Drew Lawson wrote:
In article
"J. Clarke" writes:
Morris Dovey wrote:

I learned that language was important - that while a thing said
one
way might get me a fat lip, if said another way it might open the
door to friendship. I learned that a really good idea that I
couldn't
get across to someone else when it seemed important to me wasn't
any
better than no idea at all. I learned that language was an
essential
part of problem statement and problem solving, and that it could
be
variously used to produce tears, laughter, sympathy, animosity, or
cooperation.

And you learned these things from teachers? Or would you have
learned them anyway as part of growing up?

I got a lot of the components of that from teachers, especially the
"how to" part. Depending on context, it goes under various names
-- persuasive writing, debate, etc.

Where was this? Debate? Persuasive writing? Never had any of that
kind of stuff.

I learned that French and Arabic both have nuances and built-in
perspective twists that my native English does not, and that
poetry
and precise thoughts do not always translate well from one
language
to another.

In what public school in the United States are Arabic and French
taught?

Dude, French is probably the most taught non-dead foreign language
in US schools. Where *isn't* it taught?

So where is it taught alongside Arabic in the public schools? And if
French is so widely taught in the US public schools howcum the only
school I ever attended in four states that offered it was a Catholic
school?

I had a year of that in
5th grade, but didn't stick with it. I don't recall if I ever had
Arabic available. But it isn't something that would have interested
me at that time.


I learned that language is closely coupled to culture and I
learned
that there are cultures different from my own, and that culture is
the lens through which we see the world - and that different
cultural
lenses
reveal different realities when viewing the same objects and
events.

That's nice, but again I want to know where this incredible
American
public school is located.

It is clear that your schools sucked (assuming that you weren't
just a complete slacker).

Well, yes, they did, and I have seen no reason to believe that they
were atypical.

My public schools (1967-1980) sound a lot like Morris'.

Where was this?

I learned in sixth grade algebra class that everything that had
come
before was neander and that learning algebra amounted to a leap
into
the world of power tools for the brain. I learned about 'knowns'
and
'unknowns', and how to determine if/when I had enough knowns to
solve
a problem.

Algebra in the sixth grade?

I had the intro, along with geometry by other names in 5th grade.
(Cranston-Calvert School, Newport, RI.)

Perhaps Rhode Island is doing a good job.

I learned that transparent materials have angles of refraction and
critical angles, and I learned that light goes really fast and
that
nothing in our ken goes faster. I learned of the happiness of
energy
and the sadness of entropy, and that time is, indeed, a dimension
that must
be accounted for in all actions and their equal and opposite
reactions.
I was introduced to the laws of thermodynamics and bid a sad
farewell
to fantasies of perpetual motion machines.

And how have you used that knowledge since?

Your original question was in the form, "What did you learn that
you found useful later?"

It's pretty clear that you really meant, "What did you learn that
I also had available to me and that *I* currently consider to be
useful."


BTW, my first computer programming was in a US public school. I'm
still finding that useful, as today's paycheck reminds me.

One presumes that that has changed since I was in school--at the time
"computer" was something that cost millions of dollars and would have
filled the gym handily.

--
--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)