Education should prepare our students for the
future, whether that involves going on to further study, joining the world of
work or becoming an engaged member of society. Education is a process that
enables students to take their place in society as effective learners, as
effective professionals and as effective citizens. And English language
education enables our students to do it in English.
School is an easy system to navigate around. A good
summary of a student’s life consists of memorizing the material, taking the
exams, and forgetting the material. With that being said, some students feel as
if they are not prepared for the “real world.”
The four main core classes of English, math,
science, and social studies nowadays are way to exaggerated. The higher the grade,
the more frustrating it gets. These classes get more attention then what they
should be getting.
Starting with the graduating class of 2015, the
class financial management and economics, that prepare students for handling
money, became required. These classes teach the students about debt, credit,
how to build credit, interests, and more. It is great that classes like these
are required to graduate, but it only helps out a small portion of daily life.
“Only recently have classes been added to teach students
the fundamentals of living, and these classes take but a year of mediocre work
and negligible learning,” said Eden Elmore, alumni of 2016.
“In contrast, math is taught every year and reaches
levels many who retire from higher education to work bluer collar jobs might
ever need. However, it is to say that if a school system can prioritize
something that not all of its students will use, it should certainly be able to
prioritize something essential to living in modern society.”
Learning how to handle money isn’t useful unless
people have a job. The students need to learn about things such as
applications, how to get hired, where to start, and how to write a resume. The
school system needs to start a full life lessons class that includes aspects
people face daily. Examples include changing a tire, finding a job, insurance,
and more.
According to guidance counselor, Chris Murray, the
thought of a new program sparked where the local community could form a
partnership with a few business organizations, and students could start job
shadowing for upcoming years.
“Education that helps young people develop life
skills has transformative potential,” said United Nations International
Children’s Emergency Fund, a company that continues to aid youth.
7 Essential
Life Skills for High Schoolers to Build Before College
Teaching teens how to wash clothes properly is
common advice for parents with high school students heading to college.
And while it’s important for students to know how to the clean their
clothes without shrinking them, experts say that there are a few more practical
skills that can help make the transition to college easier for students.
Before teens head to school next fall, colleges
encourage parents to help students learn the following life skills.
1. Planning: "Contrary to popular belief, you can predict the future," says Donald J. Foss, author of "Your Complete Guide to College Success" and a professor of psychology at the University of Houston.
Creating and following a schedule will help
teens manage their time, which can help students be successful in college,
Foss says. He encourages students to use a calendar that helps them keep track
of practical responsibilities – such as washing the laundry every two
weeks – and any other important tasks.
"No one monitors you the way that your parents
did or your teachers do in high school. It’s pretty much up to you,"
he says. "Realizing that means that you have to have a commitment to take
charge of your own life."
2. Managing money: Parents should make sure that students
understand the basics of money management before they head to school, experts
say. That includes maintaining a budget
and paying bills, but teens should also understand how student loan debt will
affect their quality of life after graduation.
Talking to students about how small expenses
like buying a cup of Starbucks for $5 a day adds up over the course of the
year can help parents teach students about the importance of using money
wisely, experts say. The way that teens use money now can affect how
much spending money that they have in college and the amount of debt that
students take on and how quickly they're able to pay it off.
"The decisions that you make on a daily basis,
or monthly or even a one-time expense – that all factors into your larger
experience. And when students are accumulating into the tens of thousands of
dollars of debt, even the small things can add up," says Reuban Rodriguez,
associate vice provost and dean of student affairs at Virginia
Commonwealth University.
3. Studying: "It turns out that a whole bunch of
high school students, even those who did pretty well, don’t really know how to
even read a college textbook effectively," the University of Houston’s
Foss says.
The common practice of spending hours reading,
underlining and rereading text is a waste of time, he says.
Instead, Foss encourages students to look at what
they’re supposed to read, determine what’s important, make a list of the things
they’re supposed to know and test themselves multiple times before an
instructor tests them.
