Adulting is hard. While high school students are at the forefront of technological and learning skills, it's often not until they leave home that they learn everyday life skills. Some believe that high schools should offer a common sense course in which students are taught how to pay bills, change a tire or cook. Now, one Kentucky school is offering an "adulting day" to teach such skills to students in their senior year.
A class at Bullitt Central High School in Shepherdsville, Ky., traded in their algebra and literature classes for a day to learn some positive life skills, according to Wave 3 News.
"I think that the idea occurred to me, originally, when I saw a Facebook post that parents passed around saying they needed a class in high school on taxes and cooking, " Christy Hardin, director of the BCHS Family Resource & Youth Services Center, told Wave 3. "Our kids can get that, but they have to choose it. And "Wednesday" was a day they could pick and choose pieces they didn't feel like they had gotten so far."
Members of the community helped provide the lessons for the students one on one, including local police who taught them how to interact with officers during traffic stops, a speaker who explained how to decipher the difference between homesickness and depression, and others who discussed how to use credit cards, how to cook in a dorm room and how to change a tire.
While many people on Facebook applauded the idea, with some arguing, "This should be taught in every high school, " others wondered what became of home economics.
Now known as Family and Consumer Sciences, these courses teach students how to cook, sew and budget, along with other skills. In many districts, however, the classes are electives and students do not always choose to take them.
"About time this came back, it was called Home Economics, "one woman wrote. "In today's diverse make up of families it would be a welcome addition."
Another shared, "We had home economics that taught us to cook and learned how to sew. We also had business math that taught us banking and finances. Why in the world is that not taught today? I mean, a special day called adulting to teach kids this stuff? Should be a required class credit."
