As Walt Kelly said via his character, Pogo, “ We have met the enemy, and he is us.”
D&D and the rising pandemic
Zardnaar
Legend
It's not just America but even in other countries there's a severe lack of life skills in school.
We had a course called transition which did cover things post school employment but it was only for one hour a week.
Things like compound interest were covered in math class but who really pays attention to math class and they don't relate it back to the real world.
We've had a new schools initiative. I had to deliver equipment to the class room.
Yeah olde individual desks were gone and they had big tables instead with lots of things like bean bags. Open plan type rooms. Not sure if it's better than ye olde desk plus cane and strap enforcement.
As long as your parents aren't plonkers you can probably skip the first 5 years of school.
It's essentially playtime and babysitting and that was 30 years ago here.
That’s one thing that needs to be taught in the context of MONEY.
One of the things that was part of my MBA program was a tour of the Dallas Cowboys training facility. Our tour guide only had 2 bosses- Jones and the head coach. Man had an MBA himself...and one of his jobs was to walk rookies (and anyone else who needed it) through the day-to-day realities of living as a PRO athlete. For many, this included tutorials in basic banking, because most of the rookieslived in cash and favors, and had never had a bank account.
As he recounted, in HIS first year in the organization, he got a call from one of the rookies to help him get some money. It seemed America’s Cash Express would not let him cash his game check, and he was broke.
Zardnaar
Legend
Yep some if that needs to be in high school IMHO.
In middle school and early high school you got the life skills type classes but in the last 3 years you could pick the subjects.
If you were a guy you got cooking and sewing classes. The girls got woodworking and metalwork. That went out the window at highschool.
They're moving away from pass/fail type grades and more the participation type reports which makes it harder to know how good your kids doing.
The elite schools have the kids do international standard type tests.
They're doing better these days at some things but worse at the basics.
I took a LOT of classes in public (and private) schools that are nearly extinct in parts of the USA these days- health, social studies, shop, music, art, electronics, home economics... Hell, my PE classes were more varied than some of the stuff my younger cousins went through.
Fortunately, I’ve seen signs that’s a trendbeing reversed.
Fortunately, I’ve seen signs that’s a trendbeing reversed.
MoonSong
Rules-lawyering drama queen but not a munchkin
Definitely never saw any of these. In my country, the most we could have would be one workshop during middle school. Stuff like typing, clothes making, baking, electrician or mechanical training. While in many places you can choose, most of the time it ends up being segregated by gender and you don't get a choice at all. The school I went to had six options, but most tended to have just two choices, typing for girls and drawing for boys and there was no way around that.
I think they have health education and introduction to laws in the highschools under the national University, but I went to one under the national Technical College so just pure sciences and some literature for me -I didn't even have to take PE-. I have no idea how different the other highschools -the many trade highschools and the independent ones- are. And well, I graduated highschool about 15 or so years ago, so things could have changed a lot.
I understand the point, but worldwide half a million people are dead. So, really, this wounds and maims in addition to killing.
Which is why I push back on the, "this isn't lethal like Ebola," narrative.
Last edited:
It isn’t lethal like EBola. It’s a different kind of lethal.
Ebola is a barbarian- you see it coming- and odds are good you will- you run.
Covid-19 is a ninja- most of the time you never see it until it’s too late.
And as we’re seeing, a good number of Covid deaths are freaking preventable with simple public health care measures.
Someone on another board I frequent tried to say that- with its low death rate- Covid was a dud. I pointed out to him we’re still trying to figure out how many ways it harms people...and how badly. The respiratory disease has now revealed a half dozen potentially lethal tricks, and that’s not even accounting for the potential long-term stuff we won’t know about for a decade or more.
Last edited:
Hussar
Legend
Um. Yeah. I already said that some posts back.
