What I Wish They’d Taught Me in High School

Factorials, anaphora, metonymy, stoichiometry, wave oscillation, geometric proofs: there are so many things I kind of remember learning in high school, but to be honest, a lot of them simply don’t apply to my everyday life. Someday, maybe not in my lifetime, high schools will take a turn toward teaching topics that have a more practical application. Here are some of the things I wish I’d learned about way back in my high school days:

1. Financial stuff: I can tell you from experience that activities like balancing and maintaining a budget, saving money, doing taxes, and having a mortgage are often stressful life events. And I really think that more often than not, we are thrown into these obligations without a manual. I am still learning how to save money and budget. My Mom, bless her heart, is an accountant and helps me with my taxes. Without her, I’d be lost every April. The point is that these practical applications would have been extremely valuable to learn at, say, seventeen, since many of us are rudely awakened when we suddenly need to apply them around age 22 or so. I truly lament the fact that I have had to learn this stuff the hard way. It would have been such a boon to have entered early adulthood with a more solid understanding of finances.

2. How to work with my hands: As bad as I am at budgeting, I’m probably worse at fixing things in my house. It’s funny because I can remember the first three digits of pi, but I can’t figure out how to pitch my sink pipes correctly or install… well, anything. I guess “shop” class was a thing of the past by the time I got to high school, but in retrospect, some introduction to manual stuff would have been helpful. Just watch me try to change the bit in my drill if you don’t believe me.

3. Coping skills: Once you become an adult, you usually realize that wanting to be one might have been a rush to judgement. Don’t get me wrong, some of the perks of being a grown-up are good, but with life comes stress and anxiety. I would have loved a class about mindfulness or even meditation. I know that some schools today actually offer yoga classes, and I think that is a wonderful idea. Why not teach young folks how to cope with the inevitable ups and downs of life early on?

4. Technological skills: I’m one of those old guys who ask my students how to work stuff on my phone. I wish there had been a sharper focus on basic technologies when I was in high school. While I understand that technology changes rapidly, it would have been helpful to have been taught foundations, which today could be basic html coding or how the “cloud” works (I still don’t know what that is.) Essentially, it would have been nice to have been taught how to control my gadgets rather than have them control me.

5. Interpersonal skills: High school can be a time of great awkwardness. I know I was truly unsure of myself for much of my high school career, as I’m sure many adolescents are. It’s tough to just turn on a self-confidence switch when you need to. I can remember being nervous on job interviews and when having to interact with real-world superiors. I have many students today who are afraid to make phone calls (partly due to our culture of texting.) What a plus learning early on how to interact with others, even those above your station, would have been.

Maybe this is all just a pipe dream but from my position of retrospect, we typically finish high school lacking some essential life skills. I advocate strongly for educators and administrators to consider helping young folks prepare for some of the basic skills that we all need to tap into as we grow into adulthood.

Written by Phil Lane