Things Every Kid Should Learn in School

“Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.”

-John Dewey

The current school system has been around for 150 years.  In that time we've moved from horses to cars, landed on the moon, and toddlers can instantly watch videos answering any question ever asked. Changes to the school system, however, are largely limited to central air and some computer use. 

The foundation of the school day, also known as the “factory model of education,” is still condensed into repetition and memorization for a handful of general subjects over a 7-hour period while seated in a 30-person classroom taught by an underpaid teacher. Prep for a standardized test, take the test with a number two pencil, and if you perform below average then feel shame and take a pill.

Changing Times

We’re in a time where we know significantly more about the brain, learning styles, and the benefits of teaching a kid based on their strengths and weaknesses.  We know that sitting down for 6 hours of rote learning a day is less mentally, physically, and socially beneficial than project-based learning.  We know that much of the stuff we teach kids now will be useless for them when they’re older.  

We used to be able to say that kids are “getting the experience” of how to learn.  But that’s also less true in the world of YouTube, VR, and the immediate Google search.  Workplace environments are changing, social norms are adapting, and machines can remember more in a second than we can in a lifetime.  

We recognize all this but still, we accept what is.

Lacking Skills

Schools aren’t teaching kids about themselves either.  There’s no emphasis on how what they do impacts who they become and how they feel.  Humans first started writing around 3400 B.C. and calculus was only recently discovered in the 1700s.  But our ancestors have been around for 300,000 years and the evolutionary hardwiring in our brains on a daily basis for millions of years more.  

Kids can directly impact their mood, behaviors, and future selves through their basic biology like breathing, eating, and moving.  Yet every day we see kids walking down the street with open mouths staring at a screen in one hand and dangling a Pop-Tart in the other.  

Then there are the communal and higher-level skills kids can learn and develop, knowing that there will be a direct impact on the quality of their lives well beyond adolescence: sexuality, personal finance, and interpersonal skills.  Credit card debt is in the 100’s of billions, sexual abuse is too common, and 37% of Gen Z report that they have worsened social skills due to tech.

Humans are terrible at predicting the future so we don’t know which specific ways to prepare future generations for this changing workforce.  So an emphasis on creating resilient humans at the foundational levels needs to be implemented to be ready to withstand everything they choose to do in the future.

It’s extremely important for kids to learn to read and to write, to learn why they live in a country that celebrates freedom, and how and why weather impacts the earth.  But schools need to incorporate then emphasize the basics of our mental, physical, and social health and they need to do it in a way that evokes more than just two senses.  

What Every Kid Should Learn

Mindfulness & Breathwork

Kids are raised in a world that doesn’t match up with the underlying purpose of the stress levers of their brains.  Humans evolved to have two branches of the autonomic nervous system: the sympathetic (fight, flight, or freeze) and the parasympathetic (rest, digest, and repair).  The former served us well for years by fending off tigers and holding our own against neighboring villages.  In an environment where we’re safe and relatively comfortable 99.,9% of the time, our stress lever just can’t seem to stay down.  This results in anxiety, behavioral challenges, emotional instability, sleep problems, GI distress, isolation, and a lack of control and confidence. 

When stress happens, most kids react by mirroring whatever their parents do.  In the best of situations, kids have supportive parents, therapists, and doctors who help them through these situations.  But what if schools taught kids how to both recognize and regulate their response in the moment and mitigate the occurrences in the future? 

For situations as common as test anxiety or as harmful as trauma and abuse, breathwork, mindfulness, and its formal cousin, meditation, are incredibly powerful, evidence-based tools to manage inevitable stressors in our lives.  We graduate 8th grade knowing how to evaluate linear algebraic expressions but not how to manage an emotion. 

Nutrition

We live in a world where people think fries and ketchup count as vegetables and chronic conditions that barely existed in kids generations ago–such as obesity and type 2 diabetes– are now normal.  The business of food has changed drastically over recent decades and not in a way that aligns with our bodies.  Kids need to learn what the effects of a brightly colored package, unpronounceable ingredients, and some good advertising can do to them.

We spend 240 hours a year thinking about food.  If kids were taught a basic understanding of food and how it interacts with their bodies, these hours of thought could translate to healthy decisions.  The outcomes could have a positive impact in both the short-term (better behavior, sleep, moods, and body function) and the long-term (more energy, better cognition, less disease, and a longer healthspan).

Food and nutrition is a fraught topic held close to the chest of many people, however, there is plenty of undeniable information on the impact of food on the human body.  Teaching kids how to read nutrition labels, identify what their food consists of and where it came from, and knowing how macro- and micronutrients impact their well-being are skills best taught early. 

Personal Finance

When I was younger and I heard someone’s job had to do with “finance” I drifted off to sleep before they finished the word.  Now that I have some money and taught myself what to do with it, I perk up a bit at the topic of what could be. 

