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I’m going to do a write up of how I think education curriculum should be reformed. For context: I went through highschool in Ontario, Canada. The way it worked was from kindergarten to grade 8, we’d have a set curriculum every kid in the grade followed, with lots of english and math classes, some science classes, history, geography, French, and gym, and one each of art, music, and health classes a week. Then starting in grade 9, which is highschool, we are given two elective choices, where we choose a minimum of one between art, drama, and music, and the second may also be a general technology course or a general business course. Each year of high school there are more electives choices offered and fewer mandatory courses, with the priorities of what the school system requires us take being the same as elementary school. There were also choices between more difficult and easier options for some classes like math, english, and science as well. Universities and colleges would also require higher level math and sciences for STEM programs too, and there is a standardised literacy test needed to graduate.
I think a lot of people when talking about school want to just add more requirements without thinking about what to cut. It’s very easy to say “all kids should learn to program” or “all kids should have PE every day”, but if you’re adding you either have to keep kids there longer, or cut something. First, I think the elementary school program is basically good, I wouldn’t change anything there. Maybe take a little of time out of science and add it to more PE.
For highschool, I would start more drastically reworking it. First, I would basically replace English with history in the mandatory curriculum for everyone who is literate. Learning about Shakespeare and studying themes in classic novels, while not completely useless, is less useful than learning about real historical events. You gain the same “critical thinking” skills analysing what motivated the people in WWI to conflict as you do analysing what motivated the people in Hamlet to conflict, plus it actually happened, giving it substantially more value. The same english classes will be kept as optional electives, like how history is optional in higher grades now. Science will only be mandatory in grade 9, and computer science will be mandatory in grade 10.
Gym class will be mandatory every year. There is a crisis in how unfit people are today. I recently joined the military. They have drastically reduced requirements, shortening basic training from 13 weeks to 8 weeks, and the weighted march from 13km to 5km. Because people weren’t fit enough to pass. A great many jobs, even today, still require physical fitness, and gym class offers more professional preparement than just about any other possible class other basic literacy. On top of that, being healthy is just healthy, and that’s good for every single person.
There will be extra emphasis on making sure every single person who graduates is literate and numerate. I wouldn’t really require anything else to hand out a highschool diploma, but if they can’t do basic reading, writing, and arithmetic, they don’t get the diploma. They’re stuck in adult night classes until they can or they give up. Ontario high schools also require 40 hours of volunteer community service which I like and anywhere else that doesn’t have that should implement it.
It might be a good idea to have a class on how to get the most out of AI too because it’s looking like that’s becoming an ever more important skill, but it’s changing so fast I don’t know.
I actually had 9th grade Geography/Literature and 10th grade Wold History/Literature taught in the same 'block.' We would alternate days between a History focus and a Literature focus, but both subjects were taught in the same timeslot with a concurrent lesson plan. For example, we learned about the beginnings of civilization while reading excerpts of Epic of Gilgamesh, covering Mesopotamia and the Hero's Journey at the same time. Then excerpts from Ramayana and Hindus valley. It was at a pretty broad level, the topics themselves are huge. But the literature helped provide color to the history.
It is true that to include more time for PE or other things, you need to make more time in the day. But this does not necessarily mean to change the requirements.
If your bubble is homeschool-adjacent, you will quickly notice families who claim that their kid is learning math, history, science, literature and language arts, completing the base curriculum of whatever mail-in program they have in 3-4 hours a day. Then they go on to learn new languages, go on field trips, garden, whatever.
I am not referring to homeschool programs that lack crucial skills. I'm talking about programs like Memoria Press, where kids are reading the Iliad and Odyssey by 8th grade, Algebra I by 8th grade (normal for when I was a kid, just showing they're not behind.)
How are parents able to be so efficient? They have a small classroom size of 1-7. They are able to give each kid 1:1 time, slowing down when the kid needs more help, breezing through topics that have already clicked.
If I were to change anything, I would decrease administration staff and increase the number of teachers, until classroom sizes were around 1:10. After kindergarten, students would be arranged in classes based off standardized test scores, where similarly scoring children are sent to the same classrooms.
K-5th graders already have a recess, and I believe that unstructured play is best at that age, so I would not do gym every day (but maybe have a gym instructor supervise recess and encourage kids to do more physical activities if it looks like they are avoiding them.)
PE sucks and I would rather have a requirement that kids join a sports team than go through a general PE class. To make it more feasible, some team's practices could take place during the school day, the normal fees would be waved, it's just part of school not something extra. If someone is unable to join a team there could be a general PE offering. I would prefer it to be more like an introduction to modern gym equipment - some weights, some treadmills, some yoga/aerobics. A class that teaches kids about something that exists in the outside world. Not a class of doge ball and running laps.
Alternatively, keep recess and make a teenage-sized jungle gym.
I think I’d have mandatory after school clubs. Sports might be a part of it, but I think one thing sorely missed in modern childhood is time to simply explore interests with other children their own age. Let kids who want to write stories write them, let the jocks play any sport they want, have a manga club or a sci-fi club or dance or robotics. Get kids socializing and learning and hopefully exploring the stuff they’re into. You could do that 3 days a week and gym 2 days if you’re super worried about fitness as well.
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