Economic and political teaching was basic, particularly at the base-line level (which often just covered things like "define a political party" as an entire unit goal, from what I heard). I was in AP Government and Politics, and we learned a lot - and most of us, if we talked to anyone else, student or otherwise, were met with blank stares, and most past students of the class forgot it all, like everything else they learned that they don't directly use in college.
Economics teaching was mostly theoretical (supply and demand), and there was no banking or financial classes even available. The closest was one "Business Law" class, which most kids took because the curriculum was so basic the teacher only spent half the class-time teaching and the other half let the kids goof-off.
It's not just a matter of requiring these classes, but requiring them in such a way as to be useful to students.
(That said, most classes students are mandated to take will never be useful - unless you're going into a math-oriented field, you won't need much advanced algebra, which is a required course in my state; on the flip side, most people will need to know how to balance a check-book or cook a basic meal, but that class was recently decided as superfluous, because in parents are supposed to teach that to their kids, anyway...key word: supposed to, not do.)
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Date: 6/7/11 07:29 (UTC)Economic and political teaching was basic, particularly at the base-line level (which often just covered things like "define a political party" as an entire unit goal, from what I heard). I was in AP Government and Politics, and we learned a lot - and most of us, if we talked to anyone else, student or otherwise, were met with blank stares, and most past students of the class forgot it all, like everything else they learned that they don't directly use in college.
Economics teaching was mostly theoretical (supply and demand), and there was no banking or financial classes even available. The closest was one "Business Law" class, which most kids took because the curriculum was so basic the teacher only spent half the class-time teaching and the other half let the kids goof-off.
It's not just a matter of requiring these classes, but requiring them in such a way as to be useful to students.
(That said, most classes students are mandated to take will never be useful - unless you're going into a math-oriented field, you won't need much advanced algebra, which is a required course in my state; on the flip side, most people will need to know how to balance a check-book or cook a basic meal, but that class was recently decided as superfluous, because in parents are supposed to teach that to their kids, anyway...key word: supposed to, not do.)