Tell us something you learnt in school that you have never had any use for.

Diagramming a sentence was another one of those things I was useless at...even in college I failed it two or three times. I subscribe to the Dave Barry school of writing. That is if you write well, you can go all over the map grammatically and no one will be the wiser:playful:
 
I had three years of Latin in high school. It does come in handy on occasion. My much younger sisters took a course called "Greek and Latin Derivatives" that I think was probably a lot more useful than learning how to say "All of Gaul is divided into three parts" flawlessly in Latin. ("Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres", in case you're interested.) (Yeah, I didn't think so....)
 

I never took Latin. I had 3 years of French, but can't carry on a conversation in French. I don't think I've ever diagramed a sentence. But I'm a damned good writer, and no one ever taught me that skill. In fact most of my teachers told me I was good enough to teach their class.
 
French, which I used on two short trips to Quebec. In Martinique everyone we encountered spoke good English.

At this point I know more Spanish although I never took it in school. I can buy food, a tee shirt or a tank of gas with no problem. Dos cervezas por favor.
 
Spanish. I think it's ridiculous to require a foreign language in high school and for some college majors. Most people never have the chance to use it, and what little they learn from required courses will not do them much good. I'd think differently if I lived in an area in which there were a lot of people who speak Spanish (or any language other than English) as their native language -- I can see how it would be useful then, and I'd learn to speak it fairly fluently, were that the case.
 
ronknights said:
There are so many things. I always struggled with "math." Geometry, Algebra, Trigonometry. I've never needed any of those skills in my everyday life. At one time I could handle calculations easily "in my head." I went to school in the 50s & 60s. Calculators and computers weren't around for us.

I believe I can only hold so much information in my feeble brain. I have a hard enough time remembering if I've already said "hi" to a neighbor in my building today. I haven't needed complex math for anything during most of my life's experience. And I've surely never needed all the poetry and history junk I was forced to remember and recite in school.
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True rue for most people I would say. You'd never believe I was a teacher!!!
 
WheatenLover said:
Spanish. I think it's ridiculous to require a foreign language in high school and for some college majors. Most people never have the chance to use it, and what little they learn from required courses will not do them much good. I'd think differently if I lived in an area in which there were a lot of people who speak Spanish (or any language other than English) as their native language -- I can see how it would be useful then, and I'd learn to speak it fairly fluently, were that the case.
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The only way to really learn a language is to go and live where they speak it. I've forgotten 99% of my schoolboy French.
 
Latin comes in very handy in the type of work I did, and Spanish in this area of the country is a language you see and hear every day, all day.

All I ever got out of Algebra was a really bad stomachache. My fear was that I was NEVER going to pass it and would be doomed to remain in high school forever and would still be trudging to Mr. Noel's algebra classes every day when I was 84.
 
Even though I struggled with math I understand that algebra and geometry were useful tools, with real life applications.

For algebra: to calculate "miles per gallon", or "miles per hour".

For geometry: to cut pizza into properly proportioned wedges, and....uh, well I'm not sure. Maybe to prove that the Earth is round...?
 
I hated school also. Never used the little algebra I did learn, diagramming sentences drove me crazy. Hated having to learn imports and exports of countries. They probably have changed ten times over since that time. I loved learning how to tell time because then I knew how close it was for the bell to ring.
 
Home Ec............I learned to make things I would never do in real life and have never made since. The teacher was a real sweetie but frankly looking back she was dumb as a bag full of hammers. Got married and had to face real cooking, fortunately I had been baking since I could read the recipes, and my grandma used me as a helper, you know peel things , open cans and jars, etc.
 
mrstime said:
Home Ec............I learned to make things I would never do in real life and have never made since. The teacher was a real sweetie but frankly looking back she was dumb as a bag full of hammers. Got married and had to face real cooking, fortunately I had been baking since I could read the recipes, and my grandma used me as a helper, you know peel things , open cans and jars, etc.
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Yes,mrstime. I remember Home Ec as well. I flunked sandwiches. You were suppose to butter the bread before putting in the filling, that way the bread wouldn't get soggy,so she said. I knew she was going to make me eat my sandwich which was bologna and there was no way I was going to eat butter on my bologna. She peeled back the top slice of bread,saw no butter and checked an F in her book. Thinking of it today there are several things I wish I had said to her. most would have gotten me expelled.
 
Ruth n Jersey said:
Yes,mrstime. I remember Home Ec as well. I flunked sandwiches. You were suppose to butter the bread before putting in the filling, that way the bread wouldn't get soggy,so she said. I knew she was going to make me eat my sandwich which was bologna and there was no way I was going to eat butter on my bologna. She peeled back the top slice of bread,saw no butter and checked an F in her book. Thinking of it today there are several things I wish I had said to her. most would have gotten me expelled.
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Shoot, we never made sandwiches.........We learned how to turn pears green, and how to make English toffee (I ate so much of it that I have never touched the stuff since). It would have been helpful to make sandwiches, or learned how to cook a steak, bake a potato , cook veggies. The only reason I could make a stew was I peeled and washed the veggies for grandma. After I was married I got a letter from my high school, they wanted to know how I rated their home ec classes. So I told them I didn't learn one useful thing!
 
Things I hated in school and never used in real life....

Literature. Hated the "classics" Don't know why we were made to read some of that difficult to understand garbage. I read a lot today, but won't touch a book about happenings of yesteryear.

Marching band/trombone. Never played it well. Was put into the high school marching band when in 5th grade simply because they needed bodies. When I graduated high school, never played the trombone again. Had I spent the time learning piano or guitar could have played those life long.

For all those who disliked Algebra, Geometry, Trig, etc. I never dreamed I would end up in Construction and Engineering when I was going to high school. I did enjoy math and did well in those classes. I use my math every day and have made a career out of figuring areas, circumferences, angles, arcs of circles, etc. Yes, there are phone aps, scientific calculators, and software that will do that for you today. I'm still able to do much of that in my head... or long-hand... quicker than someone can pull the ap up on their Smartphone.
 
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