Discussion of the Day
What would you have liked to have learned at school?
mary cAug 31, 22
If you could go back into the mists of time, way Way back- is there a subject or skill you wished you had learned at school?
I would have liked to have done History and Art History, and Car Mechanics.
Not that the latter was offered at our Religious girls school back in the 70s n early 80s.
A class on how to avoid getting very drunk and making a total ijit of yourself would have been useful too.
Comments
  • We need to be taught how to do taxes
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    • I would have liked to take art, but they wouldn't let me.
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      • Oh how crap that you weren't able to. One of the highlights of school for me was doing well in art in the 6th form- i had a lovely teacher and i flourished. Sadly the next year it was much much harder and diff teacher. Barely passed! i hope you have had a chance to do art since school..
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      • yes, I have been creative on my own and am taking several artistic courses now. Thank you.
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    • think music, learning guitar,drums yes pato how to operate a still would be helpful
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      • oh how i would have loved to learn the electric guitar and keyboard. Though i was too young to appreciated the amazing music that is/was out there at that stage.
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    • Counterfeiting… and whiskey making.. also how to boil a perfect egg would have been nice..
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      • hmm counterfeiting you say...er is it too late?? 3 d printers can do just about everything these days!
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      • Don’t tell An rew or he will be printing a new d or three in no time..
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      • mary cPato Lo Duck
        haah he's probably got a 4D printer whirring away in his laboratory!
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      • He’s probably printing bottles of wine right now…
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      • mary cPato Lo Duck
        and beer!
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      • Maybe, but why print beer when you can print wine just as easily… If he prints too much he will end up very runk…
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      • mary cPato Lo Duck
        not if we all show up to help guzzle!
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    • I would liked to learn the piano,
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      • keyboard skills, cooking, driving.
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        • All good with you? What is your photo- i can't see it well on my old laptop :)
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        • Grommiemary c
          grommie in the garden. Perhaps I need to update it
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        • mary cGrommie
          Haha yes i totally see him..posing by his dognip patch?
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      • That the world wasn't an ideal place like my parents sheltered us from. Reality Hit a long time ago that this world is about to destruct bc of all the immorality and where immorality leads to.... Nowhere!
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        • photography
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          • How to adult
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            • Car Maintenance
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              • i would have like to learn a new language.
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                • Woodwork, mechanics, life skills
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                  • Everything I now know...!
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                    • money management, wealth creation, budgeting, cleaning, filling in forms relationships, child rearing, cooking, job applications, interviewing skills, social skills, time management nutrition, exercise physiology = real life skills that would have saved me many mistakes, job opportunities, diets, low self esteem and relationships
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                      • I don't think there was anything else I could have been taught at school. I started with Latin and French but after the first year Latin was dropped and French the following year. I also learnt both History and Geography but had to choose the second year and as there weren't enough students wanting to study History I had to take Geography, which I still find boring to this day. I did phys/chem and biology but in year 2 I chose biology. I also did home economics where we learnt to cook and sew, business principles where I learnt to balance a cheque book and type, then art and it's appreciation and music where i was introduced to The Sydney Philharmonic Orchestra a love that I carry to this day. When I left school I was prepared to take a job in nursing, banking, secretarial, and just about anything else I wanted to. There was also library and religion, in other words, well prepared for life. I don't see the same thing happening today.
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                        • ironically i found english far harder than french and german.
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                        • Spelling was my problem and now I argue with spellchecker whose spelling is atrocious, and I wasn't so keen on the poems we had to learn. I was kept in for an hour because I didn't learn The Rhyme of The Ancient Mariner, and who cares about Thor Heyerdahl and his raft, all he had to do was take a DNA test, too easy, but I have never had need for either poem in my entire life. What a waste of an hour!
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                        • mary cPaula J 395266
                          I felt like that about Othello- I just couldn't get interested in it and couldn't see its pertinence to my life when i was 17- hence i nearly failed 7th form English- jeeze Shakespeare!
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                        • Never been able to fully appreciate the "Bard".
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                        • mary cPaula J 395266
                          haha same same.
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                      • The choice was limited for us, and what was available was priced way above our learning skills {money} education was not free for us. We read any book that was given, but you have to write your name on the list for your turn
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                        • How to grow fruits and vegetables and cook them. Would have liked to learn some musical instruments but I was not given that opportunity at school.
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                          • The main things besides the 3Rs we learnt was how to respect others - something which is sadly missing these days!
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                            • Definitely other languages. My wife is learning Spanish and it is very annoying as she does show off a bit.
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                              • haha..quick start learning a language too and you can both show off to each other!
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                              • Asesh Smary c
                                iam going to learn French
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                              • mary cAsesh S
                                awesome!
