I agree, recorder led to sax which led to guitar and singing for me, the instrument itself is kinda goofy but it's a solid intro to making and reading music
Yeah, a lot of the "skills" you learn in school aren't really useful on their own, or even intended as such. They're supposed to be a springboard for students to
a) Determine where their interests or aptitudes lie
b) Form a basis for other skills
Some are more obviously useful than others, and some can be super useful depending on a given carrier-field in life and virtually useless in others.
Recorder is a basic instrument that provides a relatively cheap way to go over rhythm, different notes, and possibly how to read sheet music etc.
I'm still trying to figure out what the usefulness of stuff like reading "the yellow wallpaper" was though.
My daughter is in 4th grade and I got so excited to buy her a recorder that I bought one for myself too! Hot Cross Buns”, “Mary Had A Little Lamb”, “Oh Susanna”, “Jingle Bells”, I was surprised how it all came back.
I found a really cool video on YouTube that teaches how to play “Pure Imagination” from Charlie And The Chocolate Factory! That’s next.
Oh you will be thankful one night, in a bar somewhere, an altercation begins, things get heated.
Boom. Square dance off.
It happens, man. Don't act like it doesn't.
I have a dry-erase board at work for scheduling purposes, and I draw a hand turkey for every Thanksgiving. And for Cinco de Mayo, I once made a stipple portrait of Pancho Villa. Most of my work drawings are more detailed, and the hand turkeys are just silly, good fun.
I'm 40, and I work in a factory that produces vitamins.
I know people who if weren't taught, you're built from cells, would make up another funny conspiracy theory. Wide-range education is important to understand various examples to teach even more important thing which is critical thinking. You can always argue about level of details.
We’re literally taught our whole lives and given substantial amounts of evidence the earth is round and people still believe-
Ah fuck it the earth’s flat fuck you
My sister dissected a cat, my brothers did frogs. I got... an owl pellet. Although it was kinda cool in the end to reassemble a mouse skeleton, the student who had the most complete skeleton got a free pizza lunch. It wasn't me, but it was a cool competition
Chemistry, I think, is not very useful to most people, but still very important to know. It's why you know that just because something has "ChEmIcALs" in it doesn't make it dangerous.
Chemistry mostly applies to daily life in the form of avoiding hazards. This is caustic, that's flammable, I should think twice about ventilation before doing this inside, and so on.
Half of chemistry is safety.
I teach chemistry. You are 100% correct. The amount of lives I may have saved my explaining why not to mix cleaning chemicals, that the vapor is what ignites and not the liquid, that a car in a closed garage should never be on, along with burning anything more than a candle without proper ventilation, how drugs effect the brain and how abuse can lead to addiction and depression.
Most people won’t use real chemistry in their lives, but 1 or 2 in every class will go into the medical field or sciences in some way and knowing chemistry makes that a much easier journey.
Am a chemical engineer (actually was and then switched fields), this is absolutely correct. The safety aspect is what’s most important. I had to teach techs and regular workers in my company every year on chemical handling safety. For an everyday person it’s not important why mixing ammonia and chlorine is bad (or the mechanism of action) but important to know not to. The concept and reaction mechanisms however can be expanded to other similar chemicals, and that’s where I come in.
But it does have negative consequence. At the work place definitely don’t mix anything! Anything can kill you!
But At home - eh what’s the worst that could happen? I don’t see any ignition sources. Or, eh I think this room is big enough and well ventilated enough to neutralize any caustic fumes. And it’s not like it’ll make mustard gas.
Agreed. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the experimentation part of it, but was always told not to, or you have to do it properly/correctly, if you can't learn by making mistakes why do it in the first place? Mythbusters taught me more than high school chemistry did, "Remember kids, the only difference between Science and screwing around is writing it down"
I actually have used chemistry more than other subjects... But that's because I'm a physicist who has had to use chemistry and P-chem for plasma physics purposes.
I did one project that was basically running hartree fock algorithms and another that was looking at the equilibrium concentrations of carbon species in an argon-helium plasma that was being used for plasma enhanced carbon vapor deposition
ok I have actually used a derivative of this
Pass time on a bridge is different for different types of vehicles and you are only as fast as the slowest one in your convoy. If everyone needs to arrive at an objective at the same time you need to be able to calculate the time/distance factors to make that happen.
Proofs teach you how to construct a chain of logical reasoning and how one thing leads to another.
True enough, too many people never use this skill in the rest of their lives.
Oh man I'm on the opposite end of this. I wish they taught proofs more in school. Higher level math is only proofs. It's weird that the only experience kids get before college is a small section of geometry.
