We’ve never seen people waste time the way we’ve seen in universities and schools.Give a student 3 weeks to finish a project and in the last 4 hours before the deadline the group-chat is blowing up with everybody trying to pitch in the least amount of work that would get them a passing grade.This type of behavior is addicting, because those 4 hours get the job done. The result, that person will take this behavior with himself throughout life, to result in major inefficiencies through all aspects of his life.We are professional procrastinators and most of it is due to a poor educational system.

14: Time management & discipline

Mental illness is a BIG issue today. 1 in 5 people is struggling with a form of mental issue. From ADHD to anxiety, to depression, you never learn about these in school. Mental health is a 100 Billion dollar industry in the US alone, because we are never taught how to take care of ourselves.Despite standards of living going up, we see more and more successful people burning out or suffering from depression to a point where they just want to quit society. The number of college students who reported feeling depressed to the point where it negatively impacted their ability to function is 1 in 3.

2: Mental and Physical Health

You’re going to spend the majority of your life in a romantic relationship with someone.. How about we learn how to pick the right one?This new generation is growing up with tinder, nudes and netflix & chill as viable “dating” options. Thus they will never be able to develop emotional intelligence and the ability to prospect a viable partner until way later in life. That’s why we see so many men suffering from Peter Pan syndrome.Social media is putting an emphasis on the external image we portray, but it’s their mindset, character and passion that will raise your children, not their looks.

3: Dating and Romantic Relationships

We’re having such a large identity crisis because we never get to ask ourselves very basic questions like: <ul><li>What do I want to feel like in my life?</li><li>What are some things I dislike in others? Do I share the same traits?</li><li>What are some things I like about myself? Should I nurture these traits?</li><li>Are these useful skills in life? What are my values? How do I want people to treat me?</li><li>Should I compromise?</li></ul>Unfortunately the way school is structured right now, everybody is being put in the same box and most of what makes each individual special is wasted in order to achieve a more homogenous result.

The last thing you would want is the school to tell you what your values are and what you should be passionate about, but it would be really damn useful if they created a framework so that you could find that out for yourself.Imagine instead of learning the names or every mountain and river in your country you would dedicate a year to introspection, where teachers would nurture every student to really think about what makes him happy, then visualize pathways towards creating a life built on that passion.

8: How to find your passion & your values

Life has pretty similar path for most of us: we are born, our parents take care of us, we get educated, we figure out a way to sustain ourselves, we form a family, we have our own kids, we grow old and then we die. Such a great note to start this article on isn’t it?In it we’re going to focus on the education part, since it takes a bulk of your life – most people spend 12 years or more in the educational system – assuming an 80 year average lifespan, that’s over 15% of your life.

Background

Benjamin Franklin used to say: in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.We might actually cure death before we find a way to work without taxation. Taxes & Bills are a necessary part of life and you’ll have to deal with it a lot more frequently than you will have to use geometry actually, so it would make sense that by the time you finish your education to have the slightest idea of what you’re doing.

 4: Taxes and Bills

Those numbers are insane and us not addressing these type of mental health issues is leading to a very unstable society. The rise of pharmaceutical companies capitalizing on this trend should also be a big pointer at how big the issue is.And that’s just the mental part of things, you never learn how to take care of your yourself and your body. Understanding how your body functions, what it needs to run more efficiently and First Aid classes is something we believe should be mandatory everywhere.

Learning how to learn, how much of a phenomenon of a skill that is.If you only got this right out of school and didn’t feel the need to beat the system in order to get higher grades, your life would be so much easier, because this is the skill to rule them all.The upside is enormous, once you are taught how to approach acquiring new skills and teachings for yourself the world is your oyster. You can learn, do, become whatever you want, because you know have a method.

7: How to learn for yourself

We live in a digital world. More than half of your awake time is connected to a digital version of reality, you are in the digital space right now, consuming this article through your screen.Your digital profiles are online 24 hours everyday accessible to almost anyone looking to find them.How is your data used? What information do you allow to exist in your digital corner? How does it impact your online and offline reality?Almost every person you interact with, at some point, will scan your digital profiles in order to get a better idea of who you are.

12: Digital and Personal Etiquette

You know how we mentioned values at number 8? The manifestation of the core values on which a society prospers is found in the Human Rights. This is something fairly new, we humans came up with and it’s the best thing we were able to create so far.Human rights are the backbone of any well functioning, free society. Upon these, we have build complex governing structures which are put in place in order to oversee that we are moving in the right direction. Or at least that’s what’s supposed to happen in theory.

13: Human rights, how the government works and why it is important to vote

This is another thing we left to chance, just put a bunch of kids in the same room and they’ll figure it out. It sorta worked out ok, but what do you do once you get older? Have you noticed how hard it is to make new friends after you’ve finished school?This is a serious issue, because one of the main requirements for being a successful individual is your ability to connect and network with other people.

5: How to make friends and be more sociable

The problem begins when you are finally ready to move onto the next level and have no idea what you’re supposed to do. Relationships are not easy, they demand effort and a completely different set of skills in order for them to grow & evolve properly.Dating and relationships is a crucial part of living that it’s gonna be tricky to teach on a large scale. This type of teaching curriculum should be updated alongside technology, the last thing we would want is to have an old Mr. Garrison trying to explain how dating should be done.

