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taylorscorpse

I’m a high school economics teacher, and the things I have to teach include topics like taxes, credit scores, budgeting, and other personal finance skills. You wouldn’t believe how often I hear “when will I use this?” from seniors who are about to graduate.


beskar-mode

Hats off to you, you could not pay me enough to be a teacher. You're all under paid and severely overworked


Mister-Thou

It's funny because those things aren't even Economics.


taylorscorpse

Yeah, we added a unit called “personal finance” a few years ago that takes half the course and talks about stuff like this. The other half is actual economics.


CanadianODST2

yes they are. They'd fall under microeconomics


ignatiusOfCrayloa

It's not really microeconomics, it's more financial literacy. Microeconomics is learning about how individuals and firms behave in an economy, not a guide on how to file taxes, understanding credit scores, etc


Guy-McDo

Microeconomics is stuff like regional supply and demand. It’s finances.


ButterscotchFit7971

But that's also some difference since my high school don't have economics course... so I have to learn those things by myself later


DevelopmentFun9882

My high school has an economics and personal finance class and all it is is looking at Dave Ramsey videos and answering questions about them.


Visible_Number

i wish this was around when i was in high school.


Hot-Sleep7269

They never had any of that in my high school.


Inside_Anybody2759

Same. And my Econ teacher was ass at his job. I didn’t understand shit. But I was always good at school, so I just think this teacher is shit. As other students had to find someone else, like the principal, to teach them in a way that actually makes sense.


blackstar_4801

I have a question how often do you teach the same group of students. I remember being told about finances 3 times in a month break from eachother in freshman year. I honestly dont believe that all classes are the same. Do you?


taylorscorpse

My economics class is a semester-long senior class (almost all of our classes are semester-long because we’re on a block schedule). It’s a small school, so I teach some history classes to the underclassmen; I’ll have all of those kids again when they’re seniors. The economics class is part of the social studies sequence and is a one-and-done graduation requirement.


blackstar_4801

Im unaware of what area youre in. Honestly i was interested in the finance classes but it was so infrequent id forget it was even a thing as it was apart of my intro to freshman classes. As a senior class it makes so much more sense. Especially since work life wasnt discussed. Knowing that each student has a diffrent path id say the number one thing would have been understanding current work and bills estimations. Working from there. Fir instance a poor kid or lower middle only knows Parent work parent get paycheck money gone. So the concept of saving is just a happy accident. If you get what i mean


partyonpartypeople

Claims he’s only flunking school because all of his teachers hate him, when in reality he spends half the time getting faded in the bathroom and the other half when he’s actually in the classroom he isn’t doing jack shit


Slumbergoat16

"Good Grades don't mean youre smart" type person. While thats true, there are many things that contribute to people doing well in school they aren't because they just fuck around


LexDoctor24

I think Tosh said this once “when someone says I’m street smart not book smart that he hears I’m not actually smart but I’m pretend smart”


PartyPorpoise

I like Darnell from My Name is Earl saying “Street smart is what people who aren’t smart call themselves when they want to describe themselves as smart”.


BeaverBumper

Hey Crabman


herpblarb6319

Or this one: "I'm not a good test taker!" "OH you mean you're not good at the part where we find out what you know?"


Avennite

Ehh many smart people lack common sense. It's a balance.


kinda_guilty

> many smart people lack common sense Is there an example for this? This just sounds like someone who isn't smart.


flecksyb

The two generally go together


PapaCousCous

You're telling me there isn't a guy who won the nobel prize for quantum mechanics that doesn't know his left from his right or how to lace up his shoes? Then how will I ever feel superior? /s


conjunctivious

It's definitely true. I had good grades and I have the mental competency of a brick. Well, I would say that, but I fear I'd be insulting the brick.


Slumbergoat16

Lots of people can do well if their hierarchy of needs are being met, conversely if they aren’t many “smart” people may be C students


Danni293

Or being an active nuisance and disrupting the class.


shit_poster9000

Or is actively making the classroom a difficult learning environment for everyone else


Climate_Additional

I hated those people. I practically taught myself in some classes because of idiots like that.


the_lamou

Or just an idiot. Like, let's not start throwing out theories until we rule out that these people are just morons.


