Most days when I’m in my math class I just sit there thinking about anything, and wonder, when will I use these equations in my life? Probably never is my thinking because I won’t need to know how to draw a parabola or how to solve trinomials. This is why I think that school doesn't help us get ready for the real world. I am going to tell you why through cooking, leadership, decision-making, and subjects in school. 

When I’m home alone I only know how to cook a few foods like toast, eggs, and mac and cheese, because usually my mom does all the cooking. Some moms and dads work a ton and might get back late every night so they can’t cook for their kids and then most kids just grab junk food. I think schools should teach kids the basics of cooking. According to Lifehack, “5 reasons why school doesn’t prepare you for the real world,” on July 16, 2016, by Nemanja Manojlovic. Like measuring food items in a measuring cup, teaching kids how to turn on a stovetop or the oven, and what to add when water starts to boil. Alternatively, if they knew the basics they could cook good and healthy food for themselves because growing teens need good food to grow and get bigger; and also grow in other ways too like leadership.

Some kids are born with leadership skills. They just know how to take charge and tell everyone what to do. That is very rare nowadays because teachers do all the work and don’t let us kids take charge and have a leader that is not the teacher. Sometimes a kid in a group project does all the work. The person doing all the work should step up to be a leader and tell everyone to help out and not just do all the work himself. As said in Forbes on May 16, 2016, “8 real world Skills College Doesn't Teach You,” by Laurence Bradford. Teaching leadership is important in the real world too because if nobody stepped up to stop someone, then the bad person could take anything they want or do anything they want. Sometimes teachers should just let kids take charge of projects. Teaching kids leadership also gives students confidence and teaches them to make good decisions.

Decision-making is also important. Kids can make dumb decisions because we are young and need to be taught what is right and wrong. As said in Succescfulstudent, “20 Life Skills Not Taught In School,” by Jake Ankins on March 3, 2023. Some things should be self-explanatory but those should not include drugs, drinking, or vaping. Those are bad decisions. Vaping nowadays is so common, it's like the flu. It is very common and pretty much every kid has vaped. Kids these days can get those things and make bad decisions with them. Usually in school teachers tell us what to do on assignments or class work and we just do it. We won't learn how to make decisions ourselves. When we grow up and become adults we will have to make a lot of tough decisions - paying bills, or should we move to another state for our kids, or even if we want to have kids. To illustrate, parents make a lot of decisions and we should start to learn to make them at a young age.

My last point is subjects in school. There are so many unused things that some subjects teach us. Math is very important in daily life but there are a lot of useless equations that I learn - the circumference of a circle and graphing reciprocal functions, and graphing rational functions. I’m not going to need to know that when I’m counting bills or making food. In most people's lives they’re not going to be writing essays unless they go into a job that requires it or when people write their job application. Most of the time I’m not going to write an essay or some writing piece a month. You can teach kids grammar and everything else by having them write smaller pieces of work. Said in the Washington Post on September 7, 2012, by Valerie Strauss, “why kids hate school - subject by subject.” Some people, when they get older, don’t travel to places that speak other languages or go anywhere because they don’t have the money or just don’t want to travel. I don’t find a reason to learn other languages unless you're staying there for a long time. Technology has improved a ton and we have translators on our phones when we want them or when we need them.

I have given information about many reasons why schools don’t prepare us for the real world. For example, because they don’t teach us how to cook or make our own healthy food, teachers not letting us take more leadership roles, how to make important decisions, and also some subjects that seem useless later in life. This brings me back to when I was just sitting in math class thinking about when will I use these things in my life.