By the end of your education, it would be really valuable if you were self-sufficient from all stand-points of your existence. That’s the least you would expect right?You will spend a large portion of your life (around 1 and a half hours per day actually) eating, yet nutrition is not something you learn about. The introduction of basic cooking would allow students to work with food and get more personal with what they put in their bodies. Cooking is a basic human skill and as things are moving forward we’re not seeing many making use of it.

11: A basic understanding of cooking, how to take care of yourself and home maintenance

Having pictures with yourself taking shots to the face as your profile pic, using foul language in your posts, showcasing disrespectful behaviour in your interactions with others will have repercussions. This is the reality we live in today.Your online presence is the cover of the book that is you, and people are judging you based on it!Most people don’t have a basic understanding of how they should behave anywhere, they’re just winging it. Good manners are something we associate with the 19th century English elitism and have long been forgotten.

Do a small experiment and ask any random person on the street how the government works, then ask them to expand on it. Most people will find it really difficult to articulate what’s happening.For too long we have allowed governments to behave they way they do, because we entrusted them with so much power that they eventually shielded themselves under a mist of bureaucracy and slogans. The lack of transparency most governments embrace leads to corruption and inefficiencies throughout the system.Yet, governments aren’t that complicated if you take the time to look at how they function.

Wouldn’t you love to learn in school how money works? Why some people earn more than others, how to increase your salary, how to save money or how to invest it?Even today, in most households money is still a taboo subject, despite it being the fuel of our society.Your parents are barely figuring it out for themselves and most of your teachers lack a fundamental understanding of money.

1: How money works

The goal of the entire thing should be to make you self-sufficient and a positive part of our socio-economic system.Unfortunately, at least in the last couple of decades, it doesn’t do that good of a job. It’s pretty decent, but from an efficiency and effectiveness perspective, it could definitely do better.We took a look at the subjects taught in school and made a list of things we wished we would’ve learned while we were getting “educated” and prepared for life.

The Goal of Schooling

You probably have no idea about the differences between good debt and bad debt. Most people finish school with zero introductions to how debt, interest and mortgages work.Why is it so important to learn about these things? Because at some point in your life you will want to buy a house for yourself, maybe a car or even save some money for rainy days or retirement. How do you even buy a home? What’s that process like? Most people have to ask around or figure out the process as they go along.

6: Debt, Interest and Mortgages

The problem with the current educational system is that you are put into colossal debt without first being educated on how to manage it.Starting off your professional life with close to £27k in debt and zero knowledge on how to strategise the repayment is setting up the youth for failure with a financial handicap.Even after you repay it, you are crushed by the skyrocketing prices in cost of living and real-estate.Unless you have more than a decent understanding of how banks work, how to use debt to your advantage and manage your mortgages, you are destined to live a stressed out life.

So you’re done with school right? Now what?Most of you probably ask your parents for recommendations or someone who’s a bit older for a game plan. Otherwise, you have no idea what you’re doing resulting in time wasted, resources consumed and the feeling that you will need to compromise at every step of the way just to get some experience to begin with.Not only the process of finding a job should be taught in school, but you should have a basic understanding of how to rank different jobs, to find one where you could prosper and be efficient.

9: How to find the right job and prepare for an interview

Preparing for an interview is another one of those things that would be easy to teach, but is completely neglected. Thus resulting in people having no idea how to structure a real CV, what they’re supposed to research before the meeting, how to present themselves for the interview and how to negotiate their salaries and professional trajectory.

Believe it or not, Public Speaking is the only thing people fear more than DEATH on average. What would it be like if in the 12 years you spent getting educated you would conquer this fear to the point where you are comfortable presenting yourself and entertaining a discussion on any topic.Life is a big connect-the-dots game, where each dot is an uncomfortable conversation you will need to have and overcome. You will need to make quality friends, to gain the trust of partners or employers and you should be able to articulate why that would make sense for both parties.

10: How to speak in public & sell an idea

Getting a job, that’s you selling the company on the idea that you are the right fit for their organization.Getting married, that’s you selling your partner on the idea that you are the right fit for this journey.For some reason SELLING has such a bad rep. when in reality is just properly articulating a possible series of events for the foreseeable future that people are willing to back with their own time, effort and sometimes money.You will have to speak or at least type to others why they should care about you in general and we have a different approach to this than most people.

There are so many aspects of finance which would’ve been really useful to learn in school in order for everyone to be more efficient in their lives, like how to balance a checkbook, how to save for retirement, why some people are better off pursuing businesses while others will be happier working in a company.Even if you had an introductory course to economics, we’re not sure how much of the knowledge that was provided to you is directly applicable to your everyday life. It’s such a shame.

I am now going to university. A fresh new start, yet I feel more lost in life than ever. This article explains how a few tweaks in the education system can make us better prepared individuals in the long run.

Here's a list of things we wishes we were taught in school as we were getting educated. From Money, to Happiness, to Mental Health, school is failing.

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A guide for the remainder of your life