<p>Life skills classes? In reaction to “drinking, suicide, cheating, credit card debt, rape, racism”?</p>
<p>I very much doubt that this is stuff you can really learn to deal with effectively in the abstract. A lot of it you have to figure out on your own, because people can tell you good advice a thousand times, but until you take it to heart and truly understand it, it means nothing.</p>
<p>Courses like that are usually well-intentioned, but end up being really bad. They’re hokey and fake. They try to come up with generic situations to which they apply generic answers. </p>
<p>Life doesn’t work like that. You have to figure things out in a real, organic way–one that doesn’t involve keyterms and role playing.</p>
<p>High school teachers should stick to what they’re good at: academic work. Anything else is out of their league–with the exception of a couple of ones gifted in those areas, but they’re few and far between, I’ve found. If you mandate courses on this stuff, most of the teachers teaching it won’t care, the students will be bored, and the class will be useless.</p>
<p>They call these things life skills not only because you need them for life, but because you learn them in life. Think about your knowledge of these important things: did you learn any of it in a classroom? Did you learn how to talk down your suicidal roommate from a book? Did you learn what your alcohol limit is and how not to cross it from your high school teachers? Probably not.</p>
<p>I’m all for the teaching of “useless” knowledge. Why must things be relevant? Why can’t we learn them just because they’re nifty in and of themselves?</p>
<p>I like subjects better the less they have to do with my everyday life. </p>
<p>Then again, I’ll probably end up with lots of useless knowledge and no job. But eh, I’ll deal with that when I get there.</p>
<p>I like to think that taking classes like calculus will, if anything, expand and exercise a student’s brain, even if the student does not plan on ever using subject taught in the class. For example, professional athletes spend hours upon hours in weight rooms doing all kinds of exercises, but what in baseball or football resembles a bench press? Or leg presses?</p>
<p>Cavalier–I agree, for the same reasons they should learn “about” math, astronomy, or physics. But this is not the same as mastery of a subject. Not everyone can master Calculus or AP English, and you can’t equate learning about something with learning it. At a certain point if you are good at something you get to delve deeper, but it’s also good to learn about other subjects. However, you shouldn’t be forced to struggle in an upper level class in a subject you aren’t talented in. IMHO.</p>
<p>there are other ways to exercise the brain besides one class. people need to expand their own minds and see beyond what has always been done</p>
<p>baseball players DON"T just weight train on ONE machine, they use several, and so should we exercise the brain, and show its potential, not have everyone take the same calculas class, what does that possible teach people with all different kinds of skills, when there are so many more ways of teaching the mind to stretch, flex, and grow</p>
<p>“forcing” people to take calculas, because colleges like it, while there are so many other methods, classes, and such, is just old fashioned and close minded on the colleges sake</p>
<p>its an easy way for them to make decisions and keep the staus quo, without changing</p>
<p>somehow, millions of people 50 years ago invented things, built buildings, ran business, became scientists without HS calculas…imagine that</p>
<p>Instead of Calculus, students ought to take personal finance classes. It is scary to imagine that a student knows how to find the slope intercept of an equation, yet can not even balance a checkbook or plan a budget. No wonder so many young Americans are in debt up to their “eyeballs”</p>
<p>When I taught HS back in the dark ages, i was sent to a special program at the University of South Florida to learn to teach a new HS course: Engineering. It was just an overview course - from mechanical to electrical to computer engineering. I thought it was fantastic and couldn’t wait to teach it. It didn’t come to our school and I never saw it in any HS curriculum. But it did teach some nifty ways to think about the world.</p>
<p>I remember three problems to get the kids thinking and talking and working out things: Without ANY additional information (no looking up anything), calculate the following (with guided class discussion, but no additional data):</p>
<ol>
<li><p>How much gallons of water flow through the Mississippi River in St. Louis in one second?</p></li>
<li><p>How many basketballs would it take to completely fill up a football stadium to the top row of seats?</p></li>
