Last week’s post about Ovid led to one of my readers to question me if I had other “useless information to share.” It was clear the email was meant to be humorous, but it got me thinking, “What have I learned over the years that it is now of little use or even of no use to me?” There are things like some of my Army training that I will never use again but were very important at one time. I doubt if knowing how to climb a tree is something I will ever use again. My thoughts eventually turned to things that I had learned in school. My thoughts were scattered all over the place ranging from college to grade school. It was obvious a more systematic approach was needed. I tried to think of the things I had learned in grade school. The big three from grade school would be reading, writing, and arithmetic. In various ways, all three of the subjects are something I use every day—no useless information in those three. In high school, the number of topics we studied grew. It was there that I took Latin. Even though I cannot read Latin fluently, the phrase “quid pro quo” was frequently used in the news at the start of this year. So, Latin occasionally proves useful. The same is true of chemistry. You might be on a low-sodium diet, and it is helpful to know that Baking Soda is Sodium bicarbonate.
It didn’t take me long to see that even high school classes have some utility to them. We might not use them every day, but they are occasionally handy. Can you think of some class you never used after leaving school? I can think of things that are no longer taught, such as cursive writing. With the arrival of small computers everywhere, cell phones, and home computers, keyboard skills are much more important than they were in the past. Cursive writing has less utility. I welcome your comments.
