You know what school doesn’t seem to have anymore? Shop class. Or Home Ec. Teen ‘80s movies lied to me.

I want to hit things with a hammer, darnit.

Learning how to sew a button so it doesn’t fall off sounds extremely useful as well. I’m running out of nice shirts.

And while I’m on the subject of useful things that school doesn’t teach – how, exactly, do taxes work? Or mortgages?

Can someone just make “How to Adult” a mandatory high school course?

It could teach useful stuff, like how to fix a sink or hang a shelf. Home improvement’s a big deal these days, but as shop and other construction stuff gets phased out of schools, will people still be interested in doing it? Or will it all pass to the robots who will soon become our overlords?

Admittedly, I haven’t exactly taken an exhaustive survey of all high schools in the country and whether they teach that kind of thing. But if the search rates for “how to cook” YouTube videos and “how to sew a button” sites are unusually high … that seems to say something.

There are available, and amazing and useful, courses along these lines at places like the BRCOT. Such programs are hardly widespread, regrettably, and definitely not part of the general curriculum. Which in itself could fill a whole other column, so let’s not go there right now.

Sewing and cooking and messing with wrenches and fixing things are all useful life skills. I can do … maybe two. And the messing with wrenches part is usually more likely to result in stuff getting broken.

Now to be fair, I’m not exactly expecting everyone to be a carpentry expert. And a lot of people do pick things up from their parents. But a public education in small, everyday fixes seems to be almost nonexistent.

With the economy and student debt the way it is, it might be a long time after graduation that a lot of people at my school can afford to hire a handyperson for small things. Or get clothing mended. Or afford the ingredients for a good meal that isn’t fast food.

And that in itself starts an interesting conversation about how American culture has tended toward rampant consumerism, with a “better to end than mend” mindset. It also has the potential to become a chickenand egg argument, so let’s also not go there right now.

The Internet’s influence is also worth noting, in that it does help people figure out how to do things they might not have learned otherwise. In itself, however, it’s also guilty of encouraging the idea of an informationbased economy and lifestyle, where so much can be taken care of from a phone or laptop or anything with a screen and connection.

I’m not trying to espouse Luddite ideas here, just point out that while the information superhighway is a tempting ideal, there are still sinks breaking down and buttons falling off and shelves needing fixing and cabinet hinges failing. There are still meals needing cooking and holey socks and flat tires and torn jackets. All these things haven’t gone away.

And it’s getting harder to find a class at school where it’s acceptable to hit things with a hammer.

— Nina Collay is a junior at Thornton Academy who can frequently be found listening to music, reading, wrestling with a heavy cello case, or poking at the keyboard of an uncooperative laptop.