Where education fails

Last year has been very interesting in the world of politics and I am sure so many people who visit Tweaked for your Pleasure will have joined a debate about politics without knowing anything about it but the sad part is just how little informed people are when it comes to how the world works and you can debate it is by design but it is a shame nonetheless.

Let’s take a couple of topics that people face every day and I can bet you that the school you went to likely never even covered the topic in much detail and focused purely on “academic topics”. The first topic I will pick on is the one in the first paragraph – politics.

Back many years ago when I was at school, I never remembered any lessons or discussions about politics. There was no time to talk about what the different parties had to offer, how the voting system works or even how you can go about getting involved in politics but they did offer lessons about how our Government came about … although that’s a lie, my history lessons for many years was about World War II each year surprisingly.

The second topic I will use as an example is one I do believe is slowly making its way into schools and that is about healthy eating and overall health. I do not recall in school, college or university (although the university doesn’t apply here) anywhere about the benefits of exercise outside of a scientific context and how much different diets can affect you such as a vegetarian diet brings massive benefits to both the person and the environment but we did learn how the body absorbs the different food types and what the body gains from them.

What I am trying to explain is our education system does not get people ready for real life and only gets them ready to have a career in an academic environment. The education system needs to change to help people to get ready for life and this includes things like understanding how taxes work, how relationships are meant to work, the importance of exercising and so much more than just learning about history and the other stuff many will never use again.

Education is important and these topics should still be taught but schools should stress so much more about the stuff in life and not just about getting enough points so the school can say it is doing great and needs to keep its budget. A couple of hours a week to teach children how to deal with the issues of life would do so much.