List something useful you learned after 6th grade

Log in / Sign Up

List of Forums + New Post Recipe Box Usergroups Following My Posts Bookmarks

Private Messages Advanced Search Rules New User Guide FAQ Advertise Contact Us

Forum -> Chinuch, Education & Schooling

Previous 1 2 3 Next

View latest: 24h 48h 72h

amother

Goldenrod

Thu, May 02 2024, 3:32 pm

Sounds you are more interested in common sense and not knowledge. Things your mother should teach at home, not things we pay tuition for…

amother

Maize

Thu, May 02 2024, 3:34 pm

I learned lots of halacha I didn't know before.
Shabbos: halachos of what is muktza, all about borer, cooking kli sheni, shlishi....
Kashrus: detailed halachos of basar and chalav. Pas/bishul/chalav yisroel

Chasidus- how to live as a Jew, serve Hashem with mind and heart. Doing Mitzvis for sake of Hashem, not ulterior/personal motives.
Importance of being a Jewish mother, different from the men who go to shul, get an Aliya, etc.

amother

Maize

Thu, May 02 2024, 3:36 pm

Typing! I would never have the patience to do a course on my own.
And Excel

devorah1231

Thu, May 02 2024, 3:38 pm

amother Goldenrod wrote:

Sounds you are more interested in common sense and not knowledge. Things your mother should teach at home, not things we pay tuition for…

It's an interesting point.

However I would love to hear specifics of knowledge that people use on a regular basis too. For example if you can tell me how in your field in biology you use the science you learned about the heart in high school I think that would be really cool to hear.

And I think that both the home and school should teach both knowledge and common sense.

amother

Maize

Thu, May 02 2024, 3:41 pm

I did sewing costumes for production and that has turned out pretty useful. Although I have no time/patience and have a growing pile of clothes to be mended

Rappel

Thu, May 02 2024, 3:44 pm

devorah1231 wrote:

It's occurred to me recently that pretty much everything we learned in school after 6th grade is pretty much useless information. Besides hashkafa/Judaic classes for our neshamos and maybe cpr.

The only things I really learned are things that were not on any test like

Don't use the same fork for raw and fried chicken
You are your child's best advocate (speech class)
You won't get too fat if you are never lazy (gym goodbye speech)
The hottest part of the day is around 2pm

What did you learn in the later grades?

Basic physics. The understanding of the forces acting on an object helps me with construction, movement, driving... Really, everywhere

devorah1231

Thu, May 02 2024, 3:46 pm

Rappel wrote:

Basic physics. The understanding of the forces acting on an object helps me with construction, movement, driving... Really, everywhere

That's really cool.

Ruchel

Thu, May 02 2024, 3:50 pm

English!!

Aurora

Thu, May 02 2024, 4:01 pm

I use all my liberal arts education in my job today. Smile

Hashem_Yaazor

Thu, May 02 2024, 4:38 pm

scruffy wrote:

Reading and writing, building communication and critical thinking skills.

Algebra which I actually do use in real life, and higher math in general which builds logic and abstract thinking skills.

Science including biology and chemistry.

Reading mefarshim so I can study on my own, as well as open up a halacha sefer if I need to.

Lots of halacha in general.

My 18 yo is upset that all his years of math, teachers told him he needed to know it for shopping (he'd have a calculator on his phone, he responded) or if he wants to be an architect (he'd deal with it then, he said) and he realized on his own that it really is teaching them how to think.... Why can't teachers just say they're learning math to help their brains learn how to think?!

(Pretty good realization to figure out a year and a half after leaving high school math in the dust behind him...)

Hashem_Yaazor

Thu, May 02 2024, 4:39 pm

We used calculus to figure out if our couch would fit in the rotation we needed to get into our apartment (answer: no)

It also helped me solve a few candy jar guessing contests 😂

Last edited by Hashem_Yaazor on Thu, May 02 2024, 5:06 pm; edited 1 time in total

amother

Lime

Thu, May 02 2024, 4:47 pm

In HS I learned a way to convert units without setting up a ratio and cross-multiplying. I use it all the time when comparing prices (If 52 ounces of OJ costs 3.99 and 89 ounces costs 6.99, which is the better buy?), converting recipes (the recipe calls for 250 mL juice, I'm making 1/4 the recipe and my measuring cup is in ounces, not mL), calculating servings and calories (1/12 of a 9-inch cake equals 450 calories, but my cake was only 7 inches and I had 1/16 of it) and so on and on.

