. . . Should Be Required For All Students

I'm usually just standing there, minding my own business, when someone who knows that I'm a teacher decides it is time to give me their opinion on the entire modern American school system.  I'm not sure what kind of power they think I have to make changes nationwide, but they are not shy about giving me their list of complaints.

Then, there are the more subtle people.  They just complain about society in general for a while and then throw in that there should be a required class on - fill in the blank.
- "My child can't sew on a button.  Schools should require Home Ec classes."
- "My child can't make change out of a dollar.  Math classes should be more applicable to real life.  I mean, after all, I don't use algebra."  (Apparently, this parent doesn't know that making change out of a dollar is algebra.)
- "Children today are rude.  Schools should have more character education."
- "Children are obese.  Schools need better nutrition and PE programs."
- "The drug problem is out of control.  What are they learning in Health classes?"
- "All kids should be required to play a team sport.  They'd get so much out of it."  (Okay, we'll let you coach the team of kids that were forced to be there against their will.)
- "It's a shame they don't teach penmanship anymore.  My son only knows how to text."

I could list several hundred more, but you get the idea.  The problem here isn't a small one.  It is a nationwide attitude.  Whatever the social ill, the school system is either the solution or the problem.  After all, if the school system just went back to teaching Home Ec and Handwriting, we could go back to pretending we live in a Norman Rockwell painting.  Maybe you did learn to sew a button in home ec, but I learned it from my mom.  If making change means a lot to you, maybe you should teach your child to do it, but most of society stopped caring after cash registers were invented.  The rude kids come to school rude, and we don't like it either.  The food choices happening in your home are yours, and I promise they aren't getting money for drugs from their teachers.  No one loves their penmanship more than I do, but what would you like the school to stop teaching so that we can keep that in the curriculum?  Or, how many hours would you like to add to the school day so I can add sewing buttons and chopping vegetables and making change (and doing laundry and taxes and checkbooks and every item on everybody's list) to the current curriculum?  Oh, wait, you also told me you wish the school day started later, so I guess that won't work.

Part of the problem is that people want conflicting things.  They want the school to solve all the problems of the world, but they don't trust the school system.  They want the school to fully prepare their children for adult life, but they don't want them to experience consequences along the way.  They want their children to learn everything they learned plus the technology skills required for the 21st-century.  They want to have it all without paying for it; it's just not possible.

It's a kind of chronological snobbery to think the way I learned is the best (or only) way to learn.  Research and MRIs have given us an understanding of the brain that we didn't have before.  Technology has given us tools we didn't have before.  We have a more diverse population with a wider variety of educational needs than we have ever had before.  However, we have the same number of hours in a day we have always had and the same number of days in the year that we have always had.  The number of minutes kids spend at school must be carefully spent because they are limited.  We can't fit in all the things you learned the way you learned them plus all the things that have come about since then.  If there are things that truly matter to you that aren't being addressed by the school system, it may be time to sit down with your child and teach that to them yourself.