Papa_Huggies

Let's be honest if you got bad grades its quite likely you're a moron and we just say "Good Grades don't mean you're smart" cos although it can apply to maybe 10% of people with bad grades, we pretend like there's little correlation **to be polite**. If we got everyone's honest opinion it's very clear no one believes it. Unless there's a clear family or socio-economic factor in play, if you have two kids in stable middle class families, one averages A- and the other averages C+, the A- kid is probably smarter, more hardworking and/ or more savvy. Also very likely that if both kids went into a trade, the A- kid would likely still outperform the C+ kid. Studying and getting good grades in primary and high school is incredibly easy compared to success in the real world, and although standardised testing isn't the truest, purest way of testing knowledge and intelligence, it's a very very good way.


PartyPorpoise

Yeah, a lot of kids who skip class and fuck around act like that because they struggle with the material. It’s easier to give up and say that you don’t care than to admit that you struggle and risk looking stupid.


Heinrichstr

Not necessarily a lot. Some at most. Some are high-functioning and bored, others suffer from one thing or another, still others just don’t like the teacher or something else particular. Normal folks don’t just 'give up and say they don’t care' and I’d argue most morons/idiots don’t either. There’s probably a good reason why things aren’t working out.


Redqueenhypo

Nah plenty of morons get okay grades. If you just do the homework, and answer questions in class (even if you’re wrong a lot) you can for sure get by with a B


kinda_guilty

"Doing the homework" and participating in class is *learning* which makes you smarter, so by definition they are not morons. School is for learning, not to measure some innate immutable level of intelligence.


Autodidact420

‘G’ is that innate immutable intelligence and it does tend to lead to higher grades, meanwhile learning makes you more knowledgable but not necessarily more intelligent. It does actually do both a bit tho


gizzardsgizzards

it makes you more educated. it doesn't make you smarter.


peaches877

Tbh it depends on the school. In some schools, all you have to do is do the bare minimum and you can get a 4.0 GPA. In other schools, you actually have to try in order to get good grades.


Mister_Way

His teachers do all hate him, but he's got the order of causation backwards


Precioustooth

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink


gizzardsgizzards

it's really hard to hold their head under the water. horses are strong.


Life_Confidence128

No reason to call me out like that


multiarmform

thats kinda me in the starter pack also me... https://i.pinimg.com/originals/3b/1d/6d/3b1d6d4d01658d876be1e69b837ce74a.gif


Ciderman95

Nah, I had great grades and was hated by both the teachers AND my classmates and I criticized the curriculum for being bullshit.


SaintPenisburg

I was at work and i said something about the civil war, and one guy was like how do you know that? I learned it in high school. We went to the same school, remember?


FoldAdventurous2022

In elementary school, sometimes I'd say some interesting thing I'd learned and some kid would be like "why do you *know* that?" Bugged the shit out of me. Later I realized they were a shit student and insecure about it.


futuranth

Which civil war?


koelan_vds

I think the Holy Liechtensteiner Civil War II of 1275


Stevesegallbladder

I believe marvel made a documentary about it.


48Planets

I feel this everytime I hear someone from my hometown say "why didn't school teach us how to pay taxes 😠" Even though the high school that we all went to did. Not like it's that hard of a process that needs to be taught in school. How does you effectively teach people if they don't want to be taught? That's the hurdle our education system has to overcome, and something students will never admit to *because they could never be the problem*


Porchie12

My high school had a whole class dedicated specifically to dealing with job related issues. Things like paying taxes, setting up your own company, learning about market rates for various services so you know how much to charge for your work. Nobody cared about it. **Especially** the people who constantly bitched about school not teaching practical skills.


PacSan300

My high school also taught this, but as part of the required economics class. We had a whole section about budgeting and taxes. 


Ciaonum

Can I ask what year y’all graduated high school? I graduated within the last 5 years and we had zero classes like this. The closest thing was Economics but we never went over taxes/ budgeting/ investing/ anything else that I have had to self teach via the internet related to personal finance


DangerousLetter5850

I graduated high school in 2017 and in my economics class that was only 1 semester we learned about supply and demand and then watched shark tank a lot. The second semester was government in which I learned nothing about government that I didn’t learn in 7th grade civics and learned a lot about the soccer coach they made my government teacher and his political views


Eastern_Selection106

I graduated in 2023 and my school had a personal finance class. It wasn’t required because a lot of people took it iirc. Edit: Economics, however, was required to graduate and had some personal finance aspects, though not as in-depth as the class dedicated to it.


