Things I Learned in Grade School that I DO Still Use Today

There is an abundance of jokes having to do with how little we seem to actually use what we learn in school -“Another day done without needing to know calculus”. People also like to point out that school fails to teach us many necessary skills like how to file taxes, how to change a tire, or even how to cook. While that might be true, I would still argue that even in a school system that leaves much to be desired, such as in the U.S., there are some basic skills that it provides us that are useful. To make my case, I’ll go through the skills I learned in school that I still use nearly every day. I’ll even stick to the main subjects, only reference grade school, and stay away from any electives or extracurriculars since I know those aren’t even close to consistent across the board. 

First up - English class. You pretty much have to take some variation of this from kindergarten all the way until you graduate high school, and sometimes even in college as well. The biggest thing English taught me is how to consume information, understand it, and explain it back to someone. Have I ever really needed to know about Wuthering Heights in my real life? No (thank GOD, I hate that book so much), BUT reading all those books, discussing them, and writing essays about them helped me build the critical comprehensive skills I use in everything from emails, to presentations, to personal research, even this blog! As an added bonus, since I was a huge nerd and always did the reading, I also have a nice little repertoire of cultural references to pull from since this class does usually choose books that are referenced in modern works as well as pop culture.

I’m going to talk about history second since I think it builds on the skills you learn in English. In English class, I learned how to parse apart the English language in its many forms, including stories,  and in history class, you learn to parse apart the specific story of the world, the country, or a specific event - depending on the class. Having an understanding of world history, as well as the history of my country, and my community helped me develop a perspective on how slow or fast things are happening in the world, and what it might mean. For example, recognizing that the U.S. has only been around for a few hundred years whereas other countries like China have been around for centuries can help me understand why the current political climate might be the way it is.

Next up: math. Everyone’s favorite. I had to think about this one for a second because once you get past the fourth grade or so, math class can appear to be pretty useless. By that point, you know your basic operations and even some geometry, fractions, and percentages. Most people would say they don’t use math daily unless their job directly involves it or they’re struggling to calculate tip at a restaurant (bless the places that print the suggested amounts at the bottom of the receipt). However, I would argue that math class teaches the critical skill of problem-solving at its base level. It taught me how to view a problem, break it apart, and solve for all the unknown pieces. It also taught me how those fractions and percentages can be turned into statistics which can then be used to tell a certain kind of story (and we already covered stories earlier, so it’s all coming together…). 

Hand in hand with math, we have science. Science is important for similar reasons as math. It taught me how to read data as well as problems, how to run a basic experiment, how to do research, and how to ask questions. It taught me how to read scientific studies to see if they were run well or not. All of this comes in handy for critically consuming information today. If I see a new study that comes out with the headline that coffee can make you lose weight, I know that if that same study also had a sample size of 19 people and was also funded by a coffee company to take it with a pretty hefty grain of salt (like salt lick sized).

Lastly, I want to touch on some skills I picked up in school in general. School taught me how to read and follow directions. This seems self-explanatory but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to work with people on an assignment at my job where if they had just read the instructions in my email, we could have saved SO MUCH TIME! School also taught me how to study and prioritize my work to get different types of assignments done with different due dates. This helps when it comes to a job because I constantly have to juggle different priorities. Lastly, and I know this one really shouldn’t be on here, but school (at least in the U.S.), taught me how to take a test. I realize this won’t apply to everyone but since I still have to take tests regularly for various certifications, this skill is pretty invaluable to me. 

I have stuck to the basics here, just the subjects that are present in every school in the U.S. However, in many schools, there are also a plethora of electives and extracurriculars that can teach even more. From those activities, I learned about other cultures, how to think critically about music, how to speak different languages, and how to stay consistent and disciplined, and much more. School also gives us valuable social exposure in a controlled environment. Although I was also a person who dreaded group projects, learning to work with others is a huge asset and our first exposure to people skills often comes from school.

I still believe there is much to be improved about the school system in the U.S. but I also think we’re too quick to dismiss some of the basic skills school presents to us. You could argue that you would’ve picked these up anyway, but I would counter that without some extremely invested parents, you wouldn’t - at least not to the same scale. Unfortunately, school was simply ingrained in our lives as something to be endured. Furthermore, since our school system is geared so much towards tests, no one ever took the time to explain the deeper meaning behind what we were doing. So while there are a lot of improvements we can still make (and I haven’t even touched on colleges…), I wanted to recognize that at least for me, school actually did give me most of the skills I use in a day, and education isn’t something that should ever be taken for granted.

School did not teach me how to take a cute pic, but it did teach me about good proportions!