Mis-education

I had taught in high school and universities and I had spent over thirty years as a student all the way up the education ladder, but only recently, when I have left the education field or a few years, do I realize that the education systems in which I had participated do not teach young people three of the most fundamental things in life—food, sex and money management. The systems I am speaking of include kindergarten to graduate school in half a dozen countries. Schools, particularly from kindergarten to high school, are supposed to teach young people necessarily skills and knowledge for their grown up lives. Education in food and sex are left to the parents, who know increasingly little about the appropriate consumption and preparation of food and remains largely unwilling to deal deep into the discussion of sex. The consequence of this is extremely unhealthy eating in this age of plenty and stubborn continuation of unsafe and unhealthy sexual practices. We complaints about fast food and obesity, sexually transmitted deceases and teenage pregnancies, but we do not want these things taught in school? Money management is much the same. When the parents are running long credit lines to pay for unnecessary things, how can they teach their children good money management skills? No wonder kids are learning all these skills from MTV and tabloids (pardon the repetition).