“Non scholae sed vitae discimus” Blog

For upon |The Latin quote, “Non scholae sed vitae discimus” translates to, “We do not learn for school, but for life”. In our world right now, schools do not prepare students as much for real life experiences, then for the next level of learning. Grade schools prepare students for high school, and high school prepares students for college. It is only when you reach college that they start teaching about what happens in the world, but they only teach about what is needed for your job, the next step in your life, not what is needed for other parts of your life. Even then, there are many students that do not make it to college and go straight from high school into the real world. I concede that there are some schools that are geared toward teaching students about the real world, but for the vast populace of the country, those schools are not available.

For schools to start teaching students about real life, they need to adopt a new curriculum. Grade schools and colleges, I believe, do not need to adopt a whole new curriculum, maybe only a few classes added or taken away here or there. I believe that grade schools should be focused on teaching children the main values of life that include relationships, creativity, work ethics, and discipline. They should also teach you the common classes that are being taught now, such as science, math, history, and language arts. Colleges are great the way that they are set up now. Many different options of schools are available to students which widely vary to accommodate different types of students. There are also many different courses and classes available at each college to give students many options. Colleges are meant to teach students how to succeed in their job and in life, therefore they do not need to be changed.

High school is a place that I believe should be changed. The main purpose of high school is to get students ready for college by developing their knowledge in the common classes. Instead of doing that, it should offer courses that gear students to learn about living in the real life. During and right after high school is when there is the highest dropout rate. Those students that dropout then are not adequately prepared to live in the real world. If high schools changed their curriculum to teach students about living in the real world, instead of just teaching the main subjects, then maybe the dropout rate in high schools would go down, and definitely those that drop out after high school would be better prepared to live in the real world.

I believe that the perfect curriculum for high schools should not be a set curriculum that every school is required to follow. Instead, I think that it should be flexible so that schools can teach about life values for their specific area and type of students. I say this because students in California do not need to learn all of the same things that students in Michigan do. These classes should not be mandatory, so that by doing that the students are not forced to do things that they will eventually hate doing. Instead, they will learn that they actually like to be in school and learn new things. The classes should be geared toward skills that people need in life, such as how to cook, clean, and do taxes. There should still be some of the main classes, but they should not all be mandatory and students should be able to take the classes that interest them and that they might possibly want to get a job in eventually. By high school, students should know at least the basics of all of the common subjects from grade school so those classes should not be the main focus of the curriculum. Instead the classes that you take should be filled with examples of different situations that one may face in everyday life. Students would study how to drive and how to do taxes, how to cook and how to raise children. Courses should cover all aspects of your life, not just ones that focus on your future job.

With these courses students would study how to become a productive member of society and how to do things in real life, that right now most people have to find out how to do on their own. Class times would be spent first by being lectured and shown how to do something, then by having the students practice how to do that thing, so that when the time comes, students will be able to do it on their own. There should be little to no homework, and there should be no grades, or if grades are necessary then they should be based on how motivated the student is to do their work in class. These classes would be different than the classes that are in high schools now, because they would  be able to be catered by each student so that they could prepare for the life that they want to live, not just preparing for college by studying the common courses.