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So... any news now that it’s July??
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Additional Posts in Teachers
an Elementary School Literature Teacher
What's your experience working with United Way?
Anyone here ever been to RCA? Is it worth it ?
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I wish that students still had the opportunity to fail. Let's teach them that THEY have the power to screw up, THEY have the power to come back and try again, THEY have the ability to fail, and it won't end them.
We need to stop giving so many chances. I am fine with second chances in some things, but even then, after a student has a second chance, they don't get another (that would be a third chance after all (though we tend to call it "another second chance" (ridiculous))).
We are graduating human beings who don't know how to human ("To err is human..."). There are literally districts out there where teachers are forbidden to give failing grades, where a student gets a 50% even if they don't turn in an assignment, where a student never bothers to try because they know that they can always do it again.
I am not advocating cruelty, callousness, or malice. I merely believe that if students don't figure out how to fail, and how to come back from failure as kids, they will BECOME failures as adults. I don't want to be part of that problem for these human beings.
Basic personal finance. Spelling out what credit card interest rates actually mean in real-world dollars. Same thing with student loans. Explaining the importance of starting 401k/Roth IRA's early. In short, everything I wish I had known when I was fresh out of school.
Back to basics, all students need to learn basic mechanics, carpentry, home ec, ALL required. Back to basics on teaching English, Math, History, Science, especially in grade school. Paper/pen and actually looking things up again and not utilizing computers so much. AND parents need to parent.... later start times and less time teaching getting to the basics. 9-4 for High School at minimum. We need to teach and not heard cats.
Teaching women self defense
I would add teaching boys emotional health
How to meal prep/ cooking /
Personal opinion : Life skills should be taught at home by the parents. The fact that we want to relegate that teaching to the public school system makes a general statement about what we are not doing at home. Public school teaching should be enhancing already taught basic skills. Reading, writing, math, etc. This used to be the case but now we want to designate all learning to public schools. Thus our students start behind and spend almost their whole academic time catching up. We fail to teach them at home and it costs them in the future. As a high school teacher I see the sad results every day.
I agree with part of this and disagree with part. You're correct that as a society the teaching of life skills is lacking at home in most cases. Parents need to be unafraid to raise expectations and allow kids to take a few risks in order to be prepared for life.
I do think that public education needs to bolster life skills taught at home. Classes like civics, home-eck and personal finance tend to teach life skills which are actually fairly difficult to teach and apply in many cases at home.
But the sad reality is that we're stuck with a greatly delayed culture when it comes to basic life skills. It's only getting worse as students graduate and start families of their own. If we plan to graduate students who are ready for the workforce we're going to have to take on the task of teaching life skills. I don't think our economy can support young people not getting started on their careers until they're 30 much longer.
Obviously it's not reasonable to have high schoolers taking classes about how to ride your bike to school safely and how not to burn the house down when using the oven, but this is where their at. So it's going to have to start at the younger grades. I think we're going to need a way of supporting the kids as they practice these life skills in the community and at home.
This responsibility shouldn't fall on the schools, but I don't see any other way. In the words of the great Billy Joel "we didn't start the fire" but we're gonna have to put it out.
I wish that we would back off reading skills and let science and social studies regain some importance again.
Two decades of pretending we were doing more for reading and math has only shown that we don’t know how to do our jobs well. So back off the requirements and let teachers and schools figure out their own path and determine their own curriculum again.
My school's curriculum has a 2-hour block for reading. Two. Hours.
It's split up into vocabulary skills and knowledge (identifying characters, story sequencing, etc.). It's just so much for 6-year-olds.
How to balance a checkbook, how to not run up a credit card or max it out, how to grocery shop with coupons.
Self control and sustainability
-Basic cooking and shopping for simple meal
-Laundry
-Making a budget
-Banking, basic taxes, mortgages and understanding interest rates, managing debt, how for save, simple investments (finances)
-Critical thinking skills and problem solving
-Interviewing skills ( w practice) and resume building techniques
-Driving
-internet safety
-volunteer work
How to have healthy relationships. Divorce rate is incredibly high and no one teaches us about how to communicate properly with a significant other, how to be vulnerable with that person, nor how to resolve conflicts. We are so consumed with how to build a life for ourselves but we don't learn how to build a life with another person.
Yeah, no. That's something that can only be learned by experience.
How to fill out paperwork at a doctor's office.
Basic information, medical history, etc.
How to call and schedule an appointment.
How to call a business and ask a question in general.
How to survive in America
Just because you think it doesn't ' matter,' doesnt mean it has to be spoken out loud! It doesnt cause a zit/build up if you keep it to yourself!
I do wish automotive was a class more kids had to take. I think learning basics like oil change or how to change a tire or what to do when your car breaks down is pretty important. We’re in a rural area so this is going to be something that these kids have to deal with.