Do schools make you poor?

[coollikeme]

I am now 48 years old and I was thinking back to my school days. Did school really help me in life? Did school really teach me the right things, and are they helping the kids that go to school today. I believe schools prepare us just to go to college and get a high paying job. That works for some people, but not everyone. I believe high schools need to expand on the existing curriculum to incorporate more business-oriented classes. Most of richest people in the world have knowledge of these 3 subjects: Real estate, the stock market and the business world. Why don’t they teach theses subjects in high school?

Many people in high school will not go to college. So, why not teach young people about real estate, the stock market or business. These are subjects they will need in life. Most jobs have a 401k or some kind of other financial investment plan. If schools taught kids about the stock market they would have a head start and a better understanding. Instead of letting a salesperson sell them something that they don’t want or understand. In addition, individuals can invest in the stock market via the Internet, if they are provided with the knowledge needed. Knowledge of real estate is another skill that will be helpful in life. Most people will purchase a home at some point. Wouldn’t it be nice to have an understanding of the real estate market? You don’t have to go to college to run a business. A business class in high school can be helpful for people that would like to start their own business. It may assist them with choosing the right business entity (corporation, partnership, self-employed, etc.) and many other fundamentals needed to run a business.


I have noticed, in talking to people, that most people are afraid of making a mistake. We are taught in school get good grades or you fail!! We are also taught at our jobs that if you make a mistake you can be fired!! The richest people in the world learn from their mistakes, they do there best to fix their problem and hopefully gain valuable lessons along the way. The rich run businesses and invest in stocks and/or real estate. When a person makes a mistake in their business (of course, no one likes to make mistakes), they can learn from them and then move on. If you make a mistake at a job, you may get fired on the spot. Hopefully, at some point the schools will encourage the students to consider being employers, rather than just an employee. People do not have to work for someone else their whole life. With the modern age of technology, you would think that the school curriculum would evolve at the same pace. Unfortunately, it does not seem to be the case. What do you think could be done to change the school system? Thanks for listening.

[Shamou]

Originally Posted by coollikeme

What do you think could be done to change the school system? Thanks for listening.

We have moved and are still moving further in a world that is getting more and more complex... with communication... the world has become an extended village... with the accumulation of information on every subject... specialization has become necessary...

In today's world we need to master a huge amount of information if we wish to succeed... therefore, it seems evident to me that a simple high school education is no longer adequate to prepare anyone for life... no matter how much you load it or what you teach in it... it simply is not enough...

So, if you want to stand any chance of getting somewhere in life... College and University is a must...

.

[Robert Avila]

You're right...It would have been nice to have a solid foundation of financial literacy leaving high school, unfortunately that was not the case.

Looking back it's hard to believe this type of education was missing. Everyone is exposed to credit cards, purchasing their first home, buying a car, interest rates etc. Planning of ones retirement is in there too.....but was I ever exposed to all this in high school - no.

At the college level, one can miss out on this information too...unless you are a finance major or add a couple of courses to your own curriculum.

I will always remember a dentist sharing this story with me. He was about to take over his father-in-laws dental practice and was stressed about running the business. Even though the he had been practicing dentistry for 2 years....he commented....dental school teaches you how to be a dentist....not how to run a business. An ophthalmologist told me the same thing. The business side needed to be figured out in the real world.

Looking back on college....everything was geared towards obtaining the highest grade and earning a degree. We were never taught anything about how to market ourselves after we graduated....and that is the most important thing young people need to know.

Well, it looks like with any form of education there will always be gaps. It's important that we seek out mentors, books, seminars and forums such as this to help each other succeed.

Wish you the best!

Robert Avila

[Nelson]

I recently graduated high school and I had to take a class called economics. In this class they taught the basics of compound interest, credit cards, the free market, importing /exporting, bonds and the stock market. The class even taught the basic advantages of incorporating vs. sole propietorships.

