Skills that should be a minor but compulsory element of Leaving Cert

We call it Scouting....if you want your children to have all the attributes and skills described here - get them involved!

First Aid - Check
Personal Safety - Check
Food/nutrition - Check
Budgeting - Check
Philosphy/Spirituality - Check
Water Activities - Check
Civic/Community Responsibility - Check
Sewing - Check
Public Speaking - Check
 
Re scouts - if all parents could be trusted to send kids there (& there were enough places) then ok, problem solved.

However the best chance of "coverage" is at leaving cert stage.
 
How to mend a fuse, paper a wall, cook on a budget, know your consumer rights.


Oh, and how to assemble flatpack furniture.
 
We call it Scouting....if you want your children to have all the attributes and skills described here - get them involved! ...
There's the answer - make scouting / sea-scouting / guiding / Order of Malta / Red Cross membership obligatory from primary school onwards until such time as proficiency badges in relevant areas are obtained; further membership and participation are optional but (like doing your Honours Maths through Irish years ago) additional credits could be earned through involvement in community initiatives.

Thirsty, my congratulations on a brilliant Big Idea.
 
Some skills suggested by Robert Heinlein:

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."


I'm certain we can fit these into the Leaving Cert. [Personally, I've never had the opportunity to butcher a hog.]
 
Who's he when he's at home?
Probably some kind of weird American science fiction author; to me he sounds like the rarest of all beasts, a Goddam New Age Hippy Red Neck.

One his vilest creations Gok Wan, pollutes Channel 4 from time to time.
 
Being made to learn knitting/sewing etc at school ( well it was either that or Irish dancing) has led to a lifelong aversion to any kind of sewing etc. I would only sew on a button if absolutely forced to do so.

My God woman, how can you leave the house with you head held high?!
 
Daniel Cohn-Bendit, current Green Party member and MEP, he and his university pals were the catalysts (some would argue the agitators) for the riots that engulfed parts of Paris in May-June 1968. What started out as a kind of minor student protest snowballed into a city-wide face-off between DeGaulle and his "leftist" opposition. So be careful what ye say about Eamonn Ryan

http://www.answers.com/topic/daniel-cohn-bendit