Life after high school can be stressful, especially if you do not know basic life skills. School is a place for learning, but what is the point in going to school if you’re lost after graduation? Kids are able to solve a math equation, but have no idea what is or even how to balance a check book.  Required courses need to be more connected to real world situations.

After graduating from high school, students are lost in the real world. If more schools offered courses or electives relating to the real world, students would be better prepared for their future after leaving school.

School does not prepare students for real life scenarios after graduation. Students have proficiency in math, science, reading, and history, which are good things to have, but there are still classes that are lacking. There needs to be courses such as Nutrition, Automobile Maintenance, Budging, Cooking, Credit, Etiquette, Household Repairs, Insurance, Local Government, Negotiating, Social Media Safety, Stress Management, Survival Skills, and Tax Preparation.

Sometimes the above subjects are brought up and even taught, but its only for a short time. For example, schools say if a student is struggling with stress and depression to come to them, but fail to realize students rather deal with situations themselves rather than speaking up. Sometimes the child needs the adult to come to them. This is not possible all the time, but if there was a class for it, students would realize they are not alone.

Another example is cooking.  Jefferson-Morgan offers a cooking class, but it is only offered for a short time. Cooking takes time. It is impossible to teach a classroom full of students how to cook something in a 30 minute time frame. You have to set up and prepare, cook, and clean up in the 30 minute time frame and that is nearly impossible. If the class were to be longer, students would be able to to focus on necessary skills.

There are several valid reasons why schools may not offer these courses such as lack of teachers or time. Schools are always lacking teachers, and adding more classes would just be a downfall with no one to teach them.

There are only so many hours allowed for a school day as well, so this is another downfall. More classes offered would mean more time needed.

Students do need a mix of both kinds of classes. More people need to speak up and make these changes happen. It would be a long stressful project, but students would benefit and so would society.