hiddendriver34 said:I’m starting a new thread here after catching a few of the recent posts about COVID and the school system (didn't want to derail that specific discussion!), so I'm hoping a few more of you will jump in on this one.
Basically, I really feel like remedial classes and extra support shouldn't be lumped into the same bucket as electives.
In a truly reformed American school system, we should be stripping mandatory subjects down to the bare essentials and maxing out the number of elective options available.
An elective can be anything that actually sparks a student's interest and gives them a leg up—we're talking everything from "financial literacy" and "film art" to "creative writing" or even "meteorology and climatology." (Those are all actual elective titles you'll find in some schools today.)
The way I see it, high schoolers should choose their schools based on the sheer variety and depth of the electives offered that match their passions. To me, the future of education lies entirely in that kind of specialized, elective-driven learning.
We actually started working on those extra credit and supplemental assignments back in middle school.
I’m of the same mind here—I really believe kids should first get a solid, equal footing with their core education. To me, that means if someone is falling behind because they have gaps in their fundamental knowledge, they should be getting extra tutoring or supplemental help much more frequently than just once a month. Once we ensure everyone has that baseline, then we can start focusing on elective subjects.
Even with elective courses, I feel like student interest varies wildly. It often feels like a total roll of the dice—you just hope you land in a class with a great professor or a cohort that actually clicks with you. During the pandemic, things got even weirder. A lot of those electives were suddenly restricted to just one specific major or section, so students ended up sticking strictly to what they were already interested in. Or, they had to take everything online, which was a whole different conversation entirely! In the end, all that "optional" learning usually ends up being a burden on the parents and our wallets. 🤷
I'm on board with that idea for high school.
I honestly don't think the main issue is just having too many different subjects on the schedule. To me, it feels more like we should rethink how we allocate our time. I’d love to see us scale back the hours for things like History, Geography, or Biology, and instead weave those core skills—like reading comprehension, summarizing, or just general communication—directly into our language classes. Whether it's English or a second language, integrating that kind of content would make much more sense than treating them as totally separate silos.
I honestly think those high schools that offer subjects taught entirely in English are such a fantastic option. I was looking into it recently, and it seems like some of the local prep schools still haven't let go of their German or French programs either—though, of course, that usually depends on whether they have a physics or chemistry teacher who happens to be fluent in those languages! 😂)
I think it’s a much more painless way to drill in some general culture.
I really feel like financial literacy should be a mandatory subject in schools. Honestly, I’d even go a step further and add ten specific questions about it to the SATs.
No kidding.
