Life skills

[Viktorkrum77]

Does anyone else think that we should learn important life skills in school? Things like how to make money, how to use the stock market, how and when to refinance, bills, how to buy a house, all about banking, credit, mortgage, consolidating, saving money, the job world, things like this that are very important in life out of school. The problem is, we learn stuff that we will need about half of in college/uni, and then will use less than that in real world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don't feel prepared enough to face the world on my own with all this complicated mumbo jumbo I will have to deal with in the future. And I know others that feel the same. These kinds of things are the most important things, more important than what we learn. Yes, some of us will use some of what we learn, and will use it in college and our jobs, and other stuff is useful, like some math, but alot really isn't.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So does anyone else think we should be learning these important life skills in school?

[rushrock]

Yeah, I agree with you. A specific class would be perfect, but I think the schools just think that the parents will take care of teaching their children that subject. :roll:

[tripsis]

I have a very extreme view on our education system all together. The way I see it, we shouldn't be taught 90% of the material past grade 9 or so. Along the lines, I have found most of the material to just be repeated anyway (especially in sciences and histories).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As long as we're going to have an educational system in place, we might as well make it useful. So yes, I agree with you... In an extreme sense. I say get rid of everything past mid-high school and start fresh. Let the students have more control over the classes they take, let them pick courses that will be useful to them in the particular lifestyle they want to lead.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'd keep going and reveal my even more extreme opinions, but people will start to question my sanity :ohnoes:

[indy500fan]

Many of my teachers in high school tried to teach "life skills". The problem was that they were the stupid teachers. The smart teachers all knew what they were teaching, and didn't try to fill it in with "life skills". If there were teachers that were smart at teaching a subject called "life skills", it would work out nicely.

[timmay929]

That's a good idea. They should not teach math in high school and teach life skills instead. That would be a dream come true.

[warri0r45]

I totally agree, school to me (I'm finished now) was kind of wierd. I learnt quite a bit of life experience, but none from any teacher, I learnt all of that myself, and I remember it. But most of the information I learnt from subjects has been useless to me so far, and as a result I've forgotten the majority of it. I cant help but feel that school could be so much better as a learning environment, not just a place to test how well your memory and effort is is (learning things for tests and putting in effort on assignments). It kind of feels like a semi-wasted 12 years of my life (the good things are me learning life experience and times with friends).

[ctp080188]

I reckon a lot of life skills can be learnt yourself, once you reach a certain age. There are certain things though that I know for one I know nothing about, for example, the stock market, but a lot of things you can quite easily figure out yourself.

[tripsis]

I totally agree, school to me (I'm finished now) was kind of wierd. I learnt quite a bit of life experience, but none from any teacher, I learnt all of that myself, and I remember it. But most of the information I learnt from subjects has been useless to me so far, and as a result I've forgotten the majority of it. I cant help but feel that school could be so much better as a learning environment, not just a place to test how well your memory and effort is is (learning things for tests and putting in effort on assignments). It kind of feels like a semi-wasted 12 years of my life (the good things are me learning life experience and times with friends).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I agree with you entirely. The way school is now is just ridiculous:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

- 7+ hours at school a day

 

 

 

- An average of 2-5 hours of homework a night (at least at my school)

 

 

 

- Tens of tests/quizes a year.. In each class

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

..And so on. Tests hardly test someone's intelligence (or how well they've "grasped the information"), but rather how many facts/concepts they can memorize in a certain period of time.. Or how dedicated they are to getting that silly letter "A" sprawled across their test. I think that students slaving away over school[work] for ~10 hours a day is just stupid.. Especially when you actually take into consideration how little of the material will actually help you in the future.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Slightly getting off-track here, but still relating to school.. It really bugs me when people go out and do all these studies about how "Teenagers aren't getting a healthy amount of sleep!" Well do people ever wonder why? We spend 7+ hours at school, 2+ hours on homework a night, some of us engage in various sports, etc. As students, we have so little time to actually discover who we want to be, or what we want to do when we grow up, or engage in activities that we enjoy. So we either end up staying up half of the night finishing our school work because we had basketball practice after school.. Or we stay up half the night doing something we enjoy because we didn't have time during the day..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I could go on for hours, but I'm getting a little side-tracked :ohnoes:

[ilya]

street smart is much better then school smart. Too bad they don't teach taht in school u have to learn it in uhh streets and skateparks

[Guest AshKaYu]

street smart is much better then school smart. Too bad they don't teach taht in school u have to learn it in uhh streets and skateparks

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

... I can learn about credit, banking, paying taxes, legal rights and mortgages at a skatepark? I highly doubt what I learn in a skatepark will help me more then what I learn in school, unless my goal is to become a proffesional skater.

