The most useful skill to learn from school?

[DyceDarg]

Throughout my entire life at school I've always asked this question to myself, and occasionally to teachers: "What's the point of school? What am I getting from all of this?"

Let's take History for instance:

Student X learns about Non-Western World History, European History, and American History. He learns about WWI, WWII, British conquest, Teddy Roosevelt, Civil Wars, etc. What does he gain from knowing this? How is it applicable to life?

Of course my debate isn't: Should there be school? No. The answer to that is obvious, because we need an education system.

I'm going to list the main topics in most school's curriculum:

English Literature:

After having a good grasp of the English language throughout grade school, students tend to pick up classic novels, such as 'The Great Gatsby', 'Moby ****', and others. But does reading this fiction really help students in their future lives?

Mathematics:

Student X learns the fundamentals at an early age, he won't need more than that to tell what time he'll be doing things later, or how many party plates he needs to buy for an event. However, he still learns Algebra II, Trigonometry, Calculus. He learns about logarithms, infinites, vectors, etc. Is that ever going to be useful in life?

Sciences (Both physical and biological):

In his/her grade school classes student X learned atoms, and how most of the world works (not in detail, but s/he has a basic grasp). Now student X is studying intermolecular forces, ecosystems, chromosomes, and how many moons Jupiter has. Is this really going to be applicable in life?

Language:

Student X learns French, Spanish, Latin, Chinese, or any other language. S/he studies it until s/he's fluent. But if you don't go to live in a country where that's the primary language, is it actually useful to you?

[EDIT: Forgot Studio and Performing Arts. Include this in your post if you want]

Now for the debate topic: Which class to you seems the most useful later in real life? Least? (It might be helpful if you ranked them 1 to 5, 1 being the most important, 5 the least with explanations for you ranking)

Also, I understand that there are professions later in life that require a grasp of these different subjects (Chemists, Translators, Historians, Professors, etc.). But I mean on a day-to-day basis, for maybe someone who works at McDonalds, why would they need any of these in real life?

My list:

1. Language, knowing how to speak can come in handy at any time. I know from personal experience knowing Chinese and French have helped me out, although they were VERY coincidental, they still happen. My instances were helping out a friend's garage where a Chinese man had a problem and with my limited Chinese I managed to figure out where his problem was with his car (I asked "problem where" and he pointed). I also found a dropped cell phone where the person WAS French, and I called his home and talked to him about it.

2. Science, knowing why things work can demystify you many times. Often times if you're confused about why things happen, if you look closely and have a good enough knowledge of the subject, it becomes clearer, but you obviously need a basic understanding of how the physics/chemistry/biological make-up works beforehand.

3. English Literature, not only is it famous and a quality most intellectual's have, it shows culture. You can understand a lot about a place if you look at it's books and novels as well as traits of the place. English Literature also heavily influences and reflects a society's current culture so knowing a lot about that area's literature is very useful in understanding the place.

4. History, while it is very interesting to learn about it, and it's true "History repeats itself" often times, but is it really necessary to know? I just don't believe having a grasp of history will help you in real life, unless you wanted to know more about how a place came to be? But then you'd look it up...

5. (Advanced) Mathematics, ...If you can come up with a solid explanation of why this useful at common times in real life, props to you. Am I really going to need the log of something at a random point in time? Or the variables that tell me what angle this triangle is?

Put in your two cents.

 

[pacmansays]

Hmm well I think subject specific skills are useful if you're continuing in an area that requires that subject...

However, there is a trend in current UK education for schools rather to teach skills that just teach facts (I believe a balance of both is best): so in creative subjects they encourage creativity, in science experiments are promoted much more and rather than simple essay coursework people have to give presentations and so forth which is useful in the workplace. An initiative to create a skillbased workforce.

However, as a result only degrees in maths, law, medicine, mechanics or science are useful as they are career specific. So humanities, english or art graduates are now not at much of an advantage as they were before their degree. However, they still give them an advantage over those who don't have degrees as they do teach important subjects.

