What I Wish I’d Learned in School
28 September, 2009
"School Desk" by jcbwalsh/CC-by-nc via Flickr
The beginning of this school year, as well as some controversial changes to Squidboy’s school’s math curriculum, have me thinking about what I wish I’d learned in primary and high school. (FTR, I attended public schools in a good suburban school district in California, just before and after Proposition 13 began its assault on our state’s public education system.)
Here’s my wish list:
- More foreign languages, at an earlier age. My school district offered Spanish, French and German (no longer available in our district) beginning in the 7th grade.
- Latin. Could have been helpful in a multitude of ways: reading the classics of Western literature; foreign language—both Romance and not (I’m thinking of all those nominal declensions and cases in my college Russian classes); medical terminology.
- Logic and rhetoric. As the foundations of critical thinking and persuasive argument, the benefits of learning these formally at an earlier age would have saved me many wrong turns.
- Statistics and probability. A firm grasp of the basics of these is essential in evaluating the many empirical claims one is apt to be bombarded with throughout life. (I am heartened to see that a course in these subjects is now on offer at our local high school. Guess whose kids will be made to suffer through it?)
- Comparative religion, to understand the underpinnings of a lot of the toil and strife we are heir to.
- Biblical literature. It is a real shame that public schools are so leery of this; it is virtually impossible to read a great deal of Western literature without at least a passing familiarity with this subject. It should be treated in the same way schools treat, say, ancient Greek mythology.
- More world history—including non-western history. My high school offered, as I recall, exactly one year (or was it one semester?) of world history. Our local public high school offers exactly one year of world history. Does anyone think this is sufficient?
- Scientific method. We had science classes, but none of those I took (and, in some cases, retook) specifically spelled out what scientific method is (and, perhaps more importantly, what it is not.)
What about y’all? What do you wish you had learned?
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I am jobshadowing at a local high school for a teaching course, and they’re fabulous; they offer a comparative religion course, a course called “Biblical and Mythological Allusions in Literature,” a course in debate that thoroughly covers logic, and many statistics courses. They also offer a huge range of science courses beyond the basics, including Astronomy, Oceanography, Natural Disasters, Environmental Issues, Botany, Zoology, Anatomy and Physiology, Microbiology, and a great class on science, pseudoscience, magical thinking, quantum mechanics, and being able to tell when something is a legitimate science claim and when it’s bull, regardless of your knowledge. They offer Latin for four years, and are trying to find a Greek teacher. They don’t have earlier language classes, though, alas.
Best of all, the kids DO appreciate it and get it. They just appreciate different things. The World Religions course is not required and very challenging, but it’s always booked and they’re trying to find a second qualified teacher; the kids love the logic classes and the statistics courses because of the real-world examples used (they’ll watch a video of Fox News and have to point out the logical fallacies, for example). The religion courses, science courses, and the potential Greek course are/will be offered because students asked for them. And having sat in on many classes, the only classes they don’t 100% pay attention to are the core classes, and even then about half of them are fascinated.
Kids want to learn, but they don’t want to learn in a strict pattern; they want to choose what to learn and in what order. One kid was saying she thought physics would be really boring until she took the science/pseudoscience class and then she couldn’t wait to take it.
My biggest regret? That my school wanted us all to learn the same way, and didn’t think we could be trusted to chose classes we liked. I could list all the courses I’d want to take but none of them were offered; I don’t know what I would have taken because I had zero choice back then. World Religions is pretty high up there, though, and I wanted that as a student too.
I love New England, that this school I described can exist and what’s more, it’s a public school.
Good point. High school was a bore for any number of reasons, but one was that there were only a smattering of electives from which to choose. That’s part of what made college such a revelation; I couldn’t wait to take all these amazing classes, and in my first year, I completely overloaded my schedule (it was wonderful!)
It’s great to hear that, “when you build it, they will come.” I think one of the huge problems in a lot of public education is that we don’t give older kids enough credit for being the curious creatures they (still) are. It’s great to hear about your local school, and the students’ reactions to it.
Do you really think you were mature enough as a teenager to have benefited from all those courses? (*You* probably were!) I wasn’t. Except for the foreign languages, maybe, that list looks great for me to take now, but as a kid, I wouldn’t have gotten it, wouldn’t have cared. And I was an A student. Responsible. Well-behaved. Very self-motivated in the arts and letters, but not much else.
I’ve actually been thinking about this a bit lately, because after reading A Mathematician’s Lament by Paul Lockhart, I thought, “Hey, I wish I had taken his class in high school!!” And I do wish that, and I do think I would have enjoyed an introductory “Lockhart” class, but thinking more about it, I don’t think I would have had the maturity then to persevere in the face of all those vexing math puzzles. I don’t think I would have enjoyed it as much then as I would now.
That’s the irony. When you’re young, your brain is a sponge, but the maturity and perspective aren’t necessarily there to motivate you or make it (all, in a well-rounded way) “stick.” Kind of like piano lessons. I know many adults who hated their lessons, only as adults to wish they had taken it more seriously. But what can you do? Kids don’t know.
I wasn’t mature enough to pay attention to anything I wasn’t interested in at the time, so you’re correct, a lot would have probably been lost on me.
At the very least, though, at least some basic exposure to a few of the items–statistics, biblical literature, for example–seems essential.
You’re so right about kids not knowing. Most of the people I pal around with would like nothing better than to go back to school to study all the stuff they didn’t learn back then.
I wish I paid attention to what I was suppose to learn. I wish I paid attention to the basics like grammer and punctuation. I also wish I had a firm understanding of statistics. I have taken it twice. Had to take it a second time because after 10 years, the grad school makes you take it again. Which was actually very useful.
Good post Squillo.
I wish that, too, Pinky.
Statistics is incredibly useful, and I’m really pleased they’re offering it at our high school. I hope it’s still on offer when my kids get there.