[deloriagod]

street smart is much better then school smart. Too bad they don't teach taht in school u have to learn it in uhh streets and skateparks

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wrong. You need a balance of street smarts and school smarts. I have a decent balance of both (and I've never been to a skatepark :roll: ).

[foolgool]

It does seem to be a waste, as most occupations aren't going to require that you know the history of your country, how to dissect a frog, or exame owl feces. They really should let us choose our own courses, from a more diverse list as well.

[Guest AshKaYu]

It does seem to be a waste, as most occupations aren't going to require that you know the history of your country, how to dissect a frog, or exame owl feces. They really should let us choose our own courses, from a more diverse list as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But that would require more education on a teachers part, which in turn would make them have to stay in university for longer, and then they'd require a higher salary.

[Viktorkrum77]

 

It does seem to be a waste, as most occupations aren't going to require that you know the history of your country, how to dissect a frog, or exame owl feces. They really should let us choose our own courses, from a more diverse list as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But that would require more education on a teachers part, which in turn would make them have to stay in university for longer, and then they'd require a higher salary.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That would cost more money. At my school especially we're limited so much on what we can take. Basically the only electives are, Spanish (only language), PE/Health, and only for people taking nonperforming arts/visual arts concentrations (majors) can take art 3d, art 2d, voice/keyboard, dance, or theatre. On top of that, anyone taking a visual/performing arts concentration can only have 1 elective each of the four years in high school, unless they complete other courses, or don't take core classes all 4 years. And it's required we take 2 years of Spanish and 1 year of Health/PE leaving only one open elective, which can be (sometimes, but funding is low) computer classes (which are only for upperclassmen). It sucks. And don't get me started on the fact we don't have a gym.[/rant]

[deloriagod]

It does seem to be a waste, as most occupations aren't going to require that you know the history of your country, how to dissect a frog, or exame owl feces. They really should let us choose our own courses, from a more diverse list as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I agree that most classes seem to be a waste. I don't see a good reason for me to take ~7 (required) English classes when I plan on having an art related career and all of my art classes have to be electives.

[Trip]

My school had a compulsory Life Skills class, total 200 minutes a week dealing with that sort of thing. :-k

[Nanosauromo]

I agree with Victor. Schools should drop history and PE, and instead teach us the things we really need to know to make a living in the world. Who's going to hire someone based on weather they know when the French Revoloution was or who Jean-Jeaques Rousseau was?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

However, math, English, and foreign languages (Spanish for me) are very important to know.

[Nanosauromo]

Oops, this was supposed to be an edit, not a reply.

[Lionheart_0]

:? Well i'm certainly not gonna learn about Biology and chemistry in the amount that i want to in the real world when i need it. Life skills are called that for a reason: you learn them as you live life. To me, learning life skills is something each person should find out on their own, and not tought because that would take all the fun out of living. what good is living life to discover and and be independent if we just have the that stuff shoved down our throats. Id rather learn about the stuff i need for a job in school, but learn how to get that job on my own.

[Viktorkrum77]

:? Well i'm certainly not gonna learn about Biology and chemistry in the amount that i want to in the real world when i need it. Life skills are called that for a reason: you learn them as you live life. To me, learning life skills is something each person should find out on their own, and not tought because that would take all the fun out of living. what good is living life to discover and and be independent if we just have the that stuff shoved down our throats. Id rather learn about the stuff i need for a job in school, but learn how to get that job on my own.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Maybe later on, but just starting out, it is very intimidating and confusing. And can severely hurt you if you do something wrong.

[rushrock]

Well, when I was reading some of the posts, there came up the subject of homework and tests. While they don't really act as a friendly learning enviroment, they actually help. For me, I can remember things quite well once I've written papers and taken notes for hours on end...:roll:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don't want to sound wrong in any way possible, but my school is fairly rich. We have many choices to choose from, and most of the teachers know what they're doing. They can be strict, but they're "real". In fact, one of my teachers keeps bringing up the idea of "tax payer's dollars being wasted" when we talk out. :XD:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think my school is pretty well out, but I do think that they should add some new classes, like Viktor suggested. They would be pretty useful, and to those who have poorer schools, I'm very sorry.

