 A high school curriculum should definitely include a healthy dose of
math because you never know when someone might ask you to solve a
binomial equation. Not that a normal person would remember how to do
a binomial equation if he hadn't been doing them every day of his
life, but the general knowledge should be somewhere in your
subconscious, ready to be accessed at any given moment.I
understand, also, that history should be part of a well-rounded high
school education. This is so that the mistakes of the past can be
avoided in the future. The problem with history is that the lessons
are learned in the details, not the overview, which is generally
taught in the average history class. What can you learn from knowing
who the winner was at Bunker Hill unless you know why and how they
won?
What good is knowing that Abraham Lincoln was assassinated unless
you know why? If not for the why, we could assume that he was shot
simply because he was president. Therefore, the lesson might be that
if one wants to live, he shouldn't be president. The "why" helps you
decide whether the causes were worth the outcome. I think Lincoln
would have said it was.
English is certainly a must for a good education because
communication is the basis of civilization. We want civilization,
right? Civilization is what produced deodorant, mouthwash and toilet
paper. So, OK, we need English.
Science is appropriate as well. It's important to know how our
world works and why something might spontaneously combust. Science
rocks!
The subject I don't understand is the foreign language
requirement. My son has to choose a foreign language to study for
two years. The boy barely has English licked. Now we're going to
throw a whole new language into the machine that is his brain and
totally clog up the works.
I say his brain is a machine because he is a very black-and-white
thinker. It either is or it isn't; there is no middle.
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 English, itself, requires a creative thinker. It breaks so many
of its own rules that we have to create rhymes for the extenuating
circumstances.
"'I' before 'E'" -- that's straightforward enough, but it's not
precisely true.
We have to add, "except after 'C.'"
Still not good enough, so there is a caveat: "or when sounding
like 'A,'" with examples, "like in neighbor and weigh."
This is not black-and-white. This is multicolored polka dots.
Speaking of polkas, my son has chosen to learn German, the
language of his ancestors. This, I think, is a good choice for him,
because the German language often sounds as though one is hawking up
a loogie. There is no one who knows how to hawk a loogie better than
my son.
I do, however, foresee some challenges, especially with the whole
"'I' before 'E'" thing. In German, "I" before "E" sounds like "E"
even without a "C," and I'm not sure if there are any exceptions or
caveats.
...It's going to be a tough year.
[By LAURA SNYDER]
Laura Snyder is a nationally syndicated columnist,
author and speaker. You can reach her at
lsnyder@lauraonlife.com
or visit www.lauraonlife.com
for more info.
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