When I was in elementary school we were taught how to write in cursive. We were told that as adults that's how everyone writes. It was as though printing was for children and no one would take you seriously if you didn't have nice hand writing. Really it came down to potential mockery from scribes that caused us to learn it. For me it was painful and slow. In school the focus was more on the process than anything else. It didn't matter that I had a hard time reading it, what mattered was that the N had two humps when it connected to another letter and only one hump when it ended a word. I'm not exactly sure when it happened, but at some point in school people stopped making a big deal about writing in cursive. You could if you still wanted to, but for the most part it wasn't required for assignments. Maybe it was a hold over from the previous generation because both of my parents write in cursive. Looking back at my education, there are so many things that we had to learn that have little meaning in my life today.
I'm from the last generation to know what it was like to not have computers around all the time. We used them a little bit up through middle school, but it wasn't until high school that I got any real exposure to them beyond just a novelty. So when I was taught to type it was on a typewriter, making me a part of a group of people who were probably the last to have to deal with ribbons and typebars. While learning to type someone asked the question "Why are the keys arranged in this way?". The answer we were given is that originally the keys were arranged alphabetically, but the people were typing too fast and it jammed up the typebars. To slow down typing the keys were rearranged into the layout that exists today. At the time it seemed like a good enough reason to make the change. Now I look at it as a antiquated way to get around a hardware issue that doesn't exist anymore. A computer doesn't have typebars so it doesn't matter how fast you type, it won't jam. Granted the computer will have any number of other problems, but two pieces of metal smooshed together isn't one of them. That little problem permanently changed how we do things, even though most people learning to type today have no idea why.
And speaking of computers, it used to be that if you wanted to use one you had to have some knowledge of DOS. It was the underlying architecture of that pretty little interface everyone was using. These days you could ask your basic computer user what dir means or how to use it and you'd get a blank stare back. The good news is that it's not a bad thing if you don't know DOS. It's no longer required. You can be a power user and never touch a DOS window. So what do I do with that knowledge if it's no longer necessary? It's not like you can pitch that information over the side to clear room for something else. It's up there forever, even if you can't remember it. There are so many things we're taught that end up not being used. If it were possible, ask all the people from your high school graduating class how often they use Algebra. Try even asking the people you know now. Most will probably say that they use it very little. At the time we were told that Algebra was the key to everything, but then again they had to justify it being taught for three years in high school. If you're like most of us, you can probably do simple math, but even that is being slowly replaced by those little machines we carry around in our pockets. There were several math teachers who insisted that using a calculator would essentially make your brain lazy. Turns out they were right. Most people can't figure out how to add 15% to a dinner check without the calculator on their phone.
Now I'm not saying we shouldn't be taught math, but maybe it's time to address the fact that people need to learn more practical usage of it. What good is it to teach kids the quadratic equation when they don't know how to balance their checkbook? It seems that more and more young people are entering the world ill-prepared for reality. I was talking about language recently and how the best way to really learn it is to immerse yourself in it. I took two years of German in high school. In the end I learned that not only could I not speak German if a gun was pointed at my head, I couldn't even tell you the word for gun while it was being cocked. I'm guessing a part of that was because I sat next to a hot girl so the class could have been explaining the secrets of the universe and I wouldn't have learned anything. The other part was that reading about a language in a book does very little to prepare you for how people really speak that language. Maybe it was like a taste test. You try out how the foreign language tastes in your mouth and if you want to learn more about how to speak it you'll take it in college, where the real education comes from.
When I was learning to drive my father made sure that I learned how to drive a manual transmission. It wasn't because I had to, it was more that I should know how, even if I wouldn't be using it. As it is I've been driving for over eighteen years and have only spent ten hours driving a stick shift. Obviously it turned out to be something that wasn't required in my life. It's possible that all those seemingly useless things they taught us in school were a sort of preparation. You may never use those skills, but it's important that you learn them because you never know what situation may come up that requires you to have a least a basic understanding of a specific subject matter. At least that way you have just enough knowledge to be dangerous. Imagine what our schools would be like if they taught practical knowledge rather than theoretical abstracts. Then again if they only taught practical skills and usage we might not have all the wonderful ideas that exist today. I would hope that someday we'll find equilibrium between the two schools of thought.
