Modernize/Restructure Public Education & Curriculum

How many of us remember what we learned in school?  Most would answer "not much."

This should be a sign to anyone not only of supreme wastes of expenditure, but a total waste of arguably the most important investment we make.  And not only that, education should be of memorable experiences, if not romantic or epic, but surely enlightening and definitely there in the first place later in life, else it arguably could be just plain unnecessary.

In the other post we address raising teachers salaries to help remedy this shortcoming, but lets go ahead here and come up with great ideas on how that could be done best, to save time.

I know that in my adult life, there are many things which I could have used more of in order to get a better foothold.  Sure, knowing the detailed history of how life's extreme struggle was the exact same thing it was 100 or 1000 or 10,000 years ago, but that doesn't help much when you're thrown into it with not much real skill.

There are many areas of experience and knowledge which kids these days should possess and they don't, especially with respect to the intimate knowledge of how the technology around them functions, even on a basic level...and more importantly, how to use key technologies skillfully...and I consider government a type of social technology. 

Instead of useless things like Health class, kids should be given courses on things like a complete run-through of our detailed laws and how to operate through the legal system, because after all it is illegal for the State to give legal advice.  Armies of kids who know how to file small claims and civil suits would be a guarantee against our society bleeding out again like it has, almost like a clot, and having young adults precisely aware of life altering punishments for certain infractions would help guard against them doing things that not only they, but everyone would regret, simply from a monetary perspective...some might disagree but I would rather have a good time with life, how 'bout y'all? 

Driving courses could be a little more in depth and include small courses in classical physics in order to better orient kids appreciation of large machinery at high velocity, as well as lessons on reversing trailers and driving larger trucks.  Shop should be integrated into the standard curriculum and expanded to bring kids out of their classrooms to get their hands dirty learning how things work from a scientific and mathematical perspective whilst also learning how to repair and operate them, which should encourage people to enter fields where they normally might not, piquing their interests to be more familiar with tech and infrastructure, progress and status quos. 

Electronics and computers should be a more major focus, with coding and electromagnetics taught in order to even the playing field with respect to hacking and the general power that cutting edges possess. 

Things like chemistry could be taught along cooking, in order to raise basic standards of cuisine, which would be an added guarantee for enjoyable qualities of life that otherwise go untapped and uneaten. 

A major focus of the educational system should be music class. I would bet good money that if mastery of a musical instrument was mandated in public education, we could forget about everything else on this ENTIRE site and our society would be A-OK. How cool would it be for everyone to know how to play music? It would be like coming out of the dark into the light or going from walking to flying, a sincere sea change for our quality of life and level of sophistication!

Time saving techniques in teaching could help to reduce the time spent doing so, as well as increase retention of knowlege...especially in blending hands on experience with everyday tech in along with lectures, etc.

Schools should incorporate remote attendance so that kids could integrate well with the growing number of WFH parents, which would offer other flexibilities for families, and also help to avoid incidents.

Student's work should also be saved and compiled with their curriculum in a central package that they could keep with them for life so that they could always look back for reference and memorabilia.  We don't do this now because much of what is taught is not that greatly needed, but a well done education could be a priceless thing to carry with oneself.

With schools churning out super-students, our future would be set and set well, but not only that, we could have that certain Je ne sais quo which makes life fine and forget about the drull and monotony of survival, which ends up grinding out of you what little one does remember.

One of the ideas that I thought of was to have an educational technique which centered around being able to educate from the bottom up, meaning that kids would be taught in a manner that would run them through from prehistory to modern day, and familiarize them with how survival and commerce occurred through every era, and they would have to master each one in order to move on.  That way we could have more of a buffer against major fallout, and it would make sense to me, to our ancestors, for us to have mastery of what came before us and made us who we are, so there are no holes to fall into and the graduate would get a real sense of being fully educated, ready to move on to the next levels...truly progressive.  If everyone knew how to make stone tools, identify edible plants, make shelter and basic clothing and grow gardens, I would bet that nature's sick sense of humor would be less wary of us and keep us from having major hiccups.  If kids knew how to make gunpowder, keep livestock and make swords from rocks, hey even better.  But knowing how to fashion metal into machines to make other machines, and then how to make those make things like engines or semiconductors, well, we'd be well on our way to not worrying.