The goal of schools is not to prepare you for capitalism. Luckily, they’re one of the few institutions that are still concerned with human values beyond money.
You could argue it would be valuable, from a practical sense, to additionally offer classes on personal finance, sure, but it’s abhorrent to use music lessons as a mocking point or suggest that somehow the school should teach finance instead of all other subject matters.
Facebook tier meme
What’s wrong with teaching music in school? I never got on with it, but some of my classmates genuinely loved it. And now that we’re adults they aren’t professional musicians by any stretch of the imagination, but they still enjoy playing just for the fun of it or as a hobby.
Few people I know do financial literacy as a hobby, no judgement though if that’s what helps you unwind after a day at the office.
I’m pretty sure this is a song lyric from “the poor”, by Jesse Welles.
“I was memorizing capitols
I was in the spelling bee
I must’ve missed the part
Where they taught the art of private equity
I was selling chocolate bars
I had a disorder
I was cuttin’ up a frog
Got lost in the fog
Learnin’ how to play a recorder
“
I don’t think it’s supposed to be a slam against musical instruments.
This is a right wing meme
how
there’s a reason that the acronym is STEAM now. the arts are just as important as science, tech, engineering and maths (both for society and culture at large, but more specifically it’s been shown that music helps people with learning other academic concepts). the right sees the only value in society as that which produces direct economic value. it’s a right wing meme because it paints the arts as a waste of time, and economic management as important
Got it. Thanks for the explanation!
A few things to unpack here. Firstly, the most right wing people I know are PhD candidates in philosophy. They are huge proponents of the arts. They would argue that the anti-arts sentiment in the Republican Party today comes from their embrace of the working class and is not a traditional conservative value.
Secondly, the reason many of us disregard the STEAM acronym is because it’s meaningless. Arts encompasses all of the subjects outside of STEM so STEAM just means “all subjects” which is not something you can focus on by definition.
the most right wing people I know are PhD candidates in philosophy. They are huge proponents of the arts. They would argue that the anti-arts sentiment in the Republican Party today comes from their embrace of the working class and is not a traditional conservative value.
i think that this comes down to terminology and communication… generally in the world today, “right wing” encompasses social and economic conservatism. when i say right wing (as an aussie), im talking about both the republican party, and the australian Liberal/national coalition (bearing in mind that the capital L liberal in their name means economic liberalism - aka libertarian)
i agree with a lot of right wing values, BUT im much more left, because whilst i think that economy and currency are important to produce left wing (for everyone) values, it fails to account for negative externalities (which includes both social, and economic economic externalities… and honestly social negative externalities lead to economic externalities)
“right wing” today in general communication, imo, means something different to what right wing meant during the french revolution
Arts encompasses all of the subjects outside of STEM so STEAM just means “all subjects” which is not something you can focus on by definition.
it doesn’t though… business (including both accounting and management), hospitality, trades, law, marketing, psych, teaching… i hesitate to include nursing but not medicine, but there’s a grey area there… and i didn’t even start to list trades and things in australia that aren’t “university” but covered by “TAFE”
STEAM is almost… secondary value: by default (except tech and eng perhaps?) they don’t produce value, but are important precursors that feed INTO the other things. you have to value the precursors, else the other “value makers” don’t have a foundation
Labor are also right wing, they literally introduced neoliberalism to our shores.
It’s anti art and culture.
Also, financial literacy applies to capitalist systems, by glorifying it, they are glorifying capitalism
Recognizing and surviving within the system you are in a skill everyone needs, it is not glorifying anything.
Home economics was an excellent class that exposed students to many creative and practical applications that were often ultimately built around budgeting.
Too bad they don’t really offer that anymore
Because they don’t like being recorded?
Nah apparently recorders are a Nazi plot or something so this is based & wokepilled.
This is stupid.
In school they had us practice recorder in ghe 4th grade, ages 9/10. I took accounting in highschool, ages 16/17.
We did both. Not only did we do both, these two lessons were taught at very different stages of education.
