What non academic stuff do you wish school had taught you?

I know there was a thread that was very similar to this but can't find it rn.
At the last student council meeting when they asked about clubs I suggested basically "how to adult" as an extra curricular where we learn basic stuff that doesn't come up in lessons but we still need to know and might not know already. On Friday 15th I'm pitching it to the deputy head teacher. I know there's student interest but I want to make sure I have a few decent, solid ideas I can put forward as session topics. I've got a couple of teachers (maths, english, food tech, textiles, hoping to recruit a few more) willing to give up a couple of lunchtimes to help out.

This is all really rough as is but so far I have:
Mortgages
Budgeting
How to write professional emails
CV building workshops (we don't have these. no clue why as it's both a high school and sixth form)
How to clean (how often to clean various parts of your house/when to switch products out/just sort of basic home maintenance)
How to mend clothes (rips, stains, general wardrobe malfunctions)
How to live off cheap food without getting scurvy

Not everyone in my school is completely clueless but most don't fully understand at least one of these. Is there anything I'm missing or anything that can be scrapped?

Reply 1

username4454836

20

Your rights as a consumer.

Reply 2

jjjjxxx

17

Original post by Anonymous

I know there was a thread that was very similar to this but can't find it rn.
At the last student council meeting when they asked about clubs I suggested basically "how to adult" as an extra curricular where we learn basic stuff that doesn't come up in lessons but we still need to know and might not know already. On Friday 15th I'm pitching it to the deputy head teacher. I know there's student interest but I want to make sure I have a few decent, solid ideas I can put forward as session topics. I've got a couple of teachers (maths, english, food tech, textiles, hoping to recruit a few more) willing to give up a couple of lunchtimes to help out.

This is all really rough as is but so far I have:
Mortgages
Budgeting
How to write professional emails
CV building workshops (we don't have these. no clue why as it's both a high school and sixth form)
How to clean (how often to clean various parts of your house/when to switch products out/just sort of basic home maintenance)
How to mend clothes (rips, stains, general wardrobe malfunctions)
How to live off cheap food without getting scurvy

Not everyone in my school is completely clueless but most don't fully understand at least one of these. Is there anything I'm missing or anything that can be scrapped?

Driving and how to pass trhe test

Reply 3

sandytablet

20

The sex education at my school was absolutely appalling, primarily because the teachers weren't able to control a class of giggling 12-year-olds.

I wish there was more support for employability, though. My school was somewhat good at this but I know that other schools aren't the best.

Reply 4

Anonymous #2

Taxes, definitely, how they work, how pay is adjusted, how they’re paid etc. I find that most people are clueless about that

Reply 5

Anonymous #1

OP

Original post by Lilligant22

The sex education at my school was absolutely appalling, primarily because the teachers weren't able to control a class of giggling 12-year-olds.

I wish there was more support for employability, though. My school was somewhat good at this but I know that other schools aren't the best.

Yeah the sex ed at my school is atrocious. It's basically just the importance of abstinence. But it's a Catholic school so I'm going for baby steps here.
My school is really bad at employability, too. I'm in year 10 now and we had work experience in September. Anyone doing Health & Social Care had to spend the entire 2 weeks we were allocated for it working with kids under 7 even though maybe 2 people in the entire year actually want to work in early years. I had a work experience placement lined up at the local paper because I want to go into journalism and the school said I had to cancel it so I could do 2 weeks at a nursery. Anyone not doing health and social care either had to set up their own work experience or spend the 2 weeks doing revision at school.

Reply 6

RandomTennisfan

15

I wish they taught these life skills: -Budgeting -How to handle mortgages -Employability skills(I.e C.V advice). -Careers advice (this was poor at school, and not much better when I went to college, more talks needed on university, higher apprenticeship etc.

Reply 7

PhoenixFortune

21

Taxes, mortgages, interest rates, how insurance works, how to read payslips and what exactly gets deducted from your salary... basically personal finances.

Reply 8

username4316350

17

careers - not much was spoken on them no one probably left with the ambition to become a doctor or engineer
further education - wasnt really explained well. i went to sixth form as did many others and was all abit alienating if wasnt interested in uni

Reply 9

Anonymous #3

- Basic laws and how to protect yourself against situations
- Employability skills
- Teamwork
- Financial advice (how to pay bills, how bills even work, what is council tax, what are benefits, how mortgages work, what is interest and how it works etc.)

