For nearly two decades, Life Skills has been a staple of my past high school’s curriculum until the school board recently voted against keeping the course as a mandatory graduation requirement. The course, though only 0.5 units, was the bane of many students’ existence for a semester. Though the course seemed to have a noble purpose, to prepare high school seniors for the challenges of the “real world,” it often fell short of its mission for three main reasons: outdated material, a lack of interactivity, and a lack of diverse perspectives. How can Life Skills adapt to the 2020s, an era of rapid economic and social change? How can we identify what skills are crucial for success in these times and market them in a way palatable to the Tiktok and Instagram generation?
What Life Skills Was
The class consisted of eight modules: Slight Edge, Nutrition and Health, Development, HIV/AIDS/HPV, Marriage and Domestic Violence, Finances, Turning 18, and Systems. The typical daily structure of the class was largely passive. Students would listen to the instructor lecture about a topic for an hour to an hour and half, then watch a movie on the associated topic. As homework, students had to do a write-up discussing what they learned from the movie. There was very little, if any, time for student questions or in person discussion.
The course also had two projects. The project for the Development unit was constructing a family tree using pen and paper. The major project of the course was the marriage and baby project, in which students paired up in a “marriage” to take care of a baby doll and pay fake taxes.
What The World Is Like Now
As young adults enter the workforce today, they are faced with global competition. They will be competing with not only their American peers but also young people from around the world for the best positions. Though jobs in STEM fields have increased demand, recruiters are becoming increasingly choosy about who they want to hire: 72.8% of recruiters are having trouble finding qualified candidates.
Though top jobs in STEM and business may pay well, the cost of living has increased in the cities that are major hubs for these industries. The consumer price index (CPI) in the Bay Area has increased at a rate far disproportional to the increase in median household income: the CPI increased by 78.4%, but the median income increased by only 41.9%.
The novel coronavirus has also upended the careers of millions of young Americans: the unemployment rate will average close to 14% by the end of the second quarter in 2020. Dozens of industries have been hard hit, including retail, tourism, and entertainment.
Mental health is a major issue to Generation Z, especially during the onslaught of the pandemic. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, 17% of youth 6–17 years experience a mental health disorder, with anxiety disorders and depression as two of the most frequently diagnosed illnesses.
Teenagers often receive abysmal sex education at high schools, with many schools teaching an abstinence only curriculum in lieu of birth control education. Only 13 states in America require mandatory sex education in schools, and fewer teens received education on birth control from 2010–2013 than in 2006–2010.
These statistics are damning considering the fact that the average American teenager starts having sex by age 18.
Why Life Skills Fell Short, and How It Can Be Fixed
Content:
Note: I would have loved to cite my sources with regards to the course, but I do not want to publicly name my high school.
Despite the challenges young adults face with the job market today, Life Skills provides very little education on not only securing but keeping a job. Out of all 8 units, there was not a single unit dedicated towards career development, except for a few slides with some generic advice on writing resumes and interviewing. Young adults today are not just interested in finding jobs; they are looking to design their careers that will last nearly a lifetime. Consequently, Life Skills should give students insight into career design, from picking a major in college to networking with the right people. Getting a job is not enough; what’s more important is that today’s young adults have the requisite interpersonal and leadership skills to advance in their fields. Life Skills should place greater emphasis on effective communication, networking, teamwork, and conflict resolution, skills that are fundamental to leadership roles.
Though there was an entire unit dedicated to maintaining good physical health through diet and exercise, there was not a single mention of mental health throughout the entire course. In addition to the unit on physical health, Life Skills should educate students on maintaining mental wellness. This unit would educate students on not only the symptoms of different mental disorders but also medically-approved options for treatment. As students often face new stressors with regards to increasing coursework and independent living through their transitions to college, Life Skills can also include tips on how to manage stress in a healthy way.
Though there was an entire unit on HIV/AIDS, the unit focused more on the history of the disease rather than prevention. Out of a slide deck of more than 40 slides, there was only 1 slide that briefly mentioned treatment and prevention in passing. While there was a marriage and parenting unit, there was no mention of safe sex and healthy dating. To combat this issue, Life Skills should have a sex education unit that emphasizes safe and healthy sex rather than abstinence. This unit will include medically sound information on different forms of birth control and how to use them, STDs and how to prevent them, and the signs of emotional and physical abuse while dating and how to get out of a bad relationship. This information should also be inclusive to minorities and the LGBTQ community and include details on different sexual health resources.
Course Structure:
Very few students enjoy a course that is passive. Passive learning occupies the lowest two rungs of Bloom’s Taxonomy, remembering and understanding. Many students (myself included) feel the urge to daydream, doodle, or sleep when someone is talking at them for hours. Students learn best when they actively interact with the material and create something new using what they have learned.
Instead of a class where most of the time is spent either listening to the teacher or the movie, the class should be flipped. Students can read the requisite material and watch the videos before class. That way, class time can be used as time for discussion and debate, much like a Socratic seminar. The teacher should not intervene much with the discussion, instead providing thoughtful questions and topics to start an energetic discussion between students. Guest speakers could also show up to offer their perspective on the issues through an Ask Me Anything session. Many of the videos have rich thematic material that touches upon deep societal issues, including social conformity, leadership, and environmentalism, that are not strictly black and white. By placing the emphasis on discussion rather than lecture, students can have the opportunity to think through the issues themselves and present their opinions to others.
The two current projects are not only poor reconstructions of reality but also fail to align themselves with the goals of the course. The family tree project, while interesting, does not teach students a life skill critical for success in the 2020s. It doesn’t exercise students’ critical thinking skills or challenge students’ creativity. The marriage and baby project couldn’t be any farther removed from reality: the only requirement is that both individuals text each other good night each night and meet up with each other’s family, and the only thing the baby is capable of doing is crying. Given that today’s high school students are more likely than not to be major fans of TikTok, Youtube, and other “creator” platforms, Life Skills should instead have a project where students create a piece of art that educates the audience on a given topic in the course. Students are allowed to exercise their imaginations however they wish, as long as the creative piece pertains to any topic in the course. YouTube videos, Soundcloud raps, VSCO collages, and TikTok skits are more than welcome. Less artistically inclined students do not have to fear; the creative piece can be one of many different mediums, ranging from a personally designed website to a well-written article with beautiful data visualizations.
Takeaways
Our young adults, more than ever, need guidance on how to navigate the uncharted waters of a world in turmoil. Life Skills could offer students that necessary guidance, but its curriculum and methods of teaching need to be updated to reflect the current times. Technological advances have empowered students to be more creative and innovative than ever; students are more likely than ever to hop onto social media and create all types of content. Why don’t we light the fire for our intelligent, trailblazing youth to become critical thinkers of the information they see? Why don’t we arm students with the knowledge they need to give it back to their community at large?