Which is more important for students to learn before graduating High School?

Question

1) The competing theories of scientific evolution and creationism?

2) How to spell and use proper grammar?

It's absolutely appalling how many people cannot write coherent sentences, spell correctly, punctuate, use proper contractions, or discern when it's appropriate to capitalize words. I know people with five or more years of college (even some school teachers) who can't write correctly!

Is there some hidden virtue in spelling owned, pwned? When did intentionally looking stupid become desirable? We're all worked up over children learning something we think might be wrong, meanwhile, they aren't learning things we KNOW are right.

Instead of worrying about human origins, let's focus on teaching our youth things like how to balance checkbooks, manage credit, eat healthy, engage in sex safely, not pollute the planet, and COMMUNICATE intelligibly?

How can we complain when students from China and India come here, pwn our kids, and their jobs? They use better English than we do!

Among the internet generation, pwned has become a popular way to spell owned. It's based on the tendency for people in the gaming community to type a p instead of an an o when typing the word owned, because they are trying to rapidly type while playing, and the two characters are located next to each other on the keyboard.

Answer 1

I'll add my own option:

3) How to think.

Recently I started tutoring high school and college students in chemistry and geometry. Let's be honest for a moment. A great deal of the people who go through high school won't need to know how to find the lateral area of a pyramid or what gas results from the reaction of acid and bicarbonate. They really don't need to know that. In my view, the purpose of taking math and science courses is to teach critical thinking. The same can be said of English classes where you analyze poetry or classic literature. All too many times though, I'll end up in session with a student where they start throwing formulas around and plugging in various numbers. A lot of the time, they end up way off, so I ask what the formula means, what the variables stand for, do the units for that calculation make sense, etc. Usually they don't know. I've had a student work through an equation to get 6=43, and this didn't even phase them. Another who guessed that half of the length of a line in a picture was 0. When I asked a student if a or d was the correct answer in a multiple choice, they guessed b and c before guessing d (the right answer was a). I keep thinking I've seen it all, like after I had to spend a few minutes explaining to a high school student why -20 was not more than 0, but more keeps coming.

So while I appreciate language as a problem, I really think this is more pressing.

Answer 2

Number 2

Answer 3

the most important thing a student need learn before they are finished with school is that a good deal of what they were taught was wrong.
simple truth .
in 30 years about 5 % of what they were taught will seem silly . in 100 years most of what they were taught will seem crazy.
think about what students were taught 100 years ago about the planets and the sun and water and so on . a great deal of it was wrong .
another thing to learn is that the goverment was and is in control of what is taught to the students and a huge amount of that is sheer bull .
i was taught the ussr was a sad terrible place that the people were all wanting out of . i was taught the kgb was awfull .
well think about the president of russia is a kgb man and he was freely elected so how bad did the people think the kgb was.
i have met tradesmen from the ussr who told me that when they were there doing the same job as here the standard of living was as good or better.
now they were not saying they liked it better there but instead only that the standard of living was about the same.
i was sure not told that by my goverment . i was shown time and again pics of empty stores no food and sad people.
they were shown pics of plants with no cars in the parking lots the pics were said to mean we had no jobs. the pics were taken on sundays but they were not told that.
you see the goverments are mostly all lying to the people regardless or what goverment it is .
bush is the king of lies now .

Answer 4

Reading, writing, and arithmetic that's what school SHOULD be about. The rest you teach AT HOME. I never learned of evolution in school, not that I went to school that long ago. I knew of Darwin and his theory but, it was not taught. I live in Ky. so, the abundance of people who don't know how to speak correctly is just plain scary. It makes you wonder what exactly they are, or more more to the point, aren't teaching today.
)o( Blessed Be!

Answer 5

The most imortant lessons to learn before you graduate high school is first you have to know how to read, write and do basic math. If you don't you the basic you want be prepared for the real world. The second lesson before graduating high school is to know what direction you are going in as far as where are you going to college or are you going to a vocational school or going out into the work force.

Answer 6

That's kind of harsh. But then I don't care I will take it one step more. How about we shut down all the schools and have everyone be home schooled. Then parents would have to be parents and maybe America wouldn't be in the shape that its in. Yeah I agree with you on this subject.

Answer 7

I was going to say that it would be nice if people were able to read and write before they got out of high school, so I'd have to go with 2.

Answer 8

That is very important, naturally. But we can't spend all our time on that. The US has a technologically-based economy; our economy is based on science. And now people are trying to teach superstition instead of science, to replace science with religion and undermine science so no one can even define it anymore. And that will be the ruin of America much faster than our poor grammar.

Answer 9

#2 and how to drive a standard transmission.

#1 they will find in thier own time.

Answer 10

"or discern when it's appropriate to capitalize words"
________

First, high school did not need to be capitalized in your opening question.

Second, what does "pwn our kids" mean?