While it wasn't very indepth anyone who is driven to financial success would be sufficently prepared to purchase stock or a home.

I personally have read many books on financial success outside the classroom, however I hought the class was a good enough primer.

Did they only recently begin teaching economics or has it always been taught?

[Shamou]

Originally Posted by Robert Avila

Well, it looks like with any form of education there will always be gaps. It's important that we seek out mentors, books, seminars and forums such as this to help each other succeed.Robert Avila

The way that I see it, if you want to keep up... you have no choice but to make some form of education a permanent part of your life... thankfully the Internet gives us all the tools that we need to master almost any subject... except... swimming...

.

[Uplift]

Our 'modern' education system is actually a relic, left over from medievil times, and restrained and biased by that era's beliefs. Imagine an education system using techniques like Photo Reading, Meditation, Anthony Robbins, Personal Training, Accelerated Learning, NLP, Paraliminals, and the myriad of other successful learning methods under the 'self help' umbrella. All of these techniques recieve rave reviews from adults, yet aren't good enough for our kids? What is going on?
To me it is a situation beyond ludicrous. Sad even. Learning should be fun, children learn so easily and thrive when they have fun. Kids resist the present teaching methods. Look how they learn so easily from things like Sesame Street, Power Rangers, Ninja Turtles, Bay Blades, etc. They eagerly paticipate in these vehicles which teach them to spell, count, imagine, construct, deduce, ponder...effortlessly in comparison to the ridiculous medievel system. It is ridiculous that after twelve odd years of supposed 'education', people have to seek out 'self help' or 'self improvement' methods to be happy and successful.
Presently, from day one, children are taught to ignore their strongest, most powerful insights, intuitions and self knowledge, and truths. Every particle of their being is telling them to run, jump, climb, test, explore, laugh, laugh, laugh, chat, giggle, giggle, giggle, bond. Yet there they are, forced (and didn't that medievel era just love force) to be still, silent, and bored out of their skulls. Witness the fidgeting, whispering... children reduced to sneaking, contriving, just to chat and giggle with another person. Watch them pour out of school, at every break, free at last, free to be true children.
And that is day one...the pattern continues for the rest of their school lives. A child knows when he or she is hungry, they know when they need a drink, they know when they are tired, they know when they need to go to the toilet, yet all of these base instincts and intuitions, these connections to their individual, unique, special truth, are systematically broken down, and crushed out of them. It served the medievel ruling class very well. So why obese kids at school, drug epidemics at school, murder at school, guns at school, bullying at school, police patrols at school, depression at school? It couldn't possibly be our education system...not the mighty, hallowed halls of Wesminster tradition and fame!
A basic truth paraded around in the 'self help and improvement' world is the premise that doing the same thing over and over produces the same results. That change and different outcomes require different thought and action. Well tough luck kids, wear it, because all the adults are too busy doing self help and improvement seminars to be successful and fullfilled, living their dreams. You kids just shut up, stop fidgeting and whinging and get to school...and you better not fail either or you'll never get anywhere...and no, you can't go to the toilet...its not time, and anyway its been cordoned off by the police searching for clues and bullet shells.
How long are we going to let this idiotic situation persist. I think there's a procrastination seminar coming up.

[Namaste]

Originally Posted by Uplift

Imagine an education system using techniques like Photo Reading, Meditation, Anthony Robbins, Personal Training, Accelerated Learning, NLP, Paraliminals, and the myriad of other successful learning methods under the 'self help' umbrella. All of these techniques recieve rave reviews from adults, yet aren't good enough for our kids? What is going on?

Perhaps it's because some of them aren't backed up by any form of scientific research?

I may be in the minority here, but I actually liked high school. And uni. The subjects were interesting, the teachers supportive, I'm still friends with some people I met there, and I learnt a lot!

