What do you think is not taught in school well or at all and people end up failing in life because of that?

Answer 1

Basic life skills like personal finance, how to handle a credit card, how to handle a checking account and how to file your income taxes.

The REASON why the knowledge is so important; for example without advanced math and physics you can't become an engineer. You not only can't handle the work you can't understand the theory you need to know to understand the work. I hear kids say "Algebra, I will never use that in real life?" Every personal finance problem I have every had was an exercise in basic algebra.

If you want to be an engineer, a scientist, or use their data then you have to understand where it came from and how it was gathered and that more often then not involves physics, chemistry, and advanced math.

English is important because it is the most descriptive and technical language in the world and one that is the most often used. For example you can't fly a commercial airplane unless you can speak English. You need to not only be able to communicate, but to write intelligibly so you can communicate.

Every single job I have ever had required me to read. I had to read the rules and regulations and fill out the employment forms just to get that job. Reading is the door to all other sorts of education yet we still have American high school graduates that can’t read! Reading is not just fundamental it is critically important.

"Those that don't know history are doomed to repeat it." Is a famous saying that tells you that you if you don't learn from past mistakes and successes then you will just have to go and reinvent the wheel all over again every time you want to do anything. History is such an important understanding of mankind and where we came from and how we got here. It is critical to understand our place in the world.

How many readers know of the first truck bombing by Hezbollah that destroyed the Marine Barracks and was the first mass scale terrorist attack on US citizens. How many readers know that last summer’s rocket attacks by Hezbollah against Israel was a repeat of an attack over 20 years ago that resulted in a 10 year civil war in Lebanon and with Israel? If you knew that, then you would understand why Israel was so reluctant to invade, and what could have happened if they did. The destruction of the Marine Barracks was a direct result of the US’s attempt to prevent that from happening. Hezbollah was founded and funded by Iran for the soul purpose of carrying out its war against the US and Israel. What is going on now in Iraq is just a reflection of that same conflict that dates back to problems in the 1970s.

Or how many people know that Martin Luther, a German Monk, had a few disagreements with the Catholic Church and posted a list of grievances. It would have ended there if Guttenberg wasn't looking for the next great best selling book. The bible was complete success, Guttenberg made Martin Luther a well know scholar and thanks to a wood cutting done on the fly leaf, the most recognized face in Europe. Together they started the Reformation of the Catholic Church. If you are a Christian and not a Catholic then this is how your religion got its start.

Finally, public high school falls so short of what is required for college that it is almost something to cry about. The US has pulled itself out of any international competitions because our children do so poorly in them. Yet we have a popular TV show “Are you smarter than a 5th Grader.” Contestants on this show are actually CHALLENGED by the questions that would be so simple to an European.
The public disgrace that a high school graduate can’t find their own nation on a world map is something I find hard to believe. 6 years olds know where the US is. 8th graders know all the names of the 50 states and over half of their capitols, yet we have adults who don’t know where Washington D.C. is.

I can’t understand why our schools are failing so badly. I graduated high school a generation ago and I have a pretty decent IQ of 125, yet that is barely a genius and falls far short of real geniuses like Einstein or Steven Hawking. Yet, on this board I am a bloody genius; mainly because I know how to use a search engine and I know who to find something in Wikipedia. The people who come to this board are the MORE intelligent people because they can connect to the Internet and locate answers and ask questions.

When I was a kid we had the Cold War, a fight for our survival and the Space Race a technological challenge to beat any since the construction of the Pyramids. Now days people think the space program is a waste of time, when they watch satellite TV, use GPS satellites to find their location and trust weather satellites to give a correct forecast. They can’t see beyond the nose at the end of their face. You have to work hard to be this dumb, yet I know a lot of people who fell into that hole. Watch Jay Leno’s Tonight Show; his episodes of Jaywalking highlight the stupidest people in the US; those that not only can’t answer the question, but give NBC permission to show their foolishness on national TV.

Answer 2

Yes and I was just talking to some guys that are starting up in MMA about this last week. Knowing when to discard a technique or forgo the effort of it and moving on to another technique comes with good training as well as experience. This however takes time to develop and learn. I think many schools and instructors address it but maybe not directly when they say things like, "if you have to force something then you are doing something wrong". That something wrong could even be the situation and factors of it that make the technique not a good choice and there are others better suited for it but that can all be limited by the persons knowledge, skill, and ability. A well trained, experienced individual will grasp all this and have other things that they can resort to and will especially if their training has been of a high caliber. Several of the examples that you mention in your question I specifically addressed and taught ways of dealing with or even maybe then negating them. Things like what to do when you had the wind knocked out of you and how to more quickly recover from that or a collapsed lung. What to do if quickly overwhelmed and finding yourself on the ground surrounded by several people still standing. What to try and do if you are on the ground and wrestling with more than one person as well as some of these other aspects I always addressed and taught to students. I totally agree with you that things like "fighting like hell", "you are doing something wrong if you have to force it" and other such approaches are not enough and so I have always gone that extra mile in taking things beyond that with students and fighters that I taught, trained, or worked with.

Answer 3

Too much time is spent on memorizing answers for tests and very little time doing hands on work where the students figures out the solution by themselves. This is slower then memorizing text but develops problem solving skills which will last a life time. Who remember test answers anyway in the long run. Besides real life is not a multiple choice test. Reasoning skills need to be taught and how to recognize faulty reasoning.

Answer 4

Economics...I think that students need to be taught how to better manage their money when they are young. A lot of college students end up in debt b/c they get too many credit cards or simply don't know how to manage money. They need to be taught the importance of a credit score. Debt can follow you for a long time and make life difficult.

Answer 5

Nothing. It's not the school's fault that people fail. They teach them the foundation, your parents should be teaching you the non academic stuff like saving, financial planning, responsible credit practices, morals, marriage, sex, raising children.

It's not the schools fault.

Maybe if children would take school more seriously they may learn a little more.

Answer 6

The schools do a terrible job teaching people how to write. For example, it drives me crazy when teachers give my sons "creative projects" instead of book report assignments. Trust me. My boss wants a concise report, not a shoe box diorama.

It wouldn't hurt if students got a failing grade once and a while too, if they produce inferior work. People need to be aware of consequences. If you screw up on a job, you don't get a note of appreciation for the hard work you did. You get a pink slip.

But as far as basic life skills, like financial education, parents need to step up and take responsibility. Schools provide building block skills...reading, writing, mathematics, reasoning and learning how to work collectively with your peers. Parents need to teach moral and fiscal values.

Answer 7

sex education and economics. Children should come out of HS knowing what HPV and sexuality is- not just AIDS and condom use it's so much more than that. even more importantly they need to know how to pay bills and what APR fixed rates are as well as balancing a check book, debit card use, etc. etc.

Answer 8

Language arts. If you can't speak or write well, your options become limited. If your doctor or your lawyer or your minister spoke like an ill-educated thug, you'd have a little trouble respecting his opinion and advice, right?

Answer 9

Responsibility, Personal Finance, and Sex Education

Answer 10

Human respect, empathy, reading other people, body language, communication that include both ideas and feelings, working for consensus in a group, fair play, honor in all dealings.