Things I would add and remove from the curriculum

September, it's hot, and I'm eating hummus in Tel Aviv after a meeting at the bank. Around me, a group of young men and women, participants in the reality show "Race to a Million," are trying to convince passersby to join them in some public humiliation on television. Over and over, they ask, "Can you help me?" "Can you help me?" Even soldiers who didn't seem to have very busy schedules refused them. I thought that if they were taught a basic lesson in sales, they would understand two things:

1. Instead of asking for help, it's better to present the potential client with the benefits they can gain. For example, instead of "Can you help me," maybe try, "Do you want your company to be seen on TV?" Perhaps that would work better.
2. So if you two, or both of you and all the other couples, are asking the same question and getting pathetic results, maybe you should at least try a different question. Meaning, you're a couple, try having each person ask a different question to see what works better.

Thousands of years ago, when I worked in high-tech, sales were more or less equivalent to a curse. More than once, we'd tell a client, "We're from development, not sales." Meaning, we're the serious people doing the work, and then there are the blowhards from sales, who you can complain to if something is wrong, so they can sell you the next version of some lie. This is, of course, a foolish approach to life, and I'm glad I've matured since then. First, the best developer in the world, if they don't have a sales team around them, won't have any income. Second, sales surround our entire lives, not just our workplace. The mother who shouts at her child, "Stop yelling already." Doing a bad sales job. The father whose son doesn't go into the shower is doing a bad sales job. The engineer who is almost never heard during a project team meeting doesn't know how to sell. The doctor who cannot convince a patient to take medication consistently or avoid sugar is doing a... you get the idea. Sales is actually an art that can improve all interpersonal relationships along with business performance, regardless of whether we are employees or self-employed.

If I were the one determining the curriculum, I would definitely include the ability to converse with others, to persuade them peacefully to your way of thinking, to be persuaded by their opinion, or to learn how to remain friends even though each of you thinks something completely different.

Additional things I would add to the education system

Statistics

I can't understand how you can release one high school graduate who doesn't know how to distinguish between Median The difference between an average and an average with standard deviation X versus the same average but with a much larger standard deviation Y. Words like sample, significance, etc., are supposed to be part of everyone's basic knowledge. If that were the case, we wouldn't take headlines like 'Israel has the most poor children in the OECD" so seriously, and we would understand that if, for example, 5,000 people from Intel Israel were laid off tomorrow, according to the accepted measure, there would be fewer poor people and not more (poverty measurement in Israel is relative. Thus, when many high-wage workers are laid off, the median wage decreases, and fewer people will be found below the poverty line, which is defined as half the median wage).

We are constantly surrounded by statistically based decisions. In the days of Corona, for example, we constantly hear from various sources that most of the deaths from Corona are among people aged 80, which is also the life expectancy. The average Therefore, as it were, the coronavirus did not shorten their lives. This fact, stated by doctors, professors, and people from my Facebook, is completely incorrect to consider.

A newborn baby has an average life expectancy of 80 years. This average life expectancy takes into account those who died at one week, three years old, or other young ages. Fortunately, there are few such cases, but their impact on the average is naturally greater. The important figure is not the average life expectancy, but rather, for example, the average life expectancy of a 50 or 70-year-old man. That is to say, if an 80-year-old person died of Corona, they did not die before their time, but rather their time, according to The statistical data, by the time he reached age 70, the figure was much lower. For example, at age 70, 82,900 men out of 100,000 are still alive—about 83.1%. At age 80, the number drops to 61,012—about 61.1%. In other words, at what is supposedly the average life expectancy, more than 60.1% of men are still alive. At age 90, the number is 24.1% of men still alive—roughly a quarter. I may discuss COVID-19 in another post at some point, but take note: those professors who spoke of average life expectancy essentially sentenced a quarter of men to a decade-long reduction in their lifespan.

I think this stems from a lack of appropriate background in statistics. and integrating it into our daily lives. This shortcoming was clearly demonstrated by the late Kahneman and Tversky when they conducted a series of experiments on doctors" understanding of probabilities (who failed to correctly assess the probability that a particular patient was ill after being presented with test data showing that a certain percentage of results were false positives and another percentage were false negatives. Only afterward were the gynecologists told that the data presented to them were from cancer test results, which they frequently analyze) and expert statisticians (who failed a question asking: If there are two hospitals in a town—one large and one small—and you know that on a certain day, 60% male babies were born in one hospital, in which hospital did this likely happen? The answer At the end of the article).