[dusqi]

I took economics in 'highschool', and my teacher was good and encouraged us to bring in an economics-related article from the newspaper every class, then we'd spend 5-10 minutes discussing it. That kind of 'relating school to the real world' should be encouraged. However, it is difficult to test in exams, so it tends to be forgotten. This is the fault of the exam system.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As to whether life skills should be taught in schools? I think so, perhaps. Especially the money-related stuff like the types of mortgages available, how to run a savings and a current account at the bank, what a direct debit is, how credit cards work. These are all lessons that parents aren't teaching, in many cases because they don't know themselves. Perhaps they could be run as after-school events, where students don't have to attend them all. I think that the biggest problem is that if your parent doesn't know, it's difficult to find out yourself. So at least if it was an extra-curricular, you'd have the opportunity to learn, even if you didn't take it. Then it wouldn't interfere with the school day either.

[Oy_the_Great]

I agree with Victor. Schools should drop history and PE, and instead teach us the things we really need to know to make a living in the world. Who's going to hire someone based on weather they know when the French Revoloution was or who Jean-Jeaques Rousseau was?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

However, math, English, and foreign languages (Spanish for me) are very important to know.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

History is probably the most important course you'll ever get to form a decent background of everything. I am very happy history is still an obliged course in Belgium, although it's been a few years since I had my last high school course now.

 

 

 

I study economics now but I can guarantee you that history is far more important than religion, biology, greek, latin or geography. Although those were all high school courses as well, they are of little importance for me anymore. I find all of them interesting, sure, but they're not nearly as useful as history.

 

 

 

I have several courses that have an introduction of an entire book about the history of that particular science (such as psychology, sociology, macro- and microeconomics itself, ..) and if you just have to study it without knowing anything about those periods, you'll be in trouble. You have to understand what happened then, why people reacted in that way, how it was possible something happened etc. I see history as a guideline to see where we are now and what we have done wrong over and over again. So with all that information gathered, we can at least try not to make the ame mistakes and try to make the same changes, adapted to our period of time, that did good for the world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Honestly, I doubt there is any decent CEO, professor, topmanager, politician (I said decent ;)) or even a brilliant engineer that doesn't know a lot about the major events and changes in our history. It's very useful.

[lawrencekill]

I have a very extreme view on our education system all together. The way I see it, we shouldn't be taught 90% of the material past grade 9 or so. Along the lines, I have found most of the material to just be repeated anyway (especially in sciences and histories).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As long as we're going to have an educational system in place, we might as well make it useful. So yes, I agree with you... In an extreme sense. I say get rid of everything past mid-high school and start fresh. Let the students have more control over the classes they take, let them pick courses that will be useful to them in the particular lifestyle they want to lead.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'd keep going and reveal my even more extreme opinions, but people will start to question my sanity :ohnoes:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yeah. Usually we don't need to use skills past 8th grade in daily lives. The high-school courses on those should be optional and kids should start thinking about what major they want so they can focus on it and not waste time doing math when they could be advancing their chemistry skills to become a scientist.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Not a good example because you have to measure stuff in chemistry but you get the point I hope.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

:? Well i'm certainly not gonna learn about Biology and chemistry in the amount that i want to in the real world when i need it. Life skills are called that for a reason: you learn them as you live life. To me, learning life skills is something each person should find out on their own, and not tought because that would take all the fun out of living. what good is living life to discover and and be independent if we just have the that stuff shoved down our throats. Id rather learn about the stuff i need for a job in school, but learn how to get that job on my own.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We should be somewhat know about this. Often parents don't teach enough about finances to their children and young adults can dig themselves into a pretty deep hole if they know nothing about credit cards and such.

[Death_By_Pod]

Most of the questions that you ask have no definite answer or have multiple answers (and vary due to state legislation and where you live). So how would you go about creating a concrete course and assessment framework when such things would need to be constantly updated and altered to keep up with the changing world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is the use of being taught life skills if you don't have the initiative to go out and learn first hand what it all means; a book can only go so far, especially for something so subjective. You're bound to mess up somewhere, that's what we call life. The over protectiveness of this generation's parents have failed to actually care for their kids if their child is too scared to make mistakes and need to be taught about life skills instead of actually experiencing them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you want to learn about shares, go read about it or talk to a finance manager about how you can finance shares through your work. If you want to learn about a job market, then find a job you want to do and find industry recruitment agencies and talk to people in the industry. I don't see we need to have a class which is based on common sense.