A basic etiquette class. I would probably be further along in my career and have had an easier time socially if I hadn’t had a few years of embarrassing myself in the workplace/in groups of people after high school.
Some seem to have opted for abstinence-only education. When I was in high school, we had a pretty good curriculum, barring the abstinence-pushing “Sex Respect” unit which promoted inaccurate things like how contraceptives were wildly ineffective, having sex outside of marriage would ruin your ability to bond with a future spouse, etc.
Not in my state. Even though we have tons of unwed teenage mothers and 30 year old grandmothers. When I was doing child support work for the state, I was invited to one of the local high school to speak to the senior class…and only the senior class… about legal ramifications of pregnancy…but I was not allowed to mention condoms, the pill, or anything more effective than “thou shalt not”.
I am having a moment of looking back and thanking my high school for a class I did enjoy but at the time could see no purpose in. It was called Civil Law, but it should have been called Shit You Got to Know! The teacher started with civil law, but went into a full year of:
how to buy a car
how to balance a checkbook and reconcile card transactions
how to sign a lease
how to manage credit cards
what to ask when trying to hire a professional (like a lawyer or financial advisor)
what kind of student loans to look at in college
and all kinds of stuff that I probably don’t remember now. In fact, I remember several times over my <ahem> 16 or so years since graduating that I wish like hell I hadn’t thrown my notebook away. And her girlfriend taught health and sex ed and used the same approach - just the facts and no bullshit about what can go wrong.
Weird to think this, but I am sure it is surprising to others that I graduated from public HS in Alabama.
ETA: I wish I had been taught at some point more about politics or the insurance industry and how to ask about that stuff when applying for real jobs. My Civil Law class covered a little on getting insurance but not a ton. Of course, this was so long ago that she might have and I forgot it.
I always thought putting everyone through something akin to CERT training would be pretty cool as well as present a useful skill that may save lives.
•Session I, DISASTER PREPAREDNESS: Addresses hazards to which people are vulnerable in their community. Materials cover actions that participants and their families take before, during, and after a disaster. As the session progresses, the instructor begins to explore an expanded response role for civilians in that they should begin to consider themselves disaster workers. Since they will want to help their family members and neighbors, this training can help them operate in a safe and appropriate manner. The CERT concept and organization are discussed as well as applicable laws governing volunteers in that jurisdiction.
•Session II, DISASTER FIRE SUPPRESSION: Briefly covers fire chemistry, hazardous materials, fire hazards, and fire suppression strategies. However, the thrust of this session is the safe use of fire extinguishers, sizing up the situation, controlling utilities, and extinguishing a small fire.
•Session III, DISASTER MEDICAL OPERATIONS PART I: Participants practice diagnosing and treating airway obstruction, bleeding, and shock by using simple triage and rapid treatment techniques.
•Session IV, DISASTER MEDICAL OPERATIONS, PART II: Covers evaluating patients by doing a head to toe assessment, establishing a medical treatment area, performing basic first aid, and practicing in a safe and sanitary manner.
•Session V, LIGHT SEARCH AND RESCUE OPERATIONS: Participants learn about search and rescue planning, size-up, search techniques, rescue techniques, and most important, rescuer safety.
•Session VI, DISASTER PSYCHOLOGY AND TEAM ORGANIZATION: Covers signs and symptoms that might be experienced by the disaster victim and worker. It addresses CERT organization and management principles and the need for documentation.
•Session VII, COURSE REVIEW AND DISASTER SIMULATION: Participants review their answers from a take home examination. Finally, they practice the skills that they have learned during the previous six sessions in disaster activity.
During each session participants are required to bring safety equipment (gloves, goggles, mask) and disaster supplies (bandages, flashlight, dressings) which will be used during the session. By doing this for each session, participants are building a disaster response kit of items that they will need during a disaster.
I don’t think I would trust a large group of teenagers with some of the medical assessments, but I do think it is a good idea. I think CPR should be a class taken for half a year in HS. I just wouldn’t wanting 17 year olds diagnosing anything.
But hey, I have a couple of kids that will be 17 one day so I’m apt to change my mind. In fact, I probably will.