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                              • Asesh Smary c
                                thank you
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                            • Computers and computer programming
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                              • Employment and careers opportunities. How to apply for jobs and present a CV. Work experience
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                                • how to grow money while studying.
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                                  • How to manage money.
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                                    • We did that in business principles.
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                                    • Debra D 624780Paula J 395266
                                      We had nothing about money at all in school.
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                                    • Paula J 395266Debra D 624780
                                      Isn't it odd considering how important a topic it is.
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                                  • And classes on how to say No- no you can't borrow my car even though you are such a hot guy and then when the hot guy crashes it be able to say to him you owe me all this money for the panelbeating.
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                                    • How to buy your first house and the importance of saving money in compound interest accounts.
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                                      • Managing money was part of business principles.
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                                    • Life skills
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                                      • shorthand, I wanted to be a shorthand typist but I passed the 11+ and had to do sciences and languages.
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                                        • I would have liked to learn about how to organize and deal with the huge piles of clutter I seemed to have accumulated during my life, but perhaps even more, I would have liked to learn how to avoiding aquiring it in the first place.
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                                          • First aid and your entitlements as an employee. Things I think should be taught now.
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                                            • I'm 74, and I graduated high school in 1965 at the age of 17. Girls took Home Economics learning how to cook and sew, and boys took Auto Shop learning how to work on cars. I think girls should have been able to take Auto Shop and boys Home Economics, too, because we all need to not only know how to cook, but also how to fix a car, at least back in the day. ;-D
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                                              • Agree!
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                                            • More history about Australia
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                                              • More basic life skills, such as how to balance budgets and manage money, as well as how to do simple maintenance on a car, eg, changing tyres, and checking fluid levels. I think things like this are far more beneficial for kids than much of what they do learn.
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                                                • I would have liked to study history at university...
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                                                  • Another language
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                                                    • more life skills, rather than the regular reading, writing and arithmetic
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                                                      • How to look after my back. I'm really paying for it now.
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                                                        • Perhaps I would have liked to Spanish or French, I am sure it could have come in handy at one time or another.
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                                                          • I wish I had have learned childcare.
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                                                            • Programming. It wasn't available when I was in school but it would have been very handy to have learned then.
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                                                              • computer technology, but that wasn't exactly a thing back in the late 60's when I was in high school
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                                                                • Teach better maths
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                                                                  • So much of my early schooling had little to do with my later career but I am ever grateful to my English teacher in high school. Also my year was the first in our school where we learned Physiology. I was blown away to learn even if only marginally, how my body works. As an all girl's school it was not thought necessary for us to learn Physics and Chemistry - as I'm hopeless in Maths I felt I didn't miss anything.
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                                                                    • I wish I had learned more about budgeting and finance
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                                                                      • We could recite the theorem of Pythagoras,,but we never learned how to use it to square a fence, a deck or a whole building. We learned our irregular verbs, but could hardly speak French. Everyone should know how to use tools, how to cook, how to handle money sensibly. Civics and the legal system should not be a mystery. Similarly art, music and culture should be experienced a first hand, not turned into an arid theoretical exercise. School used to offer so much but deliver so little. I hope it has changed for the better, but I somehow doubt it.
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                                                                        • Some different handcrafts
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                                                                          • how to play a guitar and speak Maori
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                                                                            • Accounting.
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                                                                              • PROPER FULL AUSTRALIAN HISTORY
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                                                                                • sailing
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                                                                                  • How to play a musical instrument.
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                                                                                    • Animal husbandry maybe, I did have this as a subject in school but it was all about farm animals like cattle and sheep. I would have loved to learned about chickens and growing things. Agriculture was another subject we had and yet again it was about growing crops not an edible garden. Some thing more practical in home instead of commercial aspects. I hated school so it must probably won't have made a difference. All I wanted at school was to become a mother and yeah okay I did but life was very cruel. Did not go to plan and that saddens me to this day but man can I pick them. Also a bugbear to this day and I am sure you all know how I feel about that, Sorry it is not a topic talked about much these days. School was not a happy time for me so I really would not want to go back.
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                                                                                      • xx
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                                                                                    • More music
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                                                                                      • My adult education was vast and fulfilling however I went to a co Ed school where boys were encouraged more than girls. I would have liked some life skills and driving instructions.
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                                                                                        • shouldn't the question be what didn't you want to learn at school. I hated Maths B and could never understand why A + B =C. I liked geography and maybe that is why i like to see places
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                                                                                          • I think that could be a whole new discussion on its own Larry :) Submit it!
