To wish schools taught kids....

It really is bizarre how many full grown men will proudly announce they can't use a washing machine.

There’s definitely a case for delivering “Basic life skills training” in workplaces, for men who have Big Important Jobs but are baffled by household appliances.

... both of which they would expect to send by email

YANBU. I've started threatening my 7yo when he comes and moans "Mum, I can't find..." I tell him that if I can find it in less than a minute, I'm going to make him sit out the front of the house with a "Lost property" sign on him. For some reason, he finds that hilarious.

….a sense of humour……so that when they grow up and become teachers they can handle light hearted thread on the internet

It is part of English Language GCSE for more than one board to write different letter and email styles.

I really wish some parents would teach their children basic manners.
The times I’ve been handing out something in class and it just gets grabbed out my hands.

Lighthearted or not, OP but that’s YOUR job, not the teachers 🤷‍♀️

To be fair, the last time I posted anything was a bowel cancer screening test and before that, it would have been pre-Covid.

I had somebody help out with stuffing some envelopes for hand collection last year and ended up taking all of them back out and refolding them so the name and address was visible through the window (instead of carefully hidden inside the envelope) after they'd gone home for the day - don't suppose that person had ever needed to post anything, either.

I remember being taught how to write different styles of letters (formal/casual etc) at school in the 80s and 90s.
It was part of English lessons.
That doesn't seem odd to learn that at school.

there was a post in my mums group about a lady whose 20 year old daughter didn’t know how to post a letter. Didn’t understand the concept of stamps / how to write the address etc. funny! Except she was being deadly serious when she said “school seemed to have missed that life skill”

apparently she learnt it at school 🤷‍♀️

Maybe colleges can run some remedial classes for adults?
I trained dd pretty well by saying ‘look again, then if you still can’t find it I’ll come and help but if I find it quickly somewhere obvious or under something I will be very cross’.

It was very clearly intended to be a joke. You don't find it funny and that's ok but that doesn't change the intention.

As I work in a school I know full well we're already teaching pretty basic stuff (washing hands, please and thank you, good morning, personal hygiene, goodbye, eye contact, sitting down for meals, some adults are reliable, using sanitary pads, preparing for interviews or appointments, mending clothes). It is honestly depressing how few children have experience of trustworthy and caring, consistent adults. A LOT of these answers are pie in the sky stuff compared to the reality of school.

I've always said that at the start of Year 7 every child should be given a bus timetable, some money and a destination within 3 miles and then sent out in pairs to find their way there. And back.

So many secondary school pupils haven't the faintest clue how to travel independently or work out how timetables work. Travelling on public transport is a mystery as they get ferried around everywhere. I swear some parents would drive up the school steps if they could.

Ahh see I teach my family (husband and children!) to look with their
mins first. Where did I last have it/use it/where it? Where might I have put it down? Is it something someone else might have borrowed. Saves a lot of energy randomly looking for things!

You seem to be mixing up parenting and education.

I think it would be good if schools taught kids how to recognise an attempt at humour and how not to take offence at the slightest thing.

Should have put lighthearted in the title, OP.

I wish they taught teenagers that "it's in the fridge" should be enough info for them to find the thing, instead of collapsing into a heap of "oh mum, but which shelf?"

You've never worked in a school, OP?

95% of SLT have no idea where to find a file that you've uploaded twice, emailed to them three times with a full explanation and put two paper copies in their hands with the relevant sections flagged with luminous post-it notes.

And nobody can ever find the 20 reams of paper next to the photocopiers to top them up.

That’s very good, sounds like a thoughtful school. I think stretching is really important and only something I fairly recently realised just how important. It helps keeps you supple as you age but difficult to catch up on all the lost years as you age and get creaky and stiff. If every child did it in class first thing it would become second nature to keep stretching through life. A lot of Asian schools do it, it doesn’t cost anything but has huge future benefits.

Parents job , so is using a toilet and manners.
A teacher ends up controlling the badly behaved children and changing nappies.Not on.

I wish someone could teach my 12 year old how to look for things and also DH. I appear to be the only person in this house who can find things that are usually right in front of them 😂

"Look (at)" and "look for" are two conpletely different things though. I've never known anybody confuse them, unless English wasn't their first language.

My suggestions for things schools should teach: Latin and Greek. And German, which is apparently getting rarer in British schools.