What plumbing teaches that calculus can’t » Anand Sanwal

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List of 23 practical skills students should learn Basic car maintenance and emergency handling Essential household plumbing Electrical safety and basics Clothing maintenance Wall repair and mounting Like this:

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Below I offer a list of skills I believe our schools should teach – ranging from changing a tire to learning how to plunge a toilet to how to cook yourself a healthy meal.

But before that list, let’s discuss why it’s important to learn these practical skills.

When I was in high school, we spent countless hours memorizing the quadratic formula and analyzing Shakespeare’s sonnets. Yet I never learned how to change a flat tire or fix a leaking faucet. This might seem like a trivial observation—after all, isn’t academic knowledge what school is for? But this dichotomy between “academic” and “practical” knowledge reveals a fundamental misunderstanding about how people learn and develop intelligence.

The traditional view of education often creates a false hierarchy:

Academic subjects at the top…

and practical skills at the bottom.

This hierarchy persists partly because we’ve inherited a medieval university system that valued abstract thinking over practical knowledge, and partly because it’s easier to test and grade academic subjects.

John Dewey, the influential educational philosopher and author of the excellent Education and Experience, pointed out this exact issue nearly a century ago. He argued that we’ve created a false dichotomy between “academic” and “practical” knowledge, mistakenly equating abstract with rigorous and concrete with simple. This belief, he noted, ignores how scientific knowledge itself emerged from practical problem-solving.

The steam engine preceded thermodynamics, not the other way around.
The Wright brothers weren’t theoretical physicists—they were bicycle mechanics who understood how things worked in practice.

Robert Sternberg’s triarchic theory of intelligence provides a useful framework here.

He argues that intelligence comprises three aspects:

analytical (traditional academic intelligence)
creative (ability to deal with novel situations)
practical (ability to adapt to real-world contexts)

What’s fascinating about the interplay between these intelligences, i.e. practical skills don’t just develop practical intelligence—they enhance all three aspects simultaneously.

Consider what happens when a student learns to change a flat tire.

They’re learning about torque and leverage—fundamental concepts in physics—in a visceral way.
When they discover why lug nuts must be tightened in a star pattern, they’re understanding force distribution and structural integrity.
The process of safely jacking up a car becomes a lesson in center of gravity and load-bearing—concepts that engineers grapple with daily.
Even the simple act of checking tire pressure introduces them to the relationship between temperature and pressure that forms the basis of thermodynamics.

Similarly, when students learn basic electrical repairs, they’re not just learning how to replace an outlet—

They’re developing an intuitive understanding of circuit theory.
The process of identifying a blown fuse or tracing a circuit teaches boolean logic and systematic debugging—skills crucial in computer science and engineering.
When they learn about wire gauge and load capacity, they’re engaging with concepts of resistance and current flow that most students struggle to grasp in abstract physics lessons.

Some parents argue that practical skills should be taught at home. In principle, they’re right. But principles don’t change tires or unclog toilets. The reality is that many parents either lack these skills themselves or don’t have or make the time to teach them systematically. More importantly, teaching these skills in school doesn’t prevent parents from teaching them at home—it ensures that all students have access to this knowledge, regardless of their home situation.

This brings us to the question of teacher burden. Critics will argue that teachers are already overwhelmed and adding practical skills to the curriculum would only make things worse. But this argument misses two key points.

First, many of these skills were traditionally taught in home economics and shop classes—we’re not inventing new subjects, we’re restoring valuable ones that were cut.

Second, this isn’t necessarily about adding to the curriculum, but about reallocating time more effectively.

Let’s be honest: how many adults regularly use their knowledge of cellular mitosis or the ability to factor polynomials or how to ask someone their name in Spanish? Now compare that to the number of times they’ve needed to reset a circuit breaker or fix a running toilet. This isn’t to say that academic subjects aren’t important, but rather that we need to question our assumptions about what knowledge is truly essential and that just because it’s academic doesn’t inherently make it rigorous and useful as Dewey rightfully questioned.

Teaching practical skills also creates natural opportunities for community engagement. Local plumbers, electricians, restaurant chefs and mechanics can serve as guest instructors, creating valuable connections between schools and their communities. This isn’t just about learning skills—it’s about helping students understand and see different forms of expertise.

There’s another, subtler benefit to teaching practical skills: they build what psychologists call self-efficacy—the belief in one’s ability to handle challenges.

When students successfully fix something for the first time, they experience a unique kind of confidence. This confidence tends to generalize, making them more likely to tackle other challenges, both practical and academic.

The irony is that many educators and parents who dismiss practical skills as “non-academic” are often the same ones who emphasize the importance of problem-solving and critical thinking. Yet practical skills provide some of the best opportunities to develop these very abilities. When you’re trying to figure out why a drain is clogged or how to properly anchor a heavy mirror, you’re engaging in exactly the kind of systematic problem-solving we claim to value.

Some might argue that students can learn these skills from YouTube when they need them. While online resources are valuable, they’re no substitute for hands-on learning with experienced guidance. Moreover, waiting until you have an emergency to learn essential skills is like waiting until you’re in a car accident to learn how to drive.

The real question isn’t whether we should teach practical skills in schools—it’s why we ever stopped.

In our rush to prepare students for an increasingly digital and knowledge-based economy, we’ve forgotten that even in the most advanced societies, things still break, clothes still tear, and pipes still leak. By teaching practical skills, we’re not just preparing students for these inevitable challenges; we’re helping them develop the confidence, problem-solving abilities, and mental models that make them better learners in all domains.

Maybe it’s time to recognize that the distinction between “academic” and “practical” knowledge is itself impractical—a relic of an educational philosophy that never really understood how people learn and develop. The sooner we embrace this reality, the better equipped our students will be for both the practical and intellectual challenges they’ll face in life.

List of 23 practical skills students should learn

Here’s my list of 23 valuable practical skills that I think we should teach all kids before they graduate high school.

(Note: I also think financial literacy is critical. In this list, I’ve focused on more physical world challenges/skills. Also, I’m not sure you can teach financial literacy really well in an abstract theoretical manner but that’s a topic for a different essay)

Basic car maintenance and emergency handling

Changing a flat tire and jumpstarting a battery
Checking/maintaining proper tire pressure
Checking oil levels and recognizing concerning engine sounds
Installing basic accessories like wipers and air filters

Essential household plumbing

Using a plunger and auger effectively for different types of clogs
Shutting off water at various points (toilet, sink, main)
Replacing a toilet flapper/fill valve
Unclogging sink traps and dealing with slow drains
Finding and addressing minor leaks

Electrical safety and basics

Resetting circuit breakers and identifying overloaded circuits
Installing light fixtures and ceiling fans
Basic wire safety and using a voltage tester
Replacing outlets and switches safely

Clothing maintenance

Sewing buttons and repairing small tears
Removing different types of stains
Properly washing different fabric types
Basic ironing and garment care
Hemming pants/basic alterations

Wall repair and mounting

Finding studs and properly anchoring items
Patching drywall holes of various sizes
Painting prep and technique
Caulking gaps and seams effectively
Installing basic fixtures securely

If you’d add any other skills, please leave a comment with your suggestions. Or if you disagree with this ideas, please leave a comment and your logic as I’d love to hear. Thanks.

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