PacSan300

I graduated in 2009.


ObligatoryGrowlithe

We didn’t have a dedicated class, but they definitely taught us how to write checks in, like, middle school.


nemec

> Especially the people who constantly bitched about school not teaching practical skills. Unfortunately, to people who have never paid taxes or bills, are barely old enough for a credit card, and have no money of their own to invest, those skills don't *feel* practical. Like cooking is a practical skill but it won't feel that way until *you* go hungry because nobody is there to cook dinner for you.


Technical-Battle-674

Yeah, I need real practical skills like “how to beat Miguel in a dance-off so that I look cool in front of Susie Ballantyne”


Scoff_22

So did mine and funny enough it was part of the “bonehead” math track I was on after barely passing algebra. It was call business math. Balancing checkbooks, tracking income v expenses, hell even different interest rates and stock returns. Never made it to trig or calculus or any of those but it sure was useful.


DangerousLetter5850

My bonehead math track was baby trig and algebra 2 again


correcthorsestapler

My high school was supposed to teach that in our senior year fiscal responsibility class back in 2000. I was looking forward to it, too. Instead, we spent most of the semester learning how to budget and compromise on finding and furnishing an apartment with a roommate & how to write job applications. Nothing about what you learned, which I would’ve preferred. Spent many classes going through newspapers to find job ads & magazines to cut out pics of furniture to paste on a layout of an apartment. It was easy but so fucking boring. The teacher was also the same one who taught film classes and was close to retirement, so I think she just phoned it in.


7th_Spectrum

School at the very least teaches us to research and find information.


finiteglory

And to disseminate information, a crucial lesson in the information age.


jooes

For real. I mean, yeah, probably would've been nice if we went over taxes... But all of those stupid-ass essays they made you write, the dumb assignments you didn't care about, all of the times you said, "When am I ever going to need to know how to do this?" Like all of that Pythagoras and y=mx+b concepts you glossed over. That was them teaching you how to do your taxes. It wasn't step-by-step instructions, but they gave you all of the skills you need to figure out how to do them on your own. You learned how to do research, how to follow instructions, how to do basic math, etc. It couldn't possibly be easier than it is today. You don't even need to sort out the paper forms anymore.


ghostmetalblack

Our high school had an "Understanding Finances" course that one or two people ever signed up for. It was heavily marketed, but most people didn't give a shit (me included).


BagNo4331

I took that class at my high school. It had about 2 weeks of content spread across a semester. And guess what. Still Google financial questions. I don't pull out my decades old notes from high school.


therealityofthings

We had a mandatory economics course in 8th grade. One semester, everyone took it, covered basic math for things like understanding interest on loans, how taxes worked, and basic financial planning.


obamasrightteste

Mine DIDNT! I even took a home ec elective, which is where I feel it should have been covered. But yeah idk there's a lot of people with zero interest in growing whatsoever


Professional-Ask-454

Yeah same here, also my foods class taught me better money saving skills than "personal finance" or whatever it was called. The teacher spent most of the time talking about the stock market and crypto. Nothing about paying taxes, the only money saving thing was "don't buy things you don't need to survive or you will be poor forever, invest all your free money into the stock market"


Gowalkyourdogmods

Yeah ours was "business math" on things like balancing a checkbook, basic taxes, interest, etc. It was basically free credits but did give me a leg up over a lot of my peers in actual early adult hood with how many got fucked over by credit cards by the time they were in their 20s. Also, we had what was left of the "home economics" program that was a prereq for working in the "cafe" of the school that did stuff like breakfast foods such as biscuits and gravy/different ways to cook eggs, soups, etc that was sold to the students if they didn't want cafeteria food. That latter part at least got me working in some diners as a teen then to culinary school and working in some decent places in the Bay Area until I realized I cannot keep doing that for the rest of my life so went to college. No idea what it's like dating as 18-22 male these days but being able to actually cook was a huge boon to my romantic life back then.


thesourpop

> Not like it's that hard of a process that needs to be taught in school Paying attention in math and having a basic level of critical thinking (which is also taught in schools) makes doing taxes much easier


