Our world is one filled with knowledge and talent. Everyone has skills to contribute, owing to school subjects.

But school subjects may not be enough for a person to succeed at spinning the wheel of life. Though they give the world a pulse, its beat is faint. Life skills will strengthen it, and our youth need them.

School Subjects Aren’t Enough: The Importance of Life Skills

We need maths to perform everyday calculations and tasks. Languages allow us to communicate with one another. However, they aren’t enough to help children deal with the rigors of daily living.

Life skills, such as social interaction, turn-taking, and personal grooming will help a child feel confident enough to manage life’s difficulties. They are ‘school subjects’ that should be part of a curriculum. So, why are they essential?

1. Lack of Creative Thinking and Problem solving

First of all, students educated only in school subjects will find it hard to manage the routine problems of everyday life. Solving mathematical equations may be easy for them, but real life may be a challenge. This study proves that problem-solving skills will help them deal with day-to-day difficulties.

2. Responsibility

School subjects teach children to be responsible for their learning. However, they can do more to instill real-life responsibility, e.g., the need to look after others. Such life skills need explicit teaching. This study has found that Life Skills Education benefits adolescents.

3. Analytical Skills and Decision Making

There’s no question that an academic curriculum develops a child’s analytical thinking and decision-making skills. However, he or she may not know how to apply them in everyday situations, e.g., making a grocery list or managing money.

4. Self-awareness

Also, an academic curriculum that focuses entirely on familiar school subjects like maths or science may not develop a child’s self-awareness. They don’t do enough to teach students social skills, which help them make a positive impression on superiors at work. A teacher must emphasize life skills like cooperation during group work as part of his or her classroom routine.

5. Confidence building

Furthermore, the subjects learned in class may not do enough to build self-confidence. Life skills like personal grooming will; they empower children and make them feel better about themselves. Consequently, they will be more confident when interacting with others. The results of this study are that LSE is a self-esteem building block.

6. Employability

Life-skills, or non-school subjects, are what increase employability. Many people have sound academic skills, so those alone may not be enough to help him or her stand out. What will is his or her ability to relate to others socially and professionally.

7. Survival skills

Moreover, history, geography, and science alone aren’t enough to enable a child to survive. Practicing safety at home or being able to prepare meals will, and such skills should be part of a school’s curriculum.

8. Focus on the community

Everyone will agree that children should learn to help others. Algebra isn’t enough to teach this; mathematics teachers must include this life skill as part of their classroom routines.

9. Voicing Opinion

Finally, everyone is familiar with people who speak their minds, sometimes out of turn. Teaching them the conventions of grammar isn’t enough to curb this behavior. Language teachers can make Expressing Opinions part of their curriculum.

12 School Subjects That Should Be Introduced Today to Change the World Tomorrow

Life skills make school curricula holistic. They turn children into well-rounded adults. Children should add these to their skill set.

1. Money Management

First of all is money management. Schools teach Maths, Accounting, and Business-related subjects. While these are useful and relevant, an individual needs basic knowledge. He or she must know how to keep to a budget, save, and read financial statements. Such skills will help children along life’s journey.

2. Career Management

Does your child want to be a doctor or a graduate teaching assistant? Many people don’t know which career path they should follow, how to write a compelling resume, or how to find jobs. Consequently, they make poor life decisions that prevent their progress. Emphasizing Career Management will help a child understand their strengths.

There are many college graduates with straight As who don’t know how to conduct successful job hunts. They are clueless about how to write compelling resumes that stand out to employers. Interview techniques are beyond them. Job hunting is a life skill that’s essential for a person’s survival in a hectic world.

3. Mental Health and Stress Management

The pressures of school and social relationships can take a toll on the young. Stress management enables them to put their concerns into perspective. Also, they will manage tasks better if they know to break them down into small blocks.

In a recent study, Newsweek uncovered that about 18.2% of the adult American population suffers from mental illness. The Huffington Post published a report entitled 19 Statistics that Prove that Mental Illness is More Prominent than You Think. The report revealed that about 350, 000, 000 people worldwide have it. Mental health education is essential.

