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Kyle C. Bass

Professor leigh Ann Moore

ENGL 1302

16 March 2019

Implementing Life Readiness into Early Education

Many Individuals in today’s society have problems with taking control of their own lives.

In many cases people lack basic skills required to be successful and can lead to extra unnecessary

stress. One way of assisting today’s youth and acquiring these skills is by integrating them into

our early educational system. Skills such as: acquiring knowledge regarding health and fitness,

being financially savvy, and self-regulation with matters of lively hood are three key points to

success. Learning these skills at an early age can improve an individual’s life by helping them

through unavoidable life challenges. The school systems should implement a curriculum starting

with fundamentals at a young age and increase in technical skills as the students get older. This

will educate them about healthy life decisions and to be ready for the real world.

One of todays major issues is that people struggle in maintaining their overall health.

“Obesity appears to have plateaued among women and girls regardless of ethnicity, although it

continues to increase among men and boys. In adult men, obesity increased by 7 percent from

1999-2000 to 2009-2010 and continues to increase”, according to Steven Olsen and the institute

of medicine. Nutrition plays a major factor in keeping the body healthy. People get used to eating

unhealthy foods due to numerous reasons like advertisements on social media apps and

commercials on television. One major reason is cost. Unhealthy food being cheap and easily

accessible people are driven to the convenience. Technological advances also lead to laziness.
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Technology such as Uber eats makes it easier for the average American to have food delivered to

them rather than being active and making healthier choices. One way to combat a sedentary

lifestyle is Being active. This can lead to more beneficial choices. “The average adult needs six

to eight hours of sleep.”, according to Dr Hillary Jones. According to her studies, rest plays an

important part your overall health and fitness. Without the proper amount of sleep the average

adult will not function to their peek ability. If this is accurate students in school would be more

likely to make poor decisions.

Recent trends suggest that most of today’s youth are not focused on managing finances.

There are many distractions in today’s society from social media to pressure of education. Some

of that educational pressure is finding a career that is lucrative instead of finding a career that is

fulfilling. Teachers and counselors at High schools are not given enough opportunity to expose

children to career options and jobs available to them after high school. Schools major focal point

are standardized tests and not how to succeed after high school. Teachers need to the platform to

encourage students to find a job or career that will be fulfilling to them and that will make them

happy. Another great tool that the educational system should implement into school’s teachings

is how to invest money wisely. Not in-regards to the stock market but in items for living. Items

such as living expenses and utilities like: a washing and drying machine, refrigerator, water and

electricity bills and a vehicle to get from place to another. When it comes to saving money, high

school students will want to mismanage money on materialistic items that are in style to be

popular in high school. What should be popular in high school is saving money. Saving money is

an important skill to have, and it something that many adults struggle with. Having money in a

savings account like insurance is great resource to have when unavoidable obstacles in life pop

up, it will be there to fall back on. According to the In-Charge Debt Solutions and the Federal
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Trade Commission, on The Importance of saving money, “We save, basically, because we can't

predict the future. Saving money can help you become financially secure and provide a safety net

in case of an emergency.” This shows that it is important to always have money in savings in

case of a life emergency.

One societal issue many people face is having self-discipline. Dictionary.com defines

self-discipline as, “discipline and training of oneself, usually for improvement”. In this case, for

improvement can mean, learning how to manage time wisely, setting up a life plan, and having

great integrity. Highschool life is hard in a way that it is basically guided by the student’s peers

they surround themselves with. This becomes problematic when students create social groups or

“cliques” which can be isolating. This can lead to bullying when cliques start to exclude certain

individuals from their social crowd. Students who feel excluded may think of themselves as

outcasts, which could lead to depression and other behavioral issues. According to Sabina A.

Rebis Family doctor, “During such critical periods in life the frontal cortex, the part of the brain

that contributes to decision-making, goal setting, reasoning, and impulse control undergoes

major pruning, or ‘clean-up’”. Being self-disciplined in social life will definitely help along the

way. Something that should be taught in every class is time management. Time management is a

key factor to success in todays world. Being able to have a plan for the day, and even for the

week, will help any young student through high school. It can prevent unnecessary stress and

create good habits. Students must understand that managing your time wisely on a daily basis is

a great way to become more mature. As the students get older, they need to realize that failing at

something is not the end of the world. Some of the best things come from failure. This problem

has accumulated from standardized testing. Teachers make the students feel that if they don’t

pass these tests, then they will not pass high school or even get into college. When the focus of
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these students is to pass these tests that require numerous hours of in class work and home work,

resulting in failing these tests can bring their self confidence down. A school’s curriculum should

emphasize on ideals that could bring a student’s academic confidence up. It should make them

want to strive for greatness and to fix their mistakes and move forward.

Life readiness needs to be implemented into all schools and into their teaching

curriculum. The way schools can do this is with teaching overall health and fitness beyond

regular Physical education courses. This will teach a student about proper exercise and physical

fitness techniques that will benefit their life. Another focus that should be taught in class is how

much rest is actually needed to be a healthy individual. Proper exercise and rest will not matter if

you are not eating the right food. Nutritional classes can highly improve a student’s success both

in school and out of school, and will be something the students can depend on for the rest of their

lives. When it comes to growing up, being financially savvy is germane to success. There are

economic classes in high school, but they do a poor job at teaching how to effectively pay bills,

fill out loan applications, and what the difference between a savings account and a checking

account. These are all skills that can easily be implemented into a school’s curriculum. One way

is to implement a mandatory financial life skills class elective, by making it a one semester

course will leave for extracurricular creative courses the following semester. The benefits of

having discipline in a student’s social life, time management and in overcoming failure are

lessons that should be expressed by teachers and advisors every day. Some ways of

communicating these benefits can through the intercom and video announcements. Constant

reinforcements of these benefits should be something students hear from kinder garden all the

way to their senior year of high school. This knowledge will manifest into a positive maturation

process. Instead of stressing young students out over standardized testing, teachers should help
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them move on from high school to college and become independent adults. These skills are

necessary to succeed after high school. Implementing them into early education and making

them a requirement would be the best Segway for young adult in success.

As mentioned before people today face a variety of struggles from starting a family to

finding a career this can be troublesome, it is important for individuals to have the skills to make

life less stressful. The educational system has transitioned from teaching life skills to teaching

standardized testing. It would be beneficial if the education system would incorporate all types of

skills required for life success. Skills like learning about overall health and fitness for the

importance of staying active and avoiding any unwanted sicknesses. Being financially stable for

any emergency that may come up. lastly being disciplined in all aspects in life and to make sure

to follow through with and task at hand.

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Work Cited

Dr Hilary Jones. “The Dangers of Too Little Sleep.” News of the World. EBSCOhost,

search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=n5h&AN=7EH3223744473&site=ehos

t-live. Accessed 26 Mar. 2019

Harper, Douglas. “Definition of Self Discipline.” Www.dictionary.com, 2010,

www.dictionary.com/browse/self-discipline?s=ts.

Olsen, Steven, and Institute of Medicine (U.S.). The Current State of Obesity Solutions in the

United States: Workshop Summary. National Academies Press, 2014.

“The Importance of Saving Money.” Http://Pocketsmart.org, In Charge Debt Solutions and the

Federal Trade Commission, 2013, pocketsmart.org/financial_management/save/.

Rebis, Sabina A. “Choosing Teen Influence over Peer Pressure.” Family Doctor: A

Journal of the New York State Academy of Family Physicians, vol. 5, no. 3, Winter

2017, p. 35. EBSCOhost,

search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=rzh&AN=121193358&site=ehost-live
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