I study philosophy, which I'm aware is pointless for any career in particular unless i go on to teach it, however it does teach good skills such as being able to pick apart an argument or defence and requires a lot of mental effort so it is useful in conjunction with another subject.

 

[xLeafybug =D]

I wouldn't exactly say language, but Literacy, without a doubt. I believe that anything you're supposed to learn in school is important, but if you're illiterate, you have nothing.

 

[Purple]

i think it all helps, being able to just learn these courses and doing tasks that may seem not viable teaches you to do tasks at work that may seem unnecessary because your boss asks to do so.

In my opinion doing every in school and doing it well is what's important, not the courses themselves.

For the sake of conversation though literacy does expand your thinking and helps your speaking and writing skills to where others can understand your ideas better. So i guess that would be the optimal skill.

 

[Hooblah2u2]

I think all of those play important roles, but I believe the best things you can learn from school are people skills. Skills that teach you to be a better person. What good is it to be a genius, but have no tact?

 

[pacmansays]

What good is it to be a genius, but have no tact?

I think a genius is someone who throws tact away to begin with.

 

[CRASHiC]

Public schools are set up entirely to make you except the current systems in place.
For instance, when you picked up an economics book in High School in America, you will inevitably find them speaking highly of capitalism, and very lowly of communism.
Why? Because America is a capitalist system, and needs people to believe in reward systems and think of themselves as workers.

I am not suggesting that High Schools are brainwashing engines, as the influence is only very lightly applied to the actual education they receive. Much of what I am talking about is understanding the purpose and enforcements of laws in the real world. Through enforcing disciplinary actions, they aim to teach students that laws must be followed, weather at the work place or for laws in general.

Then if we take a look at the grading system itself, we see another aspect of enforcing the ideas behind this. In Soviet Russia, everyone had a P.H.D. In the United States, people must work hard, compete for scholarships, grants, and loans to hope to achieve such a thing. All of this reinforces the idea behind the effort and reward system that capitalism is based on. The Tennessee State test (TCAP) is not based on individual achievement, but achievement compared to other students in the state. Recently, the high school I graduated from took away its Valedictorian to the rout of the kum-lada system the colleges use , and many students were infuriated because they felt it was denying the 'right' of the person with the highest GPA what they had earned. They viewed their own education system as a competition, and are built to see the work place as the same.

This is the most important skill learned in schools. The skill of maneuvering in modern society is something that would destroy most people financially, possibly leaving them homeless. The manner in which our society, or nearly any society, is set up does not entirely agree upon the moral teachings of our parents, and it is that inner lying conflict that was featured in the movie The Assignation Of Richard Nixon, where a man was unwilling to tell a white lie to a customer to advance his place in the working environment, and the man was lead to the break of insanity, plotting to kill the president, recording his thoughts so he might share them with Leonard Bernstein.

Through secondary school, we learn how to operate within our society, and passively accept our society.
(I am not including colleges in this, which have a separate goal in its entirety of giving you a well rounded education and getting you to see both sides of an issue)

 

[Shadow13]

I think the topic is somewhat of a bad name for the thread, because much of what we learn in school is knowledge, not skills, I am not saying that we don't learn skills in school, I am just stating that in school we get taught many "facts" that we wouldn't ever use, hence why "Are you smarter than a 5th grader?" is actually difficult for some people, because many things that we learn at school are useless in life.
Overall, the most usefull skills are probably arithmatics and reading because, well reading is a necessity for a civalized society, and if you can't even add up how much of something you need, then that is just inexcusable.

 

[Wrath`]

All topics are important, and by high school, if you are taking advanced classes, it is usually because you want to go into the field of work, making it even more important.

I do not think there is much to debate here.

