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Originally Posted by Ustwo
Is it a public schools job to teach 'culture'.
From my perspective no. We have awful math scores, horrible geography skills, almost no grasp of history, and mediocre scientific knowledge. [...]
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And I'm sure there are few students who can comfortably write a complete sentence, let alone a paragraph. You left out literacy and the value of teaching language arts. Without these, how can we expect students to communicate with any effectiveness? Language arts have an impact on the other disciplines in this regard. What do we do in language arts? We teach reading and writing. What do we have them read? Grammar textbooks? Maybe we should. But if the students can't grasp mathematics, they might have a tougher time with pure grammar.
So how do we teach them? With creative works such as stories and novels. But these aren't just about grammar, they are about culture. So why not teach culture at the same time? It makes things more interesting. (And to exclude certain works for content or topics via banning is something I oppose, as it opposes certain realities.) We don't teach geography from a pure land & water perspective. There is some culture in there as well. History? Culture. When reading literature, we emphasize culture because that is its raison d'etre. But it isn't the only value.
--This is more of a ramble than anything, so I hope it makes sense.