I strongly agree. A lot of the "teach skills early!" advocacy seems to come from people who have little contact with teaching or teachers. Teaching someone a s

I strongly agree. A lot of the "teach skills early!" advocacy seems to come from people who have little contact with teaching or teachers. Teaching someone a skill they won't practice for 5+ years is a basically hopeless project; there's no incentive to learn it and little chance of retention if it is learned. I remember learning to balance a checkbook in 7th grade. Why? What on earth did that teach me? Certainly not how to balance a checkbook as an adult; the seven year gap between learning and having a checkbook meant I learned it from scratch as an adult, and frankly it's not a hard skill to gain without formal training. If we're going to push 'practical skills in the classroom', it ought to be done with an eye towards what's age-appropriate and likely to be retained. The same year I learned to balance a checkbook, I learned to use Microsoft Office competently, work a simplified email account, and handle basic cooking and laundry. All of those things got steady real-world practice and I retained them nicely. Instead of teaching tax returns and budgeting in middle school, I'd love to see high school students get trained in things like public speaking, studying skills, or critical reading of the news.