Right now there is a loneliness epidemic throughout the world. More and more people aren’t entering relationships. Gen Z men are having significant trouble dating while there are some economic factors in the mix. From my own view and experiences combined with what I’ve read most Gen Z men are lack the social and communication skills to even enter a relationship. This has and in the future will lead to extreme issues. There’s already been a marked rise in hostility towards women by young men (think Andrew Tate and his ilk) that’s likely born out of this frustration. I would definitely say there’s been a rise in gender hostility ever since the pandemic.
Back in the 50s there was arranged marriages. All a person had to do was just show but now that’s gone because it was an unequal system and I think society missed its chance to establish something much healthier and better in its wake. Now we have people that are unable to connect with each other. We just toss people blindly into the mess that is human interaction and relationships and no one knows what to do anymore. We could be have the most fulfilling relationships humans have ever had. Think of the amount of people who would of never have entered abusive relationships had there been someone around them that showed them what love exactly is.
The way we teach is so heavily focused on teaching people how to be worker drones that we forget the human part of the person. This is why a lot of people who do extreme well in school and college fare so poorly in relationships and have higher rates of depression. We are the most educated and advanced in human history, we know psychology, we can teach this shit rather than tossing people blindly into the meat grinder.
Things I wish they’d teach kids:
Yoga (one of my niece’s school teaches them basic yoga)
breathing / meditation
conflict resolution
critical thinking skills / logic
relationship skills eg knowing your self-worth, knowing how and when to say no, knowing about your own body and that it’s inviolable. If my youngest niece doesn’t want to give me a hug goodbye and her mum says “go on give your uncle a hug” I always make a point of saying it’s fine, she doesn’t have to hug anyone she doesn’t want to
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I would add: teaching that romantic relationships are not the end all and be all of life.
I feel like this is part of the problem, because it creates misogyny, incels and depression when people have their entire self-worth wrapped up in another person liking them. Any person. All of our media pushes this message, especially to young people. I was a serial monogamist all my life until several years ago. I’ve been more productive and accomplished and more in touch with who I am than I’ve ever been. I don’t have the need fpr another person in my life, and that’s how it should be. A partner should be an addition to a person and a life that is already functional. I can’t help but notice now how every. single. song, movie, show, book, etc. is not just about romance, but about another person making someone’s life worth living. It’s fucked up and we need to teach kids that they are enough, by themselves, and that being in a relationship is a choice. It’s not mandatory.
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Some ex ellent additions! Seeing as we’re all now well aware of each others’ religions, maybe they can replace the pointless RE (religious education in UK) class with a ‘Life Skills’ class.
In a lot of the California schools I’ve worked at, they do teach these things. I think they are really great skills that I wish were taught when I was in school.
Unfortunately there’s a lot of conservative push back and a movement to get these topics out of school.
Yup. We wonder why young people are committing suicide more often when their entire self worth is based on how good they do in school. You combine that with late stage capitalism necessitating two parents working meaning the child might not even see them that much. More kids are neglected with their grades being the only source of validation. It would help so much of them being taught how to love themselves.
yeah I could not believe how late I was exposed to logic and that I would not have been exposed without college and it needs no high level math or anything to learn. I also wish the time spent in gym was actually useful. any martial art would do to me as well but yoga or tai chi would prevent issues around learining fighting. breathing and meditation should really come from any of that if done decently.
It’s quite scary to think that not only are kids not being taught logic, but many are being taught anti-logic; magical thinking etc. It blows my mind that right wingers screech about ‘grooming’ and indoctrination while they’re teaching their kids divisive skybeardguy nonsense. Literally grooming them to be religious.
Imo this is why they pushback and create false equivalence, because they know they’re losing their sad little foothold. Notice how whoever is downvoting comments in this thread has nothing to say.
Other than the yoga, my child’s public school in Kansas does teach about all of those things. Like we have had conversations about them over the last few years, especially about being able to say no to hugs and other personal contact.