Out of Everything You Learned in School ...

Probably basic arithmatic, I occasionally use maths that is A-level and beyond in work, but doing simple sums in your head is way more useful day-to-day. Grammar is also useful, I wish I knew more. In the end the most useful things learned at school were not taught in any lesson but came as a consequence of having to get along with a few hundred other kids.

I have to agree with you Karl, the times table I use on a daily basis, oh and not to masturbate in old Ma Simpsons class. Now Mr. Pearson in P.E. positively encouraged it, he even gave up his time to join you in the showers, and show you the best technique. Ah you don't get teachers like that these days. Such committment.

algebra, definately, but only once i saw it for what it is which is a problem solving device. It's all about boiling things down to come to a simpler and easier version of the same problem until you suddenly go, "oh, it's simple really, x equals 'talk to such a person', or x equals 'pull this lever' or x equals 'whatever the hell it has to equal'." It just helps you get rid of the unnecessary garbage that clings to most situations like weeds on fishing line and see it simply.

Of all the things I learned, typing is the only one still used. At the time, subjects dealing with numbers were my favorites, but now that i spend my days banging out petitions and briefs, its for the typing I'm most thankful. Ironic twist: I can't type numbers without looking...

My mother came home from a meeting with the head teacher of the last school I attended and when I asked her what he'd said she replied, 'He said, 'We can't teach George anything''. In later years I realised the ambiguity of the statement and its worried me ever since. I guess I must have learned something at school but have no real recollection of it. I could read and wruite before I started (or so my mother told me, I don't remember that either). The most vivid thing I remember is that the class system is alive and well and will remain so for ever. They took an innocent boy and made him a socialist for life. That's some fucking achievement for the education system!

Now this is true. My youngest sister came home from her first day of school at the age of 5, completely beside herself with tears; she said "They told me I'd have to be at school until I was 15." Like George I could read and write before I went to school, but my motherwho kept herself very much to herself didn't tell them. You can't imagine the look of horror on my face when my teacher, the delectable Ms Woods (you see I was horny even then) asked me to make the sounds of the alphabet, as in 'ah buh cuh duh.' I stared at her with indignation for some while why she tried to coax me. I finally stuck my tongue out at her. She smacked me on the knee. That taught me one thing for life: it's the pretty ones that hurt you the most.

being able to read obviously. Useful in a real practical way ... erm ... oooh this is hard ... I really did learn a lot of useless s**t. Probably how to be able to read a menu in German when I used to go out there for conferences

I learnt how to spit and how to burp on demand. Also how to play five-stones. Visit my blog: http://whatisthisstrangeplace.blogspot.com/

Knots.

navy blue is not my :-)

oops - not my colour :-)

We didn't have any black or Asian kids at school so I learnt that minorities have to stick together by being one of a small band of gingers.