One of the things I've always said about school is that it doesn't teach us all the things we need to know. Taxes, politics, cooking, car maintenance, it's all stuff that we should be taught as adolescents, and yet it's what we're left to figure out our own as adults. Sure, they teach us about the anatomy of a frog...but mortgages? Not important, apparently.
One school in Kentucky decided that it was time to start educating their students on "adulting," and added three courses for them to choose from. The courses were taught at Bullitt Central High School in Shepherdsville, and took the form of a conference. There were 11 different workshops, ranging from how to file taxes to how to change a tire.
Each student had the chance to pick three courses, taking their knowledge and applying it to everyday situations.
"I think that the idea occurred to me originally, I saw a Facebook post that parents passed around saying they needed a class in high school on taxes, and cooking," Christy Hardin, director of the BCHS Family Resource & Youth Services Center said. "Our kids can get that, but they have to choose it. And (Wednesday) was a day they could pick and choose pieces they didn't feel like they had gotten so far."
The school posted about the conference on Facebook, and it was met with overwhelming praise.
Today the YSC held an 'Adulting Conference' for our Seniors. The Seniors were able to choose 3 of 11 workshops to attend to gain more knowledge and skills pertaining to their lives once they leave us here at BCHS.We would like to thank the many community partners who helped us to make this event possible. Including: The Center for Women and Families, KHEAA, the US Army, the Shepherdsville Police Department, UPS, Abby Baylor, Park Federal, Our Lady of Peace, and Mr. Rippy.
"So it's like Home Ec and Shop and Music and PE, What a Great Idea," Rob Shaub said. "Thank you for bringing this into schools again."
"Yup. It would have been nice if my school taught us about budgeting, mortgages, insurance, filing taxes etc. instead of needless topics like Chemistry's balanced equations and Math's geometry," Raven Bard said. "Seriously, I've not used half the things I had to learn in school in regular everyday adulting. What a waste."
Others pointed out that these things were taught in school, but things have changed.
"I went to high school in a similar time period as you," Lori Reynolds said. "A whole semester of cooking, a whole semester of useful math skills (banking, loans, interest rates, etc), changing tires and oil, etc...now they squeeze all these minimal daily living skills into one day, and have to have organizations come in for the day to teach it? That's just pitiful. What a sad state the schools are in today."
"They should be teaching kids this stuff in the curriculum already schools are doing their students a disservice by pretending they don't need these real world skills but the government should step in with funding for a new subject and teacher salary to create kids who are ready to adjust to adult life," someone else said.
Other people also suggested it should be it should be on the shoulders of the parents to teach the kids, not the teachers.
"Yeah, it SHOULD be left to the parents," Nathan said. "It would be nice if they actually taught their kids something useful. Teachers already have a hard enough time with these kids who haven't learned discipline from their parents."
"I say, Moms and Dads, step up," Jeannie Gibbs suggested.
Personally, I think this conference is a great idea, but I don't know if it's sufficient to just have it be one day! These things are crucial life skills, and there's no way you can learn it all in a single day.
[H/T: People]
