6 things I wished I learned in School
For the past few days, I have been thinking about what I know today that I wish I learned at a much earlier age. These include skills, methods, knowledge and awareness which I believe would be impactful if taught in Schools. My intention of sharing this post is to highlight what I feel is important for students to learn today and for teachers and principals to look at how to best incorporate them as a part of School life. I have ranked the below in terms of the impact it has made on my life.
- Self-Awareness
Self-Awareness essentially is how well we know ourselves, how others see us and how we fit into the environment around us. Being self-aware is important because it helps you understand and govern your emotions which results in better decisions that impact you and the people around you.
Five years ago, I joined a former schoolmate to start a digital marketing company where he ran as the CEO. I reached out to some of my close friends who we hired to be a part of the team with an ambition of helping companies build their brand online. Only we weren’t! We would be selling and promising ideas way beyond the capacity of our resources and experience. As a result we were damaging relationships and overworking our team. I was so focused on making this start-up work and on the day to day activities, I was not conscious about the people around me, the expectations we were giving to our customer and how much I personally was being exploited. It took a couple of long lectures by a few close friends of mine to make me realize how deluded I was.
When I put myself in the same situation today, I can’t imagine myself compromising on my values in any situation. Self-awareness does not just involve understanding your values, your strengths and weakness, your passion and your emotions but also involves being more conscious about the people and the world around you.
Today, we are surround by so much information, opinions and expectations, that it is easy to lose yourself in all that clutter. With more and more students hooked on social media, they tend to make comparisons based on false impressions. This leads to anxiety building up from an early age which carries on to their adulthood.
Mindfulness is a way in which students can become self-ware. Through guided meditations, kids can be thought to understand their emotions, gratefulness and self-acceptance. Schools can teach kids to understand their strengths and weaknesses, their passion and their values at a much early age. It is also important to make students conscious of their actions by teaching them how to react to situations and looking at things from others perspectives. Schools should create an environment where students feel comfortable to share their concerns without being laughed at or mocked.
2. Effective Communication and Public Speaking Skills
I think we would all agree that the ability to present information effectively, articulate and express your ideas and present yourself is key in being successful in whatever we do. I’ve had the opportunity to interview a number of candidates at my present company and in my past jobs. I would say that approximately 50% of candidates fail to express themselves effectively, whether it be introducing themselves, answering a question or in their non-verbal communication.
I was forever feared being judged when presenting or speaking in front of audiences. I remember being scared to go up in my school assembly to wish a teacher for his/her birthday on behalf of our grade. I broke this fear much later in my school life when I joined the Model United Nations club and subsequently went on to be a part of the ‘Executive Committee’ after graduating. I was forced to make presentations, deliver speeches and even be the host of the conference. This gave me loads of confidence to engage in many other presentations thereafter and it’s been one of the most benefiting skills to date.
I know schools today have clubs and associations such as the Interact club, Toastmasters or Model United Nations, but how many students get the opportunity to participate? how many are made to realize the value of it? why can’t it be a part of how everyone learns?
Simple things such as asking students to work in teams and make presentations on topics to their class can help break this fear. Communication skills is much easier to teach compared to self-awareness, but the first step is pushing students to break the fear of speaking out their ideas. They can then be equipped with guidelines to follow reinforced through continuous feedback.
3. The Art of Learning
In schools we were so used to the idea of memorizing word to word because you would get full marks if you write your definition or explanation as per the book. Although this is good for short term tests, it’s a horrible idea for long term retention. When I used to tutor school kids, one of the basic problems students faced was that teachers had spent less time explaining the logic, reasoning, and relatability of topics. We shouldn’t aim to standardize the process of understanding for everything. Students should be encouraged to have their own interpretations.
An important method of summarizing and remembering lessons that I found much later in my education was mind maps. They are a brilliant tool which I’ve used as a tutor to explain the relationships between different topics. It helps you look at the bigger picture and understand the importance of each branch in it.
Experiential learning or hands on learning is another effective way to help students learn. For example: you would tend to understand how a business works when you visit a company and experience it rather than reading a text book. It wouldn’t be practical to apply experiential learning to everything but it should be incorporated as a method of teaching.
4. Financial Education
We are all sent to school and asked to study hard and get good grades in our exams so we can enroll at the best universities and get the best jobs out there so we can make lots of money and be financially independent. But how many of us learned anything about money in School?
Personal finance is something many people struggle with and I’ve struggled with it continuously too (although I chose the commerce stream in School). What to do with your income, how to manage your cash flow, how to build your Asset base, what Assets to invest in, how to minimize your liabilities, how to make a personal finance plan, are all areas I wish I learned in School. I think financial education is important for everyone, despite what you want to pursue in your future.
If you studied Economics, Accounting or Business Studies, you would have studied how money originated, Assets=Capital Liabilities, different types of costs and how businesses operate. Often however, we are not taught to apply this to ourselves.
The book “Rich Dad Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki was an eye opener to me and I definitely recommend it for those who have not read it.
5. Problem Solving
Finding people who are solution oriented and focus on implementation are scarce. It is easy to find problems but finding solutions is difficult and implementing is much more difficult. This is applicable to problems and situations faced in your personal life, at your workplace, in your community, in your relationships, in your country and in the world. This is why teaching kids to solve problems is an important skill to start learning at an early age.
For example- Students can be given a social problem in their neighborhood (let’s say waste pollution in the canal) and asked to come up with possible solutions towards helping the problem (how do we stop polluting in the canal). This can be taken a step further, where students are asked to implement best solutions and work towards solving the problem. I took example because this is a problem we had.
Problem solving brings students together to brainstorm ideas, encourages out of the box thinking, promotes teamwork and teaches kids to act towards solutions.
6. Sex Education
I think this was the most taboo topic in School and usually avoided. Apart from the little that was taught in Biology class and a workshop on STD’s, there wasn’t much talk about sex. These knowledge gaps can be filled through a sex education program. The problem usually faced is teachers are uncomfortable talking about this topic and project it as taboo. I think a strong sex education program in schools should not just help increase awareness and learning about our bodies and sex, but also help develop respect for our different body types, understand consent, raise awareness about sexual violence and make it more comfortable to talk about sex.
Truth be told, the world has transformed significantly in the last 20 years, but what we teach and the way we teach at the most foundation level which is our Schools, hasn’t changed all that much.
What do you wish you learned in School?
