|
Ever got that feeling that you were spewed out of school a little bit too soon? An unwilling soldier thrust in the frontlines of life totally unprepared? Ever wished your grade school and high school teachers could’ve taught you more – not about math or science or grammar – but about life, and how to handle the everyday things an adult has to manage and we were totally unaware of? Like, how the hell do we raise our kids when we can’t even keep our pets alive?? How do we choose our politicians when we can’t even tell the trapos from the good ones? How do we compute our taxes? etc, etc ,etc.
Sometimes, I can’t help but wonder if this is all a conspiracy among adults – some sort of initiation to their world or some form of revenge people pass on from one generation to another. Whatever the reason is, having subjects on these practical adult matters way back in grade or high school could’ve saved us a lot of trouble, tears and heartaches in dealing with them now.
The world is full of people walking around, screaming at each other, flunking some of life’s most basic requirements. We spend more than 15 years of our life in school, at the end of it all, 80% of what we learn are completely useless in our everyday lives– like why Jose Rizal threw his slippers in the river.. why the Ibong Adarna loves to crap on people, or the difference between a covalent and an ionic bond. 80% of what we really need in life however, are not even mentioned in the hundreds of books we’ve been through when we were kids.
It’s like being outfitted with the latest scuba gear and being tasked to climb the Everest instead or finding pumice rocks instead of toilet paper just after we have finished defecating. He he
If I had my way, here are the subjects I would include in our high school and grade school curriculum:
1. Voting Wisely and Knowing What to Expect from our Government:
How many of us have an idea on what our congressmen and senators are supposed to do except posture in our TV sets and investigate this and that? How many of us take the time to really get to know the stories, the qualifications and the scandals behind our politicians? Bottom line is, most of us don’t know what to expect, how to vote wisely and much more, how to vote.
2. Getting Rich without Being Scammed:
Nobody ever taught us how to recognize a scam or a bad investment when we see one. Moreover, nobody taught us anything about making money (not minting money – that’s illegal) instead of earning it. Consequently, most of us get lured into one scam/bad investment or another until we’ve had enough experience to make some relatively sound decisions about making money. They should’ve taught us this way back in high school, the lessons would’ve been a lot cheaper. Moreover, we would’ve known more bout creating jobs than just looking for them.
3. Financial Literacy:
The purpose of going through school is not only about getting an education but learning about the things that would’ve made it easier for us to earn money and live independently after. Why then didn’t they teach us about the big, important and practical matters we would be deciding on after college? Like taking out a mortgage, understanding insurance, using credit cards wisely, etc. Hell, an ounce of financial literacy could’ve made our lives infinitely better than a ton of mathematical equations and knowledge of where all the countries in the world are supposed to be in a map!
4. Surviving Office Politics and Getting along with Other People:
They have all gone through this at one time or another and all of them would agree that its one of the most important things to learn in life. Why wasn’t it included in our curriculum then? As a result, our schools continue to churn out multitudes of ass-kissers, gossip mongers, social climbers, gold diggers, potential burn-outs and everything else that makes the world go round.
5. Relationship Ethics:
Teaching how to act in a relationship, how to get along with your boyfriend and girlfriend, how to court and be courted are probably on the bottom of the list when it comes to their list of what to teach in school. The result? All of us, in one way or another, got our insane ideas about love from the cinemas, from Romnick and Sherryl, Bea and John Lloyd, from star cinema, from Hollywood, from Bollywood, etc, etc ,etc.. and we wonder why the world is full of unhappy people, broken marriages and confused kids.
6. Price Haggling:
Have you ever wished you knew more about price haggling? How about negotiating for lower interest rates, longer loan terms, or loan extensions? Nobody ever told us that this would become a crucial part of life after school.
7. Basic Trouble Shooting and Household Repairs:
Cursing, slapping and kicking, that just about sums up what most of us know about the basic repair of our household appliances and fixtures. As a result, tons f money, time and resources are wasted every year on fixing what could’ve been simple problems.
8. Listening:
We we’re taught writing, reading and public speaking but did anybody ever think about teaching us the art of really listening to what other people say? Most people would say that this is not important; I say that it is for this lack of listening skills that we have created such messes such as the Iraq war, the war in Mindanao, runaways, and broken families.
9. Raising Kids:
This one’s scary as I didn’t even have what it takes to raise our pet dog right. And if you can’t raise a pet dog right, how much more your own kid?? They should include a subject in school wherein they teach us how to take care of our pets, how to train them and how to raise them as responsible animals. If you think this is funny, try reading some articles about raising a child and compare this to articles about raising a pet (I did), you would be surprised at how similar they are.
10. Saying I’m Sorry:
Why is it that saying I love you is so much easier than saying I’m sorry? Why is it that our pride is sometimes a lot more important than resolving our differences, synergizing, or simply being happy? We have made it through more than 15 years of schooling without being taught how to sincerely admit our mistakes – something that could’ve made our lives a lot easier and happier.
The bitter truth is that we spend most of our lives trying to put out fires instead of preventing them, trying to treat the symptoms instead of the diseases.
We don’t need more tanks, or bombs or guns.. we just need to listen more and understand more.
We don’t need more money or more jobs, we need lessons on how to better manage our money and create more jobs ourselves..
We don’t need a change OF people in our government.. but a change IN people.. a change in ourselves.. how we choose our leaders, how we teach others to choose and how we act as citizens of our country..
We don’t need more education.. we just need a better one..
|
|
|
|
|
0 comments:
Post a Comment