Before I start listing these things, I want to clarify that my elementary, middle and high school teachers taught me a lot of things. There is a lot I’ve taken with me in my career as a PR/marketing professional. (But, that’s for a later post.)
This post is going to be about those things that we, are most of us, had to learn in school, and were told were so important. Our teachers used to tell us that if we didn’t know these things, we were ultimately going to flunk out of life. These seven things I’m about to list I’ve never used in college or to date in my career.
1. Cursive
In second and third grade, all my teachers made me use cursive for everything. They always said you will have to use cursive for everything in high school, in college and your career. I can safely say now that aside from my signature, I’ve never used cursive since my elementary school years.
2. Long Division
Long division was one of the fundamental learning blocks of third grade. If could do long division, you were put in the smart math group. If you couldn’t, you were placed in the “slow” group. Thankfully, nowadays we have calculators that do this kind of stuff for us.
3. Physics
As a PR/marketing professional, I’ve never had that “AHA moment” where I went, “Gosh, all those hours close to tears stressing about my next Honors Physics test were worth it.” The only thing I got out of that class was having an amazing, awe-inspiring teacher, who was super patient about explaining all these stuff to me numerous times until I somehow learned enough of it to pass the class. Thank you, Mr. Legare. (Sidenote: Since I know, I didn’t say it enough in high school. You definitely were one of my favorite teachers as well as a mentor.)
4. How To Use A Compass and Protractor
Remember, geometry class? I remember spending several weeks perfecting my compass and protractor skills. I’m not sure why. I’ve never used them since 9th grade.
5. How To Use A Library Card Catalog
The Dewey Decimal system. I was actually really good at this in elementary school. I could find any book in the school library in no time flat. Too bad, I’ve probably forgotten all of this. Thanks to a little thing called a computer.
6. Formatting A Floppy Disc
Floppy Discs were all the rage when I was in elementary and middle school. Then, CDs and later flash drives, which were millions of times more powerful, came around and floppy discs went out the window.
7. Dissecting A Fetal Pig
In 9th grade, I literally had nightmares every night for a month during our hands-on biology dissection unit. For what? I have no idea what I learned from sitting in a lab room that reaked of death and Formaldehyde examining organs from a dead stillborn pig.