We had this class in my high school. I took it for two years which was the max you could get credit for. Everyday we watched part of the morning news from CNN, then discussed what was going on and why. I was in the class just as the invasion of Iraq happened, so it was a very interesting class and I learned a great deal about what was going on in the world.
I wish they taught more technical skills in school. The year after I graduated, our school got rid of all their tech programs. They wanted every child to graduate and attend a four year university. Anyone who was interested in any kind of trade or craft could get the hell out.
I would like to see an applied science/basic mechanic type class that teaches the basics about how the normal appliances, vehicles, and devices encountered in everyday life work.
So many people get taken advantage of by thinking that the understanding of simple machines is beyond them. How does the plumbing in your house work? Electricity and what the power service panel to the house is about.
I don’t mean that everyone should try to fix things on their own, but you should understand how things work.
Knowledge is power
Plumbing
Its too expensive to not know.
Home Economics was a required class for girls. I think we all should have been required to take it. Everything from basic sewing, to basic baby care and cooking. All things a young single man should know how to do.
Sampiro once mentioned having had a class in Math History. I wish I’d had that: a common remark among my classmates was that, rather than learn Math in Math, we ended up learning it in Chemistry and Physics, where we got to apply it.
Also, there were things which we got taught in Math, like everything else in a completely abstract fashion, disconnected from any practical application and often even from the previous subject within the same course (we’d have been doing quadratic equations and then jump to set theory) but which we never really got to learn because they never got used in CnP; Math History explains things like what is set theory for; ohmygawd, it wasn’t just invented as a torture instrument for future engineers, cops, school teachers and business managers, there are things it makes easier!
So, I wish I’d been taught Math History because it would have put Math in context, whereas my Math teachers insisted in treating their subject as if it had no relationship with the physical world.
I’m a librarian, and one time a few years ago a foreign lady of some sort of Asian descent sidled up to me and asked me how to write a check. I showed her what goes in each field and how to use the register to record what you’ve spent and you’d have thought I gave her the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Don’t assume knowledge on the part of other people - if nobody ever showed you, you wouldn’t know.
And of course I taught her it isn’t spelled with a “q”.
In Texas, sex ed is abstinence based. A big part of this is because we have a lot of Christian fundamentalists and Catholics living here, and they are very uncomfortable with the idea that “children” could need to know these things, even if and when they get married. I taught my daughter about sex ed myself, but the kids who need it the most are precisely the ones who won’t get any real information out of their parents. Hell, their PARENTS don’t know any of this stuff.
I think that some class that could be described as Practical Life Skills should be part of the curriculum, and it should start in kindergarten and be required every year. Of course, the subject matter should change as the kids get older. Kindergartners should learn things like hand washing and other basic hygiene routines, and high schoolers should learn things like how to compute interest, and why putting ephemeral items on a credit card is such a very bad idea.
Related to this…I think they need to ALSO teach relationship skills/training.
SO many people are so out of it with relationship abilty…like a lot of people still take advice on how to get a boyfriend/girlfriend from those dumb teen mags. They dont realize that you have to start out as a FRIEND and then let the relationship develop from there.
That would prolly cut the divorce rate in half!
Don’t spend more than you earn.
Class dismissed.
Red Cross First Aid/CPR should be standard in all US Jr High/High Schools.
Luckily for me, I took JROTC, & got that training.
My school had a mandatory class called Personal Financial Management. We had to keep checkbooks, manage budgets, apply for apartments, etc. It was a snooze for me (it was all very common-sense), but for some of my reality-impaired classmates it was a wake up call.
Yep… my school was abstinence based, but my teacher would usually thrown in a few “but talk to your doctor, there are other options” kind of quips. She didn’t believe in abstinence only, but she also didn’t believe in being unemployed.
Economics. I never had it and it wasn’t offered. I have no idea why we let kids graduate without teaching them about money. Not only is it essential to life, it’s an academic discipline! What more reason do you need?
Great, just what we want in schools- wild conjecture and unreasonable conclusions.
Maybe no, but learning how to manage and track the balance in their bank account is still a useful skill.