In my opinion, it is the lack of things to do *outside* of school apart from meaningless tv watching, shopping and video game playing, along with constant media messages that you have to be this and that to be cool that are (one of) the cause(s) of depression and drugs. Along with the usual growing pains. And the loosening of social networks and cultural identities. But I might be wrong.

[Uplift]

Originally Posted by Namaste

Perhaps it's because some of them aren't backed up by any form of scientific research

Plenty, in fact the majority of scientific research that has been forced on the world is actually incorrect, and swallowed unquestionably by its disciples. Imagine the ignorant puppets of old strutting around the hallowed halls, babbling about Newton's scientific mechanical universe, hurling all into the bonfires that opposed them, only to be well, absolutely wrong. Then take a quantum (huh, whats that?) leap forward into the stunning, indisputable scientific 'proof'... Piltdown Man, the foundation for 'modern anthropology' and a showcase of supreme 'scientific' intelligence. Despite the mountains of brilliant, magnificent proofs, lessons and texts it spawned, it was embarrassingly nothing but a ludicrous comical hoax. Oh well, just a slight hiccup. Then of course we have the bumblings of Michelson and Morley, that have been responsible for, and shaped the whole 'modern' western world view, and that the scientists are finally reduced to admitting was...err, dribble...oh but so eloquent, civilised and sophisticated...dribble. But I guess a degree in dribble is still a degree. As for this mystically appearing and exploding cloud, where did it actually come from anyway? Silence! Mere details ye uncivilised, uneducated fools! Well I guess if you are basing your observations on science, there is every chance they are wrong...if not now, at least they will be in 100 years or so, like the rest of scientific...fact.

[Namaste]

Originally Posted by Uplift

Well I guess if you are basing your observations on science, there is every chance they are wrong...if not now, at least they will be in 100 years or so, like the rest of scientific...fact.

And what are you basing your observations on, hm? Infomercials?

[JiriNovotny]

Not thinking on your own makes you poor. And yup, schools enforce that.

[JiriNovotny]

Originally Posted by Namaste

And what are you basing your observations on, hm? Infomercials?

Common sense perhaps?

[Namaste]

Originally Posted by JiriNovotny

Common sense perhaps?

Is it the same common sense that once told people that the Earth is flat and that still tells people that absense makes the heart grow fonder while at the same time, out of sight out of mind?

[Uplift]

Yes, common sense, available to all, something that is common to all, and that connects us all. Despite science stumbling down the dead end path of assuming, asserting and teaching that we are all separate, and finally, reluctantly, being forced to face their latest mistake. Ever noticed how science conveniently ignores their previous misconceptions that were paraded and enforced as fact. And the monotonous regularity showcasing the only fact, that every new 'scientific' eras 'truths' are eventually wrong. I'm serious, students, stop swallowing tripe, just like the endless stream of redundant, ignorant scientists of the past did, and turn to yourself, your common, infinite sense for some answers. You might learn something that you can rely on.

[Brutha]

Common sense is nothing more than a deposit of prejudices laid down in the mind before you reach eighteen.

The way to make public decision of how to teach children should go through testing the different methods and comparing their results. That is the scientific method.

Just because you are able to self hypnotise yourself in the photoreading process to think you understand the content of a given book doesn't mean you actually understand it..
Therefore you shouldn't teach every child photoreading just because those people who pratice photoreading think they understand what they read.
That is no sensible way to make public policy.
What should happen is that those techniques get tested in pilot projects, where the results get published.
In our society the burdon of prove is in the hands of those people who present the new techniques. For some reason the proponents of Photoreading aren't pushing independent research.

Then we do have an education system that hasn't changed much in the last 100 years, while our scientific theory of learning has changed in the same time.
Students aren't taught mnemonics that could help them with learning foreign languages.
Instead students get told: Find your own way to learn foreign words.

The problem is that the decision to teach that way is based on the "common sense" of the teachers who thinks what they have always done is the best way.

