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What We Learnt at School—and What We Needed to Know
Having spent most of my working life in education, I should begin with a disclaimer: this is a light-hearted reflection, written with respect, gratitude, and a dash of cheek. For all the good schooling gave us, there are moments when one wonders whether so much time needed to be spent on logarithms, rhombuses, and the reproductive habits of flowers.
I spent a good part of my school years learning trigonometry, logarithms, and the properties of a rhombus—knowledge that, hand on heart, has not once been used in everyday life. Not once in a supermarket aisle have I thought, “Now is the moment for sine and cosine.” Nor have I ever been rescued in conversation by a four-sided figure with equal sides.
There was also the business of quadratic equations, compass-drawn circles, chemical equations, and stalactites and stalagmites—useful perhaps if one is ever stranded in a cave with a ruler, a chemistry set, and an exam paper.
Then came the classics: two trains leaving different stations at different speeds, calculating when they meet—or the length of a platform that could have been measured in a minute with a tape and some common sense. I always wondered why trains were involved at all, and why they always seemed to be travelling at what can only be described as emergency velocity.
Much of school life involved memorising capitals, rivers, mountain ranges, flower parts, and enough of the periodic table to sound confident for forty-five minutes in an exam hall—before much of it quietly faded soon after.
There were also the rituals: books wrapped in brown paper, headings underlined in red, margins drawn with precision, pencils sharpened to a point, and the belief that neat handwriting reflected character. Learning often meant repetition, and repetition was presented as understanding.
Yet many of the things that matter most in life were barely touched.
How money works. How to speak so people listen. How to listen properly. How to handle failure. How to disagree without conflict. How to build relationships. How to think in a noisy world. How to manage stress, sleep, food, and health. How to bend without breaking when life throws a googly.
These lessons were learned elsewhere—through experience, mistakes, and people who stepped in when it mattered most.
Thankfully, that picture is changing fast.
Schools are moving away from the old factory model: rows of silent children, all taught the same thing, expected to memorise and reproduce it, and then move on. In its place is a more connected and practical approach to learning.
There is now greater emphasis on understanding over memorising, skills over repetition, curiosity over compliance, and application over recall. Learning is being drawn closer to the real world students will enter.
Communication, collaboration, creativity, resilience, problem-solving, digital awareness, wellbeing, and ethical thinking are no longer optional extras. They are central to education.
Knowledge still matters. But in a world where information is instantly available, discernment matters more. The real skill is knowing what to trust, what to question, and how to think clearly.
That, ultimately, is what education should aim for—not simply to fill minds, but to shape them to think, adapt, and grow.
And while I remain quietly grateful that I can still recognise a rhombus at fifty paces, I’m glad the next generation may leave school better prepared for life—not merely for exams, but for the far messier business of living it.
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