Teaching Life Skills – Someone Has To Do it

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Child buying groceries - life skillsWith all the pressure to meet Common Core Standards along with teaching the rest of the curriculum, can I actually be writing about the importance of teaching life skills in school? You betcha!

Many might think that this is the job for the parents. However, 1. Many parents do not have basic life skills themselves as can readily be seen by the high debt and divorce rates and 2. Many parents spend incredibly limited amounts of time with their children, making “life skill” education practically impossible.

In order to develop a more responsible, more respectful, more capable next generation, it might just be another job of school’s to assure that our students are prepared for the outside world. If you have gotten this far in the blog and are thinking, “But I’m not in debt, divorced, never learned basic life skills…” then everyone can benefit by investing a bit of time and energy into this project.

When researching this blog, I was happy to find that there actually were many schools posting on the web information about their life skills classes. This isn’t a “new” idea. But, it probably can use some momentum across the nation.

So, here is a conglomeration of some skills (in no particular order) which would be useful to teach our children. Clearly, the list is not exhaustive. I’d like to also mention that some of these attributes can be incorporated into the regular school day without formal class time being taken up.

  • Basic budgeting and household financial management. How much does it cost to keep those lights on, food in the fridge, gas in the car? What acts can save you money (coupons-online and in newspapers, turning off lights and computers when not in use, learning to figure out the real cost of an item to see if buying in bulk is advantageous, LED light use over other bulbs, etc.) 
  • What is the real cost for credit card purchases when interest is building? What is the best way to save for retirement? How do you judge what is a want and what is a need? 
  • How to properly communicate with a cashier, parent, neighbor and most importantly, a spouse! How to state needs clearly and with respect. How to negotiate differences of opinions. How to value what is important to other people. I would add here, how to WRITE a letter of complaint, condolence, congratulations. In this LOL world, the art of actually putting important thoughts and feelings into a truly communicative format has mostly been lost. Additionally, teach listening skills including how to look at someone when they are speaking and paraphrase what has been shared. In this fast-paste world, actually focusing on one task is a true life skill. 
  • Healthy outlets for managing stress, anxiety, anger and emotions. Life is stressful. Knowing what to do besides drinking, drugs, overdosing on coffee, running away, beating someone up, etc. can improve someone’s life forever. 
  • Computer management. Kids (and some adults) have no appreciation that once it is on the web, it is potentially on the web FOREVER. Forever is a looonnnggg time. I was recently speaking with an Ivy League law graduate. He hired someone to “clean up his web presence”. Was anything “terrible”? Maybe not. But the picture of him in a drunken stupor holding 3 bottles of booze was not so becoming and his political views on a certain president now made him feel uncomfortable. 
  • Perseverance. Better to have tried and lost then never to have tried at all. For too long we have accepted mediocre so as “not to hurt feelings”, “maintain self-esteem”, “not cause discouragement”. In reality, it’s a tough world out there. Teaching the importance of trying, failing, and trying again is a life skill everyone needs. Additionally, learning how to handle failures with dignity can serve us all well. 
  • Time management. I am sure we have all “just wanted to check my email” and found that 3 or more hours have passed. I always say that I am grateful for raising my children mostly before PC’s were a common household item. IMHO, it is virtually impossible to work, raise children, put healthful food on the table, keep a clean and orderly home and maintain a marriage if significant time is spent on the computer and/or iPhone. Learning how to say “no” to self and others is an important life skill. 
  • Nutrition. Yes, we have our health classes. But, can we turn science into dinner? Bring back home-economics! Students need to know how to take whole fruits, vegetables, grains and proteins and make nutritious meals. 
  • Basic first-aid. Everyone should know how to perform the Heimlich maneuver, how to do CPR, how to stop bleeding and certainly who to call in an emergency. 
  • Then, of course, there is character building. Demonstrating and reflecting honesty, integrity, a sense of humor, sensitivity to other’s feelings, cooperation, acceptance, generosity, etc. will set a tone which will remain throughout the lives of everyone involved. 

While writing this article, I am reminded of my 10th grade history class. Mid-year, the teacher told us that we had a month long assignment to make a budget for a wedding or for a month of living expenses. I clearly remember the entire class arguing how “stupid” this was and “What does this have to do with history?” and “Give us a break”. The teacher stood his ground. In hind sight, it was probably one of the more valuable lessons I had in High School.

What do you think?

6 Responses to Teaching Life Skills – Someone Has To Do it

  1. M. Pena says:

    Agreed!

  2. M. Ali Khan says:

    Very pertinent points you have raised. Question comes to mind. Is there any formal collection of such real life skills which school can adopt and create holistic responsible citizens?

    • Tsivya Fox says:

      Thanks for writing. If you search the web for schools teaching life-skills, you can view some programs that schools have implemented and/or some programs that can be acquired.

    • Brian Koning says:

      Great point. One of the strongest frameworks for developing the whole-child is found in The Leader in Me network of schools. http://www.TheLeaderinMe.org . Check out the research page

      This is a whole-school model of building leadership capacity in staff and students. The framework of principles is based on the work of Dr Stephen Covey, using his most famous work, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, as the guide. The Leader in Me schools work on inside-out approach, first developing the roots of character and soft skills in the adults in the building, and then by modeling and teaching these skills are transferred to the students. The power of common language and the brain science behind “habit building” account for the success of this model. It is a culture and process of continuous improvement.

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