To have got to the age of 37 and I'm learning things from a 9 year old?

[Gertrudeisgerman]

DS2 (9) has just told me why the sewer system was introduced. Previously, tap water from the Thames contained human waste so they introduced sewers. I had no idea. They are currently introducing a new sewer system in London too, which according to DS2 'looks nice but won't stay like that for long.'

Why am I learning this stuff from a 9 year old? AIBU to be masters level educated but know fuck all about basic stuff like this?

We live in Yorkshire. I don't know how the child knows so much about the Thames anyway.

A lot of people seem to have something against Sociology (which i did at A Level), but this stuff is covered under that subject and politics, as well.

I think that it's an all round useful subject.

Fanciedachange I sunburn very badly and I'm also aging rapidly. That tomato research is really helpful

I'm a lone parent, who basically hangs around with a 13, 9 and 5 year old or research colleagues at work who only talk about the brain and that's it. I don't have a partner to talk to about this stuff and fill in my gaps.

Londons sewerage system is a fascinating story, not many people realise that when you walk along the embankment you are walking over a huge civil engineering project which came about after the Thames was so clogged with Londons sewerage that MPs said they could not work in the HoC.

In the Chelsea Physic garden they have the remains of a boathouse - they would have to launch a boat across four lanes of traffic these days!

I don't have a handy 9-y-o but I did know about the sewers because I'm interested in social history and was aware of the 'Great Stink', when the Thames was so rank with sewage that Parliament was actually forced to take notice of it at last. Joseph Bazalgette eventually masterminded the massive sewer-building project. People had been dying from cholera etc because of the infected water.

So you don't have to have a science background, you can pick up this sort of thing by coming from another angle iyswim.

viques that was what I was getting at! A 9 year old knows that the Thames was so clogged with waste that they had to build this system. It's nothing to do with me being up north or thinking I'm some kind of genius. I just wondered why I didn't know about sanitation and it's origins.

X-post with viques

Thanks to my 8 yr olds homework project this week I now know all sorts of interesting facts about the yangtze river in China! Being a parent can indeed be very educational.

Studying to be a teacher here.

Quite a bit of what we're learning in terms of how to teach, is to take interests and run with them, because you can always find a way to hang bits of the curriculum off an existing interesting, but it's that "hook" to catch their attention that's the tricky part!

I think learning is neat. And I love those afternoons where you google one thing and three hours later emerge from the rabbit hole exhausted but full of exciting (if largely useless) new facts.

My areas of special interest are in history: Russian Imperial history, to be exact, and WWII (specifically the Holocaust). I know lots of lovely and not-so-lovely facts a bit like your 9yo and his facts about sewers haha.

an existing interest** sorry.

I don't understand how you didn't know you could still learn new things.

The more you know, the more you know you don't know.

Goes to show people educated to degree level can know fuck all. Says a lot about the country, really. There's nothing wrong with reading books, watching documentaries and reading Wikipedia rather than Mumsnet, off your own back than expecting to be spoonfed information by the education system.

YY - It is amazing how you can get through education - even higher education - and then life and still have huge chunks of knowledge missing and in the main never even realise/consider it (I have a Phd in Biochemistry)

I really love Horrible histories.

I did the history of the Industrial revolution as school (O level history) -
And also Latin O level -so I knew a bit about the Romans ...
And at primary we had a teacher who went on holiday to Greece and we were taught about the Ancient Greeks - lots of the myths etc...
And things like evolution and cholera epidemics etc though science.
But nothing really about the rest of history... until DD started watching Horrible Histories. I got her the book set and I've read some of them ... they are interesting, easy reading.
I also knew almost zero about geography - or rather about the layout of the world. I gave it up at age 11. In my late twenties I was working with a group of 10yos finding places on a world map ...and I actually learned a lot .

I've asked him about the tomatoes, op and he just said 'flavour' (so no mention of chemicals). He's now taken a packet of basil out too. I don't need Google any more - I just ask him.

We learnt throughout our lives - one of the great things about children is that you learn from them - I don't think there's any shame in that whatsoever!!

I learn quite a lot from my five year old. Recently learn that one day the sun will die, not something I'd ever thought about, and that Pluto may have rings.

Great thread OP! My 82 year old dad is busy trying to acquire as much knowledge as he can while he is still here. He's visiting museums/reading books/watching documentaries as he's suddenly become aware of all the stuff he doesn't know. It's lovely to see him so enthused - he hated school apparently!
I think there's a lot of truth in the saying 'education is wasted on the young'

I'll never forget the time my 4yo DS had an argument with his mum about how to spell "pterodactyl".

He was right, and afterwards his mum said she had never felt so stupid.

I think maybe children (because knowledge is new to them and still exciting and interesting) remind us to stop and think and learn about stuff.

But they don't have the job and food shopping and filling the car with petrol and doing the laundry and defrosting the freezer and getting pissed off with unsupportive partners and mopping the floor and checking your banking app and Facebook and putting out the bin to contend with. Sometimes we forget to learn.

At least your three year old didn't explain the Volkswagen symbol to you the other day

Gertrudeisgerman you don't keep tomatoes in the fridge because they'll lose all their flavor in the fridge by stopping the ripening process. ripening is what gives tomatoes more flavour.

Did you think you'd stop learning when you left school?

There's ALWAYS a million things you don't know, or used to know and have forgotten.

Most people have a few subjects they're knowledgable about and many they have some knowledge of. But NOBODY knows everything about everything. So of course you can learn from anyone, "even" children

why would you be so arrogant to think you couldn't?

harder - I think you’ve missed the point of this thread. The OP isn’t being so arrogant as to think she couldn’t learn even from children.
The responsibilities of adult life means there often really isn’t the time or opportunity to pick up a shiny new fact and chase it to one’s heart’s content. There’s all that other practical stuff that has to be dealt with.

I’m 30 years older than you, Gertrude, and I’m now learning like a 9-year-old. I have few responsibilities now, so I can flit like a (quantum) butterfly from one shiny new fact to another.

I think one of the most intriguing things about children is not just that they can pick up on things that you/we wouldn’t already know, it’s that their grasp of concepts can be so untroubled by the constraints and endless minutiae of ordinary life that they can just let their minds roam free. Listening to a child talking about what interests them is utterly fascinating, and can give us access to the untrammelled world we used to live in.

Oh, now I think I'm missing the point that I wanted to make.

The OP is listening to her child. Hence her OP.