Recently, I am having some discussion on education reform in various internet forums.? Some people beleive that the current education system force school children to learn too many useless subjects.? Out of the 10 or so subjects teach in highschool, most people won’t even use the knowledge form more than a few of them.? It is a waste of time and resource for the school children learning something there is useless in the future.? I object against the idea that we should teach less knowledge to school children.? In highschool, not many people know what they want to be when they grow up.? Even for the few who set their goal, it cannot garuntee their career will unveil as they planned.? Since it is impossible to know ahead of time what subject is useful to which children, the safest bet is teach them the basics of every subject.? After learning the basics and have a taste of each subject, the school children can choose the subject he like to focus on in university.? If his plan doesn’t work out, at least he is equiped with the essential ideas to self learn whatever knowledge he may need in the future.? The school cannot garuntee every thing a student learn will be useful.? However, the school can give the essential tool box of knowledge allow the student survive in the society after graduation.? How many knowledge tools the student will ever use, all depends on how well the students use those tools.? If some tools are left untouch, it is not the fault of the school, rather it is the fault of the student who cannot come up with a creative way to utilize it.
I cannot agree more. A lot of things that we learn, even though we may not remember, are useful in order to appreciate this world, from the history of World War II to the exchange between potential energy to kinetic energy. Interestingly, for those who may have forgotten their lessons, they may spend much money in order to relearn these lost knowledge, when they become grown adults.
If you are interested, check out the discussion at
http://leetm.mingpao.com/cfm/Forum3.cfm?CategoryID=1&TopicID=995&TopicOrder=Desc&TopicPage=1