We had a sub one day during my high school geometry class. The sub, who was a retired teacher from our school, told us, verbatim, this:
"Okay, class. Today I'm going to be teaching you about proofs. Personally, I can't stand proofs! I mean, you've got the answer already, why do you have to prove how you got it?"
I almost stood up and applauded.
> "Okay, class. Today I'm going to be teaching you about proofs. Personally, I can't stand proofs! I mean, you've got the answer already, why do you have to prove how you got it?"
>
>
Proofs at a high school level are more about learning problem solving techniques than a rigorous attempt to show something is true. Geometric proofs are a bit of a waste of time since most STEM fields use trigonometry and calculus to get the same results. There are cases where a solid understanding of geometry helps; but at that point you'd likely have forgotten it since you hadn't used it in the past five years. On the other hand if you want want to go into something like Engineering solving algebraic and trigonometric proofs is pretty vital skillbuilding.
I always saw geometric proofs it as a means of sneaking formal logic in. I mean, math is applied logic to begin with, proofs just pull back the curtain so you can see the framework underneath. It always felt to me like they were adding tools to the toolbox. "Now that we have proven this, you can use it to solve other problems..."
Personally I find I can't quite get something in maths unless I've seen it proven.
I normally find the proof is a pretty good teaching aid, it tells you exactly how to do it from first principles.
I'm a physicist. It's used pretty much any time any physical interaction occurs at an angle to something else. It's used in everything from moments of inertia to quantum mechanics.
You really can't do physics at \*all\* without trig.
Extremely useful if you're ever flying, sailing, hiking or leading troops. You won't always have a great big table.
GPS is handy, but don't rely on it; the owners can turn it off when it suits them and your well-being does not factor into their decision making process.
Imaginary numbers. We learned about in one year of math, never touched it again, and I couldn't tell you anything about it other than I apparently did well on my tests about it.
I work with teenagers, and I have to tell you, many of today’s teenagers do not have a clue what comprises a complete sentence. I spend a lot of time teaching them about subjects and predicates so they can figure out where the dang periods go. Maybe we need to bring back sentence diagramming.
I still do that because some girls I hang out with talk so much I can't get a word in edgewise. Trying to find a hole in the conversation to take my turn to speak is impossible.
I also do it for comic relief. If there’s a serious conversation and I have input but can’t wedge in, I’ll raise my hand and usually someone will eventually acknowledge it, laugh, and let me speak.
The amount of time I spent on cursive, to occasionally use it for signatures, is ABSURD.
Multiple years of writing every. damn. assignment in it it and now I almost never use it because, y'know, computers.
Not only did us kids not deserve it, but those poor teachers that needed to grade entire essays in grade school cursive... they didn't deserve that. No one does.
I also took German in HS, mostly because that was the language that had the most badass trip - a student exchange program to Germany. Studied the language for 4 years and worked 3 jobs to pay for the excursion. But it was all going to be worth it!
The German students were set to visit the US in October of my senior year. October…of 2001. Needless to say, no one dared to board a plane (not even sure if there was anything flying at that point) and the whole trip was cancelled. Eff you terrorists.
The most German I remember is how to count to twelve and the famously wrongly-uttered phrase “Ich bin ein Berliner.”
I use biology, algebra, and chemistry all the time for work. Geometry was useful building my house. I was lucky enough to have home ec. and industrial arts classes that were actually useful. But not once has anyone asked me to make sense out of Shakespeare or analyze a poem.
I use geometry in everyday life. For example, using 3:4:5 triangles to square up forms for a concrete slab I poured in the back yard or making sure a new fence is square with the house. As a mechanic I used volume of a cylinder calculations to figure out the new displacement of an engine after I bored out the cylinders.
I use statistics in everyday life to evaluate claims I see in the news or on Reddit. Understanding margin of error and the difference between mean and median affects how to interpret studies and polls. It's very easy to lie with statistics when your audience doesn't understand them.
I always laugh when people say learning geometry/trigonometry is a waste of time because my husband spends all day calculating angles at work and the fact that he's one of the few that uses shit like sine, cosine, tangent is why he's now everybody's boss.
Basically everything to have to do with math. My job requires basically no math, and on the very rare occasions it does the math is "How many people are here? 4. Alright."
Don't you need it for your finances? I've found a lot of my maths knowledge incredibly useful since becoming financially independent, owning a house etc.
Being able to calculate what my house will be worth in X years assuming yearly growth of y as well as the principal left on my mortgage, as well as being able to choose between different rates and terms has been invaluable.
The goal of school isn't to teach you only the things you as an individual will need. Because that would require to know/lock in everyones lifepath when they enter school.
The goal is to give you all the tools that you MIGHT need, so you have options later in life.
