Getting older comes with responsibilities, and those responsibilities teach life skills to last a lifetime—but students aren’t learning the necessary lessons to succeed in life and school should require a life skills related class in the curriculum.
The majority of required classes students take will not help in the future. Instead of having classes just to fill the schedule, another class with real-world and life skill based tasks should be created. The class would cover financial aspects for one’s future, basic first aid and cooking.
In order to financially support themselves, everyone will need to have some sort of income and with income comes taxes. One in four Americans don’t know how taxes are determined, according to TopCashBack.com. Taxes are mandatory to be paid from the time one gets a job to long after they retire; they aren’t going anywhere and everyone should know the basics. Due to the long and somewhat confusing process, some people turn to a tax professional to do taxes for them, which is costly.
Learning how to be independent and help others in the future should be the main priority of schools.
In 2020, heart disease was the leading cause of death in the United States with 690,882 deaths, according to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Although it is the leading cause of death, roughly 70 percent of Americans would not be able to help in cardiac emergencies with cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) due to no training or lack of significant training, according to cprblog.heart.org. This is a life skill.
The current curriculum can be modified slightly in order to include life skills classes and still have the other classes deemed necessary.
Some may argue the curriculum teaches students what they will need to know in the future. However, high level math and science concepts will only get people so far in life and when the time comes, students may struggle adapting to the real-world.
In order to make the change, the school district needs to reconsider the required curriculum and add in one or more required life skills class during the last two years of high school to better prepare students for their future.