Students are made to memorize history books, when they should be taught about the taxes. The science textbooks aren’t even revised frequently and don’t cover the latest inventions and discoveries. Students are clueless about the practicality of the formulas they are bluntly made to memorize in high school.
With the world developing so fast in every aspect, our college degrees almost seem useless. Why should students be asked to do something computers are much better equipped to do? Why does the school and college curriculum not focus on practicals and experiments rather than memorizing long paragraphs of theories? The current education system focuses on teaching rather than learning. Every year millions of students all around the world graduate, but there are just a few hundred maybe that actually use their knowledge productively in their lives and careers.
What is taught in the classrooms is forgotten and what should actually be taught is expected from the child to learn himself/herself over the course of time, or at home from their parents. And if they learned these skills from people who weren’t good communicators, then that is another problem!
And this is the problem in most cases- students have incomplete knowledge about things which actually have an important effect on their lives and they too, like their parents somehow drag their whole lives making innumerable mistakes and managing to find temporary solutions to their problems each time, pushing the actual problem into a corner. If they weren’t taught how to do it properly either, then the cycle just continues. We go on creating adults who aren’t trained in some very basic fields, skills which are needed to be successful and live a happier life.
Why students are force-fed bookish knowledge when the actual information they should know is in no book.
Do we require a change?
Change? We require a complete makeover.
If I were to rewrite the education curriculum, I would like to include the following subjects:
Networking skills – In order to make meaningful connections(friends, family, mentors)
Financial Literacy
Understand Gender Differences
Health & Nutrition
Networking skills/Communication skills
Communication is expressing your feelings, desires, thoughts and opinions in a manner that makes the other person clear about what is actually going on in your head. Networking is an essential tool to build relationships and sustain them.
It is important to speak your mind without upsetting the other person. It is important to have a nonjudgmental attitude. It is important to realize your important contacts under emergency situations. It is important to form mutually beneficial relationships. It is important to express-express correctly.
The numbers on your grade sheets won’t decide your future or the life you live but the kind of people you know will.
Indian Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi did not become the Prime Minister because he knew which wars the French fought or which formula is used to find the area of a cylinder. He reached to the people through his speeches. He spoke to the people in a way that brought him closer to their hearts. He appealed to their problems and empathized with them.
Empathy is what is required for humans to live in harmony. In this world full of darkness and crime, students and children should be taught how to express concern in the most comforting manner.
Financial Literacy
Out of the working crowd, 80% of the population would not know the different taxes that they pay and why tax is even necessary in the first place. Or how to open a new bank account and how to write a check. Most of them don’t even know what compound interest is, and that is what the finance of the planet is running on. Why is it important to know about your finances? Well, when you start earning, you have to start saving and enjoying at the same time. Knowing about your investment options and credit card finances would help you to plan for your future investments in a more efficient way.
Robert Kiyosaki once said that the rich teach their children how to read financial statements and the poor do not and he is right.
Most of us realize all this when we’ve made a thousand mistakes. Financial illiteracy is actually a really big problem. Because, if you have a society full of people buying things they can’t afford, retiring with no savings, getting sick and not being able to afford health care- our economy would start falling off, which is precisely the situation currently.
Gender Relations
In a society where women are still paid less for the same job their male counterparts perform and in a society where men are not supposed to cry, we NEED to educate our students about the evils of this societal framework.
It is important to teach them about their bodies and make them realize that men and women are different- mentally, physically and biologically. Honest discussions about sexuality and sexual hygiene are essential for the growing up teenagers. We cannot overlook the physical dissimilarities between a man and a woman, but we need to find a way to understand these differences and build a society which promotes a compatible relationship between the sexes.
Health and Nutrition
A person who has a promising professional life and a great social circle, he/she usually misses out on sleep. Never in human history have we used so little energy on a daily basis. Most of the population spends their entire time sitting down- in front of their laptop screen or office desks doing paperwork. With the world moving so fast a person hardly gets time to relax his body.
Obesity and diabetes rates have risen dramatically over last decade because of this technological driven sedentary lifestyle and the lack of proper guidance while in school.
People don’t even know what they are eating, most of them are too reluctant to get their regular health checkups and everybody is either too busy or too lazy to work out and stay fit.
It is important for everyone to have knowledge about their bodies, important hygienic exercises, and important first-aid practices. If we teach our students about health and nutrition, maybe we’d all be a lot healthier and our medical system would be less overwhelmed.
It is necessary for students to realize their passions and to know the effective strategies of job hunting and interviewing. Success and happiness are hard to come by because we lack the proper tools as we enter adulthood. A host of potential issues arise, such as poor social relationships, anger, frustration, and even depression.
Education cannot end when you receive your diplomas and shut your books. Education and learning are never-ending processes. Take control of your mistakes and keep improving yourself.
About Carson Derrow