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                                                                                        • Being educated in the 1970's and early 80's I believe that, for a government school, I recieved a very good education. My parents would not have been able to afford a private education, but my dad did supplement my education with after school homework designed by him and rote learning. I had GREAT teachers and I wish that more kids today had great teachers not transgender and LGBTQ activists who's primary agenda appears to be turning boys into girls and visa versa! From what I've seen online of "education" today it, education, seems to exist to indoctrinate kids into a Socialist philosophy that Karl Marx would be proud of. Now there's a "cake" pronoun, I kid you not, and rainbow flags in place of American ones in classrooms and male teachers wearing stilettos in class, I think I can safely say that the children of today as the adults of tomorrow are DOOMED! Now Biden has come out and said that children should dob in their parents for "thought crimes" including medical and political disinformation! If THIS is education then I am a lime tree! Keep your kids at home and teach them yourselves. At least you'll know what they're learning!
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                                                                                          • Wot the heck? thought crimes?
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                                                                                          • I wish it were not so but 1984 is already here! When you have teachers and beurocrats believing that THEY should be the "parent" and that "children belong not to their parents but to a whole community' or all of us" then the slippery slope of societal downfall is well advanced. What Biden said is that children, we are not talking about teenagers here but what is elementary aged in the US or infants grade students here in Australia. He stated that kids should tell their teachers if their parents have said anything negative about the injections or against the government, gun laws and mandates or just politics in general. I remember as a child that I wanted to please my teachers and no child wants to feel like they are different than the other students. A child will often say something that it thinks is quite reasonable and not think for a moment that it could get its parents or caregivers into trouble but today's students are surrounded by evil ideologies that I nor my own children ever could have conceived. But it's this innocence that the Socialist teachers are using against these poor little kids. I have watched many Tik Tok videos of teachers with responsibility for children talk about their pronouns and how they can be ANYTHING they want to be. Some little boys say to their teachers that they think that they might be transgender but they DON'T understand what that means nor do they understand the indoctrination they are experiencing. These kids can't even agree on what their favourite colour is let alone if they actually WANT to be opposite the sex they are born with and the books that are in school libraries now should be burnt and no child EVER turning a page in them. I have seen things that 2 years ago I couldn't conceive of but it is going on around Western society TODAY!
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                                                                                          • mary cMichelle S 553303
                                                                                            Quite true. Something that annoys me is the opposite that i see sometimes where parents seem to expect the teachers to take responsibility for their kids and whinge when the teachers have a day off or whatever. They are your kids not the schools.
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                                                                                        • I wish I had learnt what I now know
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                                                                                          • Budgeting - How to spend wisely and save money and do tax returns (instead of trigonometry)
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                                                                                            • Life skills, including budgeting.
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                                                                                              • I would have liked to gain some financial knowledge. How to budget, as so many young people leave school without much idea of how to budget and get themselves into debt. I also think some knowledge of stocks, shares and the stock exchange would be good.
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                                                                                              • How to successfully avoid all sport and religion would have been good (maybe learn Latin instead as its more useful)...otherwise they all did a good job
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                                                                                                • Nothing wrong with religion itself but in mans interpretation of the sacred texts, however I'm right with you when it comes to sport which I HATE with a passion!
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                                                                                              • I really have not used anything from school
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                                                                                                • That's unfortunate. Perhaps it was the education you recieved which was the problem. I don't think that the majority of children learn anything useful these days at school and I DO believe that the QUALITY of the education offered to students today is truly pathetic. I also feel that the poorer the student the less the education until you have a situation like today where predominantly black students are taught about the horrors of racism and how evil white people are which is ALSO racist! But they know how to make posters and banners and how to go on a violent, oh I mean "peaceful" protest and rampage and destroy things so at least they're getting extra curricular activities and learning their primary colours, both essential requirements for a burgeoning Socialist!
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                                                                                              • Fixing simple car problems or at least identifying them and simple car maintenance.
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                                                                                                • German
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                                                                                                  • I did learn at school how to write and sorta spell but they all need to go back to basic and forget about all the things you dont need in life
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                                                                                                    • I went to a girls school back in the 80s and they taught us sewing ,typing and religion. Then I change school at year 10 and went to a government high school and they taught not only education but car mechanics how to read a tax form or your group certificate etc.
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                                                                                                      • I don't really know, my schooling was very a "crash course" situation so learning the language of my country and being able to read, write and do maths did me fine as I went to work after year 2 and paid for my own education ie Business College and via Correspondence School. Your choices Mary c sound very sound and enterprising, hope you managed to fulllfil some of them.
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                                                                                                        • Great that you pursued and paid for your Business Course Maria :)
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                                                                                                        • Thanks mary c, it was with International Correspondence School (ICS), they were very good, had to do the exercises then the tests and post it to them for marking also the same if you had any problems ... sometimes the answers came to me as soon as I'd drop them in the mail!
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                                                                                                      • I would have liked better teachers and less students in our class. We had 60 students in our class, all females. Our first year at high school and we were temporary students at the school, squashed into one small classroom. as the one we were to attend hadn't been completed and just too many kids for one teacher to handle. Not a good start to senior school. a year wasted.