Then their is the part of dealing with their own feelings. It just isn't taught. You could teach traditional psychology here.
You could also teach NLP or meditation in that category.
But it is difficult to measure the effect of such coures. On the other hand nobody measures whether knowing about history improves your life.

[Namaste]

Originally Posted by Uplift

...turn to yourself, your common, infinite sense for some answers...

Uplift, I've done that and my common sense is telling me Paraliminals and Photoreading are BS. What to do, what to do

[JohnPlace]

Definition of Common Sense: based on a strict deconstruction of the term, is what people in common would agree upon. Some use the phrase to refer to beliefs considered prudent without dependence upon study or research.

Definition of Science: any systematic methodology which attempts to collect accurate information about the shared reality and to model this in a way which can be used to make reliable, concrete and quantitative predictions about events, past, present, and future, in line with observations. In a more restricted sense, science refers to a system of acquiring knowledge based on the scientific method, as well as to the organized body of knowledge gained through such research

My two cents: Common sense and Science are *not* the same thing. One is supported by research, reproduceable results, and the scientific method. The other is supported by popular opinion -- we're talking about the same popular opinion that makes the National Enquirer one of the most popular newspapers in America.

[Uplift]

So Namaste, what does your common sense tell you about the endless bungles that science builds its beliefs of the day on? Like 'Newtons Laws', Piltdown, Michelson and Morley, that shape the scientific world view.

[JohnPlace]

Originally Posted by Uplift

So Namaste, what does your common sense tell you about the endless bungles that science builds its beliefs of the day on? Like 'Newtons Laws', Piltdown, Michelson and Morley, that shape the scientific world view.

Einstein built upon the foundation laid by Newton. Scientific knowlege increases with each passing year, but will never be perfect or complete because there will always be something new to learn, explore, and refine.

Plus, there is clear delineation between the reproduceable results of the scientific method and the untestable hypothesis of scientific theory, which often involves topics which cannot be reproduced at all.

The scientific method is the only reason you can communicate with this forum via the internet - it is the process though which technology advances.

Common sense has its place, in the laboratory and in the world. But it is no substitute for science.

[Uplift]

So as long as its a bungle leading to a new 'breakthrough' bungle, its good? Intelligent?

There are other ways that knowledge can been obtained that bypasses the bungles, with correct results. Science can't explain and can't acknowledge them, as the answers effectively nullify science, and knock it off it's self appointed, brutally enforced pedestal. When they ask Indigenous Peoples from the Amazon region, and other Indigenous Peoples, how they arrived at the complex techniques used for rendering inedible, poisonous plants edible, or for locating specific medicines in plants that are chemically identical or superior to many 'breakthrough' drugs, they can't accept or grasp the answer. The answer is along the lines of 'asking the spirit'. Sometimes of the plants, the animals, their own, even rocks... which many Indigenous Cultures view as 'alive'. It is interesting that science viewed rocks as dead, inanimate, yet now detects and is still struggling to understand that they are essentially composed of the identical substance as 'living' things, and indeed are full of life. The Indigenous Peoples are then labelled as inferior and unsophisticated, whilst sneakily, the all out, desperate, patent war ensues to profit from and capture their knowledge.

[Namaste]

Originally Posted by Uplift

So Namaste, what does your common sense tell you about the endless bungles that science builds its beliefs of the day on? Like 'Newtons Laws', Piltdown, Michelson and Morley, that shape the scientific world view.

It tells me that perhaps I shouldn't argue about these topics due to my lack of knowledge in/of these areas.

It also tells me that for each Piltdown man out there, science has gotten a multitude of other things right, including those that are perhaps more relevant to everyday life, in the areas such as medicine, technology and engineering.

[Namaste]

Originally Posted by Uplift

There are other ways that knowledge can been obtained that bypasses the bungles, with correct results.

Uplift, there are other ways of developing knowledge that *social* science recognises and studies. You haven't yet explained the superiority of such pathwa