Independence- learned or experienced?

Cooking, doing your own laundry, and handling finances – all basic life skills necessary for living on your own. As these skills are not commonly taught in class students must learn at home by themselves. But because it is not guaranteed they learn at home, there is a great divide on just how prepared students feel when it’s time to move out on their own.

“I don’t think half the people here are [prepared],” senior Sebastian Garcia said. “I mean, there are classes you can take that will prepare you for that, but not many people know about the classes. There is a class that teaches you how to do taxes, but I didn’t retain any of that. But it’s really important to be able to learn how to save money. You don’t notice how expensive things can get and most people I know just spend money to spend it.”

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Wang is not only ready, but eager to move out.

“I’m just like, excited for something new and I’m ready to move onto something new and start something else by myself,” Wang said. “I already feel independent enough because there’s a lot of things that I could use help with but I choose to do it by myself. It’s just a part of growing up. I’m growing up and I feel like as everyone gets older and older, becoming independent is just something that just comes naturally.”

One class on campus teaches independent living skills, focusing on four separate skill sets students might need in the future. The teacher rotates each quarter, allowing students to focus on a more balanced perspective of different life skills.

“My particular part is mostly digital literacy and one of the reasons is because we’re tied to our devices constantly,” Engineering and Independent Living teacher Wayne Davies said. “So knowing how to use them and how to use them correctly [is important], [and] I also throw in a little bit of cybersecurity and so knowing how to protect yourself while using those devices as well. Personal finance is [also] a really big one. I think those are vital skills that are definitely necessary.”

ON THE TOPIC OF: by Rhamil Aloysius Taguba [STUDENT]

Often, students enter high school with the expectation that it will teach them everything they need to survive in the real world, but are left confused and without a sense of direction. Students are often sidelined by other priorities, such as grades and deadlines, that they aren’t retaining any important life skills.

“The school system rewards students for a simple A and standardized testing rather than actual learning,” junior Hermiogne Sarmiento said. “We are meant to learn useless knowledge we don’t need in the future and regenerate it on a test. It’s not helpful or effective for the future and totally ruins students’ mental health. [We’ve] learned that getting high scores or an ‘A’ is better than actually [learning] the work, because of this, our work ethic is wrecked.”

There is an expectation around the idea that schools must teach students everything there is to know about “the real world.”  But sometimes, the best teacher is just a real experience. 

“I just remember all of my teachers saying ‘when you get older you’re gonna use this stuff’, and then at 17, I joined the military and went to boot camp. I realized absolutely nothing I was doing in class made me ready for life, leadership and making decisions,” Teaching and Training and Independent Living teacher Vincent Thur said. “I got put in charge of 80 men. [I was] 17, there are 80 people I’d never met before, and we had specific goals to reach – nobody had ever trained me on that. so [now] I’m in a position where for ten weeks I can look back and approach it with my students.” 

Although public education may not provide real-world application thoroughly, taking independent steps to transition as a young adult, like getting a job or taking financial literacy courses, will certainly prepare for what is to come.

“I think being an older sibling has definitely made me more independent,” junior Aleyah Hilario said. “I think that it’s just the small things like simple chores and knowing how to cook are great life skills that everyone should know how to do regardless of school. Knowing how to do these things, even if it’s seemingly an everyday task like putting away dishes, establishes a sense of responsibility and self-reliance that I feel like a lot of people don’t recognize but is more powerful than you realize.”