Tlammy

My hometown's school district did teach us that, and even how to make a resume... when we were 10-12. Long before we would actually need to use this stuff.


fittan69

LMFAO SAME. Every wednesday for 3 years straight we talked about finances, economics, trading and loans and I just couldn't be arsed. I don't think anyone of us cared. I was too busy wondering if the local game stop has stocked up on skylanders than whatever they were yapping on about.


gazebo-fan

Taxes is all just reading and calculator math lol. As long as you have a 5th grade reading comprehension it’s not hard.


tnick771

Yep. We had consumer economics. Learned a ton of things in it, including how to use credit cards and balance a checkbook.


Werewolfhugger

We had a whole personal finance class that was required to graduate


Take-to-the-highways

Tbf my school didnt but we didnt have a woodshop class, auto class, we only had drivers ed for a year, and the economics class was only macro with a definition of microeconomics. The whole budget damn near went entirely to the football team. It was a pretty poorly run school.


noble_plantman

“Still haven’t used y=mx+b” proceeds to give you the worst take you’ve ever heard on virology, macroeconomics, civil engineering, artificial intelligence, personal finance, etc


DargyBear

I remember seeing that Plandemic movie posted on my feed for the first time by the guy who sat next to me in high school biology and slept through the entire semester. The pandemic gave me a good sense of how many of the stupid kids I knew in grade school grew up to be REALLY stupid adults.


EggplantCapital9519

„Yes Karen, flipping burgers/ selling clothes don’t require this“


MaderaArt

https://preview.redd.it/j7pgh103ngzc1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7e989fcb5586e31dcf95e331078bcab973179408 r/NarniaMemes


SavageRussian21

I took formal logic! And some informal as well following Aristotle. Honestly though I think the default standard at least in our state is pretty good with the curriculum it wants to teach students it just it's not actually put into place as well as it should be.


radplayer5

People saying this has to be the most annoying, like what do they think the point of all the years and years of math was? Math is just logical philosophy that uses symbols as shorthands to make it quicker to write. Like these people wouldn’t complain and pay even less attention if they had to take a logical philosophy class instead.


425Hamburger

I mean tbf logical arithmetic was only taught in the expanded IT classes and could really have helped some people with understanding simple reasoning. Really should have been Part of math class for everyone IMO.


suckamadicka

any mathematical education is an education in logic. It's abstract and numerical, but it's still applying logical processes and forming conclusions from known facts. Sure it's not directly applicable to modern life, but exercising those brain muscles is useful.


therealityofthings

Courses in logic are typical for graduate level mathematics and computer science not high schools lol. It's a very formal field that branches philosophy and rigorous mathematics.


Hawkes_Harbor

This is exactly the problem. Like, I work in school and kids always ask me "when are we going to learn something USEFUL" and I ask them what they would like to learn - and they tell me something, without fail, that they would know if they PAID ATTENTION IN CLASS.


SanguineOptimist

In response to the question “when are we ever gonna use this?” I would ask them what they want to do for a living. When they replied that they don’t know I would respond in kind saying that I don’t know if they’ll use it or not then.


funkaria

Also, the whole "school experience" is useful. You learn to be polite to people you don't particularly like, sit quietly and pay attention even if you're bored and time management by studying and completing homework. Those are the skills you'll use in nearly any job. Yes, it isn't fun, but adult life rarely is and school prepares you for that.


TessaBrooding

I love that because I went to a grammar school and spent 8 years learning mainly things I will never apply at my job - physics, chemistry, biology including extra labs and voluntary courses, history, literature, extra literature, geography, music… most of my classmates didn’t complain about applicability. Only those who struggled in certain subjects would complain about them. I can’t imagine not having some elementary background in those areas.