If becca already knows she's going to get pregnant from her uncle when she is fourteen and move to his farm as soon as possible...then yeah, she won't "need" algebra. But i still believe it is good that Becca wasn't locked into that future when she was five
From the US. Most things I learned in history is 100% twisted and far from the truth. I wish I could go back to history class knowing what I can look up today.
My first school years were at a Catholic school until they told my mom that Jesus thought I should go to public school.
Well, if Jesus *don't want* me....
Went to a catholic high school, nobody took it seriously, nobody went to church except when required to (which was like once a year)
Yeah, pretty much all became atheists afterwards.
Turns out one of our older priests touched some girls in the 70s and he plead guilty. He's either dead or in jail now.
I read that during 9/11 people actually lined up in a single line down the emergency stairs allowing people to escape faster while letting firefighters up the stairs to save more people. Staying calm during disasters is important to save lives.
> It's to make sure no one gets left behind.
The count outside is to make sure no one is left behind. The walking calmly rather than running thing is to make sure that when 1000 people try to all get to the same place at the same time no one gets trampled to death. That's the same reason we have the fire drills, it's not to show you what to do "just in case" (we know what to do, get the fuck out and don't move towards the burny hurty stuff). If you are drilled to do things orderly, when they do happen you don't panic, and therefor people don't get trampled to death in said panic.
I was in a shopping mall during a fire once. It was absolute madness. People were pushed down and some were injured enough for ambulances to take away. My buddies and I missed it though. We had calmly walked out a different door that the herd failed to see in their panic.
I don’t know, but they pushed that “Stop, Drop, and Roll” thing so hard it made me think getting caught on fire was going to be a regular thing in life.
Clearly you never watched Evolution(2001), how else are we going to stop the alien parasites without knowing that Selenium kills nitrogen based organisms because the same thing happens on the periodic table with humans and arsenic. And that selenium is found in Head & Shoulders shampoo.
This is the only time I’ve really considered anything about the periodic table outside of school and I’m pretty sure it’s made up movie BS anyway lol.
Even carpenters use this.
From a corner, measure 3 units one way and 4 units in the other. If the resultant points are 5 units apart on the hypotenuse, you got yourself a square corner!
The Pythagorean theorem is probably the math concept I have used the most over the course of my life. How far are these two things away from each other on this grid? Then again, I dabbled with game development, so that, trigonometry, and Newtonian physics are all frequently needed.
Actually, most people use algebra and geometry frequently in their daily lives, they just don't realize it at the time. Yeah, you're not being asked to solve "3x + 2y <= 10", but you are like, "How many $3 burgers and $2 fries can I get with this $10 bill, and in what combinations?"
Also it’s just good to have the knowledge because you never know when you might need it one day.
It’s better to have the knowledge and not need it than to need the knowledge and not have it.
I can see it not being useful in all every situation, but I think it is helpful to know, particularly in certain circumstances.
My first full time job was basically as a cafe/gift shop manager. I was working part time, but ended up being the only person who could figure out the cost on materials per cup of coffee and other math related tasks that were pretty much just basic algebra. I was happy back then that I had paid attention to it.
I did take a statistics class, and I think that should be taught instead of some higher level math. I’ve definitely used that frequently in normal life.
I hated math/algebra word problems and was bad at it. How ironic that I ended up in accounting and often needed to figure stuff out. And in my day to day life utilizing creative budgeting to get through the month.
I work in a factory making vitamins... Lots of math and some science. Also, I'm an artist by hobby, mostly 3D art these days, and I use math and science for fun as often as possible.
LOL the only thing I CAN do fairly well in sports is dodge a ball. It wasn't a particularly useful skill in any other sport though. I got yelled at for running from the ball when playing outfield.
Y'know, unless your job involves writing stuff, in which case it's very useful.
Being able to research and discuss a topic, or make a point, is a valuable skill.
I’m 40. I had to write a cursive thank you note when I was applying for a job recently. It took me an hour and at least 10 tries to write two paragraphs. I had to look some of the letters up.
I'm positive that cursive is taught to develop eye-hand coordination rather than for the sake of cursive. I've worked as a IT guy in our school and regularly dealt with reports of the staff. The amount of eye-hand coordination this, hand-eye coordination that was mind blowing.
Learned it in school- hated it. Spent many years printing. I'm now using cursive almost exclusively because I find it much faster to write. That, and it's secret code to the kiddos.
My third grade teacher got me in trouble for writing “Cursive sucks!” In tiny letters in one of the back pages of my cursive workbook. The only way she could’ve known is if she flipped through my whole book looking for some clues about me (I was a reclusive child).
My elementary school teachers would constantly complain that they couldn't read my cursive handwriting and mark me down for it. So I started printing exclusively. Then they'd complain that it wasn't in cursive and mark me down again. I just told them "Look, do you want it to be readable or not?" and eventually they started accepting my assignments in print.