Came here to say this, we also learned recorder in 4th grade. If you tried teaching 4th graders about trading securities derivatives you’d have a riot on your hands in less than 5 minutes lol.
trading securities derivatives
The fuck would you ever teach them that for?
They’re 10 years old not idiots, they can learn through age appropriate skills such as budgeting and decision making - which can be made into a fun game as can almost anything you want to teach.
Exactly. I also had the thought, if you breakdown music composition, it’s basically math. Music is math.
And numerous studies showing the growth in other subjects when music is (actually) taught in elementary. It is crossing the streams, so to speak.
It is also what makes us human, not robots.
I once saw a study where they did a brain scan on someone while playing music. The results were fascinating. I’m bout to double check it’s been so long, but I’m near certain it lights up all parts of the brain. Something amazing happens when we play music. It absolutely is a core human experience.
Techno is accounting
The recorder is not what was stopping them from teaching your finance.
People will be complaining about percentages and fractions being taught instead of teaching how to do taxes or do a budget. Which leads to the conclusion that people are idiots and it doesn’t matter what you teach them. Other people are not idiots and they use the skills they learnt doing exercises and homework for good stuff but also sometimes for taxes and budgeting.
There is a cross section of smart people who only learned how to do school work and got straight As but failed to understand how that school work applies to real life.
I’ve been in classes with people who were in AP calculus have real difficulty in shop class trying to figure out how much square footage of whatever you needed. These are people who can figure out the area under a curve but fail to calculate a 20% tip.
Which leads to the conclusion that people are idiots and it doesn’t matter what you teach them.
There’s a joke, once you get to college, that freshman year is about unlearning all the crap you were taught in high school.
This isn’t an issue of “stupid people” nearly so much as it is deliberately manipulated and propagandized people.
What they’re taught matters immensely. And one of the more insidious lessons of the Western education system is that schools exist to Stack Rank students, in order to segregate the Smarties from the Dummies and sort the deserving from the undeserving.
I was a bit rude here, true. And I don’t love all the testing and grading. A lot of teaching up to around seventh or eighth grade is putting material in front of kids until it clicks.
But anyway, still a bunch of people will whine that they didn’t learn this very unenjoyable, very specific thing in school while chastising schools for not being enjoyable enough. And chastising schools for teaching things that are the very basis of being able to figure out this very unenjoyable, very specific thing.
Yeah let’s teach 4th graders that read at a 2nd grade level and struggle with multiplication economics, this seems rationale
At the same time we’re teaching them the value of coins, we should be teaching them simple budgeting. Only need addition and subtraction for that.
Gee sounds like they’re the sort of people desperately in need of these lessons.
But hey lets teach 4th graders that read at a 2nd grade level and struggle with multiplication how to blow into a piece of plastic that’s going to end up in landfill in 12 months time.
“Financial literacy” is victim blaming. Our economic system doesn’t need to be this complicated. You’re forced to invest or else your savings are destroyed by inflation. But these investments all involve trusting various institutions, and you have no way of knowing which ones are safe. Oh and don’t put it all in one place; you need to find multiple solutions. By the time you’re old or disabled, it’s your fault you’re in this mess.
Our economy is essentially forcing the public at gunpoint to make a prediction about topics they know nothing about. It’s a design not for the humans who exist, but for perfectly informed spheres.
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In a few years: “Well, it’s his own fault for putting it all in Vanguard.”
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They’ll find a way to protect the financial sector but not you personally. Sorry, it’s necessary for economic stability.
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Teaching finance is important, but being exposed to arts or different subjects like trade can be beneficial. A well rounded education to maybe spark an interest. Just think we had a whole world of accountants.
Now they don’t do either.
I remember how in 6th grade my (i assume) well meaning teacher decided to have a theme week where we were to pair up, boy and girl and pretend to be a couple and figure out budgeting, finding rent prices for apartments and what kinds of jobs we could have.