 

[Riddle]

I think all of these subjects are important, because they allow you to keep your options open for later in life. Currently I am looking to be an Expiramental phycicist. Does that mean I should forgo foreign languages or history for math and science? No, of course I shouldn't. What if I decide later in college to become a historian or translator. If I did just learn upper-level math and science, then I would be much more limited later in life.

 

[Shadow13]

Also, I understand that there are professions later in life that require a grasp of these different subjects (Chemists, Translators, Historians, Professors, etc.). But I mean on a day-to-day basis, for maybe someone who works at McDonalds, why would they need any of these in real life?

I think all of these subjects are important, because they allow you to keep your options open for later in life. Currently I am looking to be an Expiramental phycicist. Does that mean I should forgo foreign languages or history for math and science? No, of course I shouldn't. What if I decide later in college to become a historian or translator. If I did just learn upper-level math and science, then I would be much more limited later in life.

As far as everyday life goes, most of what you learn in school is useless, besides your career, most people won't use much of what they learned in school. An example would be that in my honors math class, we have to use algebra to figure out how long it would take a ball at a certain speed (its speed was defined, but overall is irrelevant to my argument) to fall to the ground. So, in real life, I have a speedometer to see the exact speed of the ball, but not a stopwatch? When would I ever do this?
Although, I have to admit, foreign languages can also be useful, obviously for travel or just so you could communicate, and that you could use on a daily basis depending on where you are.

 

[SuSa]

I will keep this short:

School prepares you for work.

This means that no subject is truly any important over another. The most it does is simply change your field of work.


Amazing, I know. The most important thing to learn in school is to be able to do tasks you don't want to do so you are able to do those you do want to do. (Most extra-curricular activities and such require a certain GPA

 

[Purple]

I will keep this short:

School prepares you for work.

This means that no subject is truly any important over another. The most it does is simply change your field of work.


Amazing, I know. The most important thing to learn in school is to be able to do tasks you don't want to do so you are able to do those you do want to do. (Most extra-curricular activities and such require a certain GPA

i think it all helps, being able to just learn these courses and doing tasks that may seem not viable teaches you to do tasks at work that may seem unnecessary because your boss asks to do so.

In my opinion doing every in school and doing it well is what's important, not the courses themselves.

thanks yo ^_^

 

[Riddle]

As far as everyday life goes, most of what you learn in school is useless, besides your career, most people won't use much of what they learned in school. An example would be that in my honors math class, we have to use algebra to figure out how long it would take a ball at a certain speed (its speed was defined, but overall is irrelevant to my argument) to fall to the ground. So, in real life, I have a speedometer to see the exact speed of the ball, but not a stopwatch? When would I ever do this?
Although, I have to admit, foreign languages can also be useful, obviously for travel or just so you could communicate, and that you could use on a daily basis depending on where you are.

I don't know about you, but my life would suck if I was an adult and worked at McDonalds. I want a good, intellectually stimulating, and relatively high-paying job. This is not really achievable without a high level of education. That is whats school is for, to prepare you for work. Thus, everything in school is important.

I will keep this short:

School prepares you for work.

This means that no subject is truly any important over another. The most it does is simply change your field of work.


Amazing, I know. The most important thing to learn in school is to be able to do tasks you don't want to do so you are able to do those you do want to do. (Most extra-curricular activities and such require a certain GPA

Exactly.

 

[Shadow13]

I don't know about you, but my life would suck if I was an adult and worked at McDonalds. I want a good, intellectually stimulating, and relatively high-paying job. This is not really achievable without a high level of education. That is whats school is for, to prepare you for work. Thus, everything in school is important.



Exactly.

Besides a career, what do you use what you learn in school for?
You would need advance math classes to become a math professor, but on the top of your head (really, don't look it up) how many jobs require you to know:
Algebra, Geometry, Chemistry, Art, ect.
I think the original poster meant "What would be useful to anybody?"
Edit: Anybody know how to get rid of your sig if you forgot to uncheck it?

