Schools and learning essential life skills

This blog ties into my latest blog "School Gardens: Good or Bad" and how schools are not just there to teach reading writing and arithmetic. Some of the life skills that should be taught in schools that have to do with gardening is being able to grow some of your own food, how to cook (you don't have to be a chef but atleast try!), and how to save the worlds natural resources like water by using a cistern.

Jay Mathews, a writer for the Washington Post published an article of February 18 where he talks about the "eight essential life skills... [and] their importance and how to teach them".

The first skills that is or should be taught in schools is organization. Not only can this be used in schools but it can also be used throughout ones entire life. In school students use the skills of organization to do their math, and history notes. You may not think of it, but even writing a thorough essay is being organized, because you are not procrastinating. Another example of school organization is finishing an assignment because then you are organizing your priorities and getting your homework done, and then having fun after.

The second skill is the skill of music. No this does not meant that all students should learn how to play in instrument. Kenneth J. Bernstein, a much-admired social studies teacher and is also a piano player says that although students don not have to learn to play an instrument or learn how to sing they

each may need to learn how to listen, because different kinds of music may require different kinds of listening. In a sense, being exposed to several kinds of music is like learning a second language: It begins to empower one to learn further on one's own, because one has gone beyond the limitations of what one grows up with.

Learning to listen, to music and other things, also teaches students to have patience

The third essential life skill is the skill of teamwork. One way that teamwork is taught in schools is with sports. The teammates have to work together to reach their goal of having fun or a goal of winning the game. Frazier O'Leary says that "'Sometimes it is hard for high school students to understand the value of working together until they grow up and realize that teamwork is essential to success'". Teamwork can also help outside of ones school life. For example there are many times in which teamwork can help with your job: joint presentations, meetings, and job proposals with partners are just a few samples of how teamwork is helped in the workplace.

The fourth skill is exercise. This is important because the correct amount of exercise and nutrition keeps ones weight in check, and can help one reach their weight goal. Some of the positive effects that exercise has on the human body is reducing the possibility of getting a disease, or disrupting ones mental state. Regular Physical activity reduces body fat in turn reducing the potential of Non insulin-Dependent Diabetes, Diabetes types I and II, and the growing problem of Obesity, not only in the United States, but the world. Exercising " can improve you mood and the way you feel about yourself. Researchers also have found that exercise is likely to reduce depression and anxiety and help you to better manage stress.

The fifth Skill is friendship, [and that] "learning to be a friend is what some call social intelligence or emotional intelligence. It includes 'not giving in to peer pressure, becoming self-aware and using that self-awareness to self-adjust as necessary'". This is important for ones life because one always needs friends. Whether it is a person to talk to, or to hang out with. Friendships can make a persons life more meaningful, and can create strong bonds between people that can last a lifetime, and possibly into next lives, if you believe in reincarnation.

The sixth skill is Argument

Bernstein has a favorite trick for teaching this correctly: "I remember once asking students to prepare a debate, three for the affirmative and three for the negative. When they came into class and I checked that they were prepared, I made them argue the other side, not the one they had prepared. With the exception of the class president, who as a politician did not trust me and thus had prepared both sides, they flopped. And in that failure they learned an important lesson: One is far more effective in debate and discourse when one has thought through both sides of an argument."

The seventh skill has to do with being able to think critically. This does not mean negatively criticizing everything. Thinking Critically means being able to analyze what you hear, and to question what you hear/learn. This can help one to decipher between the truth and the false.

The eighth and final skill that should or is being taught in schools is the ability to present things whether it is a song, a project, charts, and many other things. Being able to present these in an organized fashion will make it easier to be understood, and can possibly give you and edge over others in the same work environment.