Teaching essential life skills

[shpalman]

Right, you people have just jinxed me! As soon as I finished reading this thread, my car went wrong. It is at such moments that I hold my manhood most cheap, because I know nothing about motor mechanics - despite possessing a fine set of XY chromosomes and a degree in Physics. Mrs. Snooze can get away with playing a poor lost girly in such circumstances, even though she has a much better instinct for mechanical devices than me, whereas I feel the full weight of the expectations imposed on my sex by the Patriarchy!

I could probably fix my mechanical incompetence by going to evening classes or something...

It's easy! All you have to do is have spent your entire childhood taking engines to pieces and putting them back together again!

[Bird on a Fire]

Right, you people have just jinxed me! As soon as I finished reading this thread, my car went wrong. It is at such moments that I hold my manhood most cheap, because I know nothing about motor mechanics - despite possessing a fine set of XY chromosomes and a degree in Physics. Mrs. Snooze can get away with playing a poor lost girly in such circumstances, even though she has a much better instinct for mechanical devices than me, whereas I feel the full weight of the expectations imposed on my sex by the Patriarchy!

I could probably fix my mechanical incompetence by going to evening classes or something...

It's easy! All you have to do is have spent your entire childhood taking engines to pieces and putting them back together again!

Just wait till your fiesta flaps start flapping, snoozeofreason. Then you'll really feel emasculated.

[Millennie Al]

Either way, I have phoned the garage, and nodded my head sagely when the lady on the desk suggested that it was a coil spring (as if, being a man, I knew all about coil springs)

You have access to Google - you can look it up! I hope you can change a tyre, understand the various lights and controls in your vehicle, sew on a button and take up a hem. They're all useful skills in modern society. They shouldn't be regarded as masculine or feminine.

[nezumi]

Either way, I have phoned the garage, and nodded my head sagely when the lady on the desk suggested that it was a coil spring (as if, being a man, I knew all about coil springs)

You have access to Google - you can look it up! I hope you can change a tyre, understand the various lights and controls in your vehicle, sew on a button and take up a hem. They're all useful skills in modern society. They shouldn't be regarded as masculine or feminine.

If I were in charge of education I'd make this a core subject, English, Maths, Science and Life Essentials.

Life Essentials would include basic sewing, repairing household textiles and furniture, basic vehicle maintenance, effective cleaning, how to pay a bill, password management, personal care... All those things it used to be accepted that parents would teach kids but apparently don't anymore.

[Lydia Gwilt]

If I were in charge of education I'd make this a core subject, English, Maths, Science and Life Essentials.

Life Essentials would include basic sewing, repairing household textiles and furniture, basic vehicle maintenance, effective cleaning, how to pay a bill, password management, personal care... All those things it used to be accepted that parents would teach kids but apparently don't anymore.

Absolutely! also changing a lightbulb and changing a plug, hanging wallpaper, and reading a map/use of compass.

Do children get sent to school these days not knowing how to tie shoelaces? if so, that should be lesson number 2 on the first day, straight after where the loos are and how to ask permission to visit them.

[lpm]

Jesus.

There was no golden age when parents taught all these noble things to their children. For f.cks sake.

Thankfully schools and teaching are far superior now to any fantasy golden age schools. And that's the most terrible list of "Life Essentials" imaginable.

If you want a "Life Essentials" class, start with how to be happy and move on to how to be kind and end with what makes a good relationship.

[Sciolus]

If you want a "Life Essentials" class, start with how to be happy and move on to how to be kind and end with what makes a good relationship.

Please sign me up for your class. Will you be running it during my lunch break?

[Sciolus]

If you want a "Life Essentials" class, start with how to be happy and move on to how to be kind and end with what makes a good relationship.

Please sign me up for your class. Will you be running it during my lunch break?

On second thoughts, I might go elsewhere for the "how to be kind" and "good relationships" classes, but I definitely want to attend the "how to be happy" module. As long as it doesn't entail horses.

[lpm]

Those two classes are big on what not to do.

[snoozeofreason]

Jesus.

There was no golden age when parents taught all these noble things to their children. For f.cks sake.

Thankfully schools and teaching are far superior now to any fantasy golden age schools. And that's the most terrible list of "Life Essentials" imaginable.

If you want a "Life Essentials" class, start with how to be happy and move on to how to be kind and end with what makes a good relationship.

