‘Adulting’ Class at Kentucky High School Teaches Life Skills Before Students Enter Society

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“Teach me something I can use in the real world!” cries a universal faction of perennially disgruntled high school students.

Bullitt Central High School in Shepherdsville, Kentucky, is calling their bluff. In late 2018, their seniors were given the opportunity to partake in much more than just the usual classroom fare at an “Adulting Day” geared towards tips and tricks for life as a fully fledged adult.

The specially curated day consisted of 11 different workshops, each covering a specific real-world life skill. Students were invited to pick three classes to attend, with the choice of learning how to balance their check books, how to change a tire, and how to cook in a dorm room, among others. Described by Wave3, the students were invited to learn life skills through joining “intensive one-on-ones with people from our community.”

Speaking to Wave3, Christy Hardin, director of the BCHS Family Resource & Youth Services Center, explained how she organized the event after reading an eye-opening post on social media.

“I saw a Facebook post that parents passed around saying they needed a class in high school on taxes, and cooking,” Hardin shared. The idea for a day dedicated to extra-curricular life skills gained traction. “[Adulting Day] was a day they could pick and choose pieces they didn’t feel like they had gotten so far,” Hardin continued.

Devised and run to serve the future active members of the local community (that’s you, Bullitt Central High Schoolers!), it made perfect sense for the day to rope in the efforts of the current active local community to lend their skills. Guest workshop speakers included representatives from the Center for Women and Families, the U.S. Army, the Shepherdsville Police Department, and UPS.

It was gratifying to have the day so well received, not just by teachers and parents, but by the community at large. And social media, where it all began, also provided a platform for myriad messages of support and encouragement.

“Public Education has been around since the late 1800’s,” read one Twitter comment. “We wait until 2018 to teach kids about adulting. Better late than never I guess.” And the icing on the cake? A firm congratulation to the school behind the highly successful day: “Well done leading the charge, Bullitt Central High.”

In fact, the “adulting” movement is becoming so popular that one woman has actually gone so far as to co-found a school dedicated to the cause. Rachel Flehinger started an “Adulting School” in Portland, Maine, for millennials seeking valuable lessons beyond the scope of the traditional classroom.

Lessons may include “how to have a relationship, how to talk to someone,” Flehinger told CBS. Even “conflict resolution–how not to fight.”

Flehinger launched online classes in December of 2018.

A CBS New York report detailed some fascinating statistics about the growing need for classes such as these. In 2015, the U.S. Census Bureau recorded that 34 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 and 34 still lived with a parent, indicating an 8 percent rise since 2005. Demographer Jonathan Vespa commented that for this age group, living with parents was “more common than living with roommates and more common than living with a spouse.”

In that case, adulting classes can’t come a moment too soon, and Bullitt Central High School is way ahead of the trend. How long until high schools everywhere are offering extra-curricular “Adulting Days” of their own?

It’s never too late!