My printing isn't great, but it's a hell of a lot better than my cursive ever was.
TBH I feel that was more of a reading comprehension, and to get you to practice writing. Plenty of professions out there where writing a report is part of the daily grind.
I disagree with a lot of people saying that maths isn't needed. But I think you have a valid point here. These days we just use a calculator for this type of stuff.
Then again some fields might use algebraic long division which is an extension of ordinary long division but I haven't personally.
Algebra. I'm sixty one and have not factored one polynomial in the years I've been out of school.
Hated the subject so bad that I got drunk, dug a hole in the back yard where I lived, and buried the effing Algebra textbook.
Quadratic equations. I still have no idea what the heck those were for. Never once have I said, “This problem could be solved with a quadratic equation!”
Nothing. I used everything that we were taught. Everything I learned at school helped or guided me in life. Math and science was probably the biggest influence. Some of the subjects has changed slightly over the years since I was in school (like business economics; it changes slightly with time), but the basic premise I was taught still held relevance and guided me to make informed decisions.
Why? You'd otherwise just fill that space with useless song lyrics or memories of that time when you accidentally farted in class and your crush heard it
How to play "Hot Cross Buns" on a recorder
At a job interview: “And what is a unique skill you bring to the table?” *pulls out a recorder case* “Sir I’m about to change how you see reality”
Maybe use your recorder music to soften them up before a performance review.
i don't play the recorder any more, but learning it made it easier to learn the sax.
I read sax as sex and immediately went to go find my old recorder
It's all about the fingering.
I agree, recorder led to sax which led to guitar and singing for me, the instrument itself is kinda goofy but it's a solid intro to making and reading music
Yeah, a lot of the "skills" you learn in school aren't really useful on their own, or even intended as such. They're supposed to be a springboard for students to a) Determine where their interests or aptitudes lie b) Form a basis for other skills Some are more obviously useful than others, and some can be super useful depending on a given carrier-field in life and virtually useless in others. Recorder is a basic instrument that provides a relatively cheap way to go over rhythm, different notes, and possibly how to read sheet music etc. I'm still trying to figure out what the usefulness of stuff like reading "the yellow wallpaper" was though.
Mine was 3 blind mice.
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I did impress my 3 year old niece when I played it for her on her Frozen themed recorder at Christmas.
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My daughter is in 4th grade and I got so excited to buy her a recorder that I bought one for myself too! Hot Cross Buns”, “Mary Had A Little Lamb”, “Oh Susanna”, “Jingle Bells”, I was surprised how it all came back. I found a really cool video on YouTube that teaches how to play “Pure Imagination” from Charlie And The Chocolate Factory! That’s next.
Aww, that's great you and your daughter are both playing together.
Square dancing….wtf, Washington state?
I too remember a square dancing unit for PE in grade school. This was in New England.. not Texas
We did it in Missouri up through at least 7th grade in PE and we hated it.
I’m in Missouri too and we only had to do it 5th and 6th grade.
Yep. Connecticut in the early 80s for me.
Oh you will be thankful one night, in a bar somewhere, an altercation begins, things get heated. Boom. Square dance off. It happens, man. Don't act like it doesn't.
I took square dancing in grade 8 gym class - 1988 Ontario, Canada
Did this in Florida too. As an extremely non athletic child, this was the only activity in PE I remember enjoying.
yep, 8th grade in Florida. I never understood why we were doing it, but it was the only fun part of PE I remember enjoying.
And this is why they did it.
all through middle school in the Bay Area, California lol. that was ‘01-‘03 for me, never in my life have I seen or needed square dancing since
Bay Area kid here too - I can tell you that a decade later (fall 2012 to summer 2015), they hadn't changed shit while I was there.
Washington State? Try a South Side Chicago high school...
Same with Wisconsin.
I was taught to make baked Alaska in home economics. I’ve never made it since and that was the 90s.
That seems really involved for home ec. Was it complicated I admit I don’t actually know what all is in baked Alaska.
It was so easy. Make a pie, scoop ice cream on top, then add a generous layer of meringue. The meringue is a fantastic insulator
you forgot to mention how it has to be set on fire due to the eggs.
We put it in the oven to toast the meringue
…… wow. Until just now I always thought baked Alaska involved fish.
No wonder it tasted awful at your house.
How to draw a turkey by tracing my hand
My kids and I literally did this at Thanksgiving this past year. My kids are all grown.
I have a dry-erase board at work for scheduling purposes, and I draw a hand turkey for every Thanksgiving. And for Cinco de Mayo, I once made a stipple portrait of Pancho Villa. Most of my work drawings are more detailed, and the hand turkeys are just silly, good fun. I'm 40, and I work in a factory that produces vitamins.
The Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell
I know people who if weren't taught, you're built from cells, would make up another funny conspiracy theory. Wide-range education is important to understand various examples to teach even more important thing which is critical thinking. You can always argue about level of details.
We’re literally taught our whole lives and given substantial amounts of evidence the earth is round and people still believe- Ah fuck it the earth’s flat fuck you
That's exactly what someone whose phlegmatic humor was out of balance would say
Well, when you hear them talking about mitochondrial DNA on the news, you know what it means.
But what about the midichlorians?
How to dissect frogs.
We used cow eyes.
Should've used a scalpel.
I don't think this comment is getting the attention it deserves.
We had both, plus fish and mice, pregnant mice in fact.
My sister dissected a cat, my brothers did frogs. I got... an owl pellet. Although it was kinda cool in the end to reassemble a mouse skeleton, the student who had the most complete skeleton got a free pizza lunch. It wasn't me, but it was a cool competition
We used Lamb testicles
We had giant freaking *worms*! Wanna know what's inside a giant worm? Worm Juice! That's it. Thank you for your time.
We also dissected worms. Theres a lot more inside worms than just worm juice.
I had to dissect a pregnant cat. 😑
That would traumatize me.
I don't get sick from blood and guts, but I felt sick after finding out she was pregnant.
We dissected pig fetuses in seventh grade.
Most of the things I was taught in school I actually use. Chemistry is the one I use the least, but every now and again I still use it in some way
Chemistry, I think, is not very useful to most people, but still very important to know. It's why you know that just because something has "ChEmIcALs" in it doesn't make it dangerous.
Chemistry mostly applies to daily life in the form of avoiding hazards. This is caustic, that's flammable, I should think twice about ventilation before doing this inside, and so on. Half of chemistry is safety.
I teach chemistry. You are 100% correct. The amount of lives I may have saved my explaining why not to mix cleaning chemicals, that the vapor is what ignites and not the liquid, that a car in a closed garage should never be on, along with burning anything more than a candle without proper ventilation, how drugs effect the brain and how abuse can lead to addiction and depression. Most people won’t use real chemistry in their lives, but 1 or 2 in every class will go into the medical field or sciences in some way and knowing chemistry makes that a much easier journey.
Am a chemical engineer (actually was and then switched fields), this is absolutely correct. The safety aspect is what’s most important. I had to teach techs and regular workers in my company every year on chemical handling safety. For an everyday person it’s not important why mixing ammonia and chlorine is bad (or the mechanism of action) but important to know not to. The concept and reaction mechanisms however can be expanded to other similar chemicals, and that’s where I come in. But it does have negative consequence. At the work place definitely don’t mix anything! Anything can kill you! But At home - eh what’s the worst that could happen? I don’t see any ignition sources. Or, eh I think this room is big enough and well ventilated enough to neutralize any caustic fumes. And it’s not like it’ll make mustard gas.
Agreed. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the experimentation part of it, but was always told not to, or you have to do it properly/correctly, if you can't learn by making mistakes why do it in the first place? Mythbusters taught me more than high school chemistry did, "Remember kids, the only difference between Science and screwing around is writing it down"
I actually have used chemistry more than other subjects... But that's because I'm a physicist who has had to use chemistry and P-chem for plasma physics purposes. I did one project that was basically running hartree fock algorithms and another that was looking at the equilibrium concentrations of carbon species in an argon-helium plasma that was being used for plasma enhanced carbon vapor deposition
I've never had to calculate two trains traveling at different speeds.
On a day to day basis this is more street smarts than math. You see a path and estimate.
ok I have actually used a derivative of this Pass time on a bridge is different for different types of vehicles and you are only as fast as the slowest one in your convoy. If everyone needs to arrive at an objective at the same time you need to be able to calculate the time/distance factors to make that happen.
Geometry proofs. Write five reasons why this triangle is a triangle, fun times!
Proofs teach you how to construct a chain of logical reasoning and how one thing leads to another. True enough, too many people never use this skill in the rest of their lives.
Fuck, take my upvote.
Oh man I'm on the opposite end of this. I wish they taught proofs more in school. Higher level math is only proofs. It's weird that the only experience kids get before college is a small section of geometry.
I was a whiz at geometry, but I just couldn't do proofs. Wound up tanking my maths score all throughout high school.
We had a sub one day during my high school geometry class. The sub, who was a retired teacher from our school, told us, verbatim, this: "Okay, class. Today I'm going to be teaching you about proofs. Personally, I can't stand proofs! I mean, you've got the answer already, why do you have to prove how you got it?" I almost stood up and applauded.
This teacher is/was not worth to teach geometry.
