So far, my work
experience has gone really well, and I’ve really enjoyed it. With one day left,
I’m exhausted and aching, but it’s been well worth it. Today, during a quiet
moment at the pharmacy, I was talking to one of my supervisors about lessons at
school, and whether I enjoy them or not.
I ended up ranting
about Life Skills, and how pointless it really is. My basic argument was that
we don’t get a GCSE out of it, and we do not learn any life skills.
To me, the definition
of ‘life skill’ is a basic skill you’ll need at some point in later life. Be it
setting up a bank account or buying a house or wiring up a TV. Most things like
this are, in theory, fairly simple, but, when you have no idea where to go
about it, it can be very hard indeed.
We were talking about
this in English a little while ago; once we get out of school and move away,
perhaps to university or to get a job, we have no idea how to live. We have to
figure everything out for ourselves and hope we get it right first time.
I know we can ask our
parents for help, or our friends, should we need assistance, but wouldn’t it be
more practical to show us, in school, instead of going through all the hassle
when the time comes? I think we all, as school students, definitely need to
know basic financial skills, such as budgeting and managing various finance
accounts.
So when it comes to
lesson like Life Skills, surely they should be teaching us real life skills, as
opposed to information we forget almost instantly and will almost certainly
never need anyway. The same goes for Maths; we’re given worksheets to fill in,
tables to copy, textbooks to work through, and they’re all filled with methods
and information we’ll probably never use. Shouldn’t they consider teaching us
things like working on a till, or the basics of accountancy? A lot of the
skills we need are numerical, but not like the rubbish we endure each maths
lesson.
Obviously most jobs
will give you crash course on how to actually do your job, but a bit of
background experience never hurt anyone. If someone did choose to be an
accountant of some sort, if they had had some experience with the sort of work
they might need to do thanks to school, surely their job will be much easier
right from the start?
It’s just a thought,
but I think more practical lessons would help a lot of young people for when
the time comes. Simply because the time will
come.
