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Brian Kim: Teach kids time management

Top 5 Things That Should Be Taught In Every School

I enjoyed reading this list and was especially into number five:

#5: Time Management

Speaking of other skills that can be utilized in any job and career is time management. The majority of students never really learn to value their time and mange it while in school. Procrastination is all too rampant (studying right before class, doing homework and essays the day it’s due, partying the night before the exam). This lack of time management often carries over into adulthood, which becomes a major liability.

Learn to make a to do list. Learn to prioritize. Learn to break things down into 30 minute blocks of time. Learn about actionable items. David Allen’s GTD system is your best friend here along with Dan Kennedy’s No B.S Time Management. Again if you’re unfamiliar with these people, Google is your best friend, but I’m sure the majority of readers will know what I’m talking about.

What would you add to the list of skills you think should be taught in school?

[ via: Anarchaia (3/14/07) ]

Alison's picture

Okay, having taught at high...

Okay, having taught at high school and university, and having had a pretty shitty time at high school, I've got plenty of ideas here.

First, I'm being utopian, and assuming that education from kindergarten to university would be fully funded as far as need be. I'd also assume that the entire structure would change: our education system is woeful, being designed over a century ago to mass-produce clerks. It matches neither our nature nor our current culture.

That said, here's what I think would be vital areas throughout school:

1) Basic finances and statistics, so kids learn what money means and how not to get into trouble, as well as being able to spot some of the fast ones the government pulls;

2) Basic life skills like first aid, nutrition, cooking (and washing dishes!), exercise, and basic legal stuff. Give them the basics to survive;

3) Logic and critical thinking, so they don't get fooled by marketing, and don't get sucked in by all the stupid things the government does (I'm in Australia, and our government is only slightly less stupid than yours ;-);

4) Independence and problem-solving, along the lines of something that David Suzuki described at the end of Good News For A Change, so that they learn self-reliance and how to deal with things they've never faced;

5) Environmental studies, which includes end-to-end food production and manufacturing, so they don't think milk bottles materialise at the supermarket and vanish from the bin.

Obviously all this would have to be taught in a very different way to the current 'chalk and talk' method, which is itself a big problem: kids learn very shallowly when they're writing stuff down and rehearsing to pass tests.

 
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