Teach Kids Something Useful!

Young people and their internet speak really confuse me. “MFW when I eat spinach.” “TIL that Justine Fleiber has the same birthday as me, FTW!”

I’m not even over the hill, and it’s all just silly gibberish. And don’t even get me STARTED on the stuff they’re learning in school, none of which seems all that useful. I think I remember learning Pythagoras’ theorem, way back when, but that’s about as complex at it ever got. Nowadays you can sign up to learn trigonometry, and geometry, and maybe psychometry…might be wrong about that one, but you get it. School used to be practical, and now it’s all about cramming for tests.

I remember our maths lessons, and how we used to be taught things like how to buy your own home, right down to finding a conveyancer office. Cheltenham is where the school was so there were plenty of local estate agents and the likes. We also learned how to work with solicitors which I found fascinating. And that was back in a time when everything was simpler, so not as many people used conveyancers as they do now. Our maths teacher just really wanted us to be as prepared as possible. That’s the kind of thing that kids should be learning, not useless mathematics that none of them are going to use. It’s true, that old teen complaint: “When are we going to use this?” Never, that’s when. NEVER.

Maybe I’m out of touch, out of time (time), and I still don’t understand where you’d use the word ‘fleek’. But I know how title and property transfers work, all these years later, so I think I got my education just fine. It’s about time young people were taught something that they can actually use. If I had kids, I’d be writing to their principal and asking if they could add to the curriculum a few meetings with local conveyancers. Sandringham schools are in need of some innovative thinking to prepare kids for the future. Maybe they could be taught to talk properly. And also…to stand up straight? Basically, everything they’re teaching at school now is rubbish.

Lyle