What Is Labor Day? A 13 year old kid answer

Last Saturday, me and my wife was having a conversation with my 13-year-old daughter inside the car while I was driving. My wife asked her if there is any notice from the school whether the school is open on Monday as Tuesday will be Labor Day. Normally, the school will give a letter to inform the students and their parents if they declare a special or additional school off days besides any Public Holidays. My daughter confirmed that she hasn't received any letter, so Monday will be a normal school day.

She then asked me why there will be a Public Holiday on Tuesday, so I told her that it's Labor Day which is a special day celebrated in the entire world. Then I asked her, "Do you know what Labor Day means?", and she answered, "Not sure, is it a celebration to honor women who are in labor, who are pregnant and are about to deliver a baby?". I and my wife laughed like hell, we didn't expect to hear such answers from her. So, I asked her if she knew what "Hari Buruh" means (Labor Day in the Malay language). She answered me with a question, "Does it has anything to do with "memburu"?", and again both of us laughed, it was so funny. She clearly has misheard the pronunciation and has no idea at all what 'Labor Day" or "Hari Buruh" means. For you guys info, in the Malay language "buru" means "hunt", so she thought "Hari Buruh" means "Hunting Season".

So, I tried to explain the meaning of "Labor Day" and "Hari Buruh" to her, backed by some additional explanation and information from my wife too, only then that she understood what it means. The next day, I took my daughter and my niece (the same age as my daughter) to Sunday School by car with my wife sitting beside me. I asked my niece the same question as the one I asked my daughter yesterday, and to our surprise, she also didn't know what "Labor Day" means and she also thought "Hari Buruh" is "Hunting Season", we couldn't contain our laugh. I told my daughter to explain to her what it means, we listened, and finally, my niece understood.

What I am trying to state here is about the level of general knowledge of our children in school today. Topics such as the meaning of each Public Holidays and the reason why it is special and being celebrated should already been thought in elementary or primary school levels. My daughter and niece are in Secondary 1 (Junior High School) but I am really worried about their level of general knowledge that is being taught in school. We know that the Internet provides a lot of informations beyond our imaginations, and we can google it up anytime when we wanted to. But if we will only make an effort to search for informations that we require, we will not actually search for any other topics that we are not interested or aware of, our children have the same habit as us grown-ups. What can and what should we do?

In my opinion, the education ministry has overlooked the consequence of neglecting to impose more general knowledge in school's textbooks. Such important knowledge and informations have been derived from the students since their tender age. All along, I thought these basic types of information is part of the contents taught in school books. As I recall, I was already taught about it when I was still in my Primary School. Has the school textbooks and reading materials have really changed so much? Has the quality of the books has improved or even worse than what is used to be 20 - 30 years ago? And as a parent, I think we need to try a newer approach to instill interest and curiosity into the heart and minds of our children so that they will be more proactive and interested to learn and gain knowledge all by themselves.