“When will I ever use this?!” A Plea to Make High School Actually Useful
“When will I ever use this?!” “Why can’t high school teach me more practical things like how to do taxes and get a mortgage?” Have you ever heard of these types of comments from your students? Me too. High school is the last step before entering college, the trades, or the general workforce, yet it fails to properly prepare students for life after high school. In North America, the content in schools typically follows this structure. In early elementary you learn the foundations for various subjects and skills. Then, in upper elementary through middle school you dive deeper into the classic subjects such as math, science, history, and so on while still working on skills (writing, reading, etc). Lastly comes high school, where the questions that opened the article stem from. Students in high school dive deep into subjects that they have been exposed to for years and yet they leave with a lack of real sense on how to successfully tackle life's next steps.
Instead of structuring the 4 years of high school towards a more practical end, students are exposed to a greater depth of subjects they have been in for years. Now, it is important to note that the greater depth of subjects is not inherently the issue, rather issue is the lack of application. The reason that comments like the ones listed above are made is that not every high school student is going to pursue advanced Mathematics or English, and a deeper dive into these subjects no longer seems beneficial to them. I have a different vision of high school to better prepare our future generations of students for “real life” outside of High School. The vision that I will discuss in this article is one that came out of a conversation with my instructional coach and I want to give credit where credit is due. So, shout out to my instructional coach for the bulk of this idea.
Instead of spending all 4 years taking a deeper dive into the classic subjects mentioned above, what if we structured high school to focus just as heavily on the practical aspect? High school would become two years of deep-dive into core subjects so that students still get the exposure and benefit of diving deep into Math, English, Science, History and so forth (I mean, who did not enjoy dissecting frogs and blowing things up?). And then the remaining two years would purely focus on building essential life skills such as the ability to file taxes, apply for a mortgage, driver safety, budgeting, and internships. In this way, students would get the practical knowledge they are so desperately needing in order to be able to then make an informed and confident decision at the end of the 4 years on what they want to pursue upon graduating. A basic structure for those two years might look like this:
(5 classes -such as: groceries/budgeting/driving safety) and 1 internship.
The classes could be a set core that each student takes or student choice for their two years to provide flexibility for those seeking general exposure, or depth for those with a plan in place. Then, with the internships, students could either decide to stay on as interns each year at their first internship if they truly found something they enjoy or change out every year. The beautiful part of this vision is that the internships could be at a varied amount of spaces such as universities, large companies, small businesses, etc. Therefore, the students would gain two years of practical experience in a field of interest during their last two years of high school. You may be reading this and wonder that it is a good structure or you may be disagreeing with it. However, before you form your opinion fully on the idea, let me finish by explaining the core “why” behind this idea.
At its core, this vision would have the potential to solve a fundamental issue amongst the younger generations today; insecurity. Having 2 years of strong experience in practical matters for both the personal and professional spheres of adulthood before graduating. We could have strong chances of reducing major switches in university degrees (or even unused degrees). And maybe less job hopping as students may find it easier to commit on a longer scale towards their chosen fields after graduating, due to having been better equipped to make those decisions in the first place. This would reap long term benefits both for the students and their future employers. Therefore, if this idea could produce more stability and confidence for our future generations, then it is a worthy effort to pursue.
As a final note, I want to make clear that this proposed model does not need to be the final version. The point is to get the ball rolling towards change in order to ensure our high school students leave with confidence and competence to enter the “real world.”