 

[.Marik]

School is basically 12-20+ years of working so you can flash certificates which enable you to join the workforce and earn yourself a living.

That's about it. "People skills" isn't the main concern, you usually pick that up as you go along in life.

 

[Pierre the Scarecrow]

I got in here a bit late but I thought I would add my two cents and maybe someone might learn something or I might re-spark discussion.

Throughout my entire life at school I've always asked this question to myself, and occasionally to teachers: "What's the point of school? What am I getting from all of this?"

Let's take History for instance:

English Literature:

Mathematics:

Sciences (Both physical and biological):

Language:

[EDIT: Forgot Studio and Performing Arts. Include this in your post if you want]

Now for the debate topic: Which class to you seems the most useful later in real life? Least? (It might be helpful if you ranked them 1 to 5, 1 being the most important, 5 the least with explanations for you ranking)

While you made the topic "the most useful skill to learn from school," you immediately shaped the discussion in a stifling manner by narrowing our responses into a set number of different answers... very similar to the logical fallacy the "false dilemma." The subjects that you listed are all things you learn in school, but they're not everything that you learn in school, and honestly, the "correct" answer is most likely not in that list at all.

Others have mentioned that the most useful thing you learn from school is how to study, or to prepare you for a real job or your chosen occupation, or to develop social skills.

I would honestly say that the most useful skill to learn from school is actually a trait and not a skill, and its self-discipline. To be successful, you have to sit down and work hard. You have to put the time in to concentrate and study or you are not going to do well. You have to take time days before the test to study and not cram, or you are not going to do as well as you could and you are going to KNOW you didn't do as well as you could have.

A lot of people ask for better ways to study, or they say they have trouble studying, or studying is too hard, or that they have ADD or they cannot concentrate. Honestly, a lot of people simply dont have self-discipline, and it's something that you learn through schooling.

 

[Shadow13]

I got in here a bit late but I thought I would add my two cents and maybe someone might learn something or I might re-spark discussion.



While you made the topic "the most useful skill to learn from school," you immediately shaped the discussion in a stifling manner by narrowing our responses into a set number of different answers... very similar to the logical fallacy the "false dilemma." The subjects that you listed are all things you learn in school, but they're not everything that you learn in school, and honestly, the "correct" answer is most likely not in that list at all.

Others have mentioned that the most useful thing you learn from school is how to study, or to prepare you for a real job or your chosen occupation, or to develop social skills.

I would honestly say that the most useful skill to learn from school is actually a trait and not a skill, and its self-discipline. To be successful, you have to sit down and work hard. You have to put the time in to concentrate and study or you are not going to do well. You have to take time days before the test to study and not cram, or you are not going to do as well as you could and you are going to KNOW you didn't do as well as you could have.

A lot of people ask for better ways to study, or they say they have trouble studying, or studying is too hard, or that they have ADD or they cannot concentrate. Honestly, a lot of people simply dont have self-discipline, and it's something that you learn through schooling.

If we didn't have school, what would we study for?
It was again, mentioned in the original post, that the discussion is meant to be the most useful skill that is not used for an occupation.
Develop social skills? I wouldn't say school does a lot to help you learn that, think about it, lots of people make fun of some loser/outcast kid to get more popular, that really doesn't seem like a positive thing to me. I'm not saying that everybody does that, but there are a lot of people who do. We could easily learn social skills by talking to kids in our neighborhood.
I wouldn't say self discipline is taught much in schools either. Why? Well, think, it isn't hard work to cheat, drop out, fail, nearly fail, ect. It really doesn't take that much work to get D's, just doing the work should get you that.

