KRISTA ALBRITTON
Staff Writer

English, science, math, history: these subjects are all well and good, but something very important is missing from our school systems. We have all of these common core classes that have been deemed usable in everyday life once you graduate and become an adult. How are these subjects going to help us as adults though, when the majority of high school graduates don’t even know the basics of how to survive on their own?

Do you know how to cook anything other than a grilled cheese and some instant potatoes? Do you know how to better your chances at getting a job? Do you have any idea how to file your taxes? Do you know how to balance a checkbook or even write a check in the first place?

I will be the first to say that, no, I have no clue how to do most of those things. I’m not ignorant or oblivious to the world. I was just never taught how to do anything that would really help me in life. None of the eight schools I have attended throughout my life had a single course called Introduction to Life Lessons: Yes, You Just Might Survive or How Not to Stumble Your Way through Life with Only Crossed Fingers and the Help of Google (HNTSYWTLWOCFATHOG for short).

Instead, I took AP Statistics and Advanced Physics. I can tell you right now that those classes did nothing but help me seem slightly intelligent during intellectual conversations with my math and science major buddies. That AP Statistics course isn’t going to help me when it comes to renting my first apartment or making a valiant attempt at changing a flat tire. Advanced Physics won’t come riding in on a white horse when I accidentally miss a credit card payment.

I am in a constant state of worry that my life will crumble around me all because I wasn’t taught how to adult. A few classes or even just a seminar here and there could easily fix most of these problems. It all comes down to education and choosing the correct things to educate the future generations about. Do you realize that the future of our society won’t even know how to do their own laundry? It’s because of this that I think it’s about time our school systems started schooling people about life instead of leaving them to later be schooled by life.