Survival Classes

​Our education system misses the boat on many classes students could use in our rapidly changing world. If you’re a thinking person, you’ve probably thought of classes that every student could use to better adjust to society and prepare for complexity and tough situations they might encounter in the years ahead.
 
Having discussions with friends and colleagues on these types of issues, I often hear “financial management” as a necessary class that is not taught (investing, preparing for retirement, balancing your checkbook/budget; little and big stuff). Another one that arises during conversations is comparative religion – teaching all the world great religions so teenagers enter the adult world with a more rounded perspective on the beliefs of others.

The potential subjects are almost endless. I’m confident you have thought of your own.

Here are three of my favorites that roll around my head. Two are relatively new to my thought processes (one in the last few months and the other in the past year or so), while the other has bounced around my brain for 3-4 years.
 

1. Artificial intelligence (AI): This one has cropped up most recently. We need to teach what AI is, how it acts, what it means for jobs, how it will change the workforce and our REALITY. The implications are so thorough that we can’t afford not to teach our youth in-depth about AI. Whether you like it or fear it, AI is going to affect all of us for many years to come. Being prepared is critical for each of us.
2. BS detection of memes and deep fakes: This one has arisen over the past year or so. I keep telling a good friend he needs to create a business where people send him deep fakes and he analyzes them (he has the skills to do this professionally) to determine true or false, manipulated or accurate. We are living this world. We are crushed with images and phrases that have been changed and charged to cause you to feel something that’s not true. The only way to understand these types of is to have a BS detector. A well taught class would prepare us, and this is a survival skill in our ever-more-digitized world.
3. Anger/conflict management: This is a personal favorite and one I’ve discussed vehemently with many people over the years (more on that in a sec). This mandated class for high school students would be designed to help identify angry people and situations and give you the tools on how to mitigate the conflict, dial back rage.

Several years back, I wrote extensively to all my elected representatives, suggesting this as an important course for high school students (and their lives as they continued to mature and grow through the years). Given the number of school shootings in the United States, it is a realistic and doable alternative to mitigate some of the mass shootings that occur far too often in our society. It would arm students with tools to understand and identify when someone is going off the rails, and step forward with solutions.

Alone, it is not going to cure the world. But it is a step. None of my federal or state elected officials responded to my emails suggesting they develop and push for this type of legislation to build an anger/conflict management program in our schools. That sadly says something about the state of our elected officials. While I didn’t expect an immediate “yes, this is great and I’m going to adopt everything you wrote and sponsor a bill,” I did expect a rational response that supported the intent of what I’d written to them.
 
Those are three worthwhile classes if we’re going to have a next generation adaptive to changing technology, visual manipulation, outright lies and people who struggle to handle complexity without popping a blood vessel in their foreheads. Let’s hope someone listens. Feel free to share this column with your elected officials. Maybe something will happen.

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