What Life Skills do you think we should teach in school?

Dolly Welsh

Tue, Jul 08 2014, 3:34 pm

A little microbiology. It is relevant to food safety and general health.

CPR sure, and stopping bleeding, and wound care. I wish I knew all that and I don't.

Swimming, simple rowing, water safety.

The names of some plants and trees and what they do. To recognize poison ivy.

The names of different insects and what they do, and don't do. I once saw a non-Jewish friend scream in terror, because a lit firefly was slowly approaching her.

How to make bread in a covered frying pan on top of the stove.

Last edited by Dolly Welsh on Tue, Jul 08 2014, 4:43 pm; edited 1 time in total

amother

Tue, Jul 08 2014, 4:24 pm

dancingqueen wrote:

Some of these professional and career related things I can see learning in school. But don't parents teach their kids some of these other basic life skills hopefully?

No. Sometimes they assume the school will do it.
Sometimes they themselves don't know the skills.
My parents are ka"h in their '60's. They still have no concept of how finances should work, they have no money although they both worked for years and earned decent salaries. They have a very bizarre concept of household organization. They are both lacking somewhat in social skills.
I love them to pieces, but I worry about them.

bookworm10

Tue, Jul 08 2014, 4:27 pm

Empathy

Loyalty

How to accept negativity and the word No

Honesty

Perseverance.

All life skills that are crucial in a healthy, mature individual. I think so many of us would benefit if our schools actually took these into account when planning lessons instead of memorizing information.

Dolly Welsh

Tue, Jul 08 2014, 4:29 pm

Emotional wrote:

I would love to learn that!!!!

There are You Tube videos about how to do that.

It involves baking soda instead of yeast, steaming it covered, and then flipping it to cook the other side. It comes out like a brown speckled pita, I think.

Might not be the best bread you ever ate, but the technique might come in handy in unusual conditions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1n-dr3OmwU

You can also cook SMALL yeast breads on a grill if they are wrapped in Non-Stick Reynolds tinfoil, I hear.

MaBelleVie

Tue, Jul 08 2014, 5:38 pm

amother wrote:

The thing is, people in their 60s who still haven't attained those skills? In all likelihood they would not have picked up too much had they been taught in a regular ed setting either.

SRS

Tue, Jul 08 2014, 5:57 pm

The more I hear the massive lists the more I want to scream get back to the basics. So many of these skills could be learned if students had a very solid education. I've noticed that many frum students have never written a research paper. Another subject that is lacking (and is related to social skills, interviews for jobs, and more) is public speaking.

MaBelleVie

Tue, Jul 08 2014, 5:58 pm

SRS wrote:

Those were both very much a part of my BY curriculum.

SRS

Tue, Jul 08 2014, 6:02 pm

The is excellent. My nieces in BY have not had significant practice in either skill. Research is essential for life. And speaking is something that should be practiced from regularly from elementary on. I don't see many frum schools doing that. But I think the girls are far ahead. The boys have a lot of catch up. At one time, yeshivas offered classes in giving sermons. Those days are long gone.

sky

Tue, Jul 08 2014, 7:22 pm

SRS wrote:

the BY I went to had college courses in 12 the grad - We had English courses (I think 101 and 102) and public speaking (or maybe it was English 102 but we had to do lots of public presentations), Psych 101 (a few papers) and other gen ed classes. It was great because we learned lots of skills and graduated with credits for what we learned.
We definetly had to write papers with citations in BY (remember all those note cards) starting from middle school with lots of hand holding through high school. We recently had some boys in college at my house and they were complaining they never learned how to do citations - I don't think the boys cover it (they all said they use Wikipedia anyways and use the sources brought down in Wikipedia - they made it sound like everyone does it)

anon for this

Tue, Jul 08 2014, 10:32 pm

Students should already have critical reading skills. This includes learning how to read and understand the written word and how to evaluate what they read and put it in context with what they already know. An essential part of this is understanding the difference between fact and opinion.

I think your life skills class should include specifics of how to apply these skills to information obtained from the internet (unless this has already been taught).

I'd assume that the students have already learned how to write a research paper.

I agree with posters who mentioned public speaking and interview skills.

OutATowner

Tue, Jul 08 2014, 10:34 pm

Please don't generalize all BY schools. I had Public Speaking, Business, and an in depth research paper.
Some schools may be lacking in these areas, but like anything, you can't generalize.

amother

Wed, Jul 09 2014, 1:23 am

How to (1)recognize mental illness and (2) understand your role as a friend is not to treat the person.

As a teenager / young adult, I tried to "help" two people. In retrospect, I would have approached the situations differently had I recognized clinical depression and borderline personality disorder.

Emotional

Wed, Jul 09 2014, 7:39 am

cbsmommy wrote:

Honestly, that might be easy for you, but I can't sew to save my life.

It's precisely because I CAN'T do things like this & wish I had learned when I was younger, that I think it's a good idea for teenagers to learn these things.

morah

Tue, Jul 15 2014, 11:39 am

Sherri wrote:

morah, did you decide anything?

Work in progress. We're starting with just the seniors but plan to introduce it one grade earlier each year until we have a full 4 year curriculum. So it's a matter of deciding what makes sense for the seniors. Almost certainly doing the financial component (which will discuss budgets, credit, basic investing).