What Our Schools Should Really Teach
The only way to fix our country's financial troubles is to teach our youth about money.
Dear Next President,
I truly believe the best change you can make is to fix our corrupted Education System. As a senior in high school with my college decision approaching rapidly, I have realized more and more how wrong the process of our education truly is. From the day we are first placed in school, we are taught equations that will never be used in the real world, read books that do not interest us in the slightest, and had random facts shoved down our throats only to be spit back up in time for the test and forgotten moments later. The generic approach to teaching makes it difficult for almost all students to thrive later in life. The material being taught is more often than not completely irrelevant to the real world. If school truly is a place to learn and be educated, we should be taught subject matter that will help us succeed later in life.
Instead of Calculus and Chemistry, classes where we learn how to pay bills and budget money should be taught. How are we expected to go into the real world with minimal knowledge on how it actually works? College students are 10 times as likely to get into financial troubles as adults. This is due to the lack of knowledge and experience on money, financial terminology, and real world matter. Sixty-four percent of high school students don’t know the difference between a credit and debit card. But I guarantee that same percent can ramble on about Biology of Geometry terminology.
I truly believe the root of our country’s problems is the lack of education. If life skills are taught at young ages, we have the power to turn the distress in our country around. By teaching high school students how to manage money, how to pay bills, and other basic “adult” skills, we will lower unemployment rates, the amount of homeless people, and diminish the amount of debt in our country. Teachers and educators are to blame for sending students on there way with zero knowledge of how to live in the real world.
Borate, Daniel. "Why Most High Schoolers Don't Know How to Manage Their Money." US News. U.S.News & World Report, n.d. Web. 18 Oct. 2016.
