When I think back to my public school education, I try to determine how it prepared me for my life. What was the one class I took that was pivotal in making me a successful adult?
My success can't be due to math classes. In fact, I have a confession to make. I still haven't memorized the multiplication tables. The system I use, is to pick an easy number, and work from there. So if you ask me what is 7 times 7, I don't pull the answer from memory. I know that 6 times 6 is 36, so 6 times 7 is 42, because if I add another 6 to 36, I have 42. If I add 7 to that, the answer is 49, which is the same as 7 times 7. I can also work with large numbers this way. My system relies on a broad view, not on the details of the numbers.
When I was attending college, calculators were allowed in math tests, but not notes. So I would use a scientific calculator, and save the equations in the text function. I had a hard time memorizing long equations. When I sat for my Project Management Professional certification, I memorized the equations, and as soon as I sat down, I wrote them on the index cards provided by the test monitor. Whenever I need them now, I reach up to my bookshelf and look them up. Some would argue that I may not have a calculator at the moment I need to do the math, and memorizing the equation helps you better understand why the calculation is the way it is. This may be a valid point. If this issue comes up once in my life, I will reconsider memorizing the equations.
Some people refer to the above approaches as common sense. Which is something we don't seem to teach anymore. We line kids up in rows, and teach them all the same stuff. Our focus appears to be on having children pass standardized tests, but life isn't standard. Life is far from standard.
I slept through English. My vocabulary and grammar are honed from a voracious appetite for reading. I'll read a cereal box at breakfast if there's nothing else handy. Make me pancakes and invite me over, you can see for yourself. Ask anyone who knows me. I read. And then I read some more. Now I also write, which is very similar to reading.
In many ways we have a world of knowledge at our fingertips. We are able to quickly find answers to the most trivial questions within seconds by using our cell phones. Is your refrigerator broken? Look up the solution online. Do you have an ache or a pain? Look it up. We can scare ourselves half to death by typing our symptoms into WebMD. Admit it. You've done this. I have.
Before computers, books were our sole source of information. Many of us would walk to the library, search the index cards for the subject we wanted to learn about, write down the book location on a scrap of paper using a stubby pencil, and wander off down the aisles hoping to find the book we needed.
Before libraries, it was even harder to retain knowledge, since books were expensive and heavy. Of course our ancestors lived in a primarily agrarian society, so all they needed to know was what a weed looked like, and what was a vegetable. No one had to find a book to figure out how to kill a deer for food. Life was simpler.
Before a written language became common, many civilizations used songs to transfer information. The Mongols had a simple tune (sometimes called a ditty) they used, and would just add verses with the information they wanted to transmit. Everyone knew the tune, and the new orders were communicated by having the messengers learn the new verses.
Some historians think the tune they used was actually the Flintstones theme song. Imagine that bad song plant. Endless hours of riding horses across the steppes, marauding, killing, sending refugees running in fright, with the Flintstones running through your head. "Kill them, just kill them, we're a modern marauding family. From the, town of ..." you get it. (This song will now be in your head for a few hours. Thank me.) Years of this song would make you hungry for warfare also. The birth of the printed word has almost ended all of that.
So as I think about this more, what was the single best class I took? What time investment did I make in K-12 that made the largest impact on my life? Besides lunch, I'd say it was typing. These days it is called keyboarding, but when I was in school, computers were ... different than that they are today. I am now able to bang out a quick e-mail, text message, or blog. I can almost type... I mean keyboard, as fast I think. Well, almost.
What was your most valuable class from growing up? Feel free to comment. And if you like this post, please subscribe using the buttons on the right, and share with your social circle using the buttons below. Your friends will thank you, and think you are real smart.
____________________
When I was attending college, calculators were allowed in math tests, but not notes. So I would use a scientific calculator, and save the equations in the text function. I had a hard time memorizing long equations. When I sat for my Project Management Professional certification, I memorized the equations, and as soon as I sat down, I wrote them on the index cards provided by the test monitor. Whenever I need them now, I reach up to my bookshelf and look them up. Some would argue that I may not have a calculator at the moment I need to do the math, and memorizing the equation helps you better understand why the calculation is the way it is. This may be a valid point. If this issue comes up once in my life, I will reconsider memorizing the equations.