Actually, the most important thing about statistics is something that even those taking the not-so-entertaining course "Statistics for Non-Statisticians" haven't necessarily encountered – the difference between an anecdote and statistics. In various Facebook groups I belong to, people ask questions like: Has anyone invested in Romania? Recommendations/non-recommendations? And similar questions. Bro, let's say four people answer you that everything went smoothly for them for the two months since they bought. What information does that provide you? Don't ask a chicken in a coop what it thinks of humans. For 40 days it will tell you they are kind creatures who bring food, and on the 41st day, it will be on its way to the butcher. You shouldn't ask if someone succeeded or failed in investing in Romania, because by definition you'll get an anecdote. You should learn about Romania, or ask on Facebook if anyone knows an expert on Romania, or just use Google and see that Romania's population is shrinking at a high rate, and therefore the demand for apartments is unlikely to increase.

Critical reading of media and in general

Again and again, there are articles with the phrasing "Now it's scientific." Do an experiment: type "Now it's scientific YNET" into Google. You will discover strange results like "Now it's scientific – men have difficulty listening to women,", The world isn't perfect And more bizarre "scientific" anecdotes. Someone discovered that the word "scientific" gets to us, and since then, every survey that surveyed 5-6 people has become a "scientific" fact. Pay attention, for example, to the "research" that "discovered" That vegans are less fertile. A critical reader of the article should have asked at least one question (based on statistics, not anecdotes): What was the sample size? In fact, even Prof. Mashiach, a fertility expert, concluded that it’s best to stop being vegan if you want to have a child, based on a 'study" that examined only five vegans. It’s enough that just one of them is infertile for a completely different reason, and we’ve already got a whole host of fertility issues (remember that small hospital where so many boys are born?). More on this in an article by the Davidson Institute of Science, which used this study As an example Why they call it bad science. When you hear a certain fact, try to ask the fact-teller: How do you know? What sample are you basing this on? Who funded the research? etc. Pay attention in the press, for example, to the author's expression of opinion versus facts.

Meditation

I read many books by successful people. The topic of meditation repeatedly comes up with them as something they do and as an important key to their success. Why not give this important tool to our children?

Breaking the mold

The pandemic showed us that we can use Zoom for learning. So, why not leverage this tool after the pandemic as well? Imagine children from Israel having an English lesson together with children from the Netherlands via Zoom? The need to communicate can greatly improve motivation. What do you think about a lesson on the French Revolution with children from France? And so on. In general, today children of the same age group learn together. On the face of it, this seems illogical. If one child learned to speak at age one, and another at age two (a bit before Einstein who waited a bit longer), why do we expect them to learn to read in the same year just because they are 6 years old? But that's not the end of the story, of course. One child might start first grade at 6.5 years old, while their friend starts at 6. It could be that the 6-year-old is the one who needs more time, meaning they are with someone who is supposed to acquire reading (or math, or...) along with them, but in reality, they need another year until they reach that maturity. This is how frustrations like 'I'm not good at...' begin, which can accompany people throughout their lives. Why not teach certain subjects, like language, based on the child's level rather than their age?

The Middle East's entry into the world

We learned a lot about the history of Europe. A little about the history of the USA, and also about the history of the Jews. We didn't learn at all about the history of the Middle East. It's a shame. Understanding concepts like Shiites, Sunnis, Druze, etc., is, in my opinion, an important key to our lives here. For example, would our beliefs about the possibility of peace in the Middle East change if we knew that the Shiites and Sunnis had been at war for hundreds of years? Perhaps yes, perhaps no, but it's worth knowing.

What to cut in the education system

It's foolish to only say what to add. In the end, there are defined study hours, and if content is added, content also needs to be removed. Similarly, if someone says, "The government should do... or pay..." but isn't willing to say by how much they're willing to increase the taxes they pay for it to happen, their words shouldn't be taken too seriously. So, I will also tackle the not-so-simple task of removing content from the education system.

Literature

I really love books (and bookstores). I Reads a book a week Or monthly if it's in English. The period in which I read the fewest books was when I was forced to deal with One Hundred Years of Solitude. I also don't think you need to convince the public that if you throw a few children on a deserted island they will immediately turn into wild beasts, as the book Lord of the Flies suggests. And we haven't even touched on medieval poetry, etc., which left no impression on me.

