Last week Stephen tried to convince you that Food Technology was the most important subject in school. Don’t be seduced into believing it’s smart simply because it was typed with a British accent! Clearly, the most important subject in school is Typing, which I took in the 9th grade.

My mom made me take Typing class. I was so unhappy about it and not at all dramatic. I was sure that my life was over because I was having to miss choir for the entire school year so I could take Typing.

Only 12th graders took Typing – it was an ‘easy’ A and a way to fill their schedule. My mother assured me that I would thank her one day because I would use that class more than any other. She was right and I can now thank her at 88wpm (words per minute).

Here are 3 reasons why Typing was the most important subject I ever learned about in school – and why you should encourage your youth to take it too:

1) You really do use it every day

I’m going to stick with Stephen’s analogy from the last post about not using algebraic equations like 8x + 3y -7x + 9y = 78  in everyday life (but I’m going to stray from his example in that mine is completely made up without an actual solution because I dislike math). In school and in my work, I use the skills I learned in my Typing class each and every day.

2) Coolness

Yes, my life is all about being cool, obviously. While typing doesn’t necessarily equal coolness, being able to type a perfect sentence, fast, while looking at someone else when they’re talking to you, is kinda cool to watch. Or weird. But mostly I think cool. (And probably so does Mavis Beacon. And with a cool name like that, how can she be wrong?!)

3) I don’t actually need a 3rd reason

These two are reason enough.

While Stephen is a fast typist without having Typing class, and I’m a fair cook without Food Technology, we’re not nearly as skilled as the other in our respective areas of ‘expertise.’ The important part is really that we found something useful in school and it made a major positive impact on our quality of life. So much so that we now advocate for the next generation to learn these important skills.

Math, English and Science are all very important, but so much of what you learn isn’t nearly as applicable as life skills like Typing and Cooking/Nutrition.

Question: Do you think ‘life-skill’ based classes should be added into all curricula in schools? Let us know in the comments below.

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