Life Skills, Should They Be Taught In School?

Life skills are crucial, but should they be taught in school? Schooling isn’t always fun. It teaches useful knowledge like addition and subtraction. Sometimes, school teaches us weird information such as the mitochondria are the powerhouses of the cell. I’m sure a significant number of us would agree that unless you plan on becoming a scientist, that information is not beneficial. Life skills are a subject hardly or barely taught in schools. Why should critical thinking, adequate communication skills, and learning how to sufficiently handle one’s own emotions; be pushed aside? Even life skills such as voting, doing taxes, applying for colleges, and handling one’s own money, should be mandatory.

Life Skills In School

What are life skills? Life skills teach behaviors that enable people to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of life. Critical thinking, emotional regulation, and effective communication are all aspects of human life. While regular academics are tremendous, students need to be equipped with specific skills, such as voting, money management, building successful resumes, and time management.

Emotional Regulation And Relationships

Relationships are developed from the day we are born to the day we die. The way we handle those relationships can either make or break them. Emotional regulation regulation plays a big part in that area. So why are we not taught that skill more in school? How do we teach emotional regulation skills?

The Zone of Regulation, or The Zone of Emotional Regulation, is a proactive, established approach that is based on familiar language building to understand, talk about, and teach regulation. It teaches consistent pathways to follow for emotional regulation. The Zones of Regulation organize our feelings and needs in the moment. If taught in schools, kids and adults can regulate and realize their emotions in the moment and make decisions based on their needs.

Effective Communication and Time management

We all must communicate in some way, and just like emotional regulation, it is often scrutinized as not needed in schools. Communication comes in different forms but it is the basis of all communication is to interact with the people and things in the world around you. Teaching effective communication skills in schools would allow students to learn skills such as communicating their emotions, speaking in public or presenting, and proper language usage. When teaching communication skills, it is important to look at your student’s current communication skills. The ultimate goal is for the student to communicate effectively with others and the world around them.

Schools often put a lot on their students. Whether it is emotional stress or homework, it can be too overwhelming. “Time is of the essence” is often a popular saying. Students frequently don’t understand how to manage their time or use it wisely. When schools teach time management it allows students to learn how to manage their life and time so they are successful. Set clear goals and priorities. Creating a structured daily or weekly schedule can be helpful to some, and utilizing tools like planners, calendars, and other resources can help.

Life Skills In The Real World

Life skills voting
Image by Sinisa Maric from Pixabay

We all must do certain things in this world like, vote, taxes, and managing life. Why are these life skills not taught in school? People of the non-voting kind feel they cannot dive into the political pool for fear of being sucked in by a complicated world beyond their mind’s own ability – so they avoid it at all costs.

If our education system can teach us about what rain is comprised of, what the powerhouse of the cell is, and what the circumference of the sun is, then why can’t it also tell us how laws are passed, why we have two political parties, and what the senate is for? It seems schools are no more effective at communicating current political and economic affairs now than they were back in the day.

An astounding 99% of adults with school-age children agree finance should be taught in school, and you still won’t find it being taught in schools. Financial journalist Dan Kadlec pointed out a few reasons why finance isn’t taught in schools, including that only one in five teachers feels qualified to lead a personal finance class. “We don’t have enough instructors to teach finance classes. Personal finance isn’t part of the ACT or SAT – if it’s not tested it’s not taught. Education is up to the states, not the feds, and each state has different ideas. There isn’t much agreement as to which finance concepts would be taught.”

Final Thoughts

Life skills play a crucial role in everyday life. So it begs the question, why are life skills not taught in schools? A most likely answer and a big factor is probably because it’s assumed that children will learn all of this at home. But what if your parents are horrible with their communication skills? Or they are living paycheck-to-paycheck and don’t know how to balance their finances? Another reason we don’t teach these life skills is because they’re “soft, or easy.” The answer is up to you, should life skills be taught in schools?

Disclaimer: This article is intended simply to provide information. It does not replace the medical advice of a physician or other medical professional. Please speak with your doctor or therapist if you have any questions or concerns.

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