

Ask HN: Raising a smarter electorate – How? - gmays

Kids are taught many things in schools, but not how to think.<p>Arguably the topics most critical to success (self-discipline, character, decision making, ethics, personal finance, curiosity, thinking long-term) are not taught sufficiently.  Even worse, much of the US population believes that religion is the basis of our morals and ethics.<p>How would you approach this?  What might this curriculum look like?  What topics would you teach in which grades?  What would the assigned readings be?
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insoluble
Let me address each of these areas separately. I am no expert here, but I
thought I would give it a try. First, however it should be noted that a great
part of any approach to teaching ought to be in setting an unambiguous
example. That is, the teachers and staff must themselves act with all the
mentioned qualities. Hypocrisy is a great way to confuse youth.

 _Self-discipline_ requires introspection. Psychology is an excellent field
for teaching introspection.

 _Character_ is comprised both of demeanor and of ethics. Since, at least in
my belief, demeanor is not one to be taught, the focus ought to be more on
ethics. History is a good field for teaching ethics. However, personally I am
strongly against the twisting of history by the teacher (or textbook) to fit a
particular agenda, whether religious, political, or otherwise. History is
already taught in most (if not all) general schools. Character, to an extent,
also can be taught by example. And this example can come from the history
lessons and from the teacher.

 _Decision-making_ probably ought not to be lumped together as one area. For
example, is deciding on what to say in a verbal conflict on the street the
same as deciding which formula to use to figure the area of a triangle? Sure,
many diverse things can be abstractly lumped together as being similar, but
can they equally effectively be taught all by one academic discipline? For
technical decision making, perhaps philosophy is an appropriate field. Each
grade level would need a different level of philosophy since this discipline
obviously comes in different doses. One problem, of course, is that philosophy
touches on religion, and I am not going there in this comment.

 _Ethics_... see _Character_ (above).

 _Personal-finance_ is a curious one. Surely _economics_ would provide insight
into many particulars of personal finance. Since it is generally thought best
to learn something near when that information will be put to real use (and
consolidated mentally), it would make more sense to teach personal finance
issues during a time when the students are beginning to deal with such issues.
Higher education is probably an appropriate time. This issue of course varies
by socioeconomic status since more affluent children are more likely to have
money at a younger age. Sadly, those with less money are the ones who need
this knowledge the most, but learning without proximal practice is just
wasting time.

 _Curiosity_ seems to be of focus already in many early-years classes (grades
kindergarten through 6). I remember things like Bill Nye being curious when I
was younger, as were many other scientific videos. In a more abstract sense,
however, curiosity is probably in general shunned by most current schooling
systems. Thinking outside of the box is often thought of as unproductive or
risky. I know there are some books available to aid in thinking laterally. I
feel it would be nice if these were explored more at later ages to offset the
"seriousness" of higher grades.

Thinking _long-term_ surely could be taught to an extent through history
lessons. A more personally-focused history curriculum would probably help
students to connect with the consequences of various paths. For the topic
here, current history lessons focus too much on the greater society and not
enough on the individuals. Proper anecdotes from _normal_ people throughout
various times in history might be useful. Perhaps history needs more of this
and less of the "big picture" stuff. After all, normal individuals are a big
part of what makes the world turn -- not just military and political leaders,
as many history books would have one believe.

As for the specific, year-by-year curricula, that could take a lot of
research, including trial-and-error, to sort out. Also, it would probably be
different for each region and even for different socioeconomic statuses. For
good or bad, persons of different backgrounds have different academic needs.
Please do not take that last sentence out of context, as I am referring merely
to what curricula would be most helpful to a particular individual.