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                                                                                                        • More languages! We had Latin, French and later German. As we were in Europe I would have liked to have learnt Russian, Italian, Spanish and Modern Greek. On coming to Australia Mandarin, Cantonese and at least one Indian-based language, plus Japanese - I learn very quickly and in addition to English am fluent in both German & French. I put this down to having a natural affinity to languages and having had to learn non-religion-based Latin - one of the Most Beautiful of all languages. We also learnt Gaelic as it was, at the time, mandatory in Ireland (the Unoccupied part!)
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                                                                                                          • I only wish my school had finished building the gym that my parents had chipped in for ,before I actually completed my private girls schooling.would have made a good little gymnast ,spent my days at the beach with boys instead meh !
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                                                                                                            • haha..we were doing the same in 7th form too re the beach. Don't know how i passed- tho barely scraped through. Fun times :)
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                                                                                                            • Liane H mary c
                                                                                                              yes the good old days ,no computers. out in the sunshine.crammed my homework in at the last minute and somehow passed my H.S.C ! Still do get a few trivia quiz questions wrong on this which frustrates me no end.i always think i should have known that! Reminder of my parents sacrifices LOL
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                                                                                                            • mary cLiane H
                                                                                                              oh so true. And when i did my career study we crammed before the exams and took those awful nodoze caffeine pills.
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                                                                                                          • How to budget and save.
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                                                                                                            • Learn another language
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                                                                                                              • They need to teach children how to budget and how to make the most of the finances they earn. It's too easy today for young people to go borrow money without thinking of how much interest they will have to pay etc. The ads they have for lending money make it look too easy - yes it's too easy to get but what about when you have to start paying it back plus interest.
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                                                                                                                • Life skills.
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                                                                                                                  • Life skills like cooking household meals not just cakes like my school did, taxes, cars like what each button means in them, how to check the oil and water, how to budget, how to get a mortgage etc.
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                                                                                                                    • basic cooking skills, vege growing, paying bills, sewing, how to change a tyre!
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                                                                                                                      • I would have liked to have had more learning about our own ancestry. Also how to apply for a job and other life skills.
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                                                                                                                        • Every day things like growing food as well as car repairs and some DIY stuff for the home
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                                                                                                                          • I wish they'd taught more practical life skills such as good money management skills, and job interview skills etc.
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                                                                                                                            • Mental health and life skills
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                                                                                                                              • Definitely agree.
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                                                                                                                            • Investing
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                                                                                                                              • Life skills
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                                                                                                                                • I think life skills should be taught at schools, smoking/drinking/gambling, and drug use, I have been lucky enough with my 3 but I know plenty of parents who haven't, I know it's a parent's role to install the dangers but I think it should be backed up at school
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                                                                                                                                  • How a government works
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                                                                                                                                    • Art
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                                                                                                                                      • carpentry and welding
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                                                                                                                                        • environment. i wish i knew then what we know now. i have always been a closet greenie but may be would have worked in that field if it had been taught.
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                                                                                                                                          • How to manage problem behaviors
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                                                                                                                                            • I am quite happy with what I learnt at school, if anything probably learning about investments etc.
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                                                                                                                                              • I agree with you Sheree I was happy with what I learnt at school
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                                                                                                                                            • financial information like building credit and investing.
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                                                                                                                                              • wish i could have learned the facts of life....the birds and the bees hidden agendas
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                                                                                                                                                • oh yes :)
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                                                                                                                                              • I signed up for a class on religion my senior year but there had to be at least 10 students or they wouldn't offer the class. I received a notice that they didn't have enough people. I have a religious belief but just wanted to learn about other beliefs. I have learned a bit on my own but I still wish I could of taken the class.
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                                                                                                                                                • How to budget money. I would love to have learn how much money it actually takes to have a home, car,and to raise a family.
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                                                                                                                                                  • I would have like to learn more about finances
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                                                                                                                                                    • Self care and about dealing with anxiety,anger, how to manage adversity
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                                                                                                                                                      • Teaching us all on Animal Welfare. May be then it would have helped to teach us all the importance of looking and caring for all animals in a humane way. Teaching our parents that animals feel like us.
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                                                                                                                                                        • I wish they have healthcare management in all schools in my home state so children could learn about healthcare.
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                                                                                                                                                          • I wish I could have learned how to bounce back from disappointment and rejection and how to be the best person I can be.
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                                                                                                                                                            • Yes- self esteem classes.
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                                                                                                                                                          • In 2 words : Life Skills!
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                                                                                                                                                            • I wish I had studied to be a nutritionist. I have a passion for nutrition.
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                                                                                                                                                              • i wish i had taken home economics, probably would have helped with the hormone thing,, ;-))
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