Things schools should actually teach

If you've ever watched "Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader?" then you already have an idea of how much stuff we are forced to learn in school that we never use again.  I honestly cannot tell you that the Pythagorean Theorem has come up much in my daily life, and knowing what year the French Revolution was (1789) has come up maybe once in a game of Trivial Pursuit at best.  If you've ever watched "QI" then you also know that a large amount of what they teach us and what we think is factual...is completely wrong.  Now, I have wrestled with the idea of becoming a teacher since high school when a bunch of people, including some of my own teachers at that time, told me they thought it would be a good career choice for me.  I was never a great student myself, often wondering what the point was in shoving so much trivial information into my brain in time for a test, just to forget it all within a week after the final exam.  Yet, as I entered and continue in adult life, I realize that there was much that I wish they had taken the time to teach me.  So...let's forget memorizing what year the Magna Carta was signed (1066) and close the textbook on crazy Romans (Caligula) and here is a course list I wish I could have been offered:

- How to pay your bills and create a budget
- How to write a professional emails/letters
- How to bargain
- Dressing for the office: 101
- Basic Home Repairs
- Not Acting Like a Jerk in Public: basics and advanced learning
- How to Learn
- Dating: Do's and Don'ts
- Why You Need To Appreciate Your Parents
- How to use Social Media responsibly.
- How to Listen properly
- Friendship: Why you should keep real friends and cut those out who are toxic
- How not to be a douchebag
- How to manage your credit
- Why you shouldn't live with your parents past the age of 25 for any reason
- The Art Of Walking (see previous post)
- Why you'll regret every decision you make in your teens years and early twenties

I sent this list to various education bodies around the province and Canada, however the only response I received was one teacher's college gave me an F (followed by a U).  School is a valuable and precious thing, we need to make the best of our formative years and actually start learning things we really need to know because dammit, I cannot say that I ever used my knowledge of the Bay of Pigs in daily life...and I really wanted to!!  Maybe I'll open my own school..."I've had enough of you holding me back, I'm going to clown college!"