Fed up with my kids going to school and not learning life lessons.

[Ncoopa]

Does anyone else think we need a serious rethink of our education system?

Pythagoras, algebra, complex verbs, chemical make up of plutonium, these are just a few things my kids have learnt about this week.

They will come out of the education system not knowing how to insure a car or road tax. How to boil an egg. How to create a budget and stick to it.

Is it time we say it’s time to stop? And reevaluate? And stop wasting 5 hours a week on science when hardly any then go on to use it?

I really think it probably is.

Why are you not teaching your children life lessons?

Is there any reason you can't teach them those things?

They will come out of the education system not knowing how to insure a car or road tax. How to boil an egg. How to create a budget and stick to it

They're only in school about 6 hours a day. Isn't this what parents should be teaching at home?

Of course I am, but can you honestly say your children are taking 90% of the curriculum and utilising it in their future careers?

thats why millions home educate. and follow the unschooling route

im one of these

Isn’t that stuff that you should teach them??

Yes because I’m at work for 10 hours a day. That leaves me 3 hours either side, and then 8 for sleep. When am I meant to teach them complex things? That’s what they go to school for. I’m not demanding the entire curriculum is changed but a portion of it, say 20%.

Ah yes the school that teaches them everything 9-3 so parents can utterly abdicate any responsibility. 🙄

Adds another thing onto my long list of reasons why I left teaching.

Those the things YOU should be teaching your kids.

How do you split the kids at 11 into those who will sue science and those who won’t? You are stupid and will only do menial jobs so you don’t get to learn maths and science and languages and we’ll just teach you to be a stay at home housewife and have no outlook that you can achieve. Does that help?

Maybe you’re friends with my aunt who thought school should teach her kid table manners and how to use cutlery??

But how can you possibly tell which ones will be scientists, accountants, vets, when they are 11? And how will any of them become these if they aren’t given the educational foundations to build on.
Besides, it’s not just the specific things they learn it is the very act of learning which builds intelligence, reasoning, literacy etc. If all we teach them is ‘life skills’ we’re going to be seriously lacking in thinking skills in a generation’s time.

We would be back to the dark ages within a generation if the OP had their way.

Oh FGS, how old are you? Are you in fact in Year 8 or Year 9? No, you might not use every scrap of knowledge you learn now in the future. But you won’t know what you’ll need to know until it’s too late to catch up. Learning how to boil an egg - get a grown up at home to teach you, or YouTube it. You’ll learn how to tax and insure a car when you’ve learned how to drive and bought one.

It is not what the school is for. School is for giving them a formal education, so the ones who will use the complicated stuff can go on to become doctors etc. otherwise we would have no people in society able to do those jobs. I presume you can’t teach them that at home? So where are they supposed to learn it? Parents’ job is ti teach life skills. It doesn’t take long at weekends etc. when they are old enough you show them/explain it to them while you are doing it. If you don’t have time, how do you expect schools to?

I taught my two sons all of what you said and very well. Most especially looking after their credit rating, driving licence and how to manage living on their own. Not sure Id trust a school to get it to my exacting standards

Bloody hell. I don't need to unschool and home educate my child to teach them life skills. They can do school and learn life skills.

It'll turn into one of those threads where people say 'in home education today we went to the shop and my child looked at the prices, figured out what they can afford and paid'. Like kids who go to school never go shopping and can't figure out how to buy things.

I do think basic budgeting and finance should be taught at school. Also to be backed up at home.

I’m not saying we replace the entire curriculum with life skills so please don’t be dramatic. I am saying we add 10%-20% if their time to teach them basics they will need to be fully functioning adults. How to set up utility bills, why not to get credit cards and max them out, just stuff like that. Genuine life skills that they need. Not knitting a felt puppet and making a hat which is what mine did at school.

You don't have to spend much time on here to see the poor literacy and lack of general knowledge that the current education system is churning out.

I put that in part down to parents like OP who seem to have absolved themselves of any responsibility for teaching their children anything. The curriculum is now so clogged up with 'life skills' there's barely any time for academic lessons.

Well I'd rather school taught them the specialist things I don't know like maths and science. (I probably knew them once but haven't used them much since. My dc love maths and science, I didn't)

Then i can teach them life skills. Like boiling an egg, cooking, budgeting, plumbing in a washing machine. I've managed all of that, and more. Despite being a single mum who was working full time.

Ridiculous to suggest that school is responsible for teaching children to boil an egg! I do agree though that the maths curriculum in particular could be made more practical by covering things like budget, mortgages etc. But ultimately the responsibility for sending your child out into the world well equipped for adult life lies with the parents. I'm pretty sure that over the course of 18 years there is time to teach your child how to boil an egg, even if you have to sleep and work.

And they need to teach them the ‘way of the workd’. About some of the politics and some of the world views. Loads of stuff just falls through the cracks and we end up with a workforce who have no idea about the real way the world works and the pitfalls.

Sounds like you need to take more responsibility.

Unless you want to teach your kids Pythagoras while the school teaches them how to boil an egg?

At school they learn to read and understand instructions, also to be computer literate - so they can easily access government websites to tax their vehicles and anything else they might need.
They can also read recipes, and know all about weights measurements and time - so boiling an egg isn’t going to be too difficult.
Basic maths skills and common sense are all you need to budget.
The ‘like skills’ you mention are all accessible to someone with a good all round education.

The other knowledge that you are so dismissive of opens the doors to the many different possibilities they might want to explore in the future.