What We Should Have Been Taught At School
To answer this overarching question of ‘what gaps have there been to my knowledge within school since leaving it?’, we have to consider many things. Going back to the good old school days, considering mine weren’t that long ago, provides me with many refreshing memories of summer days pretending to do sixth form work, messing around in science lessons with my bonkers teacher (I swear we all had that one science teacher that was just on another planet to everyone else), and gossiping in between corridors about people from the year above and parties at the weekends.
Throughout COVID, I felt some warmth in reaching out to old friends, as I finally had some time and brain cells to actually function typing a message, whether that be an Instagram DM or a Facebook message. It was a sense of relaxation to pass over messages of reconciliation, memories from the past and day-to-day tasks whilst maintaining all levels of functionality to cope with another day, and yet another empty bottle of wine discarded in the bin.
I managed to source a teacher’s opinion (i.e my father who was sitting opposite me as I was typing this), on what they feel is missing when teaching a set curriculum, and it was extremely insightful. He believed that the syllabus in regards to ‘Life Skills’, a subject I used to have on my timetable fortnightly, should have a heavy focus on what is faced in real life and citizenship, whether that is preparation for post sixth form/apprenticeship, volunteering for the community, or managing finance credit cards. He also says that year 10 students (this applies to UK students) should have longer than just one week of work experience. I actually would say I learnt the most valuable work skills when I undertook a role as a teaching assistant at my local primary school.
It really got me thinking about all the career options that I should justify contemplating at the mere age of fifteen, and allowed me to improve on my confidence, something that I was rather lacking at this time. To go from having school 5 days a week for 7 hours a day, to then going into the world of work where my part time jobs were babysitting, delivering leaflets, and sticking up skittles in a local pub, was such a massive jump.
My father also suggested that homophobia, racism and important issues as a matter of course should be diversified across all subjects, no matter which classroom. He said things shouldn’t be airbrushed or filtered, such as censoring the names of characters in an attempt to not appear ‘offensive’, as times have changed when things were first written in history. Things that weren’t seen as offensive back in the day, may now be seen as an act of hatred, which we should not call out on now, just for the sole reason that times have changed and bettered ourselves as human beings. We learn mistakes and we move forward. We shouldn’t also adulterate racism by wrongly labelling things so, especially as other kids cause problems because they don’t understand the meanings of the words that they are using. Ignorance is not an excuse. Primary school children need to learn the basics of gender, race, and social class as a means of decreasing bullying.
I would also like to see more emphasis on the more vulnerable communities, in particular the elderly, the mentally unwell, and those who need intensive care or who have special needs. We all know these groups need more support, but reality is we should be taught how to better equip ourselves in dealing with this through the change in going to university, going into the workplace, and handling day-to-day people after leaving school.
I feel like the school curriculum is so narrow in terms of what they decide to teach you for you to become a fully fledged adult. They fling simultaneous equations, how to use semicolons successfully in a sentence, and how to make literal explosions in the chemistry labs, but they don’t actually make us aware of some of the things I am sure all of us would like to know the answers to.
In regards to recent matters, black history should most definitely be a more significant feature of our school curriculum. We should have been taught the different ways to deal with ‘romance’ in our new digital culture, as quite frankly, I have wasted SO MANY hours on boys who just WILL NOT give me the satisfaction that I well and truly deserve. I know these seem like huge juxtapositions but I think culture is just as important as the building blocks into our personal identities. The dating world is a large part of that.
How do you cope at university? Why am I being told to “go straight to university” to study a degree or “go to college” when I don’t even know how to claim back my taxes? How come I had to do a mock interview as if I were applying for a job but I haven’t learnt the art of how to not emotionally break down the night before an essay submission date? Even better still, how come I don’t know the signs of a panic attack? Funny story, I had one of those the night before I moved out of university halls, but this may have been a combination of things: ranging from my inability to sleep, to cancelling a shift at work the day before and feeling extremely guilty, and the fact that half of room was not in boxes DESPITE the fact I had approximately 36 hours until I needed to fit it into the back of a car that didn’t look big enough to fit my belongings in.
How come sex education never told me how to have safe sex, if I were homosexual? It is all well and good telling children not to go around having unprotected sex, but why didn’t they cover lesbian and gay sex, as if that isn’t the norm now? We need to be a lot more in tune to the reality that yes, we are much more aware of the spectrum of sexuality and, therefore, including it in the curriculum would be a more honest reflection of our society.
Why was I never told what the other side of university was like, besides the studying? The lifestyle, the drug culture, the alcoholism, the depression, the anxiety, the financial debt, the ‘trying to fit so much more into one day than is humanly possible’?
I feel like I could write a whole novel on the topics that should have been stimulated into the conversations of teachers when they plan lessons on what they should teach us about life. And, as an ex-student, I feel like I have had to discover a lot of the key elements of life on my own, instead of through the guidance of structured lessons that I had to endure for almost 16 years in counting of my life so far.
How do I continue to make friends, particularly in the most AWKWARD of circumstances, for example, FRESHERS!! I know that a powerpoint stating ‘How to make friends’ sounds a ridiculous idea, but so many people (1 in 6) to be exact, have a mental health problem ranging from depression to anxiety disorders as a result of poor education.
We need to learn the basics of hygiene and how to look after our well-being, as well as how to be a success in today’s world - full to bursting with a new abundances of ideas. It is OK not to want to have a career that your teacher wants you to do? If you want to be the next YouTube sensation, so be it. If you want to travel the world instead of attending lectures, go do that. If you want to be a porn star? Go do it.
Do NOT let your education, as important as it is, define what you want your life to look like. It is the stepping stone to building you, and if I had to end this piece on what I DID learn from attending school, is that you must ALWAYS be kind. No matter your gender, race, social class, sexual orientation, we are ALL PEOPLE. And learning from one another, not just from the classroom, is the greatest lesson of them all.
Written by Megan Evans
I am a 19 year old undergraduate student in my second year studying English Literature at Cardiff University. Writing has been an ambition of mine for many years, and I am hoping to pursue a career in journalism in the future, due to my undying love for magazine publications.
My plans for the future are to do an MA in Magazine Journalism after I finish my final year and I have recently been offered two amazing roles at multi-award winning publications at Cardiff University Media: advice columnist position for Gair Rhydd newspaper, and culture editor for Quench magazine. I am hoping to contribute regularly to this magazine alongside other commitments, because I value the opportunity to write particularly on topics that are typically understated.