These are my ideas for a new type of school curriculum. This is just an overview and the subjects, of course, would need to be taught in an age appropriate way, which I haven’t done here. Ideally, the student would pick from each subject what interested them.
9th grade
1. personal finance
– financial position
– adequate protection
– tax planning
– investment and accumulation goals
– retirement planning
– estate planning
2. study skills
– buzan mind maps
– rehearsal and rote learning
– reading and listening
– flashcard training
– keywords
– visual imagery
– acronyms and mnemonics
– exam strategies
– spacing
– organization and lifestyle changes
– study environment
3. social skills
– coordination
– mentoring
– negotiation
– persuasion
– service orientation
– social perceptiveness
4. romantic relationships
– relationship resources
– relationship restoration
– relationship maintenance
– evidence-based marriage education
5. mental health
– activity therapy
– recreational exercise outside (hiking, tennis, etc.)
– journaling
– relaxation
– arts and crafts
– music therapy
– camping
– expressive therapy (self expression through creative expression)
(excited, tender, scared, angry, sad, happy)
– art
– dance
– drama
– role play
– writing
– film based
– poetry
– play
– sandplay
– dreamwork
– cognitive behavioral therapy
– thinking of problems and solutions
– writing self-statements to counter negative thoughts
– new opportunities to think positive thoughts
– visualizing the best part of the day
– learn to accept disappointment as part of life
– dialectical behavior therapy
– mindfulness: observe, describe, participate
– distress tolerance
– emotion regulation
– interpersonal effectiveness
– meditation
– lie comfortably
– close your eyes
– breathe naturally
– focus on breath
– notice your body
– return to your breath when your mind wanders
– do for 2-3 minutes
6. first aid
– airway management
– cardiopulmonary resucitation
– emergency bleeding control
7. time management
– environment conducive to effectiveness
– setting priorities
– carrying out prioritization
– reducing time on non-priorities
– incentives to modify behavior
8. sports
9. negotiation/debate
– strategies
– distributive negotiation
– integrative negotiation
– elements of negotiation
– adversary of partner
– employing an advocate
– perspective taking for integrative negotiation
– negotiation styles
– types of negotiators
– bad faith negotiation
– emotion
– affect effect
– positive affect
– negative affect
– conditions of emotion affect
– effect of partner’s emotions
– problems with laboratory studies
– team negotiation
– barriers
– tactics
– nonverbal communication
10. leadership/management
– planning
– organizing
– coordinating
– commanding
– controlling
– interpersonal
– informational
– decision
11. music (theory)
– pitch
– scales and modes
– consonance and dissonance
– rhythm
– melody
– chord
– harmony
– timbre
– texture
– form
– expression
– notation
12. dance (performance)
– concert dance
– latin/rhythm
– swing
– traditional jazz
– ballroom
– freestyle
– hip hop
– disco
13. television (creation)
14. theater (playwriting)
– three act structure
– the hero’s journey
– syd field’s paradigm
– the sequence approach
– imagery
– dialogue
– plot
15. film (theory)
– apparatus
– auteur
– feminist
– formalist
– genre
– marxist
– philosophy of language film analysis
– psychoanalytic
– screen
– structuralist
16. fine arts (sculpture)
– stone
– metal
– glass
– pottery
– wood carving
17. design (product)
– analysis
– concept
– synthesis
– demand pull innovation and invention push innovation
– product design expression
– product design considerations
– trends
18. agronomy (agricultural science)
– producing plants
– using plants
– environmentalism
– resources
– energy supply
– waste and pollution
– habitats and species
19. biology
– cell theory
– evolution
– genetics
– homeostasis
– energy
– structural
– physiological
– research
– systematic
– kingdoms
– ecological and environmental
20. economics
– microeconomics
– markets
– production, cost, and efficiency
– specialization
– supply and demand
– firms
– uncertainty and game theory
– market failure
– public sector
– macroeconomics
– growth
– business cycle
– unemployment
– inflation and monetary policy
– fiscal policy
– international economics
– practice
– theory
– empirical investigation
– profession
– agreements
– criticism
21. geography
– physical
– human
– integrated
– geomatics
– regional
22. languages (greek and latin roots, stems, and prefixes)
23. writing (non-fiction)
– expository (explaining or informing the reader about a certain topic)
– argumentative
– background
– thesis
– 3 claims
– evidence for each claim
– opposing views (2)
– refutation of 2 opposing views
– conclusion
– opinion
– both sides of argument
– opinions
– reasons for opinions
– examples to support reasons
– conclusions
– essay
– introductory
– body
– transitions
– conclusion
– biography
– research
– reading works already written about the subject
– interviews
– visit places significant to the subject’s life
– explore what interested, influenced and inspired the subject
– study the time and place of the subject’s life
– analyzing the subject’s life
– look for patterns
– thesis statement
– decide how to recount the person’s life
– narrative
– write
– drafts
– get someone to read it
– proofread
– title
– sources
– publish
– memoir
– memories
– historical
– outline
– scientific
24. philosophy (metaphysics)
– central questions
– being and ontology
– being and ontology
– identity and change
– causality and time
– causality and time
– necessity and possibility
– cosmology and cosmogony
– mind and matter
– determinism and free will
– religion and spirituality
– metaphysics of science
– rejections of metaphysics
– history and schools of metaphysics
– pre-socratic metaphysics in greece
– socrates and plato
– aristotle
– metaphysics in india
– scholasticism and the middle ages
– rationalism and continental rationalism
– british empiricism
– kant
– kantians
– early analytics philosophy and positivism
– continental philosophy
– process metaphysics
– later analytical philosophy
25. psychology
– schools of thought
– biological
– behavioral
– cognitive
– social
– existential-humanist
– themes
– personality
– unconscious mind
– motivation
– development
– genes and environment
– applications
– mental testing
– mental health care
– education
– work
– military and intelligence
– health, well-being, and social change
– research methods
– controlled experiments
– statistical inference
– technological assays
– computer simulation
– animal studies
– qualitative and descriptive research
– contemporary issues
– ethics
– humans
– other animals