 

[SuSa]

If we didn't have school, what would we study for?
It was again, mentioned in the original post, that the discussion is meant to be the most useful skill that is not used for an occupation.
Develop social skills? I wouldn't say school does a lot to help you learn that, think about it, lots of people make fun of some loser/outcast kid to get more popular, that really doesn't seem like a positive thing to me. I'm not saying that everybody does that, but there are a lot of people who do. We could easily learn social skills by talking to kids in our neighborhood.
I wouldn't say self discipline is taught much in schools either. Why? Well, think, it isn't hard work to cheat, drop out, fail, nearly fail, ect. It really doesn't take that much work to get D's, just doing the work should get you that.

You are forced into an area with people of your age, it is almost inevitable to pick up some social skills. Hell, I lived in a place for 7 months and didn't know anyone within 2 miles of me (I may have known them in school, but I didn't know where they lived) So without school I would have been completely by myself.

Who is to say getting bullied is bad?It's still a social skill, you learn to get the **** over it - or you have a really miserable school year. You learn to either defend yourself if its physical bullying (which in my area doesn't really happen....ever..) or you get a sharp mind with a quick tongue.

Also who said discipline was about the grades? You still follow the rules or you GTFO. You may want to hit some guy in the face - but you don't because it's against the rules. Break the rules? You get punished. Most people don't want that, they then try to obey the rules. Outside of school, you hit some guy in the face - you get a far worse punishment - you wish you had gotten off easy in school.

 

[Shadow13]

You are forced into an area with people of your age, it is almost inevitable to pick up some social skills. Hell, I lived in a place for 7 months and didn't know anyone within 2 miles of me (I may have known them in school, but I didn't know where they lived) So without school I would have been completely by myself.

Who is to say getting bullied is bad?It's still a social skill, you learn to get the **** over it - or you have a really miserable school year. You learn to either defend yourself if its physical bullying (which in my area doesn't really happen....ever..) or you get a sharp mind with a quick tongue.

Also who said discipline was about the grades? You still follow the rules or you GTFO. You may want to hit some guy in the face - but you don't because it's against the rules. Break the rules? You get punished. Most people don't want that, they then try to obey the rules. Outside of school, you hit some guy in the face - you get a far worse punishment - you wish you had gotten off easy in school.

But it is very easy to get social skills without school, I'm not saying you can't get social skills in school, but is it needed to learn social skills? Meeting kids in your neighborhood, going to a park, or joining a sports team are examples of things kids can do to get social skills outside of school.

For bullying, you stated that the bullied should just get over it or have a miserable year, but you also stated how discipline was about following rules, so if most people were following the don't bully rule, the first point would have less of an impact. There is another thread in the proving grounds called "F*** School Bullies", about bullying, and in the original post it talked about a boy at the age of 11 who hung himself because of school bullying.
http://www.glsen.org/cgi-bin/iowa/al...cord/2400.html

For discipline, the school discipline system really sucks. Lets look at modern day school discipline.
Detention: 15mins-2 or 3 hours of just being either unable to go to lunch on time or go home, not enough to really cause people to stop doing what got them there.
Loss of Priviliges: Tends to only last a week, so that just makes kids think to not do something at a certain time, again, not effective.
OSS: A day with no school for you, hmmmm........ Yeah, since they stretch out how long it takes to teach something in school, most kids don't even care for a day of catch up work.
ISS: A day with you having to sit in a room, sometimes alone, for a full day, maybe effective, but having this is still basically long detention. That, or you could call it solitary confinement. Of course some schools have you alone and some don't, so it could also be considered borderline solitary confinement, since all you could do is see other people, and you can't actually communicate with them.
Expulsion: So I guess that would be them GTFO, but then obviously the school can't teach them self discipline and can't do anything with them. So expulsion is just showing that the school couldn't teach discipline for the expelled.

So, most of school's punishments are not even that bad, combine that with teachers who barely enforce the rules and you really have to question if the kids are learning discipline from school. Either way kids should learn discipline more from parents than from school.

