I have now spent the last 20 years of my life in the formal education system. This includes all kinds of schooling: private school, public school, a self-directed learning high school, undergraduate studies, and most recently, professional school. I have 1 year left to go in medical school, but if you count residency as a formal education, then I actually have at least another 3 years to go (assuming I do Family Medicine residency, which is the plan).

Every student at some point in his or her life comes across a school subject they hate and asks:

Why do I have to learn this? I'm never going to use this again.

Usually parents and teachers say something like “you might not understand now, but someday you'll see why it's important”. Sometimes this is actually true. But other times, chances are your parents and teachers are thinking the same thing you are.

So why are there all these different subjects that often don't seem to really matter?

The main theory that comes to mind is to expose students to a variety of subjects. How do you know what subjects would interest you until you try them? It's like trying new food – you're missing out on a ton of great stuff if you never try anything new.

I think this concept is sound on a theoretical level. And so it makes sense that not every student is going to like every subject out there. You might try Science and hate it, and never want to do it again. On the other hand, you might try Science, love it, and become a scientist.

Both outcomes are useful: if you like the subject, you are closer to finding a career or interest; if you don't like it, well at least you can rule stuff out.

My problem with this theory

I agree with this concept on a theoretical basis. The problem I have with this theory is that it presumes the appropriate subjects are being exposed to students in school. As you will soon see, I don't think this is the case – or at the very least, we are way behind where we should be.

What do I mean by appropriate subjects?

To understand this, we have to look at why our current education exists.

What is the purpose of the current education system?

I think most people would say “to help students develop the knowledge and skills that will eventually lead to a job”.

But that's not what reality reflects. It seems to me that the current purpose of elementary school is to prepare a student for high school. From there, the purpose of high school is to prepare a student for university or college. How else do you explain all the prerequisite courses required to enroll in subsequent courses as you move up the education ladder?

The next time you go to a university lecture, I urge you to ask your professor what his or her “role” is. I assure you he or she is not going to say “to teach you X that will help you land a job one day”. More than likely, he or she will just say “to teach you X”, where “X” is an academic subject.

And if you search a bit deeper, you start to realize that professors are teaching you things that are relevant to their own jobs, but not necessarily to your future one. For example, a Biology professor is going to be teaching you things that a future Biology academic should know. If your goal is to be an academic in Biology, certainly, this makes sense. However, thousands of my peers, like myself, entered a science program learning academic material despite the fact that we were not going to be academics in that discipline – how's that for optimal use of everyone's time?

20th century education in the 21st century

Of course, there's nothing wrong with this if it actually turns out that moving up the education ladder is both necessary and the best way to get a job. Currently, that's what our governments and most of society still believes, and I'm convinced, this used to be true.

However, as many recent university graduates will tell you, this certainly isn't the case anymore. Now that having a degree, any degree, is the norm, some job seekers have no advantage over anyone else. Add on the fact that employees are often doing jobs irrelevant to their academic education, and you start to wonder if today's education system is full of missed opportunities to help people grow and develop skills that actually matter.

The world, jobs and the marketplace are significantly different now than they were 10 years ago, let alone 50 years ago. The amount of knowledge, skill sets possible and range of industries has just exploded.

Yet, we continue to promote the same subjects that were relevant 50 years ago, and ignore the subjects that are most relevant today. We are providing a 20th century education in the 21st century. How messed up is that?

So what the heck should we do?

I think our education curriculum needs to be overhauled. We need to start modifying our curriculum to match the knowledge and skills our youth will need to succeed in the 21st century.

Finally, after all that, I will get to the main point of this article: high school courses that should exist but don't. There are a ton of possible examples, but here are some off the top of my head:

What do you think?

What courses do you think schools should be offering but don't? What knowledge or skills are so important that it's crazy they are not being taught in schools?