Well, Holly, in the Navy it didn't do me much good. Just like in high school, I was pretty much the quiet type. After I got out of the Navy, I was still basically the quiet type. After a couple of years of being single (divorced), I realized that being shy, overly quiet and reserved wasn't helping me at all meet someone. So, I started breaking out of that shell I was somewhat in. I said to myself, "There's a cool dude in there somewhere and I'm going to find him". I did! Well, for me, I did.
I suppose, like most of the other responses, the most important things were the "3 R's" since I have used them every day of my life. Other life lessons such as waiting one's turn or learning to "listen to and follow directions" also paid dividends later on.
Just thought of one not mentioned already: Diagramming sentences. It was the only thing in English I was any good at, but sometimes the correct word just sounds silly to me. Telephone call: "May I speak to John?" "This is he." I think it would be useful to learn to speak and write in a foreign language.
School up to the 8th. grade was in my all white neighborhood with the neighborhood kids so no conflicts. 9th. grade a big difference we all were bused to the city school systerm. 1st. time meeting & interacting with a variety of ethnic & race differences. Not only that as a learning experience but there were cliques that you were either part of or not. I guess exposer to a broader society & social interaction was my take away for learning.
I learned to be a paramedic, which gave me some of the most interesting years of my life. Oh, did you mean elementary or high school?
Did you, as part of the curriculum have to take a second language class at school?.. French was compulsory It's really funny, because although I've been to France many times since my youth , my schoolgirl French wasn't much use, and I never liked it enough to try and learn it more thoroughly ... but when I moved to Southern Spain, suddenly all that French came back at the most inappropriate moments while in middle age I was struggling to learn Spanish , and I found myself mixing my French & Spanish vocabulary... particularly when counting.. . Amazing how learning in formative years is the when the brain acts like a sponge and retains it all...
In that case, I'd say pretty much everything I have learned has had some use. Even that little tooty thing that I had to play in music class in the fourth grade has given me something to laugh about from time to time. Although, I can't say that I actually learned to play it. I mostly just disrupted things.
I had a similar problem, @Holly Saunders. I took French in high school, and Spanish in college. In the college Spanish class, I would occasionally switch to French without realizing it...until the rest of the class, including the instructor, began laughing.
Two years of mostly A's and B's in high school Spanish didn't help a lot when, about twelve years later, I moved to a place where most people spoke Spanish, but I suppose it helped a little bit. I could mostly figure out what someone was saying, although I wasn't so good with the replies. "No hablo Espanol, ask him." Buenos morning.
Arithmetic, Mathematics, and Advanced Mathematics, up to Calculus. However, throughout my 36-year career as an Electronic Lab Test Engineer for McDonnell-Douglas and Boeing, I had never found the need for Integral Calculus in my lab test data reduction. Hal
Ken, if you study Spanish and converse in it whenever you get the chance, it doesn't matter if you get the words correct. If you don't use the right ACCENT, Hispanics won't understand you very well, and they'll sometimes find it humorous! Try speaking English to yourself with a forced Spanish accent...it will help you when you speak Spanish! Mil Gracias para su atencion, Amigo! Haroldo
Holly, my favorite thing about the Violincello is its lovely VOICE! In addition, I like the way it's tuned: From the bass: C G D A Hal
Aside from basic school curriculum...not a dang thing. Honestly I learned more of math, science, history. - everything once I was out making a living on my own. My biggest discovery - learning I was every bit as smart as the college grad sitting next to me