably would have had a tougher time getting a job out of high school.

 

I did attend college 2 years after high school. Again, typing was the only real help. College was NOTHING like my high school and I was woefully unprepared.

 

I'm watching my dd16 going through the public school system and I'm worried about her future. The only classes she's had so far that I see as truly helpful are the cooking classes she's taking because she is interested in being a pastry chef. I need to get her into typing as well.

 

 

Totally agree! I graduated in 1985 and yes, looking back typing was the only class that was helpful. They offered the first computer classes my junior and senior year, I didn't even sign up for them. I thought "Why in the world would I need a computer?" :lol:

 

I was a good student and knew how to sit in a class and follow instructions. I found most employers were not like teachers, nor did they want to be. The work ethic I learned from my dad.

 

I find myself pointing out character traits to ds in our school that will be helpful later in life. That is one of the perks of homeschooling to me.

[snickelfritz]

I think kids should come out of school knowing math, how to write, etc... I think schools are failing in that duty. BUT isn't it the parent's job to make sure their kids have life skills? Isn't that what part-time jobs and internships for?

 

My high school offered 1/2 time enrollment at a local technology center the last 2 years of school. They spent half of their day finishing up math, English requirements, etc... for graduation and half of the day learning a marketable skill.

 

Do you know how many took advantage of that? Not very many. The students preferred (and their parents let them) to keep on taking classes like office aid (running notes to teachers) and other such nonsense. The "practical" classes weren't cool.

[Night Elf]

I think kids should come out of school knowing math, how to write, etc... I think schools are failing in that duty. BUT isn't it the parent's job to make sure their kids have life skills? Isn't that what part-time jobs and internships for?

 

Perhaps you are defining life skills differently than I am. I think of life skills as household stuff, cooking, laundry, cleaning, parenting, family relationships. Other things such as checkbook maintenance, budgeting, typing, office skills such as filing, telephone, organizing, can be learned in a classroom situation. Part-time jobs can often still need experience. I'm trying to teach my children how to balance a checkbook and write bills but I know some families that don't or won't do that because they don't want their children to see the finances.

 

The only internships I know about are jobs when a person is in college and they get a summer job working for a business to give them experience before they graduate. Are there other types of internships?

[Laurie4b]

My opinions on this are probably out of the mainstream.

 

1) A lot of life skills need to be learned outside a classroom, in the home and workplace. I think it's parents' responsibility to teach social relations, work ethic, etc. You can't beat actual work experience for teaching the relationship skills you need in a workplace (and the relationship skills outrank specific educational skills) What the schools do that make this more difficult is assign too much homework---from kindergarten through 12th grade. All that homework keeps kids out of real life in the family, workplace, even extra-curriculars, which are often very important to life success. (For eg in sports, discipline, team work, competition, etc. are learned, even if someone doesn't go on to be a prof. athlete. And some extra-curriculars are indeed the niches where kids will end up as adults). The kids I tutor come home with a whole packet of homework in kindergarten--and that's after they've sat on their butts all day in school. No wonder we have an obesity epidemic. We now expect top high school students to take a lot of college courses. I see the kids of friends who would have, when I was growing up, made great grades and also "had a life", be totally stressed under today;s conditions.

 

2) About that math. I did GREAT in math in high school Graduated with calculus under my belt. Did NOT have any trouble understanding it. I don't do well teaching it to my kids. Do you know why? Other than the very most basic algebra and geometry, I've never used it since. I have a little bee in my bonnet about requiring algebra to graduate from high school. How about requiring consumer math instead? Every single kid needs that and will use it throughout their lives. My nephew took about 3 years to get through algebra. His brain just was not wired that way. I guess he passed with a D or something. What a waste! He is probably on the lower end of the IQ scale, but he's a sociable guy with a good work ethic and guess what? He's succeeding in his "niche." He's worked his way into management at Wal-mart from taking pride in stocking shelves correctly and quickly for his first job. He WAS prepared for life, but not by the schools. (I'm not against higher math, btw. Just pointing out that parents may not be able to teach it because they haven't needed it in 20 or 30 years. Mr Mosely of Chalkdust teaches my boys. )

 

Off soap-box.