Schools are certainly more sensitive and imaginative than they used to be. Things such as shoelace tying may seem like simple skills that should be taught on day two of school (to those children whose parents were so feckless and irresponsible as to have failed to teach it themselves). But to an autistic student that could be a meltdown inducing experience that would colour the entirety of their academic career. I am fairly well acquainted with one young man, currently at Oxford University, who has an uncanny grasp of languages, can give detailed summaries of the history and current affairs of East Asian countries without notes, can absorb complex treatises on politics in the time that most people would take to get their heads around newspaper article, but who still can't tie up his shoelaces. If his school had insisted on shoelace tying as an essential skill, I doubt that his participation in mainstream education would have lasted beyond the first few days. As it is he - miraculously to some perhaps - manages to live an entirely independent and productive life that does not include shoelaces.

I suspect that one genuinely essential life skill is the ability to recognise that people are different, and that maintaining any more extensive list of "essential" skills in your head is, at best counter productive and, at worst, the sort of thing that will qualify you to write editorials for the Daily Mail on education policy.

[bagpuss]

Jesus.

There was no golden age when parents taught all these noble things to their children. For f.cks sake.

Thankfully schools and teaching are far superior now to any fantasy golden age schools. And that's the most terrible list of "Life Essentials" imaginable.

If you want a "Life Essentials" class, start with how to be happy and move on to how to be kind and end with what makes a good relationship.

Schools are certainly more sensitive and imaginative than they used to be. Things such as shoelace tying may seem like simple skills that should be taught on day two of school (to those children whose parents were so feckless and irresponsible as to have failed to teach it themselves). But to an autistic student that could be a meltdown inducing experience that would colour the entirety of their academic career. I am fairly well acquainted with one young man, currently at Oxford University, who has an uncanny grasp of languages, can give detailed summaries of the history and politics of East Asian countries without notes, can absorb complex treatises on current affairs in the time that most people would take to get their heads around newspaper article, but who still can't tie up his shoelaces. If his school had insisted on shoelace tying as an essential skill, I doubt that his participation in mainstream education would have lasted beyond the first few days. As it is he - miraculously to some perhaps - manages to live an entirely independent and productive life that does not include shoelaces.

I suspect that one genuinely essential life skill is the ability to recognise that people are different, and that maintaining any more extensive list of "essential" skills in your head is, at best counter productive and, at worst, the sort of thing that will qualify you to write editorials for the Daily Mail on education policy.

Fortunately, most kids' shoes these days, at least at Foundation Stage shoe sizes, have no laces. There was absolutely no point in teaching the bagkitten to tie shoelaces (I did try, it was a waste of time and effort) until she was about 7 or 8 when her feet grew into shoelace sizes. At that point, it took her precisely 5 minutes to learn. Many kids just don't have the fine motor control to be able to tie their shoelaces at the age of 4, so teaching them to do it on day 2 in FS would be a miserable experience for teacher and kids alike - and an entirely pointless one as already mentioned.


PSHE is, however, a thing in schools and a bl..dy good thing too. It stands for Personal, Social, Health and Economic education. This week, the bagkitten's PSHE is all about mental health, it being Children's Mental Health Week. In primary schools it covers areas like physical and emotional health and wellbeing, relationships, understanding your body, changes due to puberty (incl differences between boys' and girls' bodies), understanding the basics of money, plus societal things such as equality, diversity, and so on.

So not the "how to sew on a button" type of thing but definitely similar to lpm's preferred curriculum.

[Little waster]

As it is he - miraculously to some perhaps - manages to live an entirely independent and productive life that does not include shoelaces.

*

I reckon abandoning velcro was a bad move on my behalf.

I haz these now. https://www.hickies.com/. Life-changing.




*I can technically tie my laces, in that I can follow the instructions so the rabbit goes round the tree and in the hole and everything. It is just 30 seconds later the buggers are undone again and dragging along behind me**. It is odd, a person stops to tie one shoelace and nobody takes a second glance but stop to tie both shoelaces and they stare at you like you are mental.


**and in the 40+ years of proud shoelace-failing I have fell over precisely zero times because of them***.


***I have however had about 8 months of my life stolen from in pointless conversations with strangers along the lines of "Tie your shoelaces or you'll fall over".

[bjn]

As it is he - miraculously to some perhaps - manages to live an entirely independent and productive life that does not include shoelaces.

*

I reckon abandoning velcro was a bad move on my behalf.

I haz these now. https://www.hickies.com/. Life-changing.




*I can technically tie my laces, in that I can follow the instructions so the rabbit goes round the tree and in the hole and everything. It is just 30 seconds later the buggers are undone again and dragging along behind me**. It is odd, a person stops to tie one shoelace and nobody takes a second glance but stop to tie both shoelaces and they stare at you like you are mental.