Something I learned in college botany helps me produce bushier growth in my house plants. I also learned about vegetative propagation, which I use to keep my potted plants lush and to produce new plants to give away.

In grad school I learned about indoor air pollution, ventilation, and different kinds of personal protective equipment that can be used to prevent illness and injury on the job. I apply those same principles to the home environment.
The college classes I took in speech and theater helped me when I had to give presentations at work, and English classes from grade school through high school helped me develop the good writing skills that I needed at work as well. It wasn't all school--you need to read a LOT to become a good writer, and read a lot I did and do--but school gives you the knowledge to explain to others why one expression is correct and another is not. "It sounds better to me" doesn't cut it. ("It was me who did the work" sounds better than "it was I who did the work," yet the latter is the correct form.)

ETA HOW COULD I FORGET ABOUT HIGH SCHOOL SPANISH? It started when my cousin married a guy from South America who spoke no English. Continued on my job where I would have to explain things to workers who had little or no English. (Wish I had more languages under my belt, it would have helped a lot.) Continues to this day on my present job where there are some Spanish-speaking clients. Not to mention Spanish-speaking supers, delivery people and so on. And random people on the street wanting to know how to find an address or how to get to There from Here. My Spanish is pathetic, but it's a shmillion times better than no Spanish.

Comptroller

Thu, May 02 2024, 4:54 pm

Hashem_Yaazor wrote:

We used calculus to figure out if our couch would fit in the rotation of needed to get into our apartment (answer: no)

It also helped me solve a few candy jar guessing contests 😂

Calculus? How that?

amother

Gray

Thu, May 02 2024, 4:58 pm

Pretty much everything I do professionally I learned in medical training.
Also math, statistics, psychology, time management, typing (!), use of programming, socratic arguments, philosophy and ethics, law

Halacha as applied to a Jewish hone/kitchen.

Ivrit

Childcare I learned much earlier including looking after a newborn, ditto cooking/household management.

Driving

Self care

DrMom

Thu, May 02 2024, 5:00 pm

devorah1231 wrote:

I'm an engineer. Do you want me to explain how I use math and physics and engineering? It seems like a weird thing to ask.

And I cannot even begin to list how I use every single thing I've learned since the age of 11.

zaq

Thu, May 02 2024, 5:32 pm

"Used on a daily basis" is neither the definition nor the hallmark of practical knowledge, Maize. Knowing how to give CPR or use a fire extinguisher is practical knowledge that the average citizen prays never to have occasion to use on any basis, let alone a daily one. Similarly, knowing how to change a tire or fix a leaky faucet is highly practical but not something most lay people will use on a frequent basis.

zaq

Thu, May 02 2024, 5:54 pm

Geometry: How many rolls of wallpaper do I need to buy for a 10-foot by 17-foot room if the rolls are 27 inches wide and 33 feet long? How much paint do I need if a gallon covers 250 square feet and I need to apply two coats and I'm also painting the ceiling? If a recipe will fill an 8-inch round cake pan two inches deep, and I'm doubling the recipe, can I use a 9 by 13 by 3-inch pan? How about two seven-inch round pans that are three inches deep?

zaq

Thu, May 02 2024, 6:07 pm

DrMom wrote:

ITA. Many things we learned in school we don't even think about because they're the basis for what we studied later. They've become a part of us. When my employer assigned me to prepare questions for qualifying exams for certain jobs, I had to submit references showing where I got each factoid or method of solving a problem. Claiming "general knowledge that everyone in the field knows" didn't cut it. I had to go back to the books I studied and find the answers in black on white, even though some of the material was indeed "general knowledge that everyone in the field knows" simply because they use it all the time. Unless you just got out of school, you're not likely to remember when and where you learned most things.

zaq

Thu, May 02 2024, 6:08 pm

amother Gray wrote:

You learned all this in school?

corolla

Thu, May 02 2024, 6:17 pm

I learnt so much at my first job.

Time management
People skills
Organization
How to work as part of a team

Page 2 of 3

Previous 1 2 3 Next