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Everyone knows best.
In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis has made it clear how he views public schools and what they’re teaching children: He doesn’t trust them.
At yet another news conference, he returned to his familiar theme. “Following woke indoctrination in our schools, that is a road to ruin for this country and we’re not going to let it happen in Florida.”
A general comment:
Parents all of a sudden want to get involved in the creation of curriculum when they have never stepped foot in a classroom except for maybe an open house.
One more:
Education’s goal is to prepare students to think for themselves, even if this runs counter to the wishes of parents.
WE KNOW WHAT’S BEST, YES?
Everyone has an opinion on what students need to be taught. Parents claim to know what type of education is needed for them to be successful and so on. But has anyone ever taken the time to ask the students?
We say we know best what they need. If true, shouldn’t we at least value their opinion of what they want to learn since we do preach accountability and responsibility for their lives?
So it should be no surprise when students want to learn something new, it’s Google, YouTube, and other online platforms leading the way. Throw in Wikipedia and you can pretty much acquire all the real knowledge you need in a matter of hours. (Insert cliché here) “The most important things you learn in life you don’t learn in school but out on our own, in the real world.”
WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT
However with that said, given the opportunity to dictate what real-life skills they are interested in, here are the winners from top to bottom. These are skills not being taught at school.
● Mental Health -37 percent
● Self Defense – 36 percent
● Survival Skills/Basic First Aid – 35 percent
● Cooking – 34 percent
● Personal Finance – 32 percent
● Communication Skills – 28 percent
● Emotional Intelligence – 28 percent
● Time management – 27 percent
● Basics of Law – 23 percent
● Auto Maintenance – 21 percent
● Household repairs / maintenance – 21 percent
● Nutrition – 20 percent
● Relationship Counseling – 18 percent
● Sewing – 16 percent
● Network and relationship building – 16 percent
● Family resource management – 15 percent
● Negotiation -14 percent
● Digital etiquette – 13 percent
● None of these -6 percent
It’s either good or bad to see how mental health is the top skill they wish they could learn in school. Meanwhile, we are chasing our collective tails on how to treat the current student mental health crisis. We all know it should actually be called a pandemic since it is being attributed to student burnout; toxic levels of poor self-esteem, student stress levels of pandemic proportions, a record-breaking number of medicated students and unconscionable suicide attempts – and successes.
Add to that, the complaints of huge falloff in character decorum, respect, lack of being able to figure out things on your own, self entitlement and a whole list of other “things.”
The next is a continued bleak reflection of this generation’s view of necessary skills. They have grown up learning that schools are not an inherently a safe place, with shooter drills a sad norm for young students today.
TAEKWONDO OR JIU-JITSU
Students in the suburbs were more likely than students in big cities to say that they wish schools would teach self-defense. And unfortunately, females were most likely to say that self-defense is a skill they would like to learn in school, indicating that they feel most vulnerable or unsafe currently. They also are more likely than males to say they wish that mental health were taught in schools.
GIVE IT A TRY
DeSantis and GOP state lawmakers are expanding Republican efforts to reshape K-12 education in America into what they want.
Even though it’s an undertaking that DeSantis has made a key pillar of his teaching agenda – perhaps there’s room to ask students what they want as part of their learning agenda.
This column is by Ritchie Lucas, Founder of The Student Success Project and Think Factory Consulting. He can be reached by email at ritchie@thinkfactory.com and on Facebook and You Tube as The Student Success Project.
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