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.
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.