The current “core curricula” of public schools in the US are comprised of the following subjects: (sciences) biology, physics, chemistry; (mathematics) arithmetic, algebra, pre-calculus, basic statistics; (language) literature, humanities, composition, foreign languages; (social sciences) history, government, economics, basic political science; (physical education) baseball, basketball, football, general exercise

Here are ten other subjects that all students from the ages of six to eighteen should be required to study:

Ask any elementary school student, and he or she will affirm that making up stories is fun.  And since Stephen King is quite wealthy from doing so, education and practice in fiction composition is not irrelevant to society.  College students across all majors admit that fiction writing courses, whether electives or required, are among their very favorite. After all, you finally get to write what you want to write, not some tedious, insipid essay about how Holden Caulfield is some brooding intellectual, an essay thoroughly devoid of anything interesting precisely because your teachers require you to examine the facts and draw your conclusions like a robot.

Hamlet can teach us a wealth about morality, human nature, existentialism, and politics.  Shakespeare is showing us what happens if we give free rein to vengeance: our whole lives and those of all who are close to us are destroyed.  When students in high school finish reading Hamlet—provided they have good teachers who can help them understand and appreciate it—most of them are sufficiently enthralled to try writing fiction—as well they should be.  But most of them give up when their first stories turn out to be less great than those of Shakespeare.  This is not due to middling talent, but an absence of instruction in fiction writing.

Why not?  Students are typically thought of as having naturally gifted minds for either liberal arts or math—but rarely both together.  That’s probably not true, however.  Pure mathematics prompts the liberal arts-minded to ask, “What in the world is the point?”  In public school, students aren’t forced very often to apply mathematics to their daily lives.  Those word problems about Trains A and B leaving the station don’t help at all.  So let’s talk calculus: why is it such a great thing to know?

This will sound ridiculously ironic, but Newton and Leibniz invented calculus as a means of making geometric and algebraic operations easier.  Johannes Kepler plotted the courses of the sun and the planets, and hypothesized that a sort of weight must hold them in orbits around each other.  It took him about twenty years to do this, largely by watching the night sky through a telescope.  Newton did all this in a single afternoon—thanks to calculus.

Calculus, as it should be taught, is the study of change with the aim of predicting it.  Sounds a little cooler that way, doesn’t it?  You can predict the future with calculus.  But what could be more dull than algebra and pre-calculus in high school?  Not much, if the teaching is conducted entirely theoretically. It would be a fine idea to give the students some hands-on experience inventing gadgets—using technology for what it does well, instead of merely learning about it on a chalkboard.  Who wouldn’t want to invent a time machine?  “Can’t be done,” you say?  Well, it can still be a lot of fun trying, and in the process you’ll enjoy seeing just what the higher mathematics are capable of doing.

Many public schools do offer drama classes as electives—but these usually focus on stage performance.  As important as it is for any serious actor to know how to act in live shows, many of these students would very much like to try their hands at making motion pictures, yet don’t have an outlet for it.

A lot of high school students would love to be directors, and most of them idolize Steven Spielberg.  He’s about as close to god as you can get in Tinsel Town.  Spielberg did not formally study filmmaking until college.  But imagine how much faster he would have progressed in his filmmaking abilities, had he been able to receive instruction in middle or high school.

To be fair, geniuses of his caliber are typically self-taught—but proper instruction from a good teacher, along with diligent study, are far more reliable and desirable than raw talent and trial and error.  For the mere mortals among us, enrolling in a filmmaking class in middle or high school is the most logical choice if we wish to pursue the dream.  Such enrollment also offers us a fair chance of getting noticed by any of the bigwig connections the instructor may have.

Forget Spanish.  Forget French.  Spanish is particularly important to learn, but students have plenty of time to do that in college—and frankly, the amount of linguistic instruction they receive in high school doesn’t really prepare them for a collegiate education in that language.  This lister chose French in high school because it sounded more beautiful—but by the time college rolled around, he had forgotten about eighty percent of it.  When he took College French level one, the first half of the course was effectively a refresher of high school.  So is it a waste of time trying to learn a language before college?

Not necessarily.  Latin is bit more difficult than French or Spanish, but not by much.  Of all the Romance languages, Italian is probably the trickiest—but if you’ve got a good foundation on Latin, any other Romance language will be a walk in the park.

