No course in the academic curriculum is useless: teacher's perspective
I wish to lend my voice on one of the topics from this week's prompt.
I have been in the classroom for close to a decade now, and I can boldly say that no coursework or subject from nursery to university is not important or not applicable to real-life situations. This is contrary to what a lot of people have said about the school system. Many people think that some subjects/courses in the school system should be scrapped because some of them have exhausted their usefulness. The world has changed and lots of things have to be changed as well. The school system is a micro part of the macro system; hence, whatever affects the macro system must affect the micro system. Before now, our societies were not as technologically advanced as what we have today. There were no inventions of robots and artificial intelligence systems, as well as the growth in blockchain technologies and many others. However, for a society to meet up with the new trends, the educational system and academic curriculum have to be upgraded from what they used to be. These, however, do not rule out the fact that some of the subjects and courses have become useless and obsolete. It all points to the fact that these new courses should be added to the school system, hence giving learners multiple choices.
As a teacher, I know how important some subjects are to learners. Some of these subjects help develop the thinking abilities of learners. Some people might not find their applicability in real-life situations, but in a real sense, that knowledge solves many problems. I read somewhere that some courses should be ruled out of the university system because they have outlived their usefulness in today's world. The writer mentioned sociology, anthropology, political science, philosophy, microbiology, and many others. I could sense how shallow the writer's mentality could be. Because he thought that those courses were not important any longer. Let's take sociology as an example, the knowledge of society can help a person understand the social behaviour of people. It is a pathway to understanding the culture and history of the people. This can help trace the beginning of the human race. No matter how a course might be it is still relevant in the school system.
In today's world, everyone is talking about tech and robotics. As good as these innovations are, not everyone can venture into tech. Everyone cannot study coding, web development and robotics. If everyone cannot do these, then other fields of study should be there for others to explore.
Meanwhile, a course of study might not be relevant in one country but might be in another. So having this knowledge can open doors of opportunities in another country. So looking down on some courses or subjects in the school system is not fair and should be discouraged.
This is my take on one of the topics from this week's prompt.