Mathematics

In every survey I've seen regarding important professions, mathematics has appeared. In my opinion, there's a confusion here with arithmetic. So I definitely think it's worthwhile for every person to know the multiplication table well, even if they have a calculator nearby. It's also worthwhile to know how to perform the four basic arithmetic operations and to understand the concept of percentages well. The more diligent will also know exponents and roots. Beyond that, there are few whose work requires an understanding of logarithms or tangents.

The fact that we assess whether people are suited to be family doctors, lawyers, or even economists based on their ability to take a derivative of a function is, in my opinion, a pointless ordeal. I’ve been working with numbers my whole life, and 99.91% of what I learned in high school and college math I don’t remember because I don’t use it.

Bible and History

Not to cancel, but in my opinion, learning would be a much more profound experience if these two subjects were combined. Instead of "who said what to whom and in what context" from Bible studies, one could conduct a combined Bible and history tour of Ahab's palace and the nearby Tel Megiddo, from which evangelical Christians believe the war of light and darkness – Armageddon – will begin. For these studies, it would not be advisable to read the Bible, but rather tradition, and ancient Jewish wisdom would also be integrated. As a secular person, I never knew that the question of whether one can use a neighbor's Wi-Fi if they haven't set a password can be answered from the sources, for example, in the discussion about sitting in the shade of a tree that another cultivated, or picking lemons from a neighbor's tree whose branch extends into your home. Bialik would also be better understood if integrated into general history, so that "On the Slaughter" would not be studied as merely a literary assignment, but as a description of the people's experiences. In the same way, Rachel's poem "My Kinneret" would be studied as part of the history of the Yishuv (the Jewish settlement in the Land of Israel). The song from the video above – "Melodies" – is actually a protest song against the Yishuv's demand that new immigrants forget their diaspora origins (the melodies of their parents). Well, I'm getting carried away; nevertheless, I love both literature and history.

Why didn't I major in economics

Economics is another subject which almost always arises as a need in the learning system. There are many more life skills worth learning. I think economics can be learned later, and that the tools provided by statistics, critical reading, and interpersonal skills will lead to better economic decision-making.

I am not against studying economics. I am very much for it, but even though it would have been the obvious choice given my profession, I thought it would be better for everyone to complete this subject when they are older and can give it the appropriate character for them. In any case, I wouldn't call it studying economics, but rather studying Business with an emphasis on entrepreneurship instead of the current emphasis on studies for finding employment as a salaried worker. I believe these studies can be well integrated into statistics studies, sales as mentioned above, and critical reading. Ultimately, all these topics lead us to make decisions in various fields, including economics. For example, when I am offered a method for filling out a lottery ticket, Insurance, Investments Variance, etc., statistical thinking, and critical reading will allow me to make better decisions in economics, nutrition, politics, and many other topics.

Hospital question answer

If we assume that normally half of the babies are boys and the other half are girls, then Any deviation from the norm is more likely to occur in a small hospital. To take an extreme example: if a small hospital has one birth per day, it’s clear that instead of half boys and half girls, there will be 100% of just one gender each day. If the small hospital has 10 births per day, it still makes sense that on any given day there will be six boys and four girls. In contrast, if a large hospital has 1,000 births a day, it is much less likely that there will be a deviation of 400 girls compared to 600 boys.

The larger the sample size, the more certain the convergence toward the mean. Therefore, it is more likely that the 60% boys were born at the small hospital. I deliberately said "more likely" rather than “certainly” because there is, of course, also a chance that on a specific day, this could happen at the large hospital. This distinction is important. Sometimes people hear that a forecast is uncertain and ignore it completely—“No one can know…” But the fact that no one can know for certain, for example, what will happen Future Consumer Price Index It doesn't mean we shouldn't consider it as an option. Explain.

All the statisticians to whom this question was presented certainly knew the rule that deviations from the norm are more common as the group gets smaller, but when the problem was presented with everyday data, most of them failed like ordinary people.

Thanks to Ofir Gilad, with whom the discussion took place as part of Economic Growth Community Facebook enriched this article.

You are invited to follow me too On YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/c/effectivemortgageil, in the "Hon and Microphone" podcast, or simply call 054-5232-799