That was the week I unlocked existential anxiety that never went away lol. Didn’t help that every adult in my life told me to not worry about it and that it would take many years before budgeting like an adult would be relevant for me.
There also weren’t any further classes about this type of stuff so I just walked around from age 12 and onward panicking about how I would fail at life because I was bad at math.
Weirdly enough I still remember that the boy I was paired up with insisted we should have a cat and that we should call it Møffe. I remember that our budget was very bad and full of holes and our teacher would come over from time to time. “What about the electric bill? What about the water and heating bill? Remember taxes.” Every time she would remind us of something we had overlooked or missed, it felt like my nervous system was being electrocuted.
Pretty hardcore to just throw this type of assignment at 12 year olds with no warning and then never speak of it again.
As an adult I am terrified of spending money on anything that isn’t food or bills. My boyfriend constantly has to remind me that we are financially safe because I feel like we could end up on the streets any moment. It’s not all a result of that one workshop, but it planted the seeds for that anxiety to grow and blossom into what it is today.
I think a budgeting workshop would be a great idea for older kids who are approaching adulthood and are more ready for it. But holy shit, don’t do that to actual children who can’t even grasp the concept of taxes and rent money yet.
Just remember, Møffe will be with you even if you have to go live in the street!
I think my partner in that workshop got Møffe when we split. He seemed more attached to him while I was too busy contemplating my existence.
Oh darn, I understand your stress better now.
“How are you going to make enough money?” The teacher asked us cause my partner wanted to live well.
“I don’t know?”
“You’ll need a very good job”
“I’ll be in poverty then?”
“Don’t you know what you want to do in life?”
I’M BARELY A TEENAGER I DON’T KNOW WHAT I WANT FOR LUNCH EVEN
“No.”
“Then live in poverty”
Like the fuck was wrong with our teachers, man!
These things put me off music for years. Maybe next time start us with an instrument that doesn’t sound like total shit in beginners hands and which stinks of antiseptic.
What instrument doesn’t sound like total shit in beginner’s hands? A keyboard?
Guitar. Learn 3-4 chords and you can play half of the songs out there. Easy to begin with, hard to master.
Alternatively, Ukulele. Just 4 strings, and smaller, so more suitable for small children, though the chords seem to be more complicated.
You can pick up a recorder for 20 dollars and they will withstand abuse. Not so a guitar. I agree that it’s better musically and maybe pedagogically but it’s got some deal breakers.
it’s got some deal breakers
No doubt, and being used by a horde of kids is probably the toughest thing instruments have to ensure
I got my acoustic guitar for incredibly cheap 35,-€, so at least price can be overcome. And, reading the thread, it seems that the recorder has spoiled learning/playing an instrument for quite a few people, so one could argue that it’s a failed investment, even at a low price point.
Can’t say anything on the pedagogical side of things, I chose a job where I don’t have to meet people all the time, let alone children.
Plenty of kids are not ready to handle a guitar
How so? Age wise, motor skills, character, lacking musical education, …? WDYM?
Discipline to treat it delicately
The chords are easier; ukuleles are tuned like the 4 high strings of a guitar (yes I know that it’s actually gCEA but it’s functionally the same), and the chords are the same but without the last two strings.
However ukuleles are harder to play for adults because they are way too small. Anything higher than the 8th fret is basically unplayable.
Eh, I played both for a while (never became good, but that’s not the point), and I always found Ukulele chords awkward and confusing even on the lower frets, while Guitar came more natural to me. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was due to the lack of musical education and professional training though. Oh, and my Ukulele was tuned ADF#H…
H
Found the German, lol.
ADF#B is a full tone higher but it doesn’t change chord shapes.
I find the chords simple to grasp, but awkward to execute due to how small the neck is.
Found the German, lol.
Dammit, I tried so hard to hide it. :D
The violin ofc.
Yep! Great example.
A guitar
I learned this in like the third grade. I don’t think a third grader can be taught financial literacy.
But the fact that I didn’t learn anything about loans or credit scores in high school is bad, yes.
Why not both?
