SUBJECTS SCHOOLS SHOULD TEACH
SEMS Welfare Foundation
SWF is a not-for-profit entity, established to work in the areas of Education, Social Welfare, Women empowerment, etc.
The curriculum in our country has stuck to a traditional style with five major subjects. These subjects pretty much cover everything from Indus Valley civilization to algebra, but how much of what we learn in school are we practically implementing in real life? Shouldn’t education actually empower us to survive in the real world instead of just bombarding us with information that we don’t always apply in real-life scenarios?
While we did learn a lot of stuff in school, did it actually prepare us to face real-world challenges? We definitely can’t deny the fact that we have wished that we were taught certain basic and important life skills in school so that we didn’t have to navigate our way around them as adults. For instance, didn’t most of us fumble around to pay our taxes the first time? How many of us weren’t even aware that we had unaddressed mental health issues?
Yes, whatever we learned in school is important. But shouldn’t schools be a place that also teaches us life skills other than just academics?
Topics schools should teach
Finance- We study economics, but we are not prepared to manage our own finances or have basic knowledge of investment plans. We graduate, land our first job and bam our first salary gets credited into our account. We don’t exactly know how to handle the money wisely. Shouldn’t we be taught about that in school? Students need to be taught about handling personal finance, bank accounts, saving schemes, insurance, managing debts, taxes, investing plans, budgeting etc. If you think about it, this knowledge is going to come in handy more than trigonometry ever does!
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Family structure- Given that the centre, even today, believes that a family structure consists of a father, mother and children, it is no wonder that we grew up without acknowledging the various other types of families around us. Family dynamics are a vital concept that children need to be taught about to build a progressive and inclusive society for the next generation. A family is one that consists of one or more adults who provide a safe and happy environment for a child to grow up in. The family structure just doesn’t end with nuclear and extended families. Homosexual families, single-parent families, blended families, adoptive families, foster families etc. are also families. When are we going to see them in textbooks, though?
Gender identity and sexual orientation- How many of us knew there were more categories for the LGBT community in school? I, for one, discovered that the queer community consisted of LGBTQIA+ only during my undergrad. Only when children are taught about the various gender identities and sexual orientations will they grow up into open-minded and accepting people. Otherwise, the internalized patriarchy is only going to raise yet another generation of regressive people. Teenagers need to be educated on this so that they don’t have to seek information from random sources that could mislead them.
Sex Education- This is a topic that is been up for debate for a long time but hasn’t really been implemented in the curriculum. Sex education doesn't stop with learning the names of reproductive organs and their functions. Safe and unsafe touch, gender and sexual inclusivity, safe sex, usage of contraceptives, sexually transmitted diseases, consent and boundaries, relationships, periods, pregnancy, postpartum etc- it is a vast and vital topic that every child needs to know about! The sooner children are imparted with sex education, the better.
Mental Health- Yes, the taboo topic! Why is it so hard for society to accept that our hearts can get sick and need treatment, but our brains cannot? A brain tumour is accepted as a health issue, but why is depression not? The more we don’t talk about it, the more people are going to suffer silently from mental health issues. There have already been four cases of student suicide at IIT Madras alone. Is not it time people stopped losing their lives due to unattended mental health issues? Seeing a psychologist needs to be as normal as seeing a dermatologist or orthopedist. How long are we going to keep our therapy visits a hush-hush topic?