The average American has poor financial literacy at best. According to a 2018 Forbes article, 44% of Americans don’t have enough money on hand to cover a $400 emergency, 33% of Americans have nothing saved for retirement, and 38% of U.S. households have credit card debt (averaging $16,048).  On top of that, money is the number one cause of stress for 73% of people.  

Kids are taught amortization, interest rates, and the power of compound interest.  But every kid should learn exactly what to do with their money, going beyond earning it and stashing it in the bank.  Lessons should begin early with an open dialogue about the power of money in our everyday life.  Kids should learn the basics of taxes as well as how to budget, invest in a low-cost index fund, donate money, use a credit card, and know the pros and cons of debt.  As is often said, personal finance tends to be more personal than finance so a focus on the psychology of money would be important to include as well.

Verbal Communication  

We learn how to read, write, and parse a sentence down to the conjunctive adverb but few of us learn how to simply speak and listen.  Every time we talk we have an impact on someone else and it reflects back on their perception of us.  How we speak, then, is important in how these basic human social connections are made but it goes well beyond that.  A fear of public speaking can cut your income by 10% and limit your ability to get that promotion by 15%. 

Good communication is often one of the first answers to any issue you have with another human being including your spouse, kids, friends, boss, neighbors, and even your worst enemies.

My mom urged me to do forensics in grade school and I was resistant because of my shyness but man do I wish I could go back  I missed out on the opportunity to develop basic skills that could have taught me how to foster better relationships with everyone I’ve ever interacted with.  Kids should be taught the fundamental verbal communication skills including verbal conflict resolution, negotiation, debate, small talk, and the components of conversations with those in various roles (peers, authoritative figures, etc.).  Verbal communication is strongly correlated with interpersonal skills, healthy relationships, and the quality of our life. 

Sex(uality) Education

The extent of my sex ed in grade school was a highly anticipated hour of an outdated movie with buzz-word pamphlets and discussions about anatomy.  Granted, I went to a Catholic school in the 90s but the topic has yet to be a mainstream part of the curriculum across the country. 

Sex ed should be woven into a curriculum that begins at an early age with pre-intercourse topics of healthy relationships and love.  As the brain of the child matures, the educational information should follow the hormonal developmental progression of how to handle the inevitable breakups, dealing with awkward situations of intimacy, and discussions around topics like STIs, fertility, gender identity, porn, and sexual abuse.  As importantly, it should include romantic relationships and how to love someone in a non-physical way.

The act of sex itself, the basis for sex ed, is just one part of the complex interconnectedness of our beings.  Sex is up there with food and shelter as our basic human needs. For that reason, it’s why we’re all here. Making it a taboo topic only exacerbates the topical fears and concerns today’s humans already have.  

Physical Fitness

We’re born with beautiful range of motion and reflex patterns that turn a blob of tissues into natural squatters, deadlifters, runners, and jumpers over the first couple of years of life.  Then suddenly our progress halts, then worsens, around 6 years old because kids enter first grade and are forced to transition from more natural play to extensive periods of sitting.  Their hip extension ranges shorten, kyphosis emerges, body fat percentages increase, and behavioral issues like ADHD become evident.  (Sidenote: Julie and Kelly Starrett founded StandUpKids.com as a way to get kids to stand vs. sit in school.  The site offers great information including how to test your child’s range of motion.)

Establishing a focus on general movement and physical health is critical.  Kids don’t need stopwatches and whistles and a Crossfit workout 5 days a week shouldn’t be the goal.  The medium should be play–the way in which kids learn best–with the goals of being able to efficiently throw, swim, squat, lunge, hinge, and sprint.  A focus on technique and comradery to achieve goals with activity (games, sports, etc.), and the reasons why and how ever body benefits from movement would be a good start.  The downstream effects of more frequent and efficient movements include better proprioception, visual motor skills, sensory integration, coordination, modulation, confidence, and social interaction.  This leads to better learning, the establishment of healthy habits in life, and, you know, just letting kids do what they do best–be kids.  

Takeaway

Early education is the perfect time for kids to learn foundational physical and cognitive skills that benefit them in both the short- and long-term.  School curriculums are increasingly outdated as technology continues to outpace the needs of our slower-to-evolve brains.  This mismatch goes beyond a lack of preparation for the real world.  It results in the ever-increasing issues we see in society: chronic disease, school violence, and effects on our healthspan and lifespan.  

Not only are these topics not addressed often, but in many schools, they’re totally ignored.  The inclusion of any of these subjects begins with a conversation and progresses to action.  Kids are incredible specimens that deserve to be set up for a successful future.  The best time to start is yesterday, the second best time is now.

Do you agree that these “subjects” should be taught to kids?  Which other topics do you believe should be included in the curriculum?