An Essential High School Course: Shit You Should Know

There is a course that needs to exist in high schools across the country, titled: “Shit You Should Know”. Even for me, a moderately intelligent individual, it would have been helpful to have such a course that wades into a variety of highly important topics that seem to be overlooked in our current education system.

Here’s an initial start on the course syllabus for “Shit You Should Know”:

• Week 1 – Introduction, Overview of Course Topics
• Week 2 – Logic Principles, Reasoning Skills
  An introduction to logic and reasoning.
• Week 3 – Logical Fallacies
  Highlighting the most common logical fallacies through the first half of the week, then working through less common fallacies in order of importance.
• Week 4 – Thinking Better – Patterns and Strategies
  Helping to build better thinkers, with emphasis on various ways of looking at topics, pushing past the inclination to limit thought.
• Week 5 – Critical Thinking, Skeptical Thinking, Media Literacy
  How to see through bullshit, think critically, and consume news and opinion in a responsible manner.
• Week 6 – Basic Economic Principles
  A basic economic primer, covering basic topics like supply and demand. Compare and contrast various economic systems.
• Week 7 – Your Government
  How taxes are actually calculated (most people don’t seem to understand), representation. Discussions on how the existing system works, critiques, class discussion on improvements.
• Week 8 – Being a Good, Considerate Citizen
  Basic moral and ethical principles. How to be a good, considerate citizen. Stupid decisions vs good decisions (win/win vs lose/lose). Conversation skills.
• Week 9 – Basic Life Management
  Basic life skills, such as budgeting, the concept of compound interest, strategies for making good decisions.