If someone posted this question on Threads, the comments would be unkind and someone would ask the OP if this is rage bait. There are many opinions out there about what schools do and do not teach. Some groups of people insist that teachers are indoctrinating kids with LGBTQ+ ideology. Some people want to make sure schools don’t teach critical race theory, and instead, they want to whitewash the curriculum when it comes to the events in U.S. history that were unkind to people of different races and ethnicities. And there are people who think schools should teach students more life skills–how to do taxes, how to do any number of things that society will require them to know how to do.
Arguments for and against these various things include the fact that parents need to be more involved with their kids’ education and by that, meaning they should teach those basic life skills to their kids. Schools can’t teach them everything. There’s no time. Also, teachers are not “turning kids gay” or whatever people are insisting they’re doing. If teachers are going to indoctriante kids into anything, it’s going to be to make them use deodorant.
As a former teacher myself, I know that what I taught was exactly what was in the standards set for my state and my grade level. In fact, one year, I was on the committee with the diocese to revise the English standards. As a Catholic school teacher specifically, I know that I was not allowed to mention anything regarding the reproductive system when I taught body systems in 7th grade science. It was in the standards for some reason, but yet, all I could say about it was that the reproductive system’s purpose was for bringing life into the world. Then I had to move on. Private schools certainly have more freedom with what they teach. I’m sure some of them may be teaching things that are controversial, or avoiding those things.
But what it all comes down to, is that kids in school need to learn the basics. The good ole’ reading, writing, and arithmetic. Now, obviously as kids get into upper grades, there’s more variety in how they learn those basics. College prep level classes, advanced placement, etc. They’ll take specific classes based on what career they’re going to persue when they graduate and go off to college. Some kids don’t go to college. Regardless of what kids do after high school, they need to graduate with enough knowledge to survive in the world. It’s like what I always told my English students. They would always complain about my grammar lessons. One kid, I can still picture him, he argued that he is never going to need to know how to identify the gerund in a sentence when he grows up. I told him he was absolutely correct. At no time in his life is someone going to ask him to identify the gerund in a sentence. Or any other grammar concept I had taught them. However, learning these grammar concepts and how to use them properly will make him know how to write well. People will absolutely judge him if he doesn’t know how to write well. It could cost him a job. And that’s the point of what I was teaching them. How to use these skills to their benefit in the real world. That’s what kids need to know in school and that’s what should actually be taught.
(I had this meme printed out and hanging in my classroom. I feel like a Barack Obama mic drop is appropriate for my ending here).
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