Comment by milesrout

Is that the best way of thinking about it? I think the goal of all primary and secondaey education is to impart knowledge, build skills, and build character. Take sex ed. Building "practical skills", namely applying a prophylactic device to a banana. But it is also about teaching you that there are risks to certain behaviours that need to be considered. And being forced to discuss it sensibly and without giggling every 30s builds character.

Or take maths. Maybe it is reductive but I think the difficulty of it helps build character. Most kids need to do a lot of exercises and memorisation, and the feeling of accomplishment of getting it and doing well? That is character building. Obviously immensely useful too.

Civics (we had "social studies" and I don't recall ever discussing our political system, but at least in theory) involves:

- teaching facts about the system (how many representatives there are, how often elections are held, who is responsible for what, what do courts do, what do juries do, what do MPs do, what do the police do, how are they structurally different from civil servants or the media or universities etc)

- teaching skills (how to vote, how to think about political/societal structures, etc)

- teaching character (instilling civic pride, understanding the long and rich history that led us here today, etc)