'Real education' in High Schools in US

[Andy777E]

All,

With my experience in life so far - all the Maths, Physics, Chemistry, and Calculus etc. etc. I learned till my engineering was waste.
No business skills taught in school, no special skills taught in schools. I am not against education and during my professional career took several pieces of training and certifications- which helped. But schools was a 95% waste.

I don't want my son (in middle school) to waste time learning unwanted skills. But yes education is still important by the time they mature.
So the main question is are there any special high schools- which focus on Computers or Business or something similar instead of all the crap!
Appreciate inputs on how we can turn 4 years of high school into 'real education'.
Thank you!

 

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[Kid]

Appreciate inputs on how we can turn 4 years of high school into 'real education'.

Drop him out, let him create a business.

 

[Runum]

All,

With my experience in life so far - all the Maths, Physics, Chemistry, and Calculus etc. etc. I learned till my engineering was waste.
No business skills taught in school, no special skills taught in schools. I am not against education and during my professional career took several pieces of training and certifications- which helped. But schools was a 95% waste.

I don't want my son (in middle school) to waste time learning unwanted skills. But yes education is still important by the time they mature.
So the main question is are there any special high schools- which focus on Computers or Business or something similar instead of all the crap!
Appreciate inputs on how we can turn 4 years of high school into 'real education'.
Thank you!

I am sure there are but they would most likely be private or charter schools. Public schools are required by fed and state gov to teach all the crap.

You can also home school him, wild school him, or have him learn online from home.

From my experience as a teacher, it is going to be a challenge because so many kids growing up are so full of talk and dreams and do not want to do the work. If they are called on their BS they get into the excuse making and whining. There are a LOT of emotional and mental games played by kids while they are growing up. This is all normal and a part of growing, they are testing boundaries and have all kinds of hormonal changes and social pressures. I spent a semester in a remedial high school and tried to show the kids different ways to build businesses and make a life. Lots of BIG talk and zero action. These were out of the box kids, not book worms. The experience was surprising and disappointing.

Good luck.

 

[Andy777E]

Agree it won't be easy. I did little research earlier to Home School but seems like lot of formalities and my side hustles and day job won't allow me. How about other countries? Are there options outside US- just curious. It may be even harder to stay away.

 

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[Glootie]

Perhaps just let him get into a normal school so that he can develop social skills and adapt to other humans and, like the good parent that you are, teach him the skills you want him to acquire? Getting just enough "good grades" in high school doesn't take much time, and in his free time, you could teach him about business.

 

[WestCoast]

Public education in the United States was awful when I did it 25 years ago.
It appears it's much worse today.

Do they teach critical thinking?
Financial literacy?
Do they teach any basics about life? Nope.


You don't need to stop working to teach your child real lessons.
Charter schools, pods and many other alternatives exist.

It's your kids future, I'd encourage you to look a bit deeper than 'I'm busy'

If I had kids (I don't), there would be 0.0% chance they would ever enter a public school.
That includes public college too (the route I went... and yeah, private would have been better).

 

[Kevin88660]

All,

With my experience in life so far - all the Maths, Physics, Chemistry, and Calculus etc. etc. I learned till my engineering was waste.
No business skills taught in school, no special skills taught in schools. I am not against education and during my professional career took several pieces of training and certifications- which helped. But schools was a 95% waste.

I don't want my son (in middle school) to waste time learning unwanted skills. But yes education is still important by the time they mature.
So the main question is are there any special high schools- which focus on Computers or Business or something similar instead of all the crap!
Appreciate inputs on how we can turn 4 years of high school into 'real education'.
Thank you!

Sounds like a good idea is you are preparing him to work for the SAAS industry or start an internet business in the future, learning practical skills like website design or coding.

But you still need the foundations in Math and Physics to be an engineer or to major in computing science in college. What about data science?

Just make sure if you not closing off too many doors too early for a teenager.

 

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[amp0193]

I don't want my son (in middle school) to waste time learning unwanted skills. But yes education is still important by the time they mature.
{/quote]

I don't think most of school is a complete waste. English Literature, History, Science, Math, Sports, Music programs. The American school system is a poor delivery method for the information, but to have a working knowledge of the basics isn't a bad thing.

I'm a dad, my oldest is 6. Here's some things I'm thinking about to prepare her:

Teaching her piano (myself).
Taking ballet classes
Talking to her about what I'm doing in my business every day at dinner time (learning through stories).
Taking her to the warehouse twice a month on weekends, to see what we're doing.
Getting her taking courses online (gamified coding courses like Treehouse are really fun!)
Paying her money for every business book she reads and does a report on (when she can read!)
Having her watch Tony Robbins videos and TED talks.

She got $20 birthday money last week, and bought a toy on Amazon. Now she wants more money. Great opportunity to teach her about savings, and also that money comes from doing work... either for somebody else, or owning your own business. I actually have 200 envelopes she can stuff that I was going to have an employee do, but I'll let her do the work instead and pay her for it. She's not going to get an allowance or money for doing chores.

