Practical Skills School Never Taught Me
I was fortunate enough to go to what would be referred to as a ‘good’ school. The term ‘good’ meant that it was the kind of school that performed well in the national league tables, received regular ‘outstanding’ ratings from Ofsted, and produced students with grades eligible for the best universities in the country. By comparison to other schools in the city, it was certainly a pleasant place to be.
I recall manicured gardens with babbling fountains, picnic benches, and bronze sculptures, the kinds of common spaces you read about in young adult fiction novels about boarding schools. We had a swimming pool, a chapel, a dedicated building for music classes and tuition, vast green spaces, sofas and a canteen in the sixth form common room, and clean, airy corridors to commute within between classes. Despite the extreme punishments for minor misdemeanours, an absolute obsession with students permanently exhibiting an immaculate appearance (even when in school uniform but not actually at school), and the often sexist, homophobic, and racist slurs made by several teachers I could mention, I fully acknowledge the privilege I had to a good education.
Education, though, is a complex matter. We were taught that grades were the exclusive way of measuring our value and future position within the job market and economy. University was pushed as the only option for achieving true success. ‘Getting an A’ was the ultimate goal we were encouraged to achieve, and such grades were rewarded favourably.
Now, as I navigate my late twenties, I look back and wonder just how 'good' that education really was. It wasn't all the school's fault of course, but the idiocy of the curriculum they so doggedly followed, and the lacklustre teachers they picked for the job.
Sex ed was one long embarrassing joke of a catastrophe we were all forced to endure, two years too late for many of us and exclusively heterosexual in its approach. We were carefully coached on how to use bunsen burners but were never shown to change a light bulb. A handful of teachers were selected to aid us in 'getting ready for the world of work', which involved painstakingly creating our first CV in a style roughly 20 years out of date.
Cookery classes (sorry, 'food tech') were structured in a way which would most please the ego of the teacher in charge, who I imagine must by now have joined the lumpy, stale pile of unsuccessful Bake-Off applicants. Learning how to make rock cakes and apple crumble might have been useful once upon a time, but in a world where most prospective uni students leave home just weeks after opening their A-Level results, educating them about food storage and hygiene and how to properly nourish themselves would certainly be a smart move. The idea of student food nowadays has less to do with poverty and more to do with existing on frozen pizzas and instant noodles (likely because neither teachers, nor parents, instilled the craft of basic cookery in kids before releasing them into the world). Indeed, at aged 18 I witnessed a friend put a pizza in the oven whilst still in its plastic, and later encountered fellow uni students who couldn't cook a pan of pasta without all hell breaking loose.
School taught me that success only comes as a result of doing precisely what you are told - obeying a system that could crush or oust you at any time. It taught me that the future money I would earn directly correlated with the numbers and letters on my exam results letters, but failed to educate me on how money actually works. Taxes, utility bills, national insurance contributions, phone contracts, the difference between standing orders and direct debits, registering to vote, TV licenses, and general budget management were ignored whilst classes designed to prepare us for reality instead focused on learning about the national census and various facets of public transport infrastructure (or in the case of where I come from, lack thereof).
Classes on woodwork (again, sorry - 'resistant materials') were fundamentally pointless, failing to teach any of the basic DIY skills I found myself needing at various points in my life. I vaguely remember messing about with bits of wood and learning about different types of metal, but nothing beneficial like how to hang a picture, how to tile a wall, or how to fix a squeaky door hinge.
The system breeds the high achievers and academics to believe that becoming an agricultural worker, manual labourer, or mechanic would be social and financial suicide. That same system implies and spreads the notion that the better option is to eventually earn enough money so that you can pay everyone else to do things you cannot do, and indeed as a high achiever, 'should not' have to do yourself.
I am absolutely not saying for a moment that all of this is solely the responsibility of schools: ideally, parents and guardians should teach these skills too. Then again, not everyone has the opportunity to learn and grow in a safe home environment with people who can or will teach them these little things we need to get through life. Somewhere, somehow, we need to build a different mentality among children and teenagers. Passing a spelling test does not increase your worth. Teaching a child how to safely use a kettle or microwave could save their life.
Restructuring how and what we learn is vital in how we approach our first jobs, tenancy agreements, relationships, internships, voluntary projects, and life as a whole. I was lucky enough as a child and teenager to be raised by a mother with exceptional practical skills and life experience, who taught me things that school did not. And yet, my knowledge gaps over the years have been huge, simply due to the lack of basic preparation school could have given me when instead they were too preoccupied with whether or not I was a high achiever in one class and simply adequate in another.
For others, the gap will be even larger, and we have to accept that the ways in which we are taught, and more specifically, so much of what we are taught, has simply no bearing or relevance post-exam in the real world. Stop asking us to ingest and memorise things we will likely never use again. Please, instead, develop our characters by instilling basic knowledge and facts of life in us, so that we may use it to constructively to better ourselves, and see ourselves as more than just some numbers and letters on a piece of paper.
Written by Amy Watson
Amy is a content manager originally from the UK and now proud to call Hamburg, Germany her new home. She is a passionate lover of cheese, literature, languages, modern art, and enjoys all four with copious amounts of red wine.
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