[Snickerdoodle]

I guess I'm thinking about when kids finish high school, they are legally adults. After high school they might need another year (gap year) to find themselves, then at university, they need another two years of general education to figure out what they want to do. In graduate school they'll need another two years to "get everyone up to speed." It just seems like a whole lot of mollycoddling to me.

[snickelfritz]

The only internships I know about are jobs when a person is in college and they get a summer job working for a business to give them experience before they graduate. Are there other types of internships?

 

I was in the donut store a few days ago and I chatted with the person working there. She just graduated from high school, but had attended a technology school part-time to be a dental assistant. While finishing that up, she worked in a dentists office. She used the word internship. She was in the process of trying to find a full-time dental assisting job so that she could go back to school to be a dental hygenist. This is a person that just graduated from high school a month ago.

 

A friend in high school had an interest in being a veterinarian. The summer before her senior year, her parents helped her get a volunteering job at a veterinarian clinic. She saw enough to know that she didn't want to do that. Her senior year, she worked part time in a pharmacy and decided she wanted to go to pharmacy school. Did her parents help her get these jobs? Yes. But, she did the work and she gained the work experience for her resume AND she figured out what she wanted to do.

 

And my last example is an organization called FFA.

 

I was involved all through high school. I did public speaking, kept records of my projects, took care of animals, had responsibilities as an officer, etc... I gained valuable work experience.....but it wasn't *COOL*. Dh told me a negative name they had for FFA people at his school. By the way, DH worked in a Taco Bueno from the time he was 16 until he was in college. He worked his way up to being a manager while he went to (and paid for) college part-time. That wasn't a cool job, either.

[BabyBre]

"Asked what subjects should be given more time in school, more than a third said math. English was a distant second, at 21 percent. A tiny fraction picked art, music and the sciences, such as biology and chemistry."

 

I can't believe history wasn't mentioned. In our ps district only one year of history is required to graduate high school. The entire history of the world summed up in 9 months of study.

 

Dh and I were also talking just the other day about how many, many issues facing us today could be improved by educating the masses. How about personal finance in high school, for one, before you need to put it into practice?

 

Thanks for sharing.

[Night Elf]

Totally agree! I graduated in 1985 and yes, looking back typing was the only class that was helpful. They offered the first computer classes my junior and senior year, I didn't even sign up for them. I thought "Why in the world would I need a computer?" :lol:

 

I did take those computer classes and they were totally useless. I learned how to do a little programming in Basic. The best project I did was create a christmas tree graphic with blinking lights. :)

[elegantlion]

I did take those computer classes and they were totally useless. I learned how to do a little programming in Basic. The best project I did was create a christmas tree graphic with blinking lights. :)

 

That's funny. My dad worked at a TV station and I remember they had a whole room dedicated to their computer. I thought there was no way I'd work on those. That also makes me wonder where technology will be when ds is my age. Laptops will seem antiquated by then. He already gets antsy when a CD has to load.

[abreakfromlife]

I almost couldn't get past the first article. It's not the schools job to teach life skills, at all! Yeah Basic meals and advanced foods was tons of fun to take, but that should not be where kids learn to cook. That is the responsibility of the parents and they've given it over to the schools. But when the schools don't do an adequate job, they shouldn't be blaming the schools. They should be looking at themselves and saying 'guess I should do my job better'.

 

U.S. schools are doing only a fair to poor job preparing kids for college and the work force.

Is the point of schools to educate kids for the sake of educating them, or is it to prepare kids to work? It most cases, if you are thoroughly educated, you will be able to work well and find a job and learn how to work a specific job. But if schools aren't even educating for the sake of turning out well-educated people.......what is the point? Is that all people want - to be able to just get a job and numbly do that for the rest of their life?

 

I'm just still shocked, even though I should be used to it by now, that millions of people are perfectly happy turning over near total control of their children to the gov't, and don't even care about them becoming real educated people.