The New Core
It’s time to recreate what we consider essential knowledge of incoming adult citizens.
Under No Child Left Behind, Congress defined the core subjects as:
- English
- reading or language arts
- mathematics
- science
- foreign languages
- civics and government
- economics
- arts
- history
- geography
Apparently that wasn’t enough, so NCLB’s replacement, the Every Child Achieves Act, expanded the core by adding:
- writing
- technology
- engineering
- computer science
- music
- physical education
- and any other subject as determined by the state or local educational agency
That’s 16+ items that we’re calling ‘core’ subjects. Each subject has its own set of semester and year classes that further segregate the subjects.
I think we need fewer subjects that we can call core, and I think courses should be more flexible both in subject matter and in timing. So I offer up the new core:
- Life Skills: You need to take care of yourself as an adult. Mentally, physically, emotionally, nutritionally, and so on.
- The Sciences: You need to understand the Earth, basically. Its history, its future, the universe it exists in, the life on it, the forces that created and continue to modify it.
- Civilization: You should understand how humans tend to interact with one another, how culture and history affects that, how societies work through disagreements and get along.
- Technology: You should understand how to operate different forms of technology like computers, cell phones, and cars. You should understand electricity and signals.
- Communication: You should understand how to speak, write, and read.
- Careers: You should know how to be a professional, how to get a job, how to keep a job and improve, the basics of how businesses work and make money.
To graduate, a student would need to earn a minimum amount of points in each subject. As teachers collaborate (or not) to create small courses, every point possible in the course is given a category.
Where are the arts? Throughout. Depending on what kind of art it is, it could be a life skill, a technology, a communication, or fall under civilization.