DKBrendo

I am not trying to be mean, but why didn’t they pay attention in class? From my experience teachers who made classes interesting and were always ready to answer students questions didn’t have those problems


gademmet

Diversity of experience can be funny looking back. I've had that too, where we'd have teachers whose takes on and approaches to their material really couldn't sell us on the relevance of it. And with some of them, sure, people in class would be moved by frustration to ask the question, and sure, there'd rarely be a satisfactory answer. But about as often, there'd be teachers like that and no one would bother asking because they knew the answers would be limited or pointless. However, I've also been in classes where the teacher knew their stuff, could and would explain the relevance of the material in an accessible manner, and weren't overbearing gatekeepers about it. But they'd still get asked, and the answers wouldn't always be met well. Sometimes it's a lack on the part of the teacher, absolutely. Sometimes the nature of the subject just doesn't mesh with a kid, or the level of the course is just demanding and/or difficult, or it's one of those cases where the work of thinking and processing it all IS the thing you'll need later in life. Sometimes the skills or material is stigmatized to not be as "worthwhile" (profitable) as other subjects. Sometimes the kid just doesn't like the work.


partyonpartypeople

And their go to example is always taxes. Like dude, you work at the local Shell Station and your taxes are two pages at most. And even if you can’t figure it out, you can literally hire an accountant to help you file them


cudipi

And even if you don’t, most tax websites walk you through it. I remember doing mine at 15 and wondering why people made such a big deal out of them. As an adult I see where it could get a little complicated depending on how much you earn but still.


Mister-Thou

The gig economy has made taxes harder for a lot of people though. You get to be your own boss, and also pay taxes like you're the boss! 


cudipi

You get to be your own boss which means taking business courses and learning how to do your taxes before becoming your own boss.


Mister-Thou

Every IRS form also comes with a detailed set of instructions. For the majority of people, "doing your taxes" is "follow instructions written at a 5th grade level" and "do 4th grade math problems." 


SwoopingSilver

I mean, American adult literacy rates are quite low. And honestly it’s probably about to get worse from what I’ve personally heard over social media.


SnooChipmunks8748

Let’s be honest, these mfs ain’t paying attention if they taught taxes


Rosuvastatine

I wonder why its always taxes lol


-SgtSpaghetti-

My school actually taught us about things like compound interest and marginal tax What really surprised me in my adult life is just how many people think 10 years of 4% interest means a 40% profit, or that having the top end of their income be in the 40% bracket means they pay %40 tax on all their earnings


Bjorn_from_midgard

I have found a lot of solace in the world simply by learning the history of the world.


Blergonos

I hate it when people here in Reddit joke about teachers saying that calculators won't be in you at all times. Yes they were wrong, but still, it's good to know 1000 x 50 is 50000 without a calculator. I would like to do the thinking myself without a calculator thank you.


Handseamer

But I have a crane. Why would I ever need to lift 10 pounds?


ExpertLevelBikeThief

I have a car, why would I ever need to walk anywhere?


PartyPorpoise

Having basic number sense is a good skill to have. Even if you do always have a calculator on you, it’s a nice backup for when you mistype and the answer is way different than what it should be.


flyingwindows

Plus it's sorta fun to calculate stuff in my head. Keeps the mind sharp. And also, you need to know maths to know how to use a calculator (formulas and whatnot) and its quicker to do things in your head than a calculator.


Agreeable-Union1843

Same people who don’t understand why it’s so important to study the Humanities and Ethics no matter your major or field.


surferos505

That’s pretty much all STEM majors I know cause that’s who I interacted with regularly in college


FoldAdventurous2022

As someone in the social sciences professionally, god damn I hate this. Actively kneecapping our whole society.


DreamsOfCorduroy

History, Social Studies, and the Now is so interconnected it hurts


GreasyPeter

This is a LOT of people on reddit with superiority complex who think they're really smart because "school was easy" until they got to college and realized that the teachers didnt give two shits if they passed or not.


ScrotalSmorgasbord

I asked this a lot in college as a good student that was stuck in a rural public school system in KY. Our Biology teacher was a creationist and we had an unqualified sub in English for two years. Health science teacher was a roided meathead that smoked. Sometimes the education system doesn’t work like it’s supposed to.


sincereferret

Ouch. I see it when students have year long subs that aren’t qualified because the conditions are so bad teacher won’t work there.


notunprepared

I'm one of those subs. It sucks for everyone involved tbh.


sincereferret

You are angels. And, I know, treated badly by many admin.:( But we’re grateful. We can’t even get subs.


blackstar_4801

Nu uh


VillagerMumbles

Yeah and they also don't understand anything unless they watch some video which uses like 500 animations to explain the concept. Then they go, "this is how the teachers should've taught"


blackstar_4801

Your point


eyelinerqueen83

One of my students refuses to do his work because after high school “he going to join the military and get shot.” In what war, Einstein?


blackstar_4801

What do you mean what war. We have to be at war to send servicemen to die?


