If you could add new subjects to school

[Peridorito]

So, I don't now exactly how this works in the US. But here in Brazil, if I'm not mistaken, the obligatory subjects are:

• Portuguese
• English
• Another foreign language (in my school we have spanish)
• Literature
• Art
• Physical Education
• Math
• Physics
• Chemistry
• Biology
• Sociology
• Philosophy
• Religion
• History
• Geography

I'm not so sure about religion (I didn't have religion in my first year of middle school but I have it in the second, so it's a little confusing), but I'm almost 100% sure about the rest.

However, I would say that's not enough. I feel like people finish middle school knowing some extremely complicated stuff that will be used only in very specific situations but without knowing stuff that's much more important. So, if I could add new obligatory subjects, this is what I would add:

Culture

I can't think of a better name for this but whatever. Basically, one of my problems with school is how we learn about art as in paintings and books, but we don't learn about other kinds of art. Things like television, movies and videogames are art too but for some reason school treats paintings and books as the only kinds of art that exist. If I'm going to learn about important painters and writers, I should learn about important actors/actresses and important game creators too.

Health

Now, medical school is a thing in high school. But I think health is something way too important to teach only people who are specifically interested in this kind of thing. Of course, not every person in the world needs to know how to perform a surgery, but at least some basic stuff. Like, if I was with friends or family and someone fainted, I'd have to call an ambulance so they could reanimate that person. But wouldn't it be better if I could do that on my own? Stuff like that, which are things anyone could do and aren't life-rising procedures.

I would also make the teaching of braille obligatory, though I'm not sure if that would warrant an entire subject to itself.

So, if you could add new subjects to school, what would they be and why?

 

[Lyrebird]

Well there were classes on tolerance when I was at school. I really don't know, so I'm going to say another language. We had French, German, and Japanese in our school. I did French. So maybe Mandarin?

 

[dragon_nataku]

I wish my uni had Korean classes, and I wish they'd bring back the anatomy lecture and lab. I mean, my uni has its own medical school and yet we don't have an anatomy class anymore in undergrad. How much sense does that make~

As for primary education, I remember the school I went to in El Salvador had a Latin American History class, but the school I went to in the Dominican Republic had no such class. We had American History for whatever reason. So yeah, I think it's important for us to learn about our own history.

 

[Username19]

My high school only offered Spanish, French, and Latin. So I would add more languages to at least be offered like German, Mandarin, or Japanese?

Better basic health classes I think would be a good idea as well. My health class was literately just a whole semester of "wash your hands" and "don't have sex".

 

[Zkat]

I agree that it should be mandatory to teach first aid in health classes. I never learned first aid in high school, so if I was in a situation where someone needed it I'm not sure if I'd know what to do. There's a class that teaches it at my college that I plan on taking, but it isn't a requirement.

Making it obligatory to learn braille is a good idea. I would also add sign language.

I think religion might be required already because I remember learning about it in 6th grade social studies, but if it isn't then it should be.

As for foreign languages, I would include more options (at my school we only had Spanish and French) and have children start learning it earlier. In the US, we don't have foreign language classes until high school or maybe the end of middle school, but that doesn't make any sense to me since it's much easier to learn new languages when you're young and your brain is still developing a lot. Although that might be changing because I've heard that some schools are teaching Spanish in kindergarten now.

 

[Aulos]

An unbiased-as-can-be Comparative Religions class could probably do a lot of good.

I never had to take one.

 

[Arylett Charnoa]

I think that most of the subjects in school do little to prepare one for the realities of modern everyday life. Honestly, if it were up to me, I'd consider a complete revision for this day and age of the current curriculum. It sure would've been handy for a mess up-at-life like me to have a guiding hand telling me how to manage finances, cook (more extensive than home ec, meals that are easy and cheap to prepare should be taught), and probably also a class that teaches you how to carry yourself more professionally on the internet would be really helpful. (A sort of social media-type thing for building up your profile online and avoiding embarrassments, which is becoming more and more important in this day and age)

 

[Deleted member 86593]

I'd allow an option of more widely spoken languages (eg, Spanish, Arabic, Mandarin, etc) instead of French, including for early high school (or what would be middle school in America.)

 

[Pebbles]

we have ''history''
so why not ''the future''
sounds interesting to me

 

[dig]

Alchemy.

Or failing that, logic.

 

[zakisrage]

I kinda wish schools would teach Arabic. That would definitely be cool. It would especially be cool if they taught all the different varieties of Arabic. (That might be a problem, though, since there's dozens of Arabic dialects.)