ometimes as an adult I find myself sucking at a thing and getting very angry that I wasn’t taught said thing at school. Like taxes, how to poach an egg and how to not kill every house plant I’ve ever bought. I do think there are some more important lessons that I kind of picked up along the way but should probably be added to the national syllabus asap. Here are 3 things they teach you at school.
1. How to figure out if someone is a creep
Mama Smags has one of the most highly tuned creep radars I’ve ever witnessed. When I was a kid she’d say things like ‘Just be careful of Sarah’s dad… he’s a bit odd.‘ Then a few months later Sarah’s dad would disappear and I’d find out ten years later that he was jailed for engaging in sexual activities with a Balinese minor while on holidays. I was taught from a very young age to trust my reactions to people. My mother would say ‘Did you get a weird feeling in your tummy when you were near that man? Did you want to be away from him? Did you think his eyes looked strange?’. These seem like weird questions to ask a child but it taught me to trust my instincts and to listen to my gut when it’s kicking me and saying ‘Don’t get in the car with this guy… he’s weird.‘or ‘Don’t tell that girl where you live because she’s going to break in to your house.’ After maths lessons in fourth period every kid should have to go to Follow Your Gut Training. For real.
2. How to do really simple shit
The amount of adults I know who can’t sew a button on a shirt is ridiculous. Every one should be able to sew a button, change a tire, change a light bulb, properly clean an oven, change the oil in their car, cook at least three different dishes, properly clean a bathroom, change a nappy (even if you don’t have kids) and do washing without damaging your clothes. Full disclosure – I can change a tire but I’d rather not because I don’t like being responsible for a thing that makes a car work when I’m not a fully qualified mechanic. I will change a tire but I’d like to be supervised or assisted. That way I can share the blame if the damn thing falls off and we careen off the road into a tree.
3. That most things you read on the internet aren’t factual
I think it’s the slightly older generations that needed to be taught this because we were so used to everything that was published in magazines and newspapers to (almost) always be true that we kind of assume anything that’s not hand written on a piece of paper has been fact checked and approved. It has not. For instance Winston Churchill never said the word ‘internet’, Marilyn Monroe would not have known what a size zero is and you can definitely eat (some) foods with ingredients you can’t pronounce like cyanocobalamin which is vitamin B12 and actually very good for you. I’ve fallen for it myself and I will probably do it again but as long as we’re all trying our best, the internet shouldn’t fool us too often. That’s an Elvis lyric by the way.
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What do you wish you had been taught in school? That’s hard to learn as an adult?
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You know what else they should have taught in school? Crochet. I’m teaching my first live lesson at 11am this Sunday 9th October. Just sign up to be a part of it – I’d love to see you on Sunday.