Oh, I forgot.
Alberta high schools have a range of courses called Career and Technology Studies. They're mostly optional, but a high school diploma requires you to have a certain amount of credits in CTS. Courses vary from high school to high school: mine had stuff like IT, design/drafting, law, psychology/sociology, business/management, career and life management, engine mechanics, metalworking/welding, carpentry, cooking/food service, tourism, forensic sciences, various art and music programs, various language and culture programs, religious studies, and agriculture/forestry/conservation.
The opportunities were there, but nobody could possibly take all of these courses like you said. There are other issues, too: when I took law it was way too in-depth for a high school course; on the other extreme, there simply wasn't enough information to fill an entire semester of psychology classes. Whether you look at the course scheduling or at the curriculum these programs are not designed to be introductory. I think they should be.
You really don't need to spend a lot of time to make someone competent at any trade at a basic level. You can do virtually anything electrical, plumbing, pipefitting or framing after 8 hours of instruction and practical work each. You can do any household tilesetting or roofing after about an hour of training. Spend an extra 16 hours on estimation and construction theory and any re-re can walk out of the class and stick a deck on the back of his house in a weekend.
I think there would be a lot of pluses to making a mandatory high school program that would teach everybody this sort of thing. Any homeowner should know how to do all of this. If you need to call a plumber to replace a toilet you should not be allowed to own a home.
Narcissistic/Histrionic personality disorders are fairly typical of the age group. I'm pretty sure that has more to do with why teenagers make a big deal out of high school.
Alberta high school is (or was, at least) exactly like this.
