Still another glorious morning – how very fortunate we are. It is too bad these beautiful weather days weren’t here last weekend for the long holiday. I walked along Fort Street this morning and saw several groups of kids trudging along to school, already looking weary and worn out from one abbreviated week of learning. They sure didn’t look motivated to be headed off to school. Perhaps as doctors and the media have been suggesting all week, students need a later start time for school to enable them to concentrate better … I, however, would counter by saying an earlier start time to head for bed, sans electronics on the nightstand, might work just as well. Sure, that’s a snarky comment but it’s true. It seems like I came home from school, did homework until dinner, a little more homework or library time after dinner and then trundled off to bed – to sleep. There were no devices to record television programs back then, so weekends were the only time to watch television or the Summer reruns. Sounds a little mundane but I don’t think I fell asleep in class unless it was very boring, but that was not from lack of sleep.

As to boring classes, in college I took an anthropology course. I was really looking forward to it, but the professor was so boring that NO ONE could stay awake in the class. He stood at the lectern and in a very monotonous voice read verbatim from a textbook he authored. No inflection in his voice – just droning on and on. No visual aids were ever used … we all would sit in lecture hall with our open textbook following him word-for-word or doodling around the page edges to keep from nodding off. All instructors cannot be outspoken like MSU Professor William Penn, who ranted and raved about the Republicans ‘til he got the boot, but it doesn’t hurt to stimulate your class once in a while either.

So many classes in high school or mandatory “core” courses in college were not my cup of tea. But, you had to take them and be present and accounted for day after day. I think now, all these years later, about how few of my courses really mattered and contained information that would eventually be applied to daily living? Perhaps none, except ninth grade typing class – you can go almost everywhere with the click of a mouse or finger graze of a touchpad, but you still have to know how to type to surf the internet or use social media.

Okay, I’ll concede that maybe basic math has also been helpful for day-to-day living, but think about it … what info have you gleaned from other classes through the years that you use on an everyday basis? As to math, I did horribly in algebra and geometry classes and I have to admit I “didn’t get it” and found it puzzling and nonsensical. I never took trig or calculus (probably a good thing) and I apologize to any math mavens out there who enjoyed these subjects.

I liked biology and zoology, but physics, physical science and chemistry didn’t interest me one iota. I liked geography but learned more from reading “The National Geographic” than I remember learning in school. In American history class the teacher spent nearly the entire school year instructing us on ancient events up through the Civil War, then suddenly it was the end of the school year and the rest of the history textbook was merely glossed over. I could take or leave my English classes; I absolutely despised dissecting or diagramming words and thought it was a waste of time. I frankly learned more about English grammar when I studied French.

As to the subject of French, I learned more about that language as a youngster in Canada where each student began studying French as a second language in second grade. Each student had an 8 ½ by 11 inch picture that matched the teacher’s large storyboard picture. We learned various scenes throughout the school year: a barnyard, a restaurant, a train station, a department store, a couple pushing a pram in the park and we learned what were masculine words versus feminine words. That teaching methodology made those French words stick in my mind, more than years of college French where it was rote and mere memorization of dialogues. I took a few semesters of practical French where no books were used and the whole class was conducted by conversing in French 100 percent of the time; this was probably more helpful than just memorizing the book. Unfortunately if you don’t use your foreign language skills you lose them. I’d be lucky if I could understand much French nowadays and unfortunately, I never did learn to trill my “Rs” very convincingly so I never spoke like a native. C’est la vie.

Alot of mandatory courses taken through the years I found to be just plain silly. A study of old-time movies like “The Great Train Robbery” or films with Buster Keaton or Mary Pickford was indeed a mandatory class for my studies and a waste of money and time. As to literature classes, I’ve had many and as to required reading … “Sons and Lovers” and “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” , both which I enjoyed the first time, were read and re-read and analyzed and re-analyzed until there was no enjoyment in reading them. Please don’t get me started on “Beowulf”. Really?! Even with Cliff’s Notes I was lost! Home Economics – well we learned how to make “cheesy wienies” and how to write out a shopping list. We got to make an apron from start to finish. The one I made for my mom was bright pink and black stripes and the ugliest thing you ever saw – I’m sure she only wore it to spare my feelings.

Yup, upon pondering the importance of school through the years, the best class I ever took was typing. Life lessons, of course, are invaluable.

“We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.” Ernest Hemingway