What are your thoughts about school taking up an extra hour every day to teach basic “adult stuff” like washing clothes, basic cooking, paying taxes?

What are your thoughts about school taking up an extra hour every day to teach basic “adult stuff” like washing clothes, basic cooking, paying taxes?

39 thoughts on “What are your thoughts about school taking up an extra hour every day to teach basic “adult stuff” like washing clothes, basic cooking, paying taxes?

  1. I think it’s good. It’s skills people need in general. And I’ve washed my clothes a million times more than I ever needed trigonometry.

  2. I think it’s a good idea but I’d work into the regular school day. It should be a requirement like math even. Drop out some crap that has no bearing on real life to make room for it.

  3. My school already does teach you about taxes, just no one ever pays attention to that. The rest is your parent’s responsibility

  4. Trim one hour of school per day but removing shit from the bloated curriculum and have kids learn these skills at home.

  5. A nice idea but far from feasible. Where is this one hour coming from? There’s no time. Our schools have started including classes on a Saturday just so that they can keep up with the syllabus.

    Then, where do they learn these things? Do they have washing machines installed? Or go to a laundromat for a day?

    These are the things you’re gonna have to pick up as you go along. Thankfully, a quick YouTube tutorial can generally help you out with anything.

  6. It’s literally taught.

    Textiles and material design – fabric care

    Basic cooking – food technology and catering classes

    Financial literacy – business and economics.

    As a teacher I can’t offer you financial advice or what shares to buy or what credit card you need. I have literally taught double entry bookkeeping to year 10s for my entire career. Mother fucker if you can’t understand the progressive tax system after 6 years you are a moron. We teach it in two subjects.

    As a teacher in Australia these subjects are taught from year 7 and you can specialise in them in your final years.

    If you don’t listen to me that’s your problem.

  7. A few flaws in this plan..where are you getting these teachers? There is already a massive shortage of teachers for stuff ready on the timetable.

    No teacher has time to regularly add an extra hour to their day. That would have a huge impact on after school clubs,parents evenings, school plays, revision sessions etc.Teachers already do a heck of a lot of extra hours outside of the school day without adding more to their workload

    Somewhere parents have to step up and actually teach their kids this stuff. It’s not all on schools.

  8. Hear me out: schools already teach this.

    Not as curriculum itself, but school teaches students how to develop skills, how to practice, how to refine, how to seek out experts, how to ask for help.

    We teach students to read, and to comprehend instructions, and to search Google, and to find someone who can help.

    We don’t teach you how to fill out your taxes, we teach you to **figure out** how to fill out your taxes.

    That’s public education.

  9. First thought, Parents should be teaching their kids this. It kind of annoyed me when my sister made a comment about my nephew not knowing how to mail a letter and my mother said the schools don’t teach him that? They didn’t teach me that, and I graduated 15 years before him.

    Second thought, some people have parents who don’t give a crap about teaching their kids, especially when it comes to paying bills and budgeting money. However, the class would be a real drag on people with good parents and if you make it an elective, most people wouldn’t take it.

  10. What? I mean sure it would be nice, but your parents could easily teach some of this to you. It’s a washing machine, not a rocket ship. It doesn’t require years of training.

    Edit: and let’s be real. Even if there was an entire course or unit about doing taxes, kids would still probably ignore it and be like, “when would I use this in real life?”

  11. I’ve never understood what’s so difficult about taxes. No one does it on paper anymore or calculates anything. You type numbers into designated boxes, and that’s really it. The vast majority of people take the standard deduction and those who don’t typically make enough or have complex enough circumstances to hire a tax preparer/CPA.

    That all being said, I my entire middle school was required to take “home ec,” which included nutrition, cooking, sewing, simple home repairs, budgeting, simple finances, etc. We didn’t learn how to do laundry, but that should be something learned at home. It was a good class that most seemed to enjoy and I think kids today could benefit from it.

  12. Why ??? Those are all things parents are supposed to teach their kids !!! Don’t they have any responsibility. Reminds me of the time we were doing southern states accreditation sent out a survey to the families. What is the number one thing you want us to teach your children in school? 90% came back with teach them to behave be a parent do your job

  13. I am a high school teacher, this is what I think:

    We should be teaching these skills. They are critical and important.

    Y’all won’t pay attention to 90% just like students don’t pay attention in health class or PE and end up obese with hypertension and high cholesterol at forty.

    Or you’ll remember just enough to pass the class and get the A you need to get I to the college you want to go off to.

    I taught wood shop for years and it was shocking to me how much I had to research basic arithmetic to 17 and 18 year olds.

    Teaching you how to find answers would be a more valuable lesson.

  14. Let’s set aside time to teach them to wipe their ass and lift the toilet seat before they piss too /s

    School doesn’t have to teach literally everything. Parents can teach, and kids can learn things on their own. If you can’t figure out taxes at 18, the school that left you lacking reading comprehension and the ability to do simple math wouldn’t have taught you how to properly do taxes, even if there was a class for it.

  15. When I was a kid I would have agreed but now I’m a bit older, why aren’t your parents telling you how to do this stuff ?

    Before going to uni I loved spending time with my family essentially teaching me how to be an adult. Recipes I could cook, stuff like that

  16. A class isn’t needed to learn how to do any of these things. They teach you how to read so read the fucking instructions and follow them.

  17. Schools are not supposed to be substitutes for parenting responsibilities. A school’s purpose is to teach the subjects that parents usually don’t know enough about. That is one of the reasons public school has gotten to where it is today. Let’s not make it any worse.

  18. I’m a teacher. That stuff is your parents job. You’re doing a disservice to all parties pretending like it isn’t.

  19. Do you have a washing machine at home, do you have Google? You can learn during any 30 minutes you want. You can even learn ways to fold clothes.

    Do you have a stove at home and YouTube? You can spend an hour and learn anytime you want. Hell there videos that will give you 30 ways to use a clothes iron to cook Mac and cheese. If you are really lost you can over pay for blue apron and get $5 meals for fancy restaurant prices.

    I think there is a place for schools to teach a lot, mostly academics. I also think about financial planning and that you need to know to cook and that nutrition is important.

    But let’s be honest, the instructions are on the tag and on the washing machine. It says colors and whites, your tag says the same and there is a fill line for detergent and you get what’s on sale or what your mom bought when she did your laundry until 23 and your stepdad kicked you out.

    You also don’t need a class on pumping gas, you just need to act responsible for yourself for an hour a day. This isn’t 1995, the info is there for anyone that can type and has access to the internet.

    If people can figure out how to find their favorite porn they can figure out hand wash vs delicates in a 12 step how-to article.

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