4. staying safe and healthy: Campus safety and sexual assault are significant issues on college campuses. While it can be difficult to prepare for the new environment, families can research campus safety and teens can work to build personal safety habits, VCU’s Rodriguez says.
4. staying safe and healthy: Campus safety and sexual assault are significant issues on college campuses. While it can be difficult to prepare for the new environment, families can research campus safety and teens can work to build personal safety habits, VCU’s Rodriguez says.
5. Apartment hunting: Many first-year students will live in
on-campus dorms, but for freshmen who live off campus, understanding the
ins and outs of apartment hunting can be invaluable, Foster Zsiga
says.
She encourages parents to explain how to hunt for an
apartment, explain the responsibility that comes with signing a lease and other
details that students might overlook, such as how to make sure they get their
security deposit back.
6. Cooking:
Many freshmen have meal plans, but cooking can be another way for teens to bond
with other students on campus, Foster Zsiga says.
Students can use food to share their culture and
experiences, and having the recipe for your favorite homemade comfort food can
help make the hard days at college a little easier, she says. Knowing how to
shop is also important.
7. Getting around town: Students with cars should know how to
change a tire, and get and use roadside assistance.
It’s also important for students to know their
options for getting around town. Some colleges work with transportation
services – like Zipcar – that allow you to rent a car for a
short time, or provide buses and other campus transportation
options, while others are located
near public transportation systems. Students should feel
confident about using mass transportationor taking care of their own car if
necessary.
There is often a mismatch between what students
acquire in the classroom and the demands placed on them outside the classroom.
Take the world of work. In a recent survey in the UK, carried out by the
research company YouGov, fewer than one in five employers thought that all or
most graduates were ‘work-ready’. The overwhelming majority of companies said
that graduates lacked key employability skills, such as teamwork skills,
communication skills and the ability to cope under pressure. In another recent
survey, two-thirds of company bosses said that graduates don’t know how to
handle customers professionally, while half of them said that graduates were
incapable of working independently. If one of the purposes of education is to
prepare people for the world of work, it seems we’re not achieving that purpose
particularly well.
Far too often, we’ve sold our students short. We’ve
given them a decent grasp of English grammar. We’ve given them a reasonably
broad vocabulary. And we’ve trained them to jump through the various hoops that
examining boards put before them. And then we’ve cast them adrift in the wider
world without once considering the kind of flexible, transferable skills they
need to really take advantage of the language they’ve acquired.
We need to equip our students with the kind of
skills that will enable them to meet those challenges. These are skills that
you, as a successful, effective professional, probably use every day without
too much thought. You go into a meeting and put forward your point of view
while listening and absorbing the views of your colleagues. You organise your
workload and manage your time by prioritising what’s important. You make
decisions, solve problems and communicate with others. And you use the same
skills in many different aspects of your life. Your critical thinking skills,
for example, are important whether you’re analysing something you’re studying,
or considering a problem at work or thinking about an issue that affects your
community. In your academic, professional and social lives, you use a number of
transferable skills, and it’s those life skills that we need to pass on to our
students.
Why do we English teachers have a particular responsibility
when it comes to life skills? First of all, many of the skills we’re talking
about are communication skills, such as persuading others, reaching a
compromise or being a good team member. Our aim as English teachers should be
to develop our students’ communication skills, beyond filling them with words
and rules. Secondly, our students need to learn the precise ways in which we perform
certain functions in English. For many life skills, there are particular forms
of expression in English that need to be learned. For the life skill of being
assertive, for example, you need to learn how to say ‘no’ politely but firmly
without giving offence. How we do that in English is bound to be different from
the appropriate forms in a student’s first language.
So what do we need to do about it? We need to
realise how important these skills are. We need to integrate work on life
skills into our teaching, so that rather than being seen as an optional extra,
or even being neglected entirely, they become the central thread of what we do.
Our aim should always be to tie our language work into work on life skills, to activate
our student’s language in ways that develop those skills and to help our
students get ready for the constantly changing world that awaits them. If we
can help our students develop a range of life skills in English, then they’ll
come to see that language is indeed a life skill.
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