Are there skills you spent years learning to acquire that you have now forgotten or hardly use?

[BonsoirAnna]

I'm thinking about my children's education at the moment (DSS1 is getting to a critical point where we/he needs to take major decisions) and trying to think back to what has been useful, and what has not been useful, among the many things my parents paid for me and/or supported me in acquiring.

I have sadly almost forgotten German, Italian and Spanish. I have completely forgotten shorthand (typing still good). I hardly ever drive, but it is useful to be able to do so when I need to. Guitar? Tennis? Long gone...

Anyone else?

Not sure a skill is wasted because I don't happen to be using it at the moment. You never know when you might find yourself reviving an old skill. I found myself playing table tennis against a robot at Christmas.

Depends what you mean by use - I hardly ever actually read a piece of Latin or Greek but frequently use the knowledge of etymology or languages in general I gained while studying them. (Greek v good for answering sciencey questions while watching University Challenge, for instance.)

I don't think things are necessarily wasted either, but would the time spent acquiring the skill that later proved not terribly useful have been better spent learning something more useful? DSS1 has got to make some hard choices - and so that got me thinking.

Computer programming. Did it for at least 6 years in school and beyond. Not got a clue anymore!

I am now better at French than I was when I was learning it at all school, just from holidaying there and picking bits up. Must have learnt stuff without realising!

Impossible to know. I'd go for what he's interested in; at least there's a better chance he will learn that well.

He's (extremely) good at absolutely everything except music... that's why choices are difficult.

Yes, but is he equally interested in everything? What really fires his enthusiasm?

Ummm...maths?

(can hardly remember anything)

You may have lost your fluency in those other languages Anna but the grounding is there - if you ever needed to use them again you'd really notice the speed of return I think. I don't think language skills are ever in danger of being obsolete (and like Kathy I find my Greek and Latin come in surprisingly handy)

(Unlike shorthand ...)

Dh and I were having just this chat the other night & annoyingly I can't properly remember what we decided. I do think we decided that certain physical skills would be good - this was particularly wrt girls though, and the research that shows material consistent weight-bearing exercise (ballet eg) during teenage years has marked benefits for bone strength life-long. (And if you haven't laid down those benefits during the teenage years you've missed that particular boat.)

Oh, yes - he wanted to have learned the piano well enough to be able to play himself out of moods. We have a friend or two who can do that & it's a very agreeable personal resource.

Will post further if I remember more. It's a good question.

Loads!

I qualified as an NVQ assessor - can't remember a thing about it now (which seems a waste)

Also spent several years training as a systems engineer. Can't remember a thing about that either

The thing is that if you try & re-gain the skills & knowledge, then usually it's there somewhere!
I found that going back to secondary school as a TA made me dredge up all sorts of things I thought I'd forgotten!

So if you think you've almost forgotten German - buy a phrase book or look online for activities to jog your memory (lots of the school ones are good for rusty old brains!)

Was a 'cellist in a previous life. Years of playing it, went to music college....

@ cello skills

Chemistry. Did a degree in it and can hardly remember any of it.

oh, I've remembered one for me, a doggedly-acquired skill that has done me o practical good

calligraphy

Philosophy - I did a BA in it. Well, bits of it stuck.

Computer science - a degree and years of work, maybe 10 years all in.

Knitting - I'll probably come back to this one, though.

I had years and years of piano lessons, did grade 8 when I was at school, haven't played since then. I don't have money, or room, for a piano though. Something portable might have been more useful, although I never play my flute or trumpet.

What choices does he have to make Anna? At his age choosing things that leave as many options as possible later on is often a good strategy.

Not sure that I've completely forgotten anything, but lots of areas of learning are very rusty.

snorkle is very sensible - and I think I've heard you say the same thing yourself Anna in other contexts - about focussing on the "door-opening" skills (ie, which extend your opportunity horizons)

Asked dh to recall what we'd discussed - he says effort in learning early word-processing/computer code was an unnecessary skill - because it was superseded so quickly, and because each succeeding supersession (I may have made up that word) can be so easily picked up.

On the other hand, skills learned as an adolescent which have proved useful throughout life (dh says):

• how to get what you want without other people minding
• how to chat people up
• how not to get caught

Bink - I think the skills in your last list all come under the more general heading of negotiation skills, which I agree are absolutely vital skills to acquire . Fortunately DSS1 is a natural at getting what he wants (DSS2 needs much more help).

I agree that language skills are not lost and the very fact of having learnt a language and having spent a great deal of time in other countries confers skills and experience that are useful on a daily basis. But I am not sure I want to encourage my own children to spend quite so much of their adolescence and early adulthood learning languages as I did (I also did an awful lot of Latin at school). I think, with hindsight, that physics and some more biology would have been a better choice.

snorkle - he has to choose a lycée and, while he will do a bac S (predominantly sciences) he can apply to a school/section that will do extra-extra science or one that will focus more on English. That decision then impacts what he might go on to do immediately post-bac (prépa in France or university in the UK/US).

Can I ask again- what really enthuses him? You have mentioned what he can do (pretty well everything) and thought about what he maybe ought to do for strategic reasons- how about what he wants to do?

Does he get excited about physics and biology or about languages? By the time he gets to uni, whatever area he has specialised in will be a very intense experience; certainly if he is to get the most out of it. In his spare time, what kind of a book would he be likely to pick up?

As a uni teacher, I see a lot of students who have clearly made the wrong choices, and don't actually enjoy what they're doing all that much. It's a waste of three years that could be the most wonderful of your life, and it makes it noticeably harder to get the really high grades if you don't really care much about what you're doing.

cory - he loves all the academic subjects - he is super-motivated and right at the very top of his class (and year group). He is not the next Picasso or Mozart or Thierry Henry, but (apart from music) he does quite well on the non-academic side too.

Hmm, I see the problem (I think) - it's extra language or extra science. Is he bi-lingual (or getting on that way) in any case or does he need the extra English if he's to study later in an English speaking institution? I'm a scientist myself so, have a bias in that direction, although, to be perfectly honest, unless you want a job in science you don't really need to have studied that much of it (though arguably it makes you understand/apreciate the world better).

Yes it's a bit like that snorkle. He is very good at English versus his peers (clearly well ahead of what would normally be expected of a French child in the third year of secondary) but far from bilingual. We are looking at bilingual lycées though and he might well get in. It is always advantage if you are French to speak really fluent English, whatever field you go into later (eg French medical students have to study English right through university these days in order to ensure they will be able to keep up with research throughout their careers).