You’ve been told since grade school that education is very important. Calculus is required, Chemistry is required, Professional Communications is required. Yet not a single class on home repair, time management or budgeting and how to handle money is required.

Instead, the current education system used is sacrificing common sense knowledge for being book smart. While it’s important to be book smart, these math and science classes aren’t going to teach you how to do your taxes. Not to say that core classes aren’t useful, but there really needs to be some emphasis on life skills as well.

All adults, especially the young, should know how to manage their finances. They all have to do their taxes and the earlier it is taught, the better the numbers will be. Also, debt is a growing concern for Americans. Learning how to budget and manage money early in life will help you avoid credit card debt or worse, going bankrupt or losing your home.

Integrated in the school system should be a class on how to establish and maintain a good credit and financial things such as interest rates/financing a car or house. In addition, this course could also teach students simple tasks like writing checks, addressing envelopes and writing letters. It’s amazing how technology has limited students’ practice at these simple tasks. But they’re essential learning for becoming a grown up.

Cooking is another area students need help with. As a result of overeating and fast food consumption, our country is more obese than ever. If students are educated on healthier options for food, America will have a healthier future. Thankfully, the school offers culinary classes that can help students learn how to cook and eat healthily. While the class is an elective, every student should take advantage of the opportunity and take a cooking course.

The integration of real-life lessons will do more than teach you how to solve word problems, it will help students survive in the future. This idea might challenge the current curriculum and state requirements, but it would be worth it. The wonderful teachers that are available to the school hold so much value to the educational aspects of adolescence and early adulthood. Occupational classes that are along the lines of “How to be an Adult” may seem like a far-fetched idea, but if we want to prepare students for the real world, we need to teach them how to live in it.