Reply 10

Kaffee_1998

19

Taxes, more intellectual talks with actual business people and not fricking free love hippies off the street and more practical everyday skills

Reply 11

Anonymous #3

Right.
I’m over 20 and I still don’t know what stock/bonds etc. are and how they work

Reply 12

TheYearNiner

21

How to find a girlfriend

Reply 13

Emma:-)

Entertainment Forum Helper

19

Original post by Anonymous

Taxes, definitely, how they work, how pay is adjusted, how they’re paid etc. I find that most people are clueless about that

I agree.
Plus applying for jobs.

Reply 14

notdyls

14

You have some good topics, but I think another thing to consider is how to make it engaging. My school teaches / tries to teach some of those, but they do it in such a boring way that most of the class just doesn't concentrate so it just ends up being wasted time.

Reply 15

independentx

16

I definitely think topics such as mortgages, budgeting, taxes, etc are extremely important, as well as employability skills such as CV writing, interview skills, etc.

Reply 16

lionike123

15

They should remove Religious Education which is taught like 2 hours a week and replace it with life skills GCSE which includes basic religious knowledge. They should call it Life Skills Education GCSE. It could include learning about mortgages, taxes, religious knowledge, human rights, student loans, and discrimination.

Reply 17

v1ctorvoorh33s

13

So in 2015, I sat for the national high school examination in my country, which I managed to score over 80%. Then, my parents sent me to a college where I had to study for an irrelevant foundation program and an irrelevant diploma called HND. After trying so hard for 3 years and achieving significantly high grades in both of them, I started looking for a university to continue studying for a bachelor's degree.

That's where I slowly started to realize my whole life was a lie.

My high school examination results, foundation studies, and diploma are not accepted anywhere. I spent like 15 freaking years only to end up with a bunch of near-useless certificates that no admission officer at a good university would even take a look at.

I should have gone to an international school and did IGCSE instead of going to government high schools and sitting for this **** exam which is not even accepted as a year 10 level qualification.

Same for my foundation and diploma, instead of wasting 3 freaking years for those, I could have done A levels and SAT. A*AA in A levels + 1500 SAT + 3 SAT subject tests will definitely look super competitive to any university. Furthermore, I would be worrying less about finance as it will be a lot easier to get full rides with A levels + SAT than with my current irrelevant qualifications.

You wanna know what non academic stuff schools should teach you? Here is the answer: DO TEACH US HOW THE EDUCATION SYSTEM IN THE WORLD WORKS NOWADAYS SO THAT WE WILL NOT END UP WASTING PRECIOUS YEARS OF OUR LIVES CHASING STUPID THINGS.

(edited 5 years ago)

Reply 18

jameswhughes

19

Original post by Anonymous

I know there was a thread that was very similar to this but can't find it rn.
At the last student council meeting when they asked about clubs I suggested basically "how to adult" as an extra curricular where we learn basic stuff that doesn't come up in lessons but we still need to know and might not know already. On Friday 15th I'm pitching it to the deputy head teacher. I know there's student interest but I want to make sure I have a few decent, solid ideas I can put forward as session topics. I've got a couple of teachers (maths, english, food tech, textiles, hoping to recruit a few more) willing to give up a couple of lunchtimes to help out.

This is all really rough as is but so far I have:
Mortgages
Budgeting
How to write professional emails
CV building workshops (we don't have these. no clue why as it's both a high school and sixth form)
How to clean (how often to clean various parts of your house/when to switch products out/just sort of basic home maintenance)
How to mend clothes (rips, stains, general wardrobe malfunctions)
How to live off cheap food without getting scurvy

Not everyone in my school is completely clueless but most don't fully understand at least one of these. Is there anything I'm missing or anything that can be scrapped?

You can find out how to do all those things on the internet. Do you really need to be taught by a teacher how to write an email or boil some pasta?

Maybe some people have a completely different expectation of what school should be, I would say it's for academic subjects and not for learning how to do things like helping around the house.