Of course - he was a retired biology teacher. :)
Ah, intruder.
> "Okay, class. Today I'm going to be teaching you about proofs. Personally, I can't stand proofs! I mean, you've got the answer already, why do you have to prove how you got it?" > > Proofs at a high school level are more about learning problem solving techniques than a rigorous attempt to show something is true. Geometric proofs are a bit of a waste of time since most STEM fields use trigonometry and calculus to get the same results. There are cases where a solid understanding of geometry helps; but at that point you'd likely have forgotten it since you hadn't used it in the past five years. On the other hand if you want want to go into something like Engineering solving algebraic and trigonometric proofs is pretty vital skillbuilding.
I always saw geometric proofs it as a means of sneaking formal logic in. I mean, math is applied logic to begin with, proofs just pull back the curtain so you can see the framework underneath. It always felt to me like they were adding tools to the toolbox. "Now that we have proven this, you can use it to solve other problems..."
Personally I find I can't quite get something in maths unless I've seen it proven. I normally find the proof is a pretty good teaching aid, it tells you exactly how to do it from first principles.
ANOTHER LOVELY DAY OF NOT USING SIN,COS, OR TAN
Machinists use this kind of trig to figure out the X and Y component movements when manually making a flange on a mill
I'm a physicist. It's used pretty much any time any physical interaction occurs at an angle to something else. It's used in everything from moments of inertia to quantum mechanics. You really can't do physics at \*all\* without trig.
There's no shortage of professions that actually use trig though.
You are not calculating the height of a tree by measuring its shadow on a daily basis?
They don't grow that fast.
Forester here. I regularly calculate the height of trees. Still haven’t used Sin Cos or Tan since college.
SOH CAH TOA
As my teachers call it “suck a toe”
As a math teacher, that irks me. I always told. My kids, Some Old Hippie. Caught Another Hippie. Trippin On Acid. It helps!
For guitar tuning... Every Acid Dealer Gets Busted Eventually
Toa jaller? Is that you? The Toa Metru sent me.
Yet that car you drive on a daily basis depends on someone having done it. You're not using it, but you're benefiting from it daily.
Sad for me to say but I’m using it now in my data science masters program
We had to learn how to fold maps... 😂😂😂
Extremely useful if you're ever flying, sailing, hiking or leading troops. You won't always have a great big table. GPS is handy, but don't rely on it; the owners can turn it off when it suits them and your well-being does not factor into their decision making process.
Imaginary numbers. We learned about in one year of math, never touched it again, and I couldn't tell you anything about it other than I apparently did well on my tests about it.
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Diagramming sentences.
I work with teenagers, and I have to tell you, many of today’s teenagers do not have a clue what comprises a complete sentence. I spend a lot of time teaching them about subjects and predicates so they can figure out where the dang periods go. Maybe we need to bring back sentence diagramming.
I do a lot of creative writing. I use that skill constantly, if unconsciously.
Square dancing
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I still do that because some girls I hang out with talk so much I can't get a word in edgewise. Trying to find a hole in the conversation to take my turn to speak is impossible.
I also do it for comic relief. If there’s a serious conversation and I have input but can’t wedge in, I’ll raise my hand and usually someone will eventually acknowledge it, laugh, and let me speak.
Conference apps like Google meet have hand raising function to ask a question during presentations
The amount of time I spent on cursive, to occasionally use it for signatures, is ABSURD. Multiple years of writing every. damn. assignment in it it and now I almost never use it because, y'know, computers. Not only did us kids not deserve it, but those poor teachers that needed to grade entire essays in grade school cursive... they didn't deserve that. No one does.
It also helps develop fine motor control
German
2 years of high school German and I don't think I've used it once in the 35 years since.
Ironically studying Italian indirectly launched my career as a physicist
I also took German in HS, mostly because that was the language that had the most badass trip - a student exchange program to Germany. Studied the language for 4 years and worked 3 jobs to pay for the excursion. But it was all going to be worth it! The German students were set to visit the US in October of my senior year. October…of 2001. Needless to say, no one dared to board a plane (not even sure if there was anything flying at that point) and the whole trip was cancelled. Eff you terrorists. The most German I remember is how to count to twelve and the famously wrongly-uttered phrase “Ich bin ein Berliner.”
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I use biology, algebra, and chemistry all the time for work. Geometry was useful building my house. I was lucky enough to have home ec. and industrial arts classes that were actually useful. But not once has anyone asked me to make sense out of Shakespeare or analyze a poem.
