ometimes as an adult I find myself sucking at a thing and getting very angry that I wasn’t taught said thing at school. Like taxes, how to poach an egg and how to not kill every house plant I’ve ever bought. I do think there are some more important lessons that I kind of picked up along the way but should probably be added to the national syllabus asap. Here are 3 things they teach you at school.
1. How to figure out if someone is a creep
Mama Smags has one of the most highly tuned creep radars I’ve ever witnessed. When I was a kid she’d say things like ‘Just be careful of Sarah’s dad… he’s a bit odd.‘ Then a few months later Sarah’s dad would disappear and I’d find out ten years later that he was jailed for engaging in sexual activities with a Balinese minor while on holidays. I was taught from a very young age to trust my reactions to people. My mother would say ‘Did you get a weird feeling in your tummy when you were near that man? Did you want to be away from him? Did you think his eyes looked strange?’. These seem like weird questions to ask a child but it taught me to trust my instincts and to listen to my gut when it’s kicking me and saying ‘Don’t get in the car with this guy… he’s weird.‘or ‘Don’t tell that girl where you live because she’s going to break in to your house.’ After maths lessons in fourth period every kid should have to go to Follow Your Gut Training. For real.
2. How to do really simple shit
The amount of adults I know who can’t sew a button on a shirt is ridiculous. Every one should be able to sew a button, change a tire, change a light bulb, properly clean an oven, change the oil in their car, cook at least three different dishes, properly clean a bathroom, change a nappy (even if you don’t have kids) and do washing without damaging your clothes. Full disclosure – I can change a tire but I’d rather not because I don’t like being responsible for a thing that makes a car work when I’m not a fully qualified mechanic. I will change a tire but I’d like to be supervised or assisted. That way I can share the blame if the damn thing falls off and we careen off the road into a tree.
3. That most things you read on the internet aren’t factual
I think it’s the slightly older generations that needed to be taught this because we were so used to everything that was published in magazines and newspapers to (almost) always be true that we kind of assume anything that’s not hand written on a piece of paper has been fact checked and approved. It has not. For instance Winston Churchill never said the word ‘internet’, Marilyn Monroe would not have known what a size zero is and you can definitely eat (some) foods with ingredients you can’t pronounce like cyanocobalamin which is vitamin B12 and actually very good for you. I’ve fallen for it myself and I will probably do it again but as long as we’re all trying our best, the internet shouldn’t fool us too often. That’s an Elvis lyric by the way.
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What do you wish you had been taught in school? That’s hard to learn as an adult?
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You know what else they should have taught in school? Crochet. I’m teaching my first live lesson at 11am this Sunday 9th October. Just sign up to be a part of it – I’d love to see you on Sunday.
10 Comments
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I’m so with you on not wanting to trust my life to a tyre I’d changed but if you are somewhere and need to change one but don’t have phone access etc. at least you can make it to the nearest servo to get someone to tighten the nuts with one of those machines they have.
I can change a light bulb but it’s one of those things that freaks me out way out of proportion to the actual task. I’ll use a bedside lamp or something until someone else does it for me.
#1 is so important. Girls especially are so often told not to overreact and not make a fuss but I know from experience that every time I’ve wanted to make a fuss, there’s a good reason for it.
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Oh I’m fine with light bulbs! Although most light bulbs last forever these days so I don’t find myself needing to do it that often! Oh totally – I always make a fuss and I protect other girls too. Always!
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People should be taught basic money management and finance in school. How to budget, how to avoid credit card interest, and basics about taxes and investments. Would save our country so much in the future.
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Like people buying cars on buy now pay later schemes. They are such huge rip offs.
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To be honest, my parents pretty much taught us kids all of those things you mentioned in item one. The first time I got a car, my dad went over all the things that I personally should keep a check on with the car. We were also taught to do basic things around the house, e.g. Cook, clean, sew a button etc.
Something my parents were really good at was teaching us how to manage money. This is probably the most essential thing I think should be taught in school because it’s a fundamental life skill that everyone will need to know – and not all parents are good at handling money. At the end of the day, you could probably get an RACQ/NRMA (whatever it’s called in each state) membership to help you with a broken down car, but good money management is what makes all those life things happen.
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Oh definitely! My parents were the same. I didn’t have a credit card until 2 years ago. We just don’t do debt in my family.
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Proper money management would have been a good one. I failed maths a) because I’m dyscalculaic and b) it simply wasn’t relevant to me. To this date, I have not yet needed to calculate the angle of a triangle but I have made poor financial decisions and had personal debt that took a while to sort out. I also think “How To Work In An Office” should be taught at uni, covering how to interact in a corporate environment, deal with business support staff like admin and IT, appropriate dress standards, learning from mentors, appropriate social behaviours and gentle reminders that you might have a degree but you do not know everything. So many grads roll in with a sense of entitlement thinking they know it all and expect to be making project management decisions from the get go. I also think basic interview skills and social etiquette wouldn’t go astray.
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Exactly! All that x minus blah blah just make it relevant! I totally agree on the new grad thing although when I graduated I and taught in my first year I was treated really badly the disgruntled staff at the first school I taught at, it was awful.
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I love these so much!!! My mum had a good ‘gut instinct’ too. Definitely something kids/future adults need these days! I was watching MTV’s Catfish the other night and I think everyone should be taught how to spot a catfish on the internet!
I also think manners are underrated these days! Common courtesy can go a long way! Friendship etiquette and how to be professional vs personal etc etc. Conversation skills, social skills. So important!
I was lucky enough to have some pretty good English and History teachers who taught me the importance of critical thinking in school (and later uni). I am so glad that I understand that concept – especially when it comes to analysing news stories or stuff on the internet. It truly shocks me how many people lack that ability – if only they’d been lucky to figure it out in school!-
Catfish is my favourite! I love it so much! Mr Smags and I have binged watched all of it!
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