A Problem With School Systems
January 21, 2021
There has been a problem with the school education system for a long time. The problem being that they push their students to receive a higher form of education, but they don’t teach them the essentials to living in today’s society.
While they do have classes that teach you things like finance, driver education, law, etc, they usually aren’t a priority to multiple school systems. People need to know how to do their taxes and make budgets. However, they make you take higher forms of Algebra and English. Both of these subjects are important, but knowing how much money you need to give the government is even more so.
Regardless of whether or not you would like to pursue a certain career, school systems make it obvious that you must take classes that you may or may not be interested in. I do understand that it is important to take the basics of every subject, however, you shouldn’t be required to go to the next stage if you don’t want to.
There have been adults who have said that they haven’t used some of their skills even to this day.
A 2019 study showed that “the average American uses just 37% of what they learned in school in their daily lives” according to studyfinds.org.
In that same study, “six in ten adults (57%) feel a course on money management and budgeting in high school would have been helpful for them.”
I believe that there is a solution to this problem. Schools need to make cooking classes, finance classes, law classes, and driving classes mandatory. Without this, students will never truly understand how to live out in the real world.
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Gerry Johnson • Jan 23, 2021 at 8:49 am
Mr. Smith,
You are absolutely correct! School systems are very flawed at deciding on what subject areas to educate young adults. My kids’ school here in Texas have after school club programs for Anime, Archery, Bowling, Chess and a few other clubs, but these are not skills needed for daily living.
Why do students need to take a foreign language or calculus? Makes no sense to me at all. I took French and Latin to get the foreign language credits I needed to graduate. To this day, as a 47 year old adult, I never had the need for the languages.
Here in Killeen, Texas, my wife and I had enrolled our kids in the City of Killeen Teen Court program. It’s a specially designed court to allow volunteer teens to participate first hand in the judicial system. They served as defense attorneys and prosecutors after being trained and mentored by real judges, prosecutor and juvenile case managers. This experience taught them the real life consequences of making real life decisions.
Cursive writing is another lost education. At some point in an adult’s life, you may want to buy a car, rent an apartment or get a job. To get these done, you’re expected to sign several documents. Well, how can you sign documents if you never learned cursive writing? In this generation of living, parents are now required to teach their own kids how to write cursive because the schools are not doing it.
We also taught our kids about money, difference between credit cards and debit cards, checks, credit bureaus and credit scores. Even though I don’t ever write checks, I felt that the kids should still know the importance of how to write and cash a check. When I was in high school, my school had a typing class and an accounting class.
And lastly, getting a driver license is very important. It’s not part of the school system in most areas, but it should be. My old high school in Brookhaven, Mississippi still has driver’s education as part of the school system. Here is Killeen, Texas, it’s not. If a teenager wants to attend driver’s education, it will cost $400.00 to attend a driving school that is not part of the school education system.
Schools systems are flawed.
Pasha Johnson • Jan 23, 2021 at 7:33 am
As a previous student myself lots of years ago, I totally understand what you are saying. I too feel that schools should have more interest base classes available to students. The classes should also relate to real world learning like finance, cooking, taxes, even how to buy a car without the high APR. Overall, your article was a great read and it sparks thought to others. Great Job!!