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Why did they never teach me anything I'd really need to know?
In home-ec, (which was not mandatory), they taught us how to write a check, but NOT how to balance a checkbook, or budget a household. They taught us how to cook a nutritious meal, but not how to shop for it on minimum wage.
I
was lucky, because I had talented parents who passed on their skills to me. I believe that every human being should know how to: drive a vehicle, use a condom, plant and tend a garden, care for someone who is sick, perform small repairs/maintainance on an engine, administer basic first aid and/or CPR, swim, manage an investment portfolio, cook a nutritious meal, have a discussion that DOESN'T turn into an argument/fight, plunge a toilet, defend themselves from an attack, perform well in a job interview, obedience train a puppy, use a computer at a basic level, repair rips or missing buttons in clothing, shoot a firearm...
I am sure I sound like a wild-eyed survivalist, hiding in the sagebrush in Montana waiting for the end times, but that's not it at all. If you think about it you will be able to come up with a million skills that you wish you'd learned while you were a teenager
University of Housework
University_20of_20Housework
by me. Obviously not on a large enough scale. [calum, Mar 23 2005]
Prison OCD
Prison_20OCD
by me. Also not applied to public school. [reensure, Mar 23 2005]
Montessori
http://www.google.c...&q=Montessori&meta=
All you will ever need to know. [angel, Mar 24 2005]
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I would've signed up for this curriculum. [+] Shame I didn't get the chance. |
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I learned to balance a checkbook in an 8th grade math class. We had classes in school that taught how to cook, sew and manage a household budget. I learned First Aid and CPR in a class in 7th grade. There were business courses available in high school. We had auto shop classes, we had classes that taught us to weld, do electrical wiring, operate and repair farm equipment, plant and tend crops, raise livestock, etc. We had swimming lessons available during summer school. I took a driver's training class for credit in high school. Hunter's safety courses were available in grammar school, though I never took one. |
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I didn't get training in interview skills until college. |
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Maybe you went to the wrong school? Maybe things have just changed that much since I graduated high school 20-some years ago. |
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This is a rant and sideways falls under the category "lets all" and under advocacy.
But its a rant and a "lets all" thats close to my heart. |
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The truth though, is that there is no school that can prepare you for real life. Life itself is the school and a lot you can use if you look just a little further than the textbooks. |
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I used mathematics for measuring and filling up the difficult spaces in my house, and statistics on the halfbakery, and because of administration I know how to balance a check book, logistics comes in handy on AOM and also planning what is the best balance between the groceries I need to stock up on in combination with the avalaible storage space, the little law lessons I followed are enough to make me aware when I have to write an objection about taxes, english has proven to be very much convenient over the past years. |
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there is no way you could start a school teaching "life skills". Every life requires somewhat different skills and as a teenager one tends not to appriciate the skills that the older generations are trying to teach you, that is why the frase "I told you so" was invented. |
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The best you could aim for is a school that teaches you to think for yourself and thats already baked:Philosophy. |
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P.s. what's whith the puppy? |
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P.p.s: Half, did you grow up in Texas? |
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With the exception of portfolio management and interviewing skills, everything listed here is well covered by the Boy Scouts. |
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Ah, ok Half that also explains the crop growing and hunting classes |
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//everything listed here is well covered by the Boy Scouts.//
Eighty percent of it is covered by basic common sense. |
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//everything listed here is well covered by the Boy Scouts//
You clearly weren't part of 3rd Helensburgh, where all we learned was how to tie knots, how to play murderball and the correct response to the chant call "Up the bum!" |
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Hey, [Susan], about your profile...
if you type < br > (without the spaces) in your text, the < br > will be replaced with a line break when the text is viewed. |
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I believe that's the solution you seek for your layout problems. |
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I am still astounded by meeting people in their thirties who can't wire a plug and don't know how to turn off their water mains when there's a leak. Bun, bun, bun, bun and bun. |
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This is a great idea, [monkey]. They didn't have any of those extra "life-skills" classes at my high school (also in CA, [half]). No home-ec, shop, driver's ed. Maybe the fact that I went to private school had something to do with it? I'm making out just fine without having taken those classes, though, mostly because I know people who have those skills and have taught me some of them, like shooting a firearm, changing a tire, giving CPR, etc. |
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Somebody famous (but not famous
enough for me to be able to recall their
name) and American (I think) and dead
(probably) once wrote something along
the lines of "what every man should
know". It was a list along similar lines,
including things like how to deliver a
baby and...lots of other things I can't
remember. I googled "what every man
should know" and you can imagine
what I got. This is really bugging me
now - does anyone know who wrote it? |
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Reminds me of watching 'Demolition Man' today, where rehab is assigned based on personality and adaptive skills, and John Spartan (Sly Stallone) is imprinted with the ability to knit. A bit of wry irony about how the world would be a better place if ... |
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Delivering a baby? Dear God, I'd faint. |
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I believe it's worse for the mother. |
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I'm worried that such a course, if widely
implemented, would leave little room
for natural selection. |
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My high school taught very few of these. The parents took a stab at a few, but not nearly enough. I blindly stumble through, basically. |
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I set up most of my furniture in my room when i was twelve. Maybe this would give my brother a clue as how to make that chair he got with his desk(I also helped my dad to make the desk...), instead of getting me to sort it out... |
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And he's a year and 6 months older than me. |
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I just wish schools and parents would teach people how to learn, and what fun learning is. The rest would take care of itself. |
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[Absinthe] Have a google on Montesori schools and methods. |
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As to the idea: bun. My mum has an old book which tells you how to do damn near everything from beekeeping and cookery to basic carpentry, care of the ill, stain removal, rabbit breeding, gardening, how to make invisible ink, etiquette, sewing, hairdressing, how to make your own boot-black, concocting herbal remedies and child care. It's great though often bizarre. I think it's by Good Housekeeping but I could be wrong. It was printed sometime at the beginning of the last century. |
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//Have a google on Montesori schools//
But spell it correctly. (linky) |
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I think I could get by without learning how to obedience train a puppy. |
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<half> thank you! it works and looks much better now. |
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// I still can't balance a cheque book. //
It's simple, just put your finger underneath, about half way along. |
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At the graduate school level, successful students would be awarded a ... (wait for it).... |
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A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, con a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyse a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. --R.A Heinlein, Notebook of Lazarus Long |
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The very first school I ever attended was Montessori. I have fond memories, even if they are a bit hazy. |
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Trust me [yabba], you've never had to live with a badly-trained dog if you don't think puppy training is important. ;-) |
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Like [half], many of these things I learned in the prepare-for-the-real-world California public school system. One of the more valuable lessons I learned was in an assignment to plan a week's meals on $2 a day. This came in very handy in college (tip: buy a $7 pack of pasta and $4 tub of margarine from Costco - it'll last you weeks). |
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What i'd like to attend is a "Renaissance
Man/Woman" school. |
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Graduates would end up a cross
between James Bond, DaVinci, Sherlock
Holmes and Marie Curie, Leonard
Bernstein and Twila Tharpe. |
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Ah Montessori, I remember just a few things from my days there. Sizing the blocks and shapes, mostly. Always thought 'Montessori' was some sort of quaint religious terminology. Had to look it up. |
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Somewhere there's a newspaper clipping of me playing with the blocks at the local Montessori pre-school. |
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//A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. |
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From Robert Heinlein's "Time Enough for Love." |
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tut, the *things* students will do with margarine these days. |
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Coming Soon: The Kindergarten of getting the shit kicked out of you. |
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Next: The middle school for the proper usage of a plank with nails in it. |
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