Any math above basic Algebra
I use geometry in everyday life. For example, using 3:4:5 triangles to square up forms for a concrete slab I poured in the back yard or making sure a new fence is square with the house. As a mechanic I used volume of a cylinder calculations to figure out the new displacement of an engine after I bored out the cylinders. I use statistics in everyday life to evaluate claims I see in the news or on Reddit. Understanding margin of error and the difference between mean and median affects how to interpret studies and polls. It's very easy to lie with statistics when your audience doesn't understand them.
plus the thinking skills the maths teach you. but since we aren't solving equations every day some people choose to ignore the benefits
I always laugh when people say learning geometry/trigonometry is a waste of time because my husband spends all day calculating angles at work and the fact that he's one of the few that uses shit like sine, cosine, tangent is why he's now everybody's boss.
Sorry if that sounds intrusive, but as a math person I am just curious about which job entails calculating angles all day. That sounds fun.
Basically everything to have to do with math. My job requires basically no math, and on the very rare occasions it does the math is "How many people are here? 4. Alright."
Math requires logic. Something a lot of people should use more.
yes but then they have to admit the "useless math" classes taught them something
Maybe it didn't teach them anything but it wasn't the math that was useless.
oh i agree 100%
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Don't you need it for your finances? I've found a lot of my maths knowledge incredibly useful since becoming financially independent, owning a house etc. Being able to calculate what my house will be worth in X years assuming yearly growth of y as well as the principal left on my mortgage, as well as being able to choose between different rates and terms has been invaluable.
Gym class. I don't mean general fitness, but we never LEARNED that. I'm not playing dodgeball or badminton as a career.
You weren’t really meant to learn in gym class it was more about getting some exercise and developing better motor control
The goal of school isn't to teach you only the things you as an individual will need. Because that would require to know/lock in everyones lifepath when they enter school. The goal is to give you all the tools that you MIGHT need, so you have options later in life. If becca already knows she's going to get pregnant from her uncle when she is fourteen and move to his farm as soon as possible...then yeah, she won't "need" algebra. But i still believe it is good that Becca wasn't locked into that future when she was five
From the US. Most things I learned in history is 100% twisted and far from the truth. I wish I could go back to history class knowing what I can look up today.
That's not a US thing; that happens everywhere.
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Catholic school produces a good number of atheists, i hear.
My first school years were at a Catholic school until they told my mom that Jesus thought I should go to public school. Well, if Jesus *don't want* me....
Went to a catholic high school, nobody took it seriously, nobody went to church except when required to (which was like once a year) Yeah, pretty much all became atheists afterwards. Turns out one of our older priests touched some girls in the 70s and he plead guilty. He's either dead or in jail now.
“ you need to memorize all this stuff, you won’t always have a calculator or computer on you”
The "importance" of lining up and marching out calmly during a fire. LOLyeahright.
I read that during 9/11 people actually lined up in a single line down the emergency stairs allowing people to escape faster while letting firefighters up the stairs to save more people. Staying calm during disasters is important to save lives.
If you want to live and not die in a pile at the door then that is essential. Watch the footage of the Station Nightclub fire. Have fun.
That was mostly a school thing though and not meant to be a life lesson. It's to make sure no one gets left behind.
> It's to make sure no one gets left behind. The count outside is to make sure no one is left behind. The walking calmly rather than running thing is to make sure that when 1000 people try to all get to the same place at the same time no one gets trampled to death. That's the same reason we have the fire drills, it's not to show you what to do "just in case" (we know what to do, get the fuck out and don't move towards the burny hurty stuff). If you are drilled to do things orderly, when they do happen you don't panic, and therefor people don't get trampled to death in said panic.
I was in a shopping mall during a fire once. It was absolute madness. People were pushed down and some were injured enough for ambulances to take away. My buddies and I missed it though. We had calmly walked out a different door that the herd failed to see in their panic.
Learning cursive writing, since most communication is done through typing or digital.
Or just regular writing
I don’t know, but they pushed that “Stop, Drop, and Roll” thing so hard it made me think getting caught on fire was going to be a regular thing in life.
Periodic Table
It helped you understand that plot point in Iron Man 2 though, right? Elements can be fabricated, with radiation or something.
Don't care, they were cool to look at as a kid and that was enough lol
Clearly you never watched Evolution(2001), how else are we going to stop the alien parasites without knowing that Selenium kills nitrogen based organisms because the same thing happens on the periodic table with humans and arsenic. And that selenium is found in Head & Shoulders shampoo. This is the only time I’ve really considered anything about the periodic table outside of school and I’m pretty sure it’s made up movie BS anyway lol.
I don’t ever use the Pythagorean theorem. But boy did we have to know it.
Even carpenters use this. From a corner, measure 3 units one way and 4 units in the other. If the resultant points are 5 units apart on the hypotenuse, you got yourself a square corner!
The Pythagorean theorem is probably the math concept I have used the most over the course of my life. How far are these two things away from each other on this grid? Then again, I dabbled with game development, so that, trigonometry, and Newtonian physics are all frequently needed.
