Teach Life Skills in Schools

Education
125

I’m all for teaching students life skills and some public schools include some or all of what you have mentioned here. There are 3 challenges I see before this becomes a priority.

  1. Right now teachers are unable to teach the curriculum they have planned due to time being consumed with managing behavior. There are so many interruptions that happen during each class mostly due to student behavior. Teachers need the power and authority to control their classroom and the support to make it happen. They have been so empowered by parents and society to do whatever they want that classrooms are out of control. When I was a student if I came home telling my parents about something a teacher did, their first words would be “get back to school, apologize for whatever it is you have done, and do what your teacher tells you to do”. In today’s world, the parent will be at school trying to get the teacher fired. It’s a completely different world. Teachers are afraid of being fired and afraid of being sued. Students are using their phones to take videos of the teachers and posting them online making what a teacher does into something that it is not. First, we have to give teachers the power and authority that is backed by their administration and the parents to take back control within their classrooms.
  2. Students don’t want to learn. Today’s student isn’t interested so you can try and teach them whatever they want. They don’t care what teachers are trying to teach them.
  3. Schools need to first focus on the core subjects. Students are graduating high school lacking skills in reading, writing, and english which are core. They can’t learn to balance a checkbook if they don’t understand basic math. They can’t fill out an application if they can’t write. In today’s world their entire curriculum is done on chrome books. They don’t write anything out. Nothing. Their grammar is terrible and most adults are reading at an 8th grade level. Let’s focus on math, science, history, reading, writing, and english before anything else.

I believe that schools have taken on the responsibility of things that parents need to be help responsible for. It’s not the schools job to feed, cloth and provide healthcare to students. However, we are not putting dentist’s offices in public schools so kids can go to the dentist during their school day. These same kids are graduating 12th grade reading at an 8th grade level. We have programs where we send food home to kids who don’t have food at home. We have classrooms specific for kids who need behavior management. Our teachers are required to handle things that should be addressed at home.

I do think that some schools are teaching some of the things you have mentioned as electives. I love the idea of teaching these things. I just believe that we have other obstacles that also have to be addressed so that this life skills proposal is effective.

126

Students are graduating high school reading at an 8th grade level. They have terrible grammar and they can’t write well enough to fill out a job application. I would love to get to the point that they are learning how to change a tire, but I’m thinking there are other things that need to be addressed to make that a successful program. This also includes the fact that teachers are struggling being able to teach anything in class because their time is consumed by managing student behavior.

127

We have a program called DECA where in your Senior year you can go to school 1/2 day and work 1/2 day where the employer provides feedback on your attendance, punctuality, work ethic, production, etc. and that is what determines your grade.
I did this in high school. This is great for the students that qualify for it.

1 Like
128

I fully agree. Teach taxes, teach voting rights, basics of cooking, basics of childcare, and DIY things. Too many people don’t know how to do any of these basics.

Ban Regents exams too. I never learned anything from taking them because they are so standardized.

2 Likes
129

This is vastly important. There is no reason that children are in school for 15 years but can’t cook a simple meal or fill out a government form at the age of 18 years old. Hell, some don’t even have their social memorized. Home economics as well as parenting classes should be mandatory curriculum

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130

:100: Life skills, trades, technical skills

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131

Nationwide, state by state all building trades with Great focus on inner city young men. Remove them to safe learning environment with teaching contractor. Teach bricklaying carpentry plumbing electric etc. Training ground? Western North Carolina. Learning a trade will give them ability to feed a family, and this brings Dignity and self respect - Totally investing them into society. We Republicans need to make it Very Clear we Care about them. A program like this will show Nationally we are Pro African American. We will Finally put the Party of Abraham Lincoln Back on the map.

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132

YES! I so wish I had been taught some of these things when I was still in school. Learning about budgeting and finance would have definitely come in handy, especially in today’s economy. It is a lot harder to save money even with two incomes in my household.

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133

I’m under the impression that the Department of Education is possibly going to be shut down. A proposal like this would then become a state policy.

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134

I think we need to go beyond just this. Yes, life skills definitely should be taught, but our whole education system needs revamping. Kids need more time to play and explore so they can develop their God given talents. They need to be given more opportunities for free thinking and sharing of their own ideas. There should be more opportunites for them to make choices in their learning. Our education system is too rigid, too many requirements for everyone to conform & be the same. We want to develop talented, unique individuals, not robotic worker bees.

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135

I know a lot of people aren’t going to like this, but we seriously need to consider requiring schools to teach Financial Peace University. There is a public education course that the Ramsey team makes for highschoolers and if that was at least offered at every school in the country, that would make a huge impact. Imagine future politicians understanding what it means to “live on less than you make.” Imagine high schoolers thinking twice about going to college or some other program and understanding what a student loan is.

I chose the Ramsey one for a couple reasons as well.

  • I know it works.
  • It is private, so the government doesn’t screw it up.
  • The Ramsey team can scale the service.
  • The Ramsey team has more experience in this field than anyone else.
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136

I made a mock curriculum for this for Kindergarten students! Backed by research and everything! Many students don’t know how to clean up spills or tie their shoes or even blow their own noses!!

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137

I completely agree. Besides the basic reading, writing, math, history
-Finance, taxes, insurance, self defense, survival skills, social etiquette, cooking, public speaking, car maintenance, stress management, health and anatomy, coding, handwriting, copy work, dictation, cursive, memorization, recitation, narration, foreign languages, geography, civics.
-Basic home repair is a big one for me. It’s frustrating to call a repair man, watch him and realize how simple it would have been had I known.
-Love the ideas others had for serving others and being in nature.
-Literature class - Would be wonderful to bring back some of the classics. Nothing like reading very well written literature. (and understanding it). amblesideonline.org has a great list. As one person said, teach them how to learn. Love of learning instead of this attitude of school sucks. Bring back books instead of everything digital, the older the book the better often times.
-Take time to allow them to enjoy the “riches” - beautiful paintings, read poetry, Shakespeare, Plutarch, classical music, dance, handicrafts such as sewing or wood carving, nature journal and drawing, study birds, trees.

I understand this sounds like a lot, but kids spend a lot of time in school and some of these things are not very time consuming. It takes a few minutes to read a poem for instance.

As others said, I do not think we will have a DOE and it will become much more local. I am just excited we are finally talking about this!!! Our future looks bright!

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138

Absolutely! Most young people don’t know how to take care of themselves. They need to be taught how to cook, sew, woodwork and mechanics. I learned it when I was in junior high and it has come in very handy as an adult.

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139

I agree completely. I’d like to see more trade schools as well. We need more skilled tradesmen and women.

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140

Gardening, sewing etc! I loved home ec in High School. I’m dating myself, lol. Kids these days don’t get any life skills. It’s sad.

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141

I completely agree with this with a huge emphasis on financial literacy. There is one u overall truth in investing and that is you can’t out invest time. If we teach our high school students (but start the basics much earlier) to manage their money and to invest early we will solve allot of the issues we have with seniors being unable to survive financially and also will reduce the stress that develops once individuals pass 45-50 years old and realize they are not at all prepared for retirement.

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142

This is SOOOO incredibly important. Children and parents should have more control over the classes their children attend…like in college. Maybe not in K-5 but from middle school on there should be more choice and control that allows students and parents to follow a specific subject matter path that is more in line with the child’s interests and purpose. I think many would agree that time was wasted learning about higher math and science where we could have learned about subjects we use every day.

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143

This should alsi include bringing back shop classes like wood, metal and auto.

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144

I just posted a policy that supports this. It’s so important.