This lister didn’t bother going back to French in college until he had four years of Latin behind him.  Then he needed only one summer to master reading and writing French.  Speaking it, of course, requires listening to it for a few years, but once you reach that point it’ll be locked in very well.  So if the goal in learning foreign languages is to master as many as possible, why not start on one of the largest foundations available?

No, the lister isn’t looking for controversy on this one (hence, the word “multi-religious”).  But many of us—whether still in public school or college, or out working for a living—remain in the dark about the finer points of most of the world’s major religions. Many of us would be hard-pressed to point out a New Testament verse against homosexuality, for example (it turns out there are three—and a possible fourth.)

If we are to have long, heated debates about the merits of this or that religion, or of having no religion, it is only fair that we should familiarize ourselves with the ins and outs of each—and we should do this in depth.  Who do Shintoists worship?  And why?  What are the founding tenets of Satanism?  If religion is such an integral and insoluble aspect of our species, it would be better if we understood the content of as many as we can learn.

We must be realistic about how much complexity and abstraction teenage students can be expected to digest and comprehend.  In most schools, only one Shakespeare play per year is typical; the diction is too difficult and the literature too heavy to permit a full understanding of A Midsummer Night’s Dream or Othello in a single semester.

Philosophy—complex as its ideas may sometimes be—is very important and relevant to our daily lives.  But it isn’t dwelled upon much at all in public school, most likely because the teachers don’t really understand it.  Nevertheless, a fairly brief history of philosophy’s progression is certainly pertinent to life today.  It will, at the very least, give the student a profound respect for the glory that was Ancient Greece.

All of Western politics, as well as a large portion of its history, can be traced back to geniuses like Zeno, the Seven Sages, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.  Eastern philosophy incorporates Confucius, Gautama, Mozi, Sun Tzu, and many others, all highly significant.  To learn the history of philosophical thought, the student cannot avoid learning just a little about each school of it; and almost all new ideas are built on the backs of the old ones.

Public schools in the US require “physical education,” which simply means forcing the students to exercise for a little while on a daily basis.  But the sports to which they’re treated vary considerably: dodgeball, basketball, track and field, calisthenics, and so on.  They are not required to learn all the rules of basketball; they just have to take their place in the group (sometimes being chosen last) and run around for an hour or so.

Those who wish to really learn basketball can try out for the team, but they’re not likely to be accepted unless they’ve already developed the necessary skills. Sport (as opposed to P.E.) is not a requirement of many curriculums, but if students had to play at least one sport during middle school and high school, they would all become much more physically fit—and happier at the prospect of not being chosen last.

Most of us are at least vaguely aware of the moves of the game, while those with any impressive aptitude for it number perhaps 150,000 in the United States.  There are only about 1,000 International Grandmasters in the world. Chess organizations, like the US Chess Federation, or the International Federation of Chess (FIDE), employ rating systems to show a player’s approximate skill level.  The average novice plays at about 500, while the average veteran tournament player might be rated anywhere from 1000 to 2200.  Grandmasters must be rated 2500 or more at least once to get the title.  These days, the world champions are usually rated around 2800.

Above are plenty of examples of what makes chess fun—in particular, the possibility of feeling a sense of constant improvement—but they leave out the most important one: chess is a great tool for exercising the mind.  The regular and serious chess players almost always perform better on tests in any subject area, because they’re used to sitting patiently, looking for the right answer, and especially thinking critically.

When you lose at chess, you have only yourself to blame—and provided that they have a good instructor, students between the tender ages of five to eighteen can find in chess an excellent source of humility, duty, responsibility, and fair play; in short, chess enables them to mature much faster.

Not just good music—like Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven—but all the way down to Justin Bieber, if that’s what you want.  To be proficient in musical history is of prime importance.  Music is already taught in public schools, but it isn’t required.  It’s an elective, and sadly, it’s often the first subject on the curriculum to be cut when money is tight.  But what is the purpose of learning to read and write if you aren’t given anything to read or write about?  In history class, you may get a single paragraph or just a sentence about Beethoven—perhaps even a picture—but no attention is paid to what “sonata-allegro form” means.  Most high school students graduate knowing loads about WWII, and virtually nothing about Rachmaninoff.

The problem, of course, is that you can’t really teach music without making the student perform it.  You don’t learn to play the violin by reading a manual, and you don’t become truly familiar with exposition, development, recapitulation, and coda until you’ve listened to many examples of it.  Only then will students appreciate the complexities involved in its composition.