4. The Environment

Climate change is already affecting worldwide weather. Arctic and Antarctic glaciers are disappearing. Furthermore, massive garbage patches, which are a consequence of the litter we throw into our rivers, are accumulating in our oceans. The litter harms marine life.

Though there are attempts by countries to educate their citizens about the impact of humans on the environment, these aren’t enough. Schools need to raise environmental awareness by giving it emphasis during geography lessons.

5. Home & Car Purchase and Maintenance

There is precious little advice about home purchase and maintenance, other than what one learns from blogs or HGTV. Students graduate without a clue about how to select a home or how to look out for the hidden costs when buying one. Many find out about how to negotiate the best price for houses or cars the hard way. There are home and car care tips that every owner should know.

6. Dating, Marriage, and Family

There are many Straight-A students, and they make much-needed contributions to society. Sadly, their fast-paced lifestyles mean that their romantic opportunities are limited.

Many people have little time to learn how to nurture romantic relationships and are ill-prepared for their pitfalls. If schools gave them more focus, students would know how to respond when the right one comes along.

The family follows naturally. Parenthood is a blessing but lots of hard work. Schools don’t teach much about its ups and downs. They also offer little advice about maintaining a marriage, which is challenging. Married couples and parents will share that there are many lessons they wish they had learned in school.

7. Meditation

With our busy lifestyles, we need stress relief. We also need to pause and reflect on our lives. Meditation is calming and pushes a person towards these goals. According to studies, it also enhances his or her sense of self. These are often unacknowledged qualities that give a person an edge in this fast-paced world.

8. Professional Etiquette / Manners

Many people write grammatically flawless emails with near-perfect vocabulary. However, they don’t observe proper work etiquette and are poor communicators.

Work etiquette is beneficial; it gives an employee a leg up above others. Employees should include superiors in relevant CC loops. Moreover, bombarding a colleague’s inbox with unnecessary emails is highly inappropriate. Also, proper email manners involve using the right notation, e.g., Mr., Mrs., or Dr.

Etiquette may seem stuffy and overbearing but is a sign of respect for a colleague’s professional position. And everyone knows that a little acknowledgment goes a long way.

9. Cooking Skills

You may believe that food preparation is a chore. There’s no denying that it’s a heavy responsibility. It is a shame to graduate from college not knowing how to cook.

Cooking skills are essential for relationship building. It’s somewhat embarrassing to tell a date that all one knows how to make is a sandwich.

10. Time Management

Never underestimate the importance of time management. It is the fulcrum that enables work-life balance. We should never spend all our lives at work; family time, hobbies, and self-development are essential for health and happiness.

Using time blocks to complete tasks enables us to give them our complete attention. Time trackers such as the Harvest Time Tracking chrome extension are also helpful.

11. Failure Management

American basketball celebrity Michael Jordan famously quoted that he has made 9000 shots and missed 300 of them. Those failures contributed to his success.

There’s a misconception that failure means one has lost the game in life. However, this is far from the truth.

Young people graduate from schools and universities thinking that they can do it all. They meet their first failure and become depressed. What they don’t realize is that their failures are breakthroughs. Failure forces a person to take a different, perhaps more efficient approach to tasks. Children would know that failure is the path to success if schools taught them how to cope with it.

12. Survival Skills

Many former boy scouts will say that they are grateful to their parents for forcing them to take scouting as an extracurricular activity. Why? It emphasizes survival skills.

Many of us can prepare word documents but are terrified of lighting fires. Schools would help their students cope with the rigors of life if they taught skills like swimming, CPR, or to make smoke signals. There are times when such knowledge is necessary.

In all, conventional school subjects provide the knowledge students need to do their jobs. Life skills help students excel at them, and should be part of an academic curriculum.


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This Post Has 2 Comments

  1. Carter Weddle

    What is this i dont know what

  2. Orthopedist

    It says it wants pupils to leave school with the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in the real world.

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