I don't think there will be a better teacher than her growing up working in my business.


I hired 1 local middle school kid and 1 local high school kid to work this summer, and it was so rewarding to see them learning and working in a real job at age 14/15, developing mechanic skills and making $400 a week, while all of their friends were playing Fortnite. Can't wait until it's my own kids!

 

[blueyedgibson]

Perhaps just let him get into a normal school so that he can develop social skills and adapt to other humans and, like the good parent that you are, teach him the skills you want him to acquire? Getting just enough "good grades" in high school doesn't take much time, and in his free time, you could teach him about business

I moved to the US when I was 11 years old and tested into the 12th grade level on all of the standardized tests. The school counselors decided to put me into 8th grade so that I could develop "social skills" and experience high school. Looking back, I think that hurt me more than anything.

When I was 11 I was eager to learn and excel in school, I had confidence and an optimistic outlook. High school changed me. I started out in AP classes but became apathetic and did the bare minimum I could to get an A or B in every class. I was bullied a lot which in my opinion is not acquiring good "social skills", although it did give me thick skin. One positive would be the opportunity to play high school sports, which I did as much as I could. I didn't have the option for homeschool or anyone around to teach me business, computers or how to play a musical instrument.

I sometimes wonder if going from a British private school to an American public school had a negative impact on my education and trajectory. I don't necessarily have any regrets since the whole experience shaped who I am, but I am sure I learned many valuable life skills during that time. I just think if you have the option to offer your kids something that challenges them, motivates them and benefits them, then do it. Every situation is different, I'm just speaking from my experience.

I also think that the whole education system has been disrupted because of COVID, and it may not go back to the way it was before.

 

[Glootie]

I moved to the US when I was 11 years old and tested into the 12th grade level on all of the standardized tests. The school counselors decided to put me into 8th grade so that I could develop "social skills" and experience high school. Looking back, I think that hurt me more than anything.

When I was 11 I was eager to learn and excel in school, I had confidence and an optimistic outlook. High school changed me. I started out in AP classes but became apathetic and did the bare minimum I could to get an A or B in every class. I was bullied a lot which in my opinion is not acquiring good "social skills", although it did give me thick skin. One positive would be the opportunity to play high school sports, which I did as much as I could. I didn't have the option for homeschool or anyone around to teach me business, computers or how to play a musical instrument.

I sometimes wonder if going from a British private school to an American public school had a negative impact on my education and trajectory. I don't necessarily have any regrets since the whole experience shaped who I am, but I am sure I learned many valuable life skills during that time. I just think if you have the option to offer your kids something that challenges them, motivates them and benefits them, then do it. Every situation is different, I'm just speaking from my experience.

I also think that the whole education system has been disrupted because of COVID, and it may not go back to the way it was before.

Overprotective parents tend to grow their kids thin-skinned, which has a noticeable consequence during encounters with other kids. Kids/teens can feel if you're either soft or somebody not to be fugged around with, and it all depends on how you grew up. Personally I was bullied at school because of my origins, and I was too soft sometimes to stand up to myself. Now I'm in college and every time a guy tries to ''test me'' I simply just call him out on his BS and he just fall back.

My most major experience which got me into entrepreneurship was during the first year of high school. I got such bad grades that I couldn't get into the field of study I wanted to get into, so I was desperately looking for alternatives (I still had the mindset that if you didn't study science, you were a no one). In this case, school pushed me into a new way of thinking.

But maybe his kid would want to do med school or to become an engineer. He can't do any of that (or very hardly) without going to school. Personally, I would put my kind through school until college and I let him the decision whether or not he wants/can go through college.

 

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[Kasimir]

Agree it won't be easy. I did little research earlier to Home School but seems like lot of formalities and my side hustles and day job won't allow me. How about other countries? Are there options outside US- just curious. It may be even harder to stay away.

The education system is bad, that's for sure. Not only in the US but in nearly every country, and that's from a person living in Switzerland a country with one of the best eductions. Would love to rant about our education system but that's not the place to do so.

It depends on what a good school is for you. I personally don't think that young kids need to learn a lot about business in school. I think it's important for kids to be kids until a certain age.
I had my first contact with business in school at the age of 15. At the same age, I started working in a big company. (Yeah that's more or less normal in Switzerland)
For me, the school wasn't there to teach you math, languages or so, it's more to have fun, learn some social skills, and maybe start a sport.
You could send your son to Switzerland where he'd get more or less free education until he's 18 and after that, he can go to a swiss university for around $1000/year or so. However, maybe he isn't into business and rather into football. I wouldn't move or send him to a special school I'd just try to teach him some skills in his free time.
And as @blueyedgibson said look that he/she gets a tick skin.

Sorry if this sounded like I'd say what you have to do for your kid. It's just my opinion. You can do whatever you want. Wish you all the best.