Some people refer to the above approaches as common sense. Which is something we don't seem to teach anymore. We line kids up in rows, and teach them all the same stuff. Our focus appears to be on having children pass standardized tests, but life isn't standard. Life is far from standard.
I slept through English. My vocabulary and grammar are honed from a voracious appetite for reading. I'll read a cereal box at breakfast if there's nothing else handy. Make me pancakes and invite me over, you can see for yourself. Ask anyone who knows me. I read. And then I read some more. Now I also write, which is very similar to reading.
In many ways we have a world of knowledge at our fingertips. We are able to quickly find answers to the most trivial questions within seconds by using our cell phones. Is your refrigerator broken? Look up the solution online. Do you have an ache or a pain? Look it up. We can scare ourselves half to death by typing our symptoms into WebMD. Admit it. You've done this. I have.
Before computers, books were our sole source of information. Many of us would walk to the library, search the index cards for the subject we wanted to learn about, write down the book location on a scrap of paper using a stubby pencil, and wander off down the aisles hoping to find the book we needed.
Before libraries, it was even harder to retain knowledge, since books were expensive and heavy. Of course our ancestors lived in a primarily agrarian society, so all they needed to know was what a weed looked like, and what was a vegetable. No one had to find a book to figure out how to kill a deer for food. Life was simpler.
Before a written language became common, many civilizations used songs to transfer information. The Mongols had a simple tune (sometimes called a ditty) they used, and would just add verses with the information they wanted to transmit. Everyone knew the tune, and the new orders were communicated by having the messengers learn the new verses.
Some historians think the tune they used was actually the Flintstones theme song. Imagine that bad song plant. Endless hours of riding horses across the steppes, marauding, killing, sending refugees running in fright, with the Flintstones running through your head. "Kill them, just kill them, we're a modern marauding family. From the, town of ..." you get it. (This song will now be in your head for a few hours. Thank me.) Years of this song would make you hungry for warfare also. The birth of the printed word has almost ended all of that.
So as I think about this more, what was the single best class I took? What time investment did I make in K-12 that made the largest impact on my life? Besides lunch, I'd say it was typing. These days it is called keyboarding, but when I was in school, computers were ... different than that they are today. I am now able to bang out a quick e-mail, text message, or blog. I can almost type... I mean keyboard, as fast I think. Well, almost.
What was your most valuable class from growing up? Feel free to comment. And if you like this post, please subscribe using the buttons on the right, and share with your social circle using the buttons below. Your friends will thank you, and think you are real smart.
____________________
Interesting theses. As I reflect on my own educational experiences, probably the most useful course of my K-12 experience was physics. The physical world just makes sense. Common sense; more so than humans who purport to venerate it. My work career was as an applied practical physicist. (Controls systems tech). Still like to study how things work.
ReplyDeleteOf course the basis of all educational experience is reading. I would classify that as a life skill similar to walking and dressing myself, but I guess that could be considered a course. I would consider being guided to be a critical thinker in the same vein. I never considered that course material until I read recently that 63% of college graduates cannot discern the difference between fact and opinion.
When I went off to Rutgers in 1962 my dad advised me that if I came home with my common sense educated out of me he would kick my ass. I managed to escape institutions of higher "learning" without that becoming a necessity. Three times. Rutgers in '62, Coast Guard Academy in '63 and William Paterson in '70. (To be honest I must admit that the Thames River School for Wayward Boys probably would have never educated common sense to extinction. Seafaring life doesn't work that way.)
To quote Ted Nugent, "I was too busy learning stuff to go to college."
I'm pretty sure I learned to read before I started school. I'll have to ask my siblings.
ReplyDeleteYou point to a sad fact. Common sense isn't common. My honey knows someone who took their car to the dealer because the low tire pressure light came on in his car. He wasn't sure what to do.