what should students learn?

what's really important?
is it the math?
the reading?
the english?
the english language at last count has over 900,000 words
that can be combined into a near infinite number of sentences and statements
but when something is really important we still somehow don't seem to be able to get our point across..
i submit a new class idea
LIFE.. 101

"Back in school they never taught us what we needed to know, like how deal with despair or someone breaking your heart"

school, the way it is now, teaches that there is always a simple predetermined path
from problem to solution
question to answer
rules
but what about the things that don't follow rules
the changing things
like what do you say to someone you love
who doesn't love you back
what are you supposed to do when your heart breaks

what about the times before these unhappy endings
the first kiss
when you're not sure how lips fit together

what about the times
'When I sit near you, my hands suddenly become alien things and I don't know where to put them or what they usually do, like this is the first time I've ever had hands and maybe they go in my pockets and maybe they don't.'

what then?

why are these things the ones we must learn through experience
and so far to me 'experience' means 'pain'
why must we go through this the hard way
instead of being taught

i know that it isn't some formula or procedure you follow
love
is much more complicated than that

but maybe somehow
life 101
could teach us how to not end up in the same sad place every time we fall out of love
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afterthought 11.04.09

on kind of this same topic, i'm rather pissed at the whole school thing.. i know too many people that blow off art and poetry because of they way they had it force fed to them in school, they didn't get the chance to appreciate it and see the beauty in it because they were too busy having to meet deadlines and write too specifically.. i have found a love for art and poetry again on my own, but am reluctant to pursue them in a school setting for fear of having the beauty of it stripped away..