**and in the 40+ years of proud shoelace-failing I have fell over precisely zero times because of them***.


***I have however had about 8 months of my life stolen from in pointless conversations with strangers along the lines of "Tie your shoelaces or you'll fall over".

Oooooooh. I can tie laces, but usually end up destroying trainers as I slip them off without undoing them, which tends to break the back of them. Definitely getting me some of those.

[Lydia Gwilt]

Sorry,that was stupid of me. I didn't mean to be insensitive to anyone who can't tie shoelaces or who would find it stressful to learn. I was just remembering when I first went to school (a poor area of Scotland 1966) there was no such thing as velcro but untied shoelaces were a cause for physical punishment, and some poor 5 year-olds really hadn't been taught and they did get hit with the tawse; they usually kept their shoes knotted and wrestled themselves in and out of them however they could.
I also didn't start school with everyone else on the first day and so missed any information about the loos - to my great embarrassment.

[snoozeofreason]

Sorry,that was stupid of me. I didn't mean to be insensitive to anyone who can't tie shoelaces or who would find it stressful to learn. I was just remembering when I first went to school (a poor area of Scotland 1966) there was no such thing as velcro but untied shoelaces were a cause for physical punishment, and some poor 5 year-olds really hadn't been taught and they did get hit with the tawse; they usually kept their shoes knotted and wrestled themselves in and out of them however they could.
I also didn't start school with everyone else on the first day and so missed any information about the loos - to my great embarrassment.

No worries. As you might gather, shoelaces have become a bit of a sore point for me (as well as a useful lesson that what comes easily to one person may be next to impossible for another). Scottish schools of the 60s sound even less fun than English ones!

[Woodchopper]

I've split this thread from Toxic masculinity & femininity.

[Hunting Dog]

No worries. As you might gather, shoelaces have become a bit of a sore point for me (as well as a useful lesson that what comes easily to one person may be next to impossible for another). Scottish schools of the 60s sound even less fun than English ones!

If you have long lengths of dangly shoelace left over after tying they will tend to become undone again whilst walking. Tuck ends of dangly leftover bits under the cross lacing lower down shoe and things are less likely to become undone, hth

[science_fox]

No worries. As you might gather, shoelaces have become a bit of a sore point for me (as well as a useful lesson that what comes easily to one person may be next to impossible for another). Scottish schools of the 60s sound even less fun than English ones!

If you have long lengths of dangly shoelace left over after tying they will tend to become undone again whilst walking. Tuck ends of dangly leftover bits under the cross lacing lower down shoe and things are less likely to become undone, hth

Trouser length also matters, anything frequently brushing the knot will work it loose. Double knots help somewhat in this regard, but obviously increase the faff factor both on and off. I only discovered why my laces so frequently came undone via OtherHalf, and having a partner with complimentary life skills rather than matching ones, is a useful feature. Acknowledging when the other's skills are relevant helps to maintain that status.

[Grumble]

It’s a matter of supreme indifference to me how others tie their laces, but I changed how I tie mine after encountering this site: https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/knots.htm

Which I think I got to from the old place.

[discovolante]

It’s a matter of supreme indifference to me how others tie their laces, but I changed how I tie mine after encountering this site: https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/knots.htm

Which I think I got to from the old place.

f.cking hell, one more thing to think about.

[Grumble]

It’s a matter of supreme indifference to me how others tie their laces, but I changed how I tie mine after encountering this site: https://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/knots.htm

Which I think I got to from the old place.

f.cking hell, one more thing to think about.

I have a friend who has mocked me for over 25 years about how uncool my lace tying is. It doesn’t come up often, probably only 3 or 4 times in all that time, but I’m always mystified about what a cool knot is and how one finds this information out. I imagine he spends time watching rap videos looking at their shoes. I’ve never responded to him about it, and it’s always offhand not mean, but it’s amazing how things like that can play on your mind. Not enough for me to examine rappers’ footwear, but still.

[Bird on a Fire]

Rappers don't have shoelaces, because they've always just got out of prison, where their laces were confiscated.

Which knot do you do, Grumble?

[dyqik]

I buy hiking/snow boots with lace hooks for the top two fasteners, so I can just unhook the laces but leave them tied.

After a few wet walks, the laces are almost impossible to undo.

[Millennie Al]

If his school had insisted on shoelace tying as an essential skill, I doubt that his participation in mainstream education would have lasted beyond the first few days.

Schools shoul be very reluctant to consider anything an essential skill - almost everything is useful rather than essential. Even things like reading and writing, although extremely useful, can be worked around.

[Grumble]

Which knot do you do, Grumble?

I tend to do the better bow, always stays done up.