<li><p>When you take a breath of air, how many molecules do you breathe in that were at one time in the lungs of Cleopatra?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>T-h-i-n-k-i-n-g… In the age of TI graphing calculators and computers, some of these are hard concepts to put arms around, but when the discussion get rolling on these, it’s wonderful to watch.</p>
<p>(Don’t ask me for the answers - it’s the process that’s important)</p>
<p>Can’t understand why you think it has to be one or the other. Studying calculus should not preclude someone from studying “applied logic” or whatever you want to call it. I think requiring some of both would be just fine.</p>
<p>I would hazard a guess that a student who is discplined enough to study how to find the parameters of a slope-intercept linear equation is more likely to be able to balance a checkbook as an adult, although there’s bound to be exceptions.</p>
<p>“Millions of people 50 years ago invented things” - wow, that’s a lot of inventors! 1956 must truly have been a golden age.</p>
<p>Look, I know there a lot of occupations where calculus is not required but problem solving is. These are not mutually exclusive skill-sets! Math is something people just freak out about and get all twisted and negative about. There are a lot of jobs where some grounding in calculus makes a difference. Many advances in science and engineering would not have been made without some reference back to it. </p>
<p>There is much good in the world that depends on it and much good that does not require it at all.</p>
<p>Calculus has been around for hundreds of years. Math is an ancient discipline. 50 years ago, calculus was certainly in use by engineers, chemists, physicists, etc.</p>
<p>Calculus and other forms of math will continue to be relevant in high school and college curricula. You’re not making much of a convincing argument, cgm.</p>
<p>FOr a very select few…my D took it as a Jr, should she have to take two years? i don;t think so</p>
<p>And hey, look at DeVinci, look at the great thinkers, they managed to do great things</p>
<p>And I am not saying not to do math, many puzzles, games, logic, statistics, include all kinds of math</p>
<p>Why the defense of this class, that when you ask most people who have gone through college, with degrees not related to Calc if that class did them any good, and some will say, sure, but most, say they would have been better served with math and thinking taught in a different way</p>
<p>Why do you defend a class so much, when there are so many other options that can teach thinking?</p>
<p>The defense of Calculas is that it teaches people to think and takes dicispline, if that is the only way to get those two lessons, then we have a serious problem with education and what is perceived as relevant</p>
<p>Burning rope
There are two lengths of rope.
Each one can burn in exactly one hour.
They are not necessarily of the same length or width as each other.
They also are not of uniform width (may be wider in middle than on the end), thus burning half of the rope is not necessarily 1/2 hour.</p>
<p>By burning the ropes, how do you measure exactly 45 minutes worth of time?</p>
<p>I haven’t seen this one before, but here’s my SWAG on it: Place the two ropes side by side. Light one end of one rope and the other end of the other rope. When the burning on one meets the burning on the other (not necessarily in the middle) then one half hour has gone by. Quickly slide the ropes so that the end of one rope matches the burning of the other rope. When the burning meets again (halfway through the remaining time), it will be 45 minutes … ???</p>
<p>Oops - I just realized that this technique will only work if the ropes are equal in length, which is not the case here. Well, back to the drawing board…</p>
<p>If a bright student has difficulty with calculus, then it is being taught poorly. We are really in need of engineers and scientists. Why is there such a paucity of these majors and so many lawyers? In my opinion, it is that the sciences and math are so poorly taught. Some of our greatest writers were physicians. All physicians take calculus and physics in college.</p>
<p>Outstanding teachers would teach calculus with the elegance that pertains to it. It is not Latin. It is fundimental to the understanding of the physical world.</p>
I am at college not studying anything remotely related to calculus. But I thought it was a great course when I took it in high school, and I’m very glad I took it.</p>
<p>
Aww, what do you have against Latin? It’s a fantastic language, and very useful!</p>
<p>To answer OP: I would have a class in basic Psychology, emphasizing Child Development, attachment, & human relationships. It would give kids something both intellectual and practical.</p>