After four years of high school education, I can proudly recite the Gettysburg Address, summarize the plot for Great Expectations, solve derivatives and other algebraic equations, and ask for basic directions in Spanish. But if you ask me how to do laundry, cook a chicken, sew a button, or pay my taxes, I’ll laugh in your face…right beside all the other Millennials.
You see, right around when I started school, schools stopped doing an exceedingly important task: teaching young lives real life skills. They got rid of Home Ec classes soon after I left middle school. In high school they didn’t have it at all.
There was no class that taught me how to change a tire. No class told me what I needed to do to get a good credit score or fill out a deposit slip at a bank. No teacher taught me how to cook or do laundry. Basically, nothing in school taught me how to survive as an adult.
After all, there are precious few hours in the school day, and there is no time for life skills in the classroom. Instead, teachers need time to show kids movies. Gym teachers need time to drum up enthusiasm for a sport only a quarter of the kids actually participate in. Students need time to take naps and slack off in what is ironically labeled ‘study’ hall.
It seems that schools often assume that families will teach these life skills, and that there is no need for education regarding such things. However, that is far from the case. There are parents struggling to live from paycheck to paycheck. Other parents are too busy with their careers. Whatever the case, these life lessons are no longer being taught.
It is no wonder, due to this neglect from families and the school system, that young adults are entering the work force without a clue to survive. Society blames Millennials, saying we are lazy and too obsessed with technology. But maybe, just maybe, it isn’t our fault in the least. Maybe it is the fault of an education that fills the days with useless knowledge you’ll need for the SATs and nothing else. Maybe it’s because you can no longer get a job without a college degree, and students are too busy trying to achieve in all areas of their lives, extra-curriculars, jobs, sports, and academics, to have the time to learn these skills on their own.
It really can’t surprise you that we, the Millennials, know nothing about ‘adulting.’ You never taught us. And now, you blame us. You blame us and yet you still don’t teach us. So here we are, grown adults. We have become a generation of 'faking it.' Lucky for us, we're scrappy and resourceful enough to get by. We feign knowledge of these things, and rely on Google and Youtube to teach us. Sure we’ll learn eventually, but no thanks to you. Hopefully we’ll do better than you in the future, and teach the next generation what you so woefully failed to teach us.