This is set apart from sports in general, since we think of sports in public schools as consisting of baseball, basketball, football, track and field, and so on.  But martial arts should be taught not as a regular sport, but as a means of self-defense.  It would certainly put a stop to bullying.  Most fights these days go the bullies’ way, since they are almost always bigger and stronger; that’s why they’re bullies.

And some of the bullied outcasts—whether nerds, goths, or generally “unsociable”—resort to firearms, in order to give themselves some desperately needed relief from the agony of bullying.  The real shame in all this is that fighting a larger, stronger person really isn’t that difficult.  You just have to know how to do it—and anyone can learn anything, given the time.  The first step to winning a fight is to attain confidence in oneself.  With confidence comes that magic knowledge of when name-calling has gone far enough.  But you won’t attain that confidence until you know how to fight.

Unfortunately, many of the jerks we have to put up with also learn martial arts, just to be even crueler.  But martial arts are a great equalizer, and they also tend to have the effect of reducing, rather than increasing, the violent impulses in children. We should therefore consider starting lessons while the students are still in elementary school.

FlameHorse is a writer for.  None of the above subjects were ever offered during his public schooling.

Robots became a widespread concept in movies in the 1920s. Fast-forward to today, and we find robots playing a pretty significant role in our world—even if we do not all agree on what role a robot should play. So whether we are on the side of “bring on the technology” or feel a bit more hesitation about turning over our lives to something without feelings, they are likely here to stay.

Worthy of a rewind, we will find the best notable and secretive life lessons in robot film history.

Related: 10 Futuristic Things AI And Robots Are Already Doing

10 Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

On a mission to steal the plans to the Death Star, the empire’s ultimate weapon of destruction, a group of unlikely heroes—Jyn, Cassian, and K2SO—band together to accomplish the task. But they do so in an unusual way. K2SO is a security droid who says exactly what is on his mind. However, this droid may not seem ideal for the task, especially if you ask Jyn, who gets into quite a few disagreements with K2SO and even tries to shoot him!

But who knew a robot could have a great sense of humor and be a pain in the butt all at once? K2SO knows how to make the irony of going to battle seem less dark and painful. This movie reminds us that there is still hope! Ultimately, we learn the best lesson from K2SO: how to stand up for ourselves!^[1]

9 I Am Mother

After an extinction event, a robot named Mother grows a human embryo and cares for her over several years, naming her Daughter. Mother started to grow human embryos in hopes of guiding them to be more ethical and value the bigger picture of life after becoming convinced humanity would destroy itself.

Perhaps a philosophical movie at heart, Mother teaches Daughter complex moral and ethical lessons, warning her about an upcoming exam. Daughter realizes Mother terminated a child before her because she didn’t pass her exam. Throughout the movie, the question is posed: What exactly makes a human good or bad? Or an even bigger question. Who gets to decide if a human is worthy or unworthy? We may think of Mother as the perfect robot with the best intentions of deciding the fate of humanity. However, in reality, we see only a selfish robot teaching her Daughter how to be selfless. Well, thank goodness for Daughter, who has a mind of her own!^[2]

8 I, Robot

I, Robot, released in 2004, is set in 2035, where highly intelligent robots fill public service positions throughout the future dystopian world. They operate under three rules to keep humans safe: The Three Laws. From Isaac Asimov’s 1942 short story “Runaround,” we know that a robot: 1) cannot injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm, 2) must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the first law, and 3) must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the first two laws.

When an apparent suicide looks more like murder, Detective Del Spooner (Will Smith) believes the culprit was a robot. And he sets out to prove it.

Spooner may not love robots, but when it comes to Sonny, a robot longing to be seen and valued, he may want to rethink his hatred. When Spooner decides to hear what Sonny has to say, we find that he has an interesting perspective on human life. He admits that he can not create a great work of art, but he can still dream! Sonny explains that human emotions are difficult—and even if he cannot be the next Olympic gold medalist or Grammy award winner, it does not mean he should be devalued. Sonny reminds us that we all have a purpose, and it can all be valuable.^[3]

7 Wall-E

Ah, Wall-E. The titular robot from Disney’s 2008 film. It is hard not to admire this robot. Wall-E is not a robot of many words, but boy can he swoon. A hopeless romantic, Wall-E builds a love connection with Eve, a robot sent to scan the planet for signs of sustainable life.

