Things Comprehensive School Never Taught Me

The comprehensive school are supposed to be the days where you learn everything that needs to be learnt to get through this thing called life with ease and with few complications.

I saw this great post by Skylish that inspired me to write this. Her post got me thinking, what did high school really teach me about the different aspects of life?

All I can remember was that you had to have your earphones with you to listen to the music on your Sony Erikson phone to get you through lesson work, and you HAD to own a McKenzie jacket, I was one of those unfortunates who bit the bullet and bought one, but at the time, I thought I looked the bee's knees. Your hair had to look bang on or you can just go home. This is the sort of stuff you learn from the streets, not in school, but this was what school was like, well, for me, back then.

 

Excuse my school picture!

Maybe cause I was an adolescent pissed off for being in school and hating every minute of it or I just didn't take any notice, but I honestly can't remember learning stuff from my teachers about life and life situations and how to handle them.

For example, I still say this now - when the hell are you going to use equations?! Or Pythagoras's Theorem?! I once sat down and thought "Ooh, I can solve this problem by using equations like X + 4 = 6 squared".

Now, I'm not trying to slag off my school too much, cause I did have a lot, well, some...well, a few good times I'll never forget. Some of my teachers were great, especially my Welsh teacher and Cooking teacher. But these are some of the things I wish my other teachers taught me:

FINANCES

What an important life aspect that needs to be taught during school years. You need money for everything. Without it, well, you’re buggered. I never learnt how to pay my taxes, about budgeting, about buying or renting a house/flat, how to pay bills or about savings. I self-taught to manage my money myself, and I’m doing ok so far, thankfully.

SEX

The talk of *whisper* sex always got us giggling. It was never taught in our PSHE lesson, well, you do the “how babies get here” lesson, but we never really talked about protection, STIs and the consequences of not using protection. Nowadays kids should be taught about the dangers of sexting and sending nude pictures etc. You just went by all the gossip and rumours that always spread throughout the school. All the boys act like the big guns cause they've done 'this' and 'that'. Nah mate, not a good way to get into my good books.

COLLEGE  /  EMPLOYMENT

What I mean by this is applying for college courses or part-time jobs when you leave school. When I reached college I didn’t have a Scooby Doo on how to write a CV. I had to use the 'How To Write A CV' guide which is in a messy stack in the corner of the library. But I think high school should prepare you for that prospect, especially in Year 11.

LIFE  SKILLS

This should be taught as you arrive in Year 7, or at least before you leave school. How do you use a washing machine? How do you change a bulb? What to do if there’s a leak or if your boiler breaks down etc. But I think because we rely so much on the internet these days to get this sort of information and advice, maybe it doesn’t need to be taught in lessons?

EXAM  REVISION

We do our GCSEs and A Levels in high school. But I never really got given any advice about how to revise or the best methods to allow information to stick in my brain. I wish I got taught some revision methods, maybe I would have done better in my exams. 'Shakes head at thought of exam results'.

Is there anything you wish your Comp had taught you (instead of work obvs!)