I was raised up in the education system where all courses in school were mandatory. Moreover, after the students in college or university choose their majors, all university and college courses until the last year were mandatory as well. Don't look at the map, this system and this country do not exist anymore; this is the way education was structured in Soviet Union.
Do I think it is a perfect system? No. However, the "full mandatory" education system gives better results than the system where only arithmetic, reading and writing are considered a necessary requirement, and the rest of subjects are on "nice to know" basis.
There are two major reasons for this:
The person who has received "well-rounded" education is exposed to the different ways of looking at the information, and various methods of analysis. This enables more integrative approach to the future problem solving, ability to make connections, find missing links and see the big picture. These skills are useful in any profession, and on any level. Even the person who is working in manual trade would benefit if they can read the morning paper und better understand the differences between political candidates, or see the truth masked behind the curtain of political (or economical) lies. Despite the fact that our world is "global, flat and crowded", most people still get the information about the world outside North America only from the media, which is biased, by definition. It is straightforward to condemn outsourcing to India or China if you only look at the jobs lost in your own town. To the same extent, it is very easy to lobby in favor of sending the jobs away, if the company outsourcing these jobs provides better (or at least cheaper) products and services in a home state. Unless people know what is actually happening in the rest of the world, they are not able to predict their own future, and to understand their present.
There are some courses that without the doubt have to be taught as mandatory, such as basic computer classes, basic finance education, and sex education. These subjects, relatively new in the curriculum, all relate to the basic life skills to the same extent as arithmetic or reading skills. The world around us became more complicated than it is used to be even one generation ago, so the grown-up person should know how to use the computer, how to manage their money, and how to build their relationships - at least, in theory.
Mandatory Physical education is a matter for a separate article, but personally I am in favor of making it compulsory class. I remember struggling through it in high school, and skipping PE in my university. Hard to believe, but now I wish I didn't skip them. These classes could be re-structured, to make them challenging for more athletic students and providing a reasonable level of physical activity for other students. PE classes are important step to introduce regular physical exercise as a normal and enjoyable part of life. As soon as PE is skipped from the curriculum, it immediately is defined in student's mind as the last priority. And it stays there until after the grown ups listen to their doctors' advice when the harm is done and it is too late.
The less obvious candidates to be "mandatory" are the history and geography of the world. Americans are infamous for their continuing ignoring of any information not related to their home country. My favorites were:
"Where are you from? Toronto? O, Texas Canada? Do you also have Toronto in Canada?"
"Is Canadian Thanksgiving earlier than ours? So, do you guys have Christmas earlier, as well?"
Chuckle. Canadians don't fare much better. I stopped counting the times when I had to tell people otherwise very bright and good professionals that my native city of Saint-Petersburg is located in Russia. Not in Florida, USA.
Here is the advice that I got from the recruiter, a couple of months after I came to Canada:
"Where did you work? Tel Aviv? Where is it? O, Israel You should write it down, people don't know."
Needless to say, I followed her advice.
That's not to pronounce that Americans or Canadians are stupid they simply learned what they were taught at the school. Somehow, the world map is considered less relevant than the understanding of magnetic field or structure of bridges which is actually taught in grade three. But how people can have meaningful discussion about the war in Iraq, if they can not even find it on the map? How can they understand the background of their future president if they know next to nothing about Kenya's location and culture? How can Americans or Canadians vote for the forces to be out of Afghanistan, if their only source of knowledge about this region is media? We all know the danger of this.
Just the thought: may be, politicians do not care about educating the masses, because it is easier to manipulate people who are less knowledgeable about the world? This certainly used to be part of philosophy in Soviet Union. It remains to be seen, whether it is any different in the democratic part of the world.