The average person spends 13 years in school. Those are 13 years that we are supposed to learn the tools that we will need to succeed in our everyday lives. I agree that high school is preparing me well for college, but I feel that it hasn’t prepared me well enough for life.

We are told that we need to have taken so many years of math, science, English, and history, so that we will be able to graduate. What about the other things that we will need to use later in life?

As my high school career is ending, I’m noticing that there are many things that I still don’t know. I don’t know how to file my taxes, or how to buy a house or car. I don’t know how to get insurance, and what the right one for me would be. I have no idea the proper way to get or use a credit card or balance a check book. What about mortgages, finances, and loans? We as students have never been taught about those things either.

I feel that we are getting unleashed into this big world without being fully prepared for it. We have no idea what to expect and what’s out there.

I understand that we need a certain amount of required classes in ordered to graduate, but by senior year you really only need two main classes, English and Economics and Government. That leaves four spots for elective classes.

Even for the students who take a full load of classes their senior year, they would still be able to take a science and a math and still have more classes available.

I don’t understand why schools don’t require students to take a “Life Skills” class before they graduate. Sure some may say that it is the parents’ responsibility to teach their children about these things, but sometimes that isn’t very realistic. What happens to the kids who don’t have a mom or dad to teach them or the parents who are too busy for their children and expect them to figure it out on their own or the kids who are in foster homes and don’t have someone to teach them these necessities?

There is also that off chance that parents might not teach their children because they don’t know how to do it themselves. There should be no reason that someone should miss out on learning something that would improve their future because they don’t have a “parent” to teach them.

It should be the schools duty to require one more “Life Skills” class before students graduate so they have a chance to get to learn things that they might otherwise have no idea about.

It may not seem important for some people, but every single person who owns a house, car, has a bank account, business, or is employed needs to know these skills.

If the people who are graduating are someday going to be the people who control our society, we should provide them with the necessary tools.