"Wash the Glasses First" by John Willcox Herbert

The article "Wash the Glasses First" falls in line with the question that many students have about much of the subject matter taught. This questions is "why do I need to know this?". Herbert explains how, although he learned many things through his k-12 education, he still feels that there should be a class called "Important Stuff 101" in which real life skills are taught (i.e. how to tie a tie, how to ignore advertising etc etc etc). I loved this short article. It really applied to me, as much of what I learned in high school was simply a means by which to assess my cognitive ability. These things that were deeply pushed and stressed in school are not things that I am going to apply throughout my life (will I apply concepts learned about the Irish potato famine in my everyday life?), they were simply a means by which to place me into a category of below average, average or above average. I think that the public school system is striving to put in place practices that touch on these real life skills. I still am forced to question whether or not the core classes are preparing our students for the real world. Should we focus more on possibly teaching them real life skills such as ways to communicate, ways to shop, ways to stay out of debt, ways to resolve conflict, or should these concepts continue to be an element of the hidden curriculum. I don't think that we will ever see a complete move away from the "core" subjects of learning. We as teachers will always be presented with the question of "why does this stuff even matter?" We as teachers do, however, have an obligation to teach our students other life skills through the core curriculum and other curriculum. Although we may never have classes set up, such as "Important Stuff 101" it is our job to teach this "important stuff" through the other core curriculum.