How To Adult - What I Didn't Learn In School

Last updated on 7 June 2021

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They should have had a ‘How to Adult’ class at school.

School. It’s that thing in life that’s compulsory.

You either go to a public school, a private school, or you’re homeschooled. And there you spend (generally) 12-13 years of your life.

School aims to teach you about the world, about history and culture, about art and music, about sports and how to sew a pillowcase. It aims to teach you about science and economics. It aims to give you a good springboard into your life. But does it always succeed…? Meh. Not convinced.

How to Adult 101

It was at the beginning of my 13th and final year of school when I realised that the teachers were treating us differently.

We were used to them being the authority, the big boss of the classroom, the one who could glare at you, tell you to stop swinging on your chair, to go and see the principal, give detentions or makes you run laps. And then suddenly at year 13, they started treating us like we weren’t actually still 12 years old, and that we actually knew how to write a complete sentence, where to put an apostrophe, and not break test tubes.

They recognised that if we had made it this far in the school system, that we were probably a) decent enough in the head to do the work, and b) probably wanted to be there. They starting treating us like adults.

School started being more about guiding us to achieve in the class, based on our own desire to be there, not whether they got a 100% pass rate from their students.

It was about us learning more on our own, being let loose, as it were, to do our work because we wanted to.

They were talking to us differently, asking us our opinions and thoughts, rather than having us regurgitate the information they had spoon-fed us for years and years, and they let us have opinions that were different to theirs, as long as we could back them up.

They let us experiment more (though perhaps not in chemistry – lives are at stake in that class), and we were able to take our own path through the class during the year. They treated us more like equals; they treated us, adults.

But they didn’t teach us how to be adults.

That was all well and good, and I loved being a year 13 students – it was the best year of high school – but what they didn’t teach me, tell me, or even hint at, was how to actually be an adult. They didn’t tell me how to do tax returns, or how to buy a car and afford to actually keep it on the road.

They didn’t tell me that as an adult, it’s not acceptable to still be in bed at 11am in the morning, or, heaven forbid, after midday.

They didn’t tell me that I wouldn’t actually have to find x ever again in my life unless I was hunting for buried treasure (also frowned upon as an adult).

They didn’t tell me that sketching a thousand mountain ranges in art class wasn’t actually something that you needed to do to become a fully functioning member of adulthood, or that knowing all about slaters and their light/dark habits wouldn’t be beneficial to your life in any way, shape or form.

School didn’t teach me that being an adult is tiring, it’s sometimes boring (what do you mean I’m too old for the bouncy castle? Too tall for this McDonald’s playground?), it’s hard work, it involves lots of numbers (often in the negatives) that you don’t really know what to do with.

School didn’t teach me how to deal with all of the sudden marriages and baby photos that are plastered all over Facebook, nor did they teach me how to date well, or have a grown-up conversation about politics or global warming.

They didn’t tell me that learning on the job is easier, and better, and that school didn’t really prepare me for this.

They didn’t even teach me how to clean mould out of the shower, unblock a drain, fold a fitted sheet, wash the whites separately, go to neighbourhood dinner parties and act nicely even though I don’t want to be there.

Nor did they warn me that soon I would have no idea what the current teenage lingo is and that I would feel ancient even in my twenties.

Yes, school taught you how to add 1 to 1, how to sew a pillowcase, how to make a baking soda and vinegar volcano (super helpful in the adult world), how to draw a slightly better stick man than when you were 13, and how to not run in the hallway.

When you got older, they treated you like an adult, but they didn’t tell you how to be one.

And considering that you spend the majority of your life as an adult, perhaps every school should have a compulsory class called ‘How to Adult 101’.