Pet Peeves | Page 151 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

HMBeatlesfan said

AppleScruffJunior said
I think school should be compulsory until the age of 15/16 (or whatever age you do your GCSEs/Junior Cert whatever at). It’s best to leave school with some qualification even at a basic level.

Name me one thing that a 7 year old can’t do that’s taught in school and important in real life, I sure can’t think of one. Happy 3,000th post on this page.
  

Well I know in business when I was 13 & 14, you learned the major terms for employment- P45, P60, how to run a meeting, how to write a cheque (yep they’re still used here) and how to do out an invoice/do basic bookkeeping. All very important if you wanted to become a SME owner or become self-employed.

In secondary school I learned German and French which I use on a regular basis, talking to friends/writing to penpals, reading books and I’ll hopefully become employed because of my language skills after college

In English, I learned how to do a proper report, how to do a CV/Cover Letter etc. 

I didn’t do practical subjects but my brothers learned how to weld, solder, file, and craft metal and wood properly in woodwork and metalwork. Useful if you want to become a carpenter, electrician, mechanic.

You learn the basics about life in your first few years of secondary school but the things you learn in the 2nd half are definitely things you would only need if you wanted to pursue that subject in further education.

HMBeatlesfan said
Didn’t learn any of that stuff in school, although considering that I dropped out of 8th grade, I never actually went to high school. My father taught me a lot of business and woodworking things, such as investing in stocks, filing my taxes, how to get a job, how to fix a chair, how to whittle, how to fix a broken window, gun safety, etc.. Also, knowing a language other than English wouldn’t help you here in the US.  

Spanish- a lot of people from Central and South America live in the US, some of whom have very limited English skills.

German- If you want to visit Pennsylvania

French- If you want to visit certain parts of Canada, Louisiana, Missouri, New England, Maine

You also have variants of Chinese, Vietnamese, Tagalog, Italian, Dutch- all widely spoken in the US, (fun fact, Irish is the 76th most spoken language in America ooohhh) 

Having languages in general is just an excellent employment advantage, with 3 international languages (at the minute, I am practicing Italian, Japanese and Cantonese- but wouldn’t consider any of them higher than my French, German and Irish) I will always be chosen over a person with just a bog standard business degree because I can communicate with foreign nations and could help a company expand their business.

Eight grade would be first year in Irish schools, which means you wouldn’t have learned much of what I mentioned above. If you’d done another year or two you definitely would have covered things that I mentioned.

Good on your dad though, job well done!