There is a thing going around Facebook about what people did or didn’t learn in school.
The theme of the meme is about how people learn pointless things while at school but don’t learn important things like, how to pay taxes, how to vote, how to wash their hands or how to be good citizens.
It goes on to say that they did learn the Pythagorean theorem.
The fact is, when I was a student in school I learned to vote. I also learned the value of voting when my parents took me, as a child, with them when they were going to vote.
My parents also taught me how to ask questions of the candidates so that I could vote from an informed place.
No, I didn’t learn that in school.
As far as doing my taxes, I will also admit that I did not learn how to do this at school. However the funny thing is I’ve never actually done my own taxes.
It is simple to purchase a computer program that does your taxes for you. All you have to do is enter the numbers that they prompt you to enter and Bob’s your uncle, your taxes are done.
Ironically this is something that is now taught in schools.
Other things that the Facebook meme talks about not learning at school is buying a car or a house. The thing is, you actually do learn how to do this if you attend your Planning 10 or your Grad Transitions 12 classes.
The punchline to the Facebook mean is that they say “but I did learn about Pythagoras!”
Funny thing is, the Pythagoras Theory is one of the things that I did learn from high school that I’ve used in real life.
Anybody who has built anything using carpentry has benefited from knowing the Pythagoras theory.
So before you go knocking the public education system, maybe give it a rethink. Not everything needs to be taught in schools. And some of the stuff that is taught in schools is actually very important to our success.