Natural Education
Its a difficult thing, deciding what data the upcoming generation will be fed in order to mold their brains for the future along with what information that they spend their time attempting to understand. I believe everyone has a opinion about what children should be learning when entering the schooling system. Elon Musk doesn't want his children in this system, and neither did Marie Curie. That's a fascinating link between two highly intelligent individuals. Elon prefers to have his children focus on critical thinking, problem solving, and general conceptual understanding. This is a different approach compared to what our system seems to have adopted, America that is. Regurgitation. It'd be amazing if they actually built a very sound informational pyramid by the time we graduated high school, but unfortunately most of it is lost.
What Should School Give Kids?
Here's the best question, what should school do for kids. Is it set up to get them into college? Get a 9 - 5? Be happy? Eh. I believe that the schooling children go through should prepare them for themselves and this world. Some main things should be focuses on, with a little room for exploration on the students parts.
What skills should school bring?
- Communication
- Mathematics
- Health Application (Nutrition, First Aid, Fitness)
- Livability
- Self-Proprioception (Mindfullness)
Communication
It is extremely vital that individuals learn to communicate internal feelings and thoughts. This should be able to be done before a graduate runs off to college. Any route in life, communication will be there. It doesn't even matter if there is only one human and only nature. Nature and that human will communicate. Within the communication realm language, writing, reading, computer skills, these can all be learned to increase communications. Maybe for some deeper routes they could teach self-profession along side speech classes at earlier ages. Its fascinating how a 6 year old could get in front of a class with no problem, but 10 years later it seems a little more nerve racking.
Mathematics
I understand that not everybody finds beauty within mathematics. Mathematics is sort of integrated in our reality. We may not have it all right, but mathematics allows us to communicate about the universe's actions almost. Mathematics is the vocabulary of physics. Not everyone needs to run around understanding Calculus, but it should definitely be engraved in us by the time education is done. Get rid of all the unnecessary crap and hone down the regions that are crucial. Just a little hedge trimming in this area.
Health Application
Every person that goes through school should be given the knowledge of how to tend to their bodies, others bodies, and what to do in order to live a thoroughly healthy life. They attempt this in our schooling system with Health class, but it fades quickly. Certain things should really be imprinted in our minds, understanding how to tend to our personal temples, uh yeah - high priority. They don't make it a high priority though, which can be extremely saddening.
This could include, fitness - nutrition - first aid - breathing - meditation - herb usage - etc.
It'd be a prettier world if people knew how to help themselves health wise. Given to them at a young age, gives them even more power. People shouldn't be having to learn these things when they're 20, or 30, or gross...past 10 is almost an embarrassment to our species already. Teach the damn kids how to eat man. They're too worried trying to not get the kids to smoke or have sex. We can forget Diabetes all together, LOL.
Livability
Maybe set children up mentally so that they're prepared for independent living. Whats to come next? What would they like to learn that could be used later in life? Why not have classes that allow the students to congregate and choose topics together to discuss, learn, and spread. Livability should allow students to graduate feeling confident that they can go into this world and at least survive.
When you can fully convince a living organism that they are surviving, well that is extremely calming. If they don't feel that way, well we can call this stress. Sometimes our bodies still feel as if we're running around the wild away from wolves and bears. However, in our modern age, often times we still have these animal like reactions that are applied in situations that don't actually need them. Watching a kid have an anxiety test over a test. A TEST. A piece of paper that a person writes on manages to put an organism into a stress like survival state. Errr. Sounds like a silly reason to set off the alarms eh body?
Where does this take us? Does a kid know how to balance a daily budget, monthly bills, and so forth? I understand its a simple concept to many, but being taken through the process before proceeding into the real world can be of some value. Maybe have courses that let kids see what route they'd want in life instead of throwing it on them all of the sudden. There is so much that could be covered under this skill. Just give them the ability to survive though, one that allows them to feel confident entering the world independently.
Self-Proprioception (Mindfulness)
Being aware of one's self is one of the highest priorities I have in my life. Being mindful allows an individual to think clearly about what is in their immediate surroundings. It teaches people to control their emotions and how to recognize them. Much much much! Comes with mindfulness. One may begin to learn to meditate to sink deeper into the moment, or do Tai Chi to feel the way the body works together and stems to the ground.
Children should be taught so many things at a young age that they simply are not being taught. Hopefully through our life times we see an alteration within this system that is limiting now only them, but has also limited us. Its time for a change, for being a generation of innovation its fascinating how we haven't innovated the things that truly matter.
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I really like your posts about education. There are a lot of things we learnt at school which in hindsight seems unnecessary and there are skills which most of us come out of school lacking.
If there is one thing I feel our educational system lack the most (at least from my experience) it is the ability to do critical thinking. When you consider whether what you learnt makes sense, questions are naturally triggered and questions most often bring revelation. I'm not necessarily saying that what we learn is wrong, but I get the feeling that a lot of graduates lack the ability to come up with own ideas, and become very dependent on the system which shaped their knowledge.
I also think its important for students to understand that disagreeing with the majority doesn't automatically make you wrong.
One last thing: In your list of skills students should learn at school, I would include some history as well.
History can be dope! More of a side thing, at least they need to spice it up! I appreciate the statements! I feel passionately about this because i love to learn and I believe it is killed through schooling!
I have been the only person holding his hand in the air when everyone else thought they knew the right answer. There it was, 1/200 in a lecture room. It happens, I've seen the other guy holding his hand up. We ALL do it.
We're all critical thinkers, its in our DNA originally, but its mutated through social programming.
I agree with this whole heartedly! This is why we pulled our children from public schools this year. Watching my bright little girls being bored to death with rote memorization was painful. Not to mention the brutal, immature social life. So much in society is changing. Our schools are not keeping up with the progress! I’m so excited to meet others who are aware of this and taking action. We need our upcoming generations to be creative, critical thinkers. It’s so amazing to see the lights in their eyes when they learn things that are interesting and relevant to them. Mindfulness is needed now more than ever. I didn’t even know what that truly meant until my 30’s! Whoa! I feel that the social life at school would be so much more pleasant if we taught our children mindfulness. The little egos running amuck are dangerous to themselves and hurtful to others. I could go on and on... thank you for sharing. Cheers to our future! 🙂
Thanks much! You as well. I resonate with much of what you speak of! I'm a pilot, so I wish you and your husband the best!
I know it has a somewhat bad stigma, but I learnt a lot of these core values in the boy scouts when I was a kid. Every troop isn't created equally though. At the time in Canada the new slogan for the boy scouts was "bring on the adventure", and we took that to heart. We spent a lot of time planning and experiencing camping expeditions in all four seasons. This helped us learn so many skills, in not only how to survive in the wilderness, but how to plan, budget, cook, cooperate, and so much more. What if school was like the scouts? Badge system. Learn what you want with defined criteria around when you have achieved a acceptable level of mastery. With rewards set up to encourage a wide range of learning. It would encourage exploration of a wide range of topics, yet still have somewhat of a defined system of achievement.
That's a pretty cool idea. It weeds out the workers and the slackers too. Badges are given for a reason, you can't just pay for them. They must be witnessed. That's a really awesome idea! I like it, I never experienced scouts.