Everything But The Kitchen Sink

"My rural a** school did this in the 00s.... home ec, sewing, taxes, cooking, woodworking, etc. Could even get into metal working, accounting, quilting, pottery, etc if you wanted to."

– Pyronic_Chaos

Value Of Education

"My school did the same. I was a good student but at that age you just don't realize the valuable information they're giving you, you kept the information long enough to pass the tests and then you went and got alcohol poisoning in a field while your parents thought you were at a movie with Nicole and Becki."

– 19CatsInATrenchCoat

Fun With Pasta

"My home ec class had groups of three students try to make one pot of spaghetti and every single group's spaghetti was inedible in different ways and it made me afraid to try cooking again."

– mylifeisathrowaway10

Meanwhile, In Australia

"This is kind of the basis for home ec (the main subject I teach) as it is these days in Australia. It's moved towards solution-based problem solving. Students learn about how ingredients interact with one another under different conditions, they learn about nutrition, they learn about technology in food (ranging from how UHT works to GMOs to drones in agriculture), about ethics in the food industry, food security, marketing, sustainability, etc. It's a huge subject. In their last couple of years they can choose to do a subject that is focused on cooking and the hospitality industry but they can also choose more academic subjects around food and/or health so up until then we cover all the stuff they need to know and be capable of doing to go either way. Kids fresh into high school start super basic and make a couple of very easy things with the real purpose of teaching them to be safe, work both independently and with others, write and follow a plan based on a recipe, and clean up properly. It's also when we start teaching them why they need to use brown vs white sugar and keep eggs out of the fridge for baking, etc. At my school it's mandatory in their first year and after that they can choose."

– gagrushenka

Swedish Options

"We have this in Sweden."

"Sewing and woodworking are the two options of 'crafting' class. You get to try both and then pick one to stick with."

"We have 'hemkunskap' (maybe it's called something different now, this is middle school/junior high stuff and I'm 30 this year so been a while), directly translating to 'home knowledge,' where, at least when I did it, mostly did cooking, but there was some classes and tests on washing clothes, cleaning and such things. Some home economy as well."

"There was nothing on taxes afaik, but here I pay taxes by logging into our equivalent of the IRS's website and press a button."

– SageHunter

Definitely 'No' To Extra Class Hours

"My school had a class like that, most of the classmates didn't pay attention and now complain 10 years later that they never learned about taxes and credit card interest. Also some parents were super upset about the school 'overstepping' their boundaries by teaching basic budgeting, I can't imagine that situation has gotten any better in the last 10 years. I'm not against the class being taught, but at the at the end of the day you have to realize that all that stuff is easily learned once you are an adult with just a minimum amount of research - if someone isn't taking the 15 minutes it takes to learn how to wash their clothes properly or watch a youtube video for a basic recipe as an adult when they actually need to do those things to function, no way in hell as a teen would they pay attention to a class that tried to teach them that. It's still a good idea to have the class, but it isn't some magical fix everyone seems to think it is.

I am against the adding an extra hour of school though on top of regular school though."

– suspectcat

Attentions Spans

"Right? I mean, there's a class on budgeting and credit cards already. IT's call Math class and everybody hates it and doesn't pay attention. I blew people's minds in high school one day by actually USING the quadratic formula to find the maximum of something. That's like the first thing you cover when you get to quadratics."

"Other things that are teaching actual skills like home ec or woodworking are fine and should be encouraged more. But everybody looking around and wondering why they weren't told about interest rates isn't paying attention in math class. Full stop."

– Stay_Curious85

Would Be A "Full-Time Job"

"I'd be opposed to the extra hour. But not the activities."

"School was already an 8 hour a day thing, pushing it up to 9 hours means it actually becomes longer than a full time job. And that's before you get to homework and sh*t like that."

– Ok-its-vira

No Obligation

"I agree. It could be done as an elective. These are things that could and should be taught by parents, but they aren't things all parents know, and not all kids have parents who would take the time to teach them either way. It should be available for kids who want it, but not required, and certainly not adding an extra hour to the school day."

– who_is_Dandelo

Enough Is Enough

"Lets be real. It's already pushing overtime every single week. We just had to take our work home with us and spend an hour (or more) working on it every night. Hell, some kids push 50+ hours every week."

– bowyer-betty

Here's The Point Of Education:

"Schools have these already and the kids in them don't care. It's not immediately relevant to their lives so they don't pay attention. Sorta like if I were to talk to you about the do's and don'ts of denture cream. You say, 'eh, I'll figure it out later when I need to know it' and stop paying attention."

"I've taught in several schools that have tried to teach social skills, kindness, meditation, financial literacy, etc. In every case, the kids did not care. It was their least favorite part of the day because it felt like a waste of time."

"The point of education is to teach thinking, not doing. A well-educated student can teach themselves these things. A quick Google search can teach you how to file taxes, cook, etc. But you can't Google how to do Algebra 2 and expect to understand what you read without some background in the subject matter."

"Edit: I got upvotes? Now I'm mad with power, so I'll say this:"

"I hear arguments like this post all the time, and I think the real issue is people not taking responsibility. 'I can't cook? That must be the school's fault! We need education reform!' No, it's not the school's fault. It's your fault. You could literally Google a recipe in 20 seconds. Stop blaming other people for your problems."

"People don't realize that the point of education isn't to teach facts, but the change your brain. For example, physics and math majors earn the highest scores in the MCAT, GMAT, and LSAT. It's not because they learned those things in class, but because their curriculum emphasizes logical thinking. When students slack in schoolwork, they're not just missing out on the opportunity to know stuff; they're missing out on the opportunity to be smarter."

– gman4734

It's About Developing The Brain

"People don't understand that education is more about developing the brain rather than retaining knowledge."

"You can easily obtain knowledge from reading a book or watching videos. But education forces you to do stuff like read and write a lot or practice a lot of math problems. Those tasks help develop the brain and develop critical thinking skills."

"Even undergrad programs in engineering are not really meant to retain knowledge. They are meant to wire the brain to think like an engineer. Most of your knowledge in engineering is going to come from training you receive in industry and just working in projects in industry."

– fchowd0311

A good majority of Redditors believed that any additional time spent at school for the sake of acquiring adulting skills was a waste of time.

The argument that students go to school to learn how to learn remained a compelling one, and that the discovery of how to cook or doing laundry was either a quick Google or YouTube search away.

Because spending more time at school than necessary is awesome, said no one, ever.