They question every student, teacher, and parent ask themselves at least once is, “what is wrong with our school system?” All throughout life, students fast-track themselves through school but what are they looking for? The golden “A” or a fun and easy class where they can relax and have enjoy time with their friends? While I am not opposed to fun or good grades, is this what we should be teaching our youth? Is the standard level math classes and the constant climb up a five-paragraph and three-subject essays all we have to prepare our kids for the future? Surely not. Life is full of complex tasks and demanding choices involving topics such as finance and everyday skills, but it seems like all of these are skipped over in America's education system. While common core classes like science, English, and math, are important for kids to grasp, topics such as money, health, and basic skills should find themselves back into schools across the nation. Additionally, teaching students about growth rather than grades will help execute these ideas better and encourage students to implement what they learn in their everyday lives.

It is clear that the system should change, but how? Well, one of the biggest factors we should incorporate back into education is a home economics class. I have realized as I have gotten older there are more and more things I do not know how to do that my grandparents and even my parents learned at my age. Most of the things they learned came from a home economics class; some of these skills consist of how to keep countertops clean, distinguish measurements for cooking, how to properly clean areas in the home and how to cook certain things. According to an interview captured in an NPR article titled “Despite A Revamped Focus On Real-Life Skills, 'Home Ec' Classes Fade Away,” a modern day home economics class not only gives you the valuable skills previously listed but can also be used to boost confidence and encourage you later in life. If home economics is truly this valuable, does it make sense to keep it out of schools across the nation?

Some would argue that schools should only teach the basics such as math and science, or english and history; they will say that the families should teach the rest to their kids. Yet, if there is a lack of education to the parents on how to get by without technology, defend one’s self, or even find a job, how will they teach their kids these skills? Clearly there  some faults in this logic. There is an exhaustive list of things that we are not teaching our kids; some being already listed while others include conversation skills, how to handle money, insurance, credit, cooking skills, first aid, time management, psychology, and healthy relationships.

These tasks and skill sets appear in everyday life and if we do not prepare our youth for them, there is potential for them to get hurt, scammed, or taken advantage of. One of the important topics listed is finance. Everyone uses money, but not everyone knows how to use it responsibly. This is something we should consider teaching to every student or else the world may as well start preparing for rises in debt and foreclosure. Another thing we should focus on is first aid. Many times in life, someone will have a health issue and absolutely no one will know what to do about it. Every student should know how to keep their money safe and use it responsibly as well as know how to do CPR, the heimlich maneuver, or other life saving practices. These are basics that people are expected to know but are never really taught. Kids are taught the alphabet because it is necessary to speak and spell, so shouldn’t kids learn how to do compressions when it is necessary to save a life, or learn how to manage money when it is necessary to keep from going into debt ?

There is one more thing that we are doing wrong in our school systems: we are teaching students to value grades over education. If we actually want students to learn life skills and retain  information, a letter grade is not the right incentive. Grades distort our perception of reality and they teach students that their level of intelligence is measurable by a letter. Schools seem to be focussed on teaching students how to memorize information and facts that they will quickly forget after the test. Life should be based on wisdom and growth, not the amount of facts memorized and recited as knowledge. Additionally, students should be able to solve real world problems based off of what they learn in school, not how many apples being taken from Susie when a car is going 50 mph underneath a bridge with the equation x24+y21=1.

We have been teaching the same things in schools for many decades. We are still stuck in the past while the future keeps moving forwards. Schools claim that they are preparing us for the future, for jobs, and for life, but if this is true, why can’t everyone else see it? Students should be learning useful skill along side common core ones. We are supposed to teach our youth and encourage them for their lives that follow. If this is the American education system’s goal, they should start acting like it. If it is not, there is something seriously wrong.