Just because you do not apply something you learned in school, does not mean that others do not apply it. You cannot decide when a student starts school what field that child will enter, so the student has to learn a generic course, which will hopefully prepare the student for the field the student decides to specialize in. Example.. Pythagorean Theorem.. You probably had to learn this in school. But did you ever use it? I specialized in electricity, and it was very important in that field. I also learned what "Iambic Pentameter" was in school, but never used it, but some people did.
Thank you for your thoughtful reply Maurice. I am talking about YOU specifically. I am not deciding for others. If YOU never put to use some things you have learned of what use are they to YOU specifically? Knowing they exist? Exposing you to things to stretch your mind which you will never use even if you live to be a hundred?. Too bad we can't focus on learning what we need in life rather than a generic curriculum. One size fits all apparently. Happy Thursday! :)
This post was edited by RosieG at April 13, 2017 10:17 AM MDT
As you suggest, you learn things to stretch your mind, even if you do not use it, you understand more. Life would be so dull if you learned only what you used. One size does fit all, it is just too bad that we do not live long enough to learn all. I learn to expand my base of knowledge, and as that base expands, I understand more and more of what is going on around me.
You know Maurice early on I studied Liberal Arts. To what end? I had no idea how I would earn a living at it. I just was drawn to literature and languages and art history. But as I entered the world of working people I started off as a Secretary and found over the years I was drawn to numbers. I helped out in the Accounting Department every chance I could get and figured out that was what I really wanted to do so I took bookkeeping/accounting classes and ended up as an Internal Auditor! Go figger! Also I have always been a scifi fan and started being drawn in by quantum physics. I have no scientific background at all but I've read/owned a lot of books on the subject. I don't think I'm smart enough to be a physicist but maybe if I had tried early on and studied hard I could have become a physicist! I just wish I knew early on whom I would end up being interest-wise. I could have gotten the education I needed. If I couldn't cut it in physics I know I could have gotten a CPA degree. What did you discover about yourself interest-wise that you wish you had known when you were younger? I think I'm gonna ask that question m'dear!Thank you for your thoughtful reply and Happy Friday! :)
"Apply" needs to be completed as "applied to what"? Knowing the solar system is heliocentric, that water is H2O, reading "MacBeth" are not applied to anything but still are worth knowing.
How would your life have been impacted if you didn't know those things whistle? Would it have been irreparably damaged? Would the joy have been significantly diminished? Thank you for your reply! :)
Being that that are part of my life I cannot judge what their absence would be like. But I will hold that this general knowledge is in itself worthwhile just because it is knowing about the world in which I live.
If you are a person who is very curious then the more information you have the better it is for you. Whether you can use it or not. Thank you for your reply whistle! :)
If we have an open mind, who knows where the apparently-surplus knowledge may suddenly spark something?
I did not enjoy, and struggled with, French at school - never even thought that a few years later I would embark on my first of several very enjoyable holidays in France - even if I could only just get by with basic etiquette and a few common words, as in "Deux bieres, s'il vous plait".
Or that I'd ever want to make a Dodecahedron - cardboard models of regular solids were part of a trial maths syllabus - until I decided to make a brass dodecahedronal pomander as a girl-friend's Christmas present! She used it to hold a spray of ornamental dried grasses.
Then there was the wretched Calculus - I was put off asking for help in my weakest subject by the attitude of our teacher, who suffered no fools gladly and seemed to define a 'fool' as one who neither likes nor is good at, Mathematics. Years later, something in one of my hobbies made me realise at last what the operator dx/dy really means (simply the ratio of two numerical changes, i.e. differences); while my work led to finally understanding logarithms, though not perfectly.
Formal, Euclidean geometry? Well, I struggled to learn and soon forgot how to prove that this or the other Cyclic Quadrilateral is indeed one, but in the following half-century I have found uses unforeseeable at school, for some of the less arcane principles and laws. Most recently I made make two hexagonal steel frames about a metre across corners, and used a simple geometrical construction to lay out the welding-jig.
Then there was the English Literature... I hear on the radio references to, or quotes from, various novels or plays; and know of what or whom they are talking.
As for my love of the English Language, and delight in playing with words without spoiling or cheapening them... They stem from a mixture of unusually early ability to read, and a very encouraging, inspiring Infants' School teacher. [Please Note the second adjective's construction...!]
This post was edited by Durdle at January 4, 2018 4:30 PM MST
Maurice214 