Here’s the thing. I can tell you how to answer a polyamorous equation. I can give you a completely memorized timeline of both World Wars. I can recite the 9 animal phyla and their characteristics. But you know what I can't do. I can't cook. I have no idea how to pay taxes. I know absolutely nothing about financial stability and If I'm honest I really don’t know anything about healthy living or important communication skills. These things seem a little more important to me than polyamorous equations considering they affect my life, but for some reason, I have no idea how to do them or really have any understanding of them.
The reason is this. Schools do not teach important life skills that are necessary for students entering the adult world.
The joint study between Monash University researchers and the Australian Scholarship Group (ASG) collected statistics on what parents thought of the education system. According to the study, 69 percent of parents believe schools should do more to teach their children about social skills and other real-life behavioral problems. Even parents want to see this change! It may also be the fact that by not having your teens and young adults prepared for the real world, they will stay at home for longer and be much more dependent on their parents. 43% of 20–24-year-olds were living in the family home in 2016, up from 36% in 1981, and 25-29-year-olds still at home has also grown from 10% in 1981 to 17% in 2016. Don’t you want to see your kids independently thriving?
Students are taught to memorize information rather than learn critical life skills such as financial management, healthy living, emotional management and training, communication skills, and all-around personal growth. I must give some credit to schools though, in my time at school I have learned a lot of information, but just not enough for me to confidently enter adulthood. Whilst the information taught in schools is helpful and significant it is not entirely useful for students to become well and easily-adjusted adults.
'Schools teach knowledge, but life requires wisdom'
Here are some possible changes I would like to see made:
Incorporate life skills into already existing classes - to avoid people like me nearly burning the house down by putting alfoil in the microwave offer some sort of basic cooking class in science for those schools that don’t already have a food science class. In maths class, give the students the basics on smart credit usage and savings to avoid young adults having heart attacks by looking in their bank account and realizing they only have -2 dollars left. In health classes, teach the importance of health insurance. How important is insuring my life and health? I have absolutely no idea.
Offer additional classes for important life skills or simply an all-around life skills class - something like this would’ve been my main choice as a subject or subject. Offer a class in financial management, psychology, emotional management, goals, personal growth, communication even just general things that seem so small but are so important to know. Having a class like this would offer so much relief to high schoolers entering the adult world. It would mean that maybe adults would be able to stop saying 'I still have no idea what I'm doing because we could get our minds straight, our ideas set, and know exactly what to do as soon as we enter adulthood.
Stop throwing kids off the cliff to adulthood - being a teenager is hard enough. I know what the adults are probably thinking. Oh my gosh, children who get everything really have it rough. But with the stress of exams, social pressures and so much more I and many others don’t have the time to learn about financial stability. Having a class that could offer to teach kids these basic skills will mean we won’t be completely thrown into the deep end. Maybe we would then be able to get ourselves together to enter adulthood confidently.
The idea of learning life skills in school seems like a very ideal idea to me, a 16-year-old high schooler. I would love to be able to confidently say that when I become an adult I will have great credit (whatever that means), supportive health insurance (if that’s the right term to use), and I will no longer risk burning my house down with a basic cooking appliance. Sure, the things I learn in school a great, interesting, and challenging but they aren’t really going to help me know exactly what I need to, do to become an adult.
Of course, I can’t generalize this idea as many schools do offer courses in job preparation and cooking but regardless of this, there are gaps missing in our education that, if taught, would easily help us settle into the real world. I want kids to be able to stop constantly asking themselves 'when am I ever going to use this information?' and 'how will this help me after high school?' by offering information that will. The transition into adulthood is already stressful enough and the fact is kids aren’t being prepared well enough for the real world. Schools don’t teach enough life skills that are necessary for teens entering adulthood.