When Wall-E finds a living plant for Eve, she shocks (kisses) him, and he can not believe it. Wall-E and Eve begin to dance, sparks start to fly (literally), and the magic behind their connection builds other love connections. In this special film, Wall-E teaches us how beautiful a connection to another person or robot can be.^[4]

6 Ex Machina

Is Ava really a robot? In Ex Machina, Ava the robot has a human face. Ava is confined to a cell, and Caleb, a naive computer programmer, begins to build feelings for her. But at the end of this love story, Ava traps Caleb inside the lab while she escapes into the real world. Ahh, free at last!

We see that Ava loves to be admired because it makes her feel alive. I think we can all relate to Ava here—being seen and wanted does feel exhilarating. But what is more breathtaking than being admired? According to Ava, it is life itself, being free. In the end, Ava realizes she wants a normal human experience. As for Caleb, well—he will be okay…eventually.^[5]

5 A.I. Artificial Intelligence

Perhaps a significant scene in A.I. is when David, an advanced robotic boy who longs to be real so that he can see his mother again, finds out it would only be possible for a day. Futuristic Mecha ponders if human life can be the key to the meaning of existence. In this scene, we are reminded of how special each life can be.

“I’ve always felt a sort of envy of human beings of that thing they call spirit,” said Futuristic Mecha. I must admit it is pretty amazing to think we are the creators and interpreters of all explanations of the meaning of life.^[6]

4 The Matrix Revolutions

Agent Smith in the Matrix is a sentient computer program created by the “machines.” Smith, a very sophisticated machine, brings out the best in Neo, or should I say the side of him we never thought he had. In this final battle between Agent Smith and Neo, Agent Smith accidentally says the phrase. “Everything that has a beginning has an end.” But what exactly does this teach us?

If we look at the law of impermanence, it explains that every process must end at the state of maximum entropy. It explains that everything keeps changing, whether we are aware of it or not. But moreover, the phenomenon refers to the first law of thermodynamics, which states that energy cannot be created or destroyed. Whatever energy is out in a system can only be changed from one form to another.^[7]

3 A.I. Rising

On a space mission to the Alpha Centauri star system, Milutin, a trained cosmonaut, is placed on a ship with Nimani, an android designed to respond to his every desire and monitor his performance on the ship. Nimani fulfills each of Milutin’s sexual desires. However, it does not satisfy him, so he uninstalls Nimanis default operating system to make her more human, hoping Nimani would have sex with him on her own. But soon after, Milutin becomes depressed after Nimani tells him she will not sleep with him anymore because his lust has become a liability to the mission. As Milutin’s mental health declines, Nimani offers to be his friend. Milutin argues that she cannot be a friend because she is an android. Nimani reminds Mulutin that no one knows him as intimately as her because he projected all the women he loved into her.

Throughout the movie, we see Nimani play the reflector for Milutin, a mirror for what is happening inside of him. Nimani teaches Milutin a lesson about love and connection. Milutin thought it would be enough just to have the beautiful Nimani satisfy him sexually. However, it turns out that was far from fulfilling.^[8]

2 Automata

It is 2044, and climate change has decreased the earth’s population by 99.7%. With only 21 million people in the world, a robot company named ROC Corporation created the Automata Pilgrim 7000 to help rebuild the world once again.

Jacq Vaucan—an insurance investigator for ROC, hunts for answers but quickly realizes death is inevitable. When Jacq tells 7000 they were supposed to help humans survive, 7000 responds, “surviving is not relevant, living is. We want to live.” Well, there you go! This movie demonstrates to us the scientific concept called singularity, the time when the abilities of a computer overtake the abilities of the human brain.^[9]

1 BlinkyTM

This 2011 short film warns us to be careful how we treat others, among other things. Alex receives a gift from his parents, a robot named Blinky programmed to do whatever Alex wants. At first, Blinky makes Alex very happy, and all seems well until we realize Alex’s parents cannot stop arguing. As the relationship between Alex’s parents gets worse, Alex begins to mistreat Blinky and even tries to get rid of him by playing a very long game of hide-and-go-seek.

When Alex is scolded by his mother, he blows up on Blinky, causing him to have a technical malfunction. Alex reboots Blinky, but when he does, something odd happens. When Alex breaks a glass, he blames it on Blinky, who heads to the kitchen. After counting from ten to zero, Blinky grabs an electric knife. “Ready or not, here I come,” says Blinky.

Later that evening, we see Alex’s parents at the dinner table, but Alex is not there. When asked about Alex, Blinky says, “You’re eating him.” There are many ways to interpret this, but sure enough, there is a lesson. But perhaps that’s best left for your own interpretation.^[10]