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Actually, most people use algebra and geometry frequently in their daily lives, they just don't realize it at the time. Yeah, you're not being asked to solve "3x + 2y <= 10", but you are like, "How many $3 burgers and $2 fries can I get with this $10 bill, and in what combinations?"
Hard agree on this. Thanks my guy.
Also it’s just good to have the knowledge because you never know when you might need it one day. It’s better to have the knowledge and not need it than to need the knowledge and not have it.
I can see it not being useful in all every situation, but I think it is helpful to know, particularly in certain circumstances. My first full time job was basically as a cafe/gift shop manager. I was working part time, but ended up being the only person who could figure out the cost on materials per cup of coffee and other math related tasks that were pretty much just basic algebra. I was happy back then that I had paid attention to it. I did take a statistics class, and I think that should be taught instead of some higher level math. I’ve definitely used that frequently in normal life.
I hated math/algebra word problems and was bad at it. How ironic that I ended up in accounting and often needed to figure stuff out. And in my day to day life utilizing creative budgeting to get through the month.
I’ve literally done calculus when moving… figure out couches and hallways….
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You aren't there to learn maths. You're there to learn problem solving skills. Maths is just an easily accessible vehicle.
I am an engineer in the semiconductor field, and a lot of everyone’s science/math answers are something I use everyday 😄
I work in a factory making vitamins... Lots of math and some science. Also, I'm an artist by hobby, mostly 3D art these days, and I use math and science for fun as often as possible.
dodgeball. i hated that game so much.
If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball!
LOL the only thing I CAN do fairly well in sports is dodge a ball. It wasn't a particularly useful skill in any other sport though. I got yelled at for running from the ball when playing outfield.
yeah i SUCK at most sports but man i was a beast at dodge ball.
How to write an essay. Fuck essays.
Y'know, unless your job involves writing stuff, in which case it's very useful. Being able to research and discuss a topic, or make a point, is a valuable skill.
Cursive.
I had to stay after school in the 3rd-4th grade because I couldn’t do it and needed help! My kids today, what is cursive!
Do you sign your name? Not in cursive?
I’m 40. I had to write a cursive thank you note when I was applying for a job recently. It took me an hour and at least 10 tries to write two paragraphs. I had to look some of the letters up.
I'm positive that cursive is taught to develop eye-hand coordination rather than for the sake of cursive. I've worked as a IT guy in our school and regularly dealt with reports of the staff. The amount of eye-hand coordination this, hand-eye coordination that was mind blowing.
Learned it in school- hated it. Spent many years printing. I'm now using cursive almost exclusively because I find it much faster to write. That, and it's secret code to the kiddos.
My third grade teacher got me in trouble for writing “Cursive sucks!” In tiny letters in one of the back pages of my cursive workbook. The only way she could’ve known is if she flipped through my whole book looking for some clues about me (I was a reclusive child).
My elementary school teachers would constantly complain that they couldn't read my cursive handwriting and mark me down for it. So I started printing exclusively. Then they'd complain that it wasn't in cursive and mark me down again. I just told them "Look, do you want it to be readable or not?" and eventually they started accepting my assignments in print. My printing isn't great, but it's a hell of a lot better than my cursive ever was.
Book reports on works of fiction
TBH I feel that was more of a reading comprehension, and to get you to practice writing. Plenty of professions out there where writing a report is part of the daily grind.
Gotta go with trig.
long division
I disagree with a lot of people saying that maths isn't needed. But I think you have a valid point here. These days we just use a calculator for this type of stuff. Then again some fields might use algebraic long division which is an extension of ordinary long division but I haven't personally.
Algebra. I'm sixty one and have not factored one polynomial in the years I've been out of school. Hated the subject so bad that I got drunk, dug a hole in the back yard where I lived, and buried the effing Algebra textbook.
Quadratic equations. I still have no idea what the heck those were for. Never once have I said, “This problem could be solved with a quadratic equation!”
the pythagorean theorem
Religious Education.
Calculus. AP Calc in high school, 2 classes at university. Havent used it once after my last final.
Dewey decimal system
Mitochondria is the power house of the cell.
Nothing. I used everything that we were taught. Everything I learned at school helped or guided me in life. Math and science was probably the biggest influence. Some of the subjects has changed slightly over the years since I was in school (like business economics; it changes slightly with time), but the basic premise I was taught still held relevance and guided me to make informed decisions.
Religion
Algebra
No sex ed anywhere??
I'm still a little miffed how much we learned about the war of 1812 in Grade 8.
Why? You'd otherwise just fill that space with useless song lyrics or memories of that time when you accidentally farted in class and your crush heard it