 

[Fuelbi]

I really dont think there is such a thing as a most important school subject. there really is not too much to discuss. if you want to pursue a career in lets say journalism (yes i want to do this) then i would have to say youd have to learn how to read, learn grammar, speaking skills, etc. so there wouldnt be really much room for lets say math. but other people think math is important because they want to pursue a career in math. for example a math teacher. of course it is important to learn how to write and what not but that isnt really much for what is really necessary: learning math. now with math you would also have to learn science because they come hand in hand. so really yeah there is no such thing as the most important school subject.

 

[Pierre the Scarecrow]

Either way kids should learn discipline more from parents than from school.

This is fairly narrow thinking. Be realistic, it is not an "either/or" situation. A child does not have to learn discipline either from his parents or from his school. Ideally, he would learn discipline from both.

However, I was not talking about 'discipline' in the sense of bullying or behaving or goofing around. I specifically stated that I was talking about 'self-discipline.' There is a difference. Discipline is training to act within accordance with the rules; self-discipline is training oneself for improvement, developing the habits to get work done. I am not talking about restraining yourself from bullying other children, I am talking about understanding that it is important to sit down for an hour and finish your homework or knowing that you need to study for the upcoming test to get a good grade.

Once you understand the difference between discipline and self-discipline, and once you recognize that I was talking about the latter and not the former, you will realize that all of the points you made against my argument towards Susa don't have anything to do with what I was saying.

When you say that "it isn't hard work to cheat, drop out, fail, nearly fail, ect. It really doesn't take that much work to get D's, just doing the work should get you that," that is absolutely not self-discipline at all, so I don't understand what you are getting at. That is not self-discipline, and that is almost the perfect explanation of why self-discipline is the most useful skill to learn from school - so you do not nearly fail, fail, or drop out. Not only is it extremely necessary to learn IN school like you just explained, but good habits of self-discipline are probably the most useful thing you can learn for the future. So I do not understand your point. Self-discipline may not be the easiest thing to learn from school, but school definitely teaches it and it is the most useful skill to learn, and that is the subject of debate.

 

[pacmansays]

Actually I agree self-discipline is a great thing to learn through school: though I only really noticed it in sixth form....But it helped me learn techniques on how I can write more coherently and so forth.

 

[Shadow13]

What I am trying to point out is too many kids don't care about grades for that to be that big of a self-discipline thing. A lot of parents don't even care what their kids get for grades. Most parents who do (like my own parents) end up having kids who don't need to try that hard to get B's or better anyway. If they have kids who don't do well in school, the kids end up getting ticked off at the parents.
Outside of the honors classes in my grade there are hardly any B or higher grades. Getting a C isn't much more than just doing the work, which wouldn't be any long time that it should require much self-discipline.
So overall, my point is that too many kids either cheat, fail, get C's or worse, or drop out, and that shows that there are situations in which the school system fails to teach self-discipline.

 

[Pierre the Scarecrow]

The topic is not "What does school teach the best?" but "What is the most important skill to learn from school." I understand that you established that self-discipline is not learned by all students, but I still maintain that it is the most important skill.

 

[Shadow13]

Yeah, but even if some mainly learn self discipline through school, not enough learn it mainly through school to be something that school teaches on its own. If somebody learned how to trick other people to do their bidding and learned that in school, they could consider that the most useful skill, but too many don't learn that skill for it to be considered something that the average kid learns from shool.

 

[Riddle]

I agree that self discipline is a very important and perhaps the most important skill to learn in school. I also think that social skills such as compromising and respecting others are also very important. School is a place where you are trapped with often hundreds of other kids your age, and while there you are bound to learn some social skills. These skills, along with self discipline, will help you in life no matter what you do, unless you are a hermit.

 

[Hooblah2u2]

I agree that self discipline is a very important and perhaps the most important skill to learn in school. I also think that social skills such as compromising and respecting others are also very important. School is a place where you are trapped with often hundreds of other kids your age, and while there you are bound to learn some social skills. These skills, along with self discipline, will help you in life no matter what you do, unless you are a hermit.

I agree. Knowledge is good, but wisdom is better.