Second Post Rough Draft paper 3

Jessica Jeu
August 9, 2011
Professor Begert
English 099 Final

Preparation for Life

It is evident that every graduating year has certain graduation requirements that are to be met during the past four years of the student high school career. Classes like science, math, English, history, and of course some elective credits are some of today’s standards. However, who gets to decide which credits a student needs to graduate? Did this individual ever think of requiring certain classes to educate them on certain aspects of life? According to a John Gatto quote, “(school is supposed) to make good people, make good citizens, and make that individual his or her personal best.” So far, many see that school makes a student a good citizen by educating them on the world problems and history, but what about the other two? To make good people, you have to educate them on day to day subjects like parenting, buying or selling, handling money, or just molding a hard worker. Graduation requirements should include life skill classes because graduates will eventually become parents, consumers, and workers.
Before graduation, it should be required that a student takes at least one credit of parenting classes to prepare them and also educate them on child care, problem solving, disciplinarian styles, and the expenses of a child. Parenting classes are relatable to Malcolm X’s “Learning to Read” because like reading, a parenting class is something an individual could learn without being taught, however an individual can become better educated after being taught. This class would educate high school students on children from birth to young adult so they have a better understanding of how a child works, the essentials of raising a child, and what kind of care they would need. Students would do many exercises concerning this class like the famous flour babies, or eggs to take care of. They would roughly go over the anatomy of a child, and the health related concerns that are common between the ages of a new born through a young adult. It would also roughly go over sufficient ways to solve day by day problems that occur with the child as well as the different disciplinarian styles that are being used today. The parenting classes would go into depth about the expenses of a child, as well as the essentials of raising one. In the unit of which the expenses of a child rise, they would have projects like a fake family, and have to go through “real life scenarios” to see how expensive it truly is. Students would also study and brainstorm the essentials of raising kids, from every stage and point in their life. This class would not only have high school students discover what it’s like to be a parent, but it may also be an eye opener to the real world outside of high school.
Another subject that should be on a high school curriculum is a consumer class. This class would teach you ways to save and spend, educates a student on investments, online price checking or ratings, smart shopping, and also helps you develop a personal budget to keep track of any finances. Saving and spending are crucial to this day and age because of the current economy. Collecting coupons is becoming a famous way to save some extra money that would otherwise be spent. Consumer classes would also teach students the importance of having emergency money, which is accumulated from a desired percentage of this student’s pay. This class would also introduce investments, and include some different aspects of investing in the stock market. Class members would have projects on investing in a fake stalk market, and go through the trials and errors like a average investor would go through depending on the economy. Price checking and ratings would be a unit to be taught in this class, and would help students reach out to resources that would educate them on the item they have an interest in, which would also connect with smart shopping. The biggest unit that would be covered in this course is about personal budget. This unit could combine with a project that is used to display real life scenarios. For instance, a student would have to map out their life with an after high school job, house payments, car payments, and other critical things like food, water, and utilities. Like the parenting classes, this could hopefully to not only be a wake up call, but is also used to motivate students to go to college to have a comfortable life.