How many of you feel that school was a waste of time? Are you proud of the education system you were brought up in? I think that the Malaysian education system was a major disappointment. It turned me into a puppet who taught life was all about memorizing everything learnt in class and then regurgitating them during exams so I could score good grades and earn the praises of my teachers and parents.
But that was not what life was about as I soon came to realize the hard way. Now that I’ve graduated from university and stepped into the real world, I feel like most of what I learned in college and school were useless. Most of what we learn cannot be applied in the real world. Take History and Geography, for example. The body of knowledge from these two subjects is enormous. But how much of it can we apply in the real world? Because let’s face it, not all of us grew up to be historians or geologists.
And the same goes for a subject like Additional Mathematics. How many of us are making use of the principles of geometry, algebra and the abracadabra that we were forced to learn? Are the equations and algorithms we learned able to help us solve life’s problems? No. Then, why teach us these subjects in the first place? Why waste our time? If the purpose of our education system was to help us develop into full-functional, happy and healthy adults, it has failed us on numerous levels.
So you may be asking now, what should we have learnt in school if not subjects like Science, History and Geography. (I have nothing against the study of language and Modern Mathematics. These subjects are no doubt important and practical.) So here’s my two cents on the topic.
Cooking
You may be wondering why cook when you could just eat out or order delivery? In my opinion, cooking is a very important life skill. By learning how to cook we are learning how to put food on the table. And the food is, after all, our basic necessity. It is needed for the survival of the human race. So we must learn a few tricks in the kitchen so we are capable of cooking up a healthy meal for ourselves. I feel life would have been much easier if I were taught how to cook in school.
Personal Finance (Budgeting)
Another important life skill we should have learnt in school is how to manage our finances or budget. Did you know that Malaysia’s household debt stood at RM1.17trillion as of last year? This shows that many of us are incapable of managing our finances. You can’t blame us. It’s because we weren’t taught how to save and budget in school.
Cooking and personal finance are just the tips of the iceberg when it comes to things we could have learned in school. Besides these two, there are so many other things that could have benefited us a great deal if they were taught in school like self-awareness and how to take care of our mental health. Besides these, what other important subjects do you think the school has missed out on? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.
Random Rose is a content writer under Headliner by Newswav, a programme where content creators get to tell their unique stories through articles and at the same time monetize their content within the Newswav app.
Register at headliner.newswav.com to become one of our content writers now!
Newswav is solely an aggregation platform and hosts the content. The views expressed and content above including media (pictures, videos, etc) were provided by the author. If you have any questions about the content, copyright or other issues of the work, please contact Newswav.
