Some life lessons are best learned by doing, not by seeing or hearing.

Just ask the group of Vidalia High School teens with weary eyes and sore arms.

Students in Sharon Patrick’s parenting class spent the weekend experiencing their homework first hand.

Patrick sent her students home with mechanical babies so life-like they almost warrant a Social Security number.

The babies cry, eat, fill their diapers and respond to attention just like the real thing. A computer chip inside records exactly how “mommy” and “daddy” respond.

Students were responsible for the babies for five days — and long nights.

And we’re sure more than a few teens walked away with a new understanding for what their parents have done and a new respect for what bad choices could mean for their own lives.

Such simple, and even fun, school exercises bring reality to life for impressionable teens. These lessons take away the textbooks and tablets and teach by experience.

Math and English matter, but life lessons carry consequences that pop quizzes don’t.

Patrick and Vidalia High School have the right idea. We hope all of our local schools will consider new ways to teach not just long division, but life.