Saturday, April 18, 2015

Real life lessons

yesterday, I started a new unit with my seniors. After hearing them complain bitterly about panicking at the thought of being on their own in a few months, I realized their panic came from ignorance. They are suddenly aware of all the things they don't know how to do to function in our society. On Thursday, I asked them to turn in the 5 things that stressed them out most about being on their own after graduation. Among the top issues - roommate questions, banking questions, and time management worries. During the last month if school, I'm going to try to address their questions daily to help them feel more confident about entering the world of adulthood. Yesterday, we talked about debit cards vs. credit cards and opening up their first bank account. Even though these are generally upper middle class kids planning on going to college, they feel woefully ill-prepared about real world skills. Don't just call me an English teacher; apparently, I'm a life-teacher. Mire to come on this in the coming weeks, but first, what do you remember not knowing how to do at that age? I'd love to be able to compare the worries then and now.

10 comments:

  1. Filing taxes. I worked babysitting jobs in high school. Had no clue!

    ReplyDelete
  2. You are awesome for doing this for your students. You are a teacher they will remember for years for reaching out to them.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Tiffany this is awesome. I love that you saw a need and are addressing it!! My son is in college now. He could've benefitted from learning how to create a budget and spending within the budget 😊

    ReplyDelete
  4. That is so awesome! I didn't know nuthin! I didn't know about checking accounts, paying bills, saving, not a thing about saving, getting a job, interviewing, job skills, seeing the Big Picture, really anything. I had always had a job since 15 but I was clueless about the real work world.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Surviving college- making friends, choosing subjects, writing college-level essays, getting along with roommates. That stuff is surprisingly frightening/scary.

    ReplyDelete
  6. My daughters (ages 23 and 21) often talk about how they wish that their high school offered a class in real-life skills, much like the issues you mentioned in your post. Getting and using a credit card/debit card, how to get things like cable and electricity and water up and running when you move into off-campus housing, simple home repairs, getting/needing insurance...these were all things they mentioned as being skills they felt they lacked. I think I probably felt the same way when I was their age. How wonderful of you to offer them a place to open up about their concerns and give them advice.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Balancing a checkbook, budgeting (esp. when you have hardly any money), how to make your dining plan $ last the whole semester, how to make yourself study and get the work done without being sidetracked by the social aspect of college. (Seems like some things are way easier. Long distance phone calls were horribly expensive when I went to college and there was no Internet. Now you could text, call, FaceTime daily with family or friends at home if you wanted to.)

    ReplyDelete
  8. oh you are very wise to get them writing about issues that matter to them. plus you are teaching them the stuff we all wish we had help with or even just had someone listen to us when we were young. i know it was around a 100 yrs ago when i graduated from high school, but i remember how scared & uncertain i was back in the olden days. it's like growing pains. isn't it?

    ReplyDelete
  9. I think they're really liking the unit so far. When we chat, it's so quiet you could hear a pin drop. With seniors, that's truly rare.

    ReplyDelete