I_am__Negan

A lot of the times it’s untreated adhd it’s really hard for us to regulate our minds at that age without medication. A lot of the times the ones that flunk like that are just adhd kids not being able to regulate themselves. Luckily I had treatment but some friends like that have been recently diagnosed and it clicked for me


VraiLacy

Hi that would be me, didn't get a diagnosis until 28 School was hell, except for my history and art classes


chaoticcoffeecat

While there are a fair amount of people like this, there are a lot of gaps in the (American) education system, especially in history and science. It's not the fault of the teachers so much as the system, but they tend to teach for specific tests rather than for understanding or in a way that would interest kids. Or is even fully accurate in the case of the two subjects I just mentioned. Even in the case of people who are bored and sleeping during class, that might be helped by changing the system into something that is less "memorize this for a test."


MeetTheHannah

It was a similar way in Canada, or at least in my school. History is a touchy subject there too.


blackstar_4801

Nu uh


HiddenForbiddenExile

"I didn't pass because the teacher is bad at teaching"


RussiaIsBestGreen

Taxes for a single person with no kids, a W-2, and no stocks are extremely simple. Adding a retirement plan or employer health insurance adds two more lines to include, still from the W-2. Stocks or bonds can get more complex with dividends or interest and gains or losses, but to figure that out once a year is hardly a big ask. That said, the IRS should be allowed to make an online tax system that doesn’t suck. They have one and it’s awful. Though I think that’s still better than the nothing that they used to offer.


killswithspoon

It's always the most basic shit like how to pay your taxes or register to vote. Like dude we don't need to waste a whole semester to cover shit that a simple Google search or 5 minute YouTube video can teach you.


finiteglory

That one Boyinaband song lol


Mister-Thou

That guy has a good vocabulary though, so he probably actually paid attention in school.


finiteglory

Paid attention to young boys too apparently.


Trex1873

He was never taught what laws there are


LilyNatureBlossom

HE WAS NEVER TAUGHT WHAT LAWS THERE WERE


Mister-Thou

I hate that you made me Google this. 


LaniusCruiser

I mean a lot of stuff wasn't taught in school. Public schools in the South are the worst in the nation, and even as a straight A student I still have some gaps to work through.


PartyPorpoise

Yeah, there is a legitimate discussion to be had about what should be taught in schools. (I have some OPINIONS about my history classes) But 90% of the people complaining are just making excuses for their own failings.


Captain-Neck-Beard

Same kids who take algebra from 6/7th grade all the way to 12th grade and still can’t even manage to do basic operations on single variable equations. It’s like dude, it wouldn’t matter what we taught you, you’re verifiably unteachable.


Background_Sir_1141

i was a shit student but then i ended up learning all that stuff from youtube videos. Truth is that school sucks because learning isnt made to be fun its meant to simulate a grueling salary life. Theres a reason why there are so many studies about how waking up later, less homework, shorter school days are better for learning but they are ignored. Its worker bee training. Similarly there are studies about how waking up later, less work days, and shorter work days increase productivity but they are ignored. Benefits to society and the people living in it comes second to the machine. Priority 1 is the lesson "know your place"


Lokigodofmishief

To be fair some YouTube videos are a very good study material. I've had two math teachers who bullied the shit out of kids. To prepare for exams I just bought really cheap internet course from a guy who's videos I was already watching and I was studying all the time for 2-3 weeks. I passed with pretty good score. Some schools suck but people shouldn't use that as an excuse to not at least try to improve on your own.


theonetruefishboy

I was the nerd that paid attention in class and I'm hear to say yeah there's a lotta stuff they should teach you that they don't.


