<p>“I know that we parents are supposed to teach all this stuff…but how many times are we surprised to learn that our children DIDN’T know something that WE thought they did.”</p>
<p>Assuming the kids have decent critical thinking, reasoning and research skills – things they certainly should have gotten in high school – they can find out the answer to how to open a bank account, do their laundry, clean their house, etc. They can always turn to the Internet for answers, something that we couldn’t do when we were young, yet we figured things out somehow.</p>
<p>Most of the things that we do in our daily lives as adults, we learned by asking others, figuring things out on our own or by doing research including on message boards. Just look at all of the info we learn right here on CC. :)</p>
<p>While I agree with Northstarmom, I wouldn’t say that this kind of lesson shouldn’t be offered. Possibly not in the time slot offered by the OP or as an entire semester long class. But I think it could be offered or required in some lesser form. In fifth grade, we had a health and family life unit that took up half of our day for one five day week. Why not have this course be, say, a four year course (with different topics every year) that takes place the afternoons after midterm exams? Like sex ed, not everyone gets even the most basic information at home - and not everyone gets good information at all. I don’t think it’s reasonable to assume that parents pass down this sort of knowledge (then again, on CCland, a lot of people seem to live in middle and upper class communities so I can see where that belief is coming from) or, unfortunately, that kids will look for it themselves.</p>
<p>However, the kids who are least likely to get the info are the ones who also are least likely to still be in school at the end of senior year. They are likely to be among the drop-outs and to have come from generations of high school drop-outs.</p>
<p>Indeed, but do we really need a class in high school on postage when the US Postal Service will teach people for free, by returning mail with insufficient postage to those who don’t put enough on the envelope? </p>
<p>I think not. We ALL learn from life, and certainly our kids should have the opportunities we all had to learn that, for example, required postage is determined by weight.</p>