Hey, I’ll be honest with you, I wish that I would have been taught some more practical things when I was in high school…

Like how to do my taxes and a few other things.

It sounds like a good idea, right?

Check out what AskReddit users think about this idea.

You bet!

“This sounds incredible and is so desperately needed in more places.

So many young people coming out of school with very few skills or practical knowledge. It used to be so common to have home ec classes and they’ve stopped them most places. I was on the cusp when they had just stopped but we still had other practical courses like woodworking, parenting, etc.

You can see a drastic difference in today’s younger adults and teenagers with very few home skills because so many in my generation don’t know how to teach these skills. It has such a ripple effect.”

Squeeze it in.

“I’d be opposed to the extra hour, but not the activities

School was already an 8 hour a day thing, pushing it up to 9 hours means it actually becomes longer than a full time job.

And that’s before you get to homework and s**t like that.”

Make them electives.

“It could be done as an elective.

These are things that could and should be taught by parents, but they aren’t things all parents know, and not all kids have parents who would take the time to teach them either way.

It should be available for kids who want it, but not required, and certainly not adding an extra hour to the school day.”

Get real.

“Lets be real. It’s already pushing overtime every single week.

We just had to take our work home with us and spend an hour (or more) working on it every night.

Hell, some kids push 50+ hours every week.”

They don’t care.

“Schools have these already and the kids in them don’t care. It’s not immediately relevant to their lives so they don’t pay attention.

Sorta like if I were to talk to you about the do’s and don’ts of denture cream. You say, “eh, I’ll figure it out later when I need to know it” and stop paying attention.

I’ve taught in several schools that have tried to teach social skills, kindness, meditation, financial literacy, etc. In every case, the kids did not care. It was their least favorite part of the day because it felt like a waste of time.

The point of education is to teach thinking, not doing. A well-educated student can teach themselves these things. A quick Google search can teach you how to file taxes, cook, etc.

But you can’t Google how to do Algebra 2 and expect to understand what you read without some background in the subject matter.”

They don’t care.

“It’s so funny how many of you think that kids will actually be interested in learning about taxes, stocks, etc.

In what world do you think high schoolers would be attentive in a class about budgeting/taxes?

Have any of you met high school kids before?”

Not a good idea.

“I am opposed to it.

There’s no reason parents can’t teach these things to their kids WHILE DOING SAID TASKS. School isn’t responsible for every single thing.

Also, with the internet, if a parent doesn’t know (changing a tire, for example), they can easily learn.”

Look it up.

“This is all stuff anyone would be able to get info online or ask somebody at home “Hey, mom, how do you write a check? Boil an egg? Change a tire? Get your prescriptions filled?”

It boggles the mind that kids would be willing to sit their ass in a chair at school for hours to passively listen to this, while “adulting” simly means that you take the time to look it up yourself and learn on your own. Since you are “adulting”, you get to decide how much time you want to spend on any of these things.

Learning to cook does not mean you have to become a chef, it just means you can feed yourself reasonably nutritious food that you enjoy eating. You can go all out and learn to bake a fancy quiche if you enjoy it, or just learn to fry a couple of eggs in two minutes. You decide, and have the power over how you want to feed yourself.

It’s ok if you don’t want to learn to do your taxes, although if you only have one job and don’t have properties or business, it can be so straightforward that it’s probably worth learning to do on your own in a couple of hours.

There’s no need to buy a sewing machine to alter your clothes unless you think you would enjoy it as a permanent hobby, but anyone can spend a couple of dollars on a cheap sewing kit and look up how to sew a button, because it only takes a few minutes and it does come in handy. Totally fine to wait until your button falls off.

There are no prescribed items you must know to be an adult, you just have to do the best you can with what you have, and that often means learning something new on your own when needed, and you get to decide how to do it.”

Nope.

“Nope. Parents have to take some responsibility for having kids, too.

Also, cooking has largely been dropped from curriculums mainly because of the danger in it. Kid drops chicken on the dirty floor and picks it up quickly? Kid knocks boiling water off the stove?

Schools would be sued quite quickly.”

Honestly, I think we need more of this!