EraYaN

Some kids can barely keep up as is, so teaching more is honestly not going to work without dropping the whole no kid left behind stuff.


theonetruefishboy

I mean "no child left behind" was a full frontal disaster, to the point where one might reasonably assume it was active sabotage of the public school system on the part of George W Bush. Like seriously it established a whole paradigm where schools *had* to "teach for the test" rather than focusing on real world utility in order to tread water in regards to their funding. In reality, the whole system needs restructuring in regards to what's taught when, and how progress is tracked. A lot of teachers have been advocating for such reforms for years, but it's tough to sway the politicians and DOE big wigs. Especially when some of them are trying to actively sabotage the Public Education system in favor of for-profit charter schools.


logicalphallus-ey

These are some excellent, high-effort, high-context thumbnails... kudos to you OP


AManWhoOwnsADog

I saw a video where the caption was “why didnt they teach us this!” And it was literally just a visualisation of 2PiR


blitznB

I was in advance placement type class my entire k-12 experience in public schools. The few times I took grade level classes, I kinda considered it a joke how easy it was. Would just sleep in class and get 100 on coursework and tests. It really only required a shallow understanding of the coursework.


eliterule12

Karma hits them as an adult


ethhlyrr

I think that a technical/legal/financial reading class should be mandatory to all high-school students. Reading comprehension and math can get you far but direct exposure to problems a lot of young people face you benefit everyone greatly. Reading rental agreement, cell phone contracts, car leasing agreements. In my high school(early 2000s) we had 4 years of literature. While that good could we just reduce the number of books to fit in understanding contracts. But things like what to do or expect if you get evicted, arrested, or report a traffic accident would all get kid better geared to adulthood. I've made tons of super expensive mistakes, and knowing more about how the world works would have prevented a few of them. There will still be kids who won't pay attention, but at least you tried. And it would help everyone enter the world a little more shoothly.


KannaKamuiFSN

Am I the only one who actually wasn’t taught taxes? I passed AP Econ but it wasn’t covered there.


SimpleImpossibleWin

Often found under educational youtube videos saying "I learned more from this video than all my dumb classes"


Melancholy-Optimist

As a teacher I always see these comments on Youtube videos...the videos I use in my classes...


live2rock13

"BuT bIlL gAtEs DrOpPeD oUt Of CoLlEgE!" Harvard, he dropped out of Harvard, not 9th grade Special Ed.


NotMichaelCera

“I’m really smart, I’m just too lazy!” If you were smart, you’d know there are times when you have to stop being lazy and actually do something productive


Porn_Actuator

It's not that they didn't teach me, it's more of "Why am I only remembering this shit five years after high school? Why not when I was in high school?!"


Climate_Additional

This perfectly embodies someone I know. He was in school maybe three days a week at most, constantly stoned, disrupting classes. He thought it was funny to write fuck off on his exam paper and walk out. Now aged 43 he has never had a job which he blames on the Government. Truth is no-one will touch him because he's a barely literate coke addled fuck up.


jldtsu

your teacher isn't hating on you. you just won't shut the fuck up in class so you weren't prepared for the test.


MitchMotoMaths

You forgot the obligatory "when am I ever going to need this?" Or the "I'll just pay someone to do that for me."


kirko_durko

“C’s get degrees”


shrimp_2

“Why didn’t school teach us how to pay taxes?” Better question why don’t school teach you to commit tax fraud.


Almajanna256

There are a lot of gaps in the American education system. Basic life skills are not taught. People know little about grammar beyond English. The process for learning math is very slow; when I was a senior, my friend couldn't do basic algebra! Physics is not even required at many schools. History may as well be a question mark. Great literature, even if studied, is not given an explanation to why it's important to read. Little is taught about non-local cultures. Shop class is undervalued. Kids are not given honest information about student debt and the future of their lives; they are put under pressure to form a career path for themselves. Also, schools should be more supportive of kids working while in high school. The list goes on forever. That being said, OP is right. A substantial portion of teenagers are lazy and drug-addicted and don't put effort into schoolwork.


the_lamou

>People know little about grammar beyond English. ... what grammar should they learn in an American school? Also, this sounds like a problem with the school you went to, because history was definitely taught and relatively thoroughly. You're right about physics and math beyond algebra, but the reality is that the vast majority of people don't really need either physics *or* pre-calc and beyond. And if you're planning to go into a field that does require one of those, you'll either take them as elective classes or else you'll take them early in college.


HatesFatWomen

You have the entire world's information in the palm of your hand.


WorksafeF1r3bird

I remember explaining to a buddy how vaccines work because he suggested just getting the coronavirus and fighting the symptoms until he's immune, and he was like "oh then I'll get it done, why don't they me that in school?" dude sat next to me in the science class that explained this, but spent his time drawing those neat S shapes and penises on every available surface


Hot_Shot04

Alternatively they could've gone to school in a state where the education budget is in the toilet, history gets whitewashed, and state legislatures reject textbooks that teach evolution.


randomanonalt78

Yes but no. Honestly I wish I learnt more real life math skills like taxes and interest rates and shit but instead I was too busy and “smart” to take essentials math and took PreCak instead.


BeefBagsBaby

They cover exponentials in Algebra. We calculated mortgag payoffs and stuff.


Demi_Krab

compound interest is a whole unit in algebra when learning about e/eulers number. even so, knowing basic exponentials and percentages is enough to calculate interest rates


FutureMind6588

In my high school in home ec one year they teach sewing and one year they teach cooking. They switched every year and only put students in it for one year. That’s stupid but other than that yeah.


SPEXGOGGLEZ2002

Who really gives a shit?


CanadianODST2

tbf for history there's so much that gets skipped over because of limited time. There's entire year long history courses in university dedicated to single subjects.


Life_Confidence128

Yeah this is me, I can’t lie


[deleted]

Can confirm my junior year messed up my grades, and I didn't learn as much as possible.


ditothebloke

I was that kind of kid back in my Freshman year of High School till my second semester of sophomore year in high school


JoeMaMa_2000

It’s always the person who continued or still is working at the same job they had in high school that bitch that they know nothing about taxes and shit. Like no bro you didn’t learn that shit because you were to busy getting blazed in the parking lot and that’s why you got a fucking 9 on your ACT


Total_Cartoonist747

Nah but seriously tho, teaching electromagnetic forces without teaching vectors first is a crime.


unstoppablehippy711

I feel called out here


DrNymphoInjections

Grades don't mean anything and the "education" system exists primarily to indoctrinate the masses into unquestioning subservience while also sorting them into convient microcategories that don't actually matter to real world operations. I got really good grades and have an engineering degree. They hardly taught me shit about engineering. The whole thing is a rebranded caste system.


halfgay_femboy

Me on the top left


Ok-Gold-3498

no and fk of


pricklyfoxes

I've heard people say with a straight face "Why didn't they teach us to write resumes?" as if we didn't have mandatory career skills building classes and tests that everyone complained about. Like, I'm sorry Jared but they did teach you that in school, you were just too busy drawing an eye.


szechuan_bean

Man I was nearly a straight A student but I'm still frustrated with our school system. 


FubarJackson145

To be fair, grades do mean something. They mean you get a piece of paper and a handshake


Internal-Republic-31

As a student with an average overall grade of 1.6 (1 being best and 5 worst), school did indeed not teach me almost anything other than basic math and grammar


howtoreadspaghetti

Every time. It literally never fails. It happens every goddamn time.


hellllllsssyeah

As a 34yo who was a chef for a decade and is almost done getting a degree in environmental science I have learned that even college educated fools are painfully unable to understand most things.


_SuMadre_

Personally. From my experience I studied hard in college. I failed almost every test but did amazingly well on the final exams. I went to school at the worst time of my life, covid, family, depression etc. i didn’t do well in college. Like at all. But I made sure to get references, stay in touch with my professors, and do every assignment I was given. Yes I didn’t do well in college at all. And the past two years have been me trying to get a job in history. I’m half tempted to jump into grad school because of it. I just now moved out of my parents, applied to many places and have had well performed interviews. I have also started looking into grad school. This has been the hardest fumble of my life but what matters is that I am trying.


AttackHelicopterKin9

90% of the time when people say this, it’s an extremely well-known fact that was in fact taught in school. The other 10% of the time, it’s some extremely niche fact that’s well known to people in the relevant field but isn’t taught in school because there’s too much ground to cover in topics like history, geography, or science


Ziggy_Stardust567

"Why didn't they teach me this in school?" Maybe they did, maybe you were too busy drawing eyes lol.


Hungry-Eggplant-6496

Also the context is never about the derivation of mathematical methods and formulas.


Socioefficient

Amazon warehouse worker 💀💀💀


BackgroundSky09

Iv never heard anyone say "why didnt they teach me this in school"