What I Really Learned in School

Did I Learn Anything?

What learning and knowledge do we bring home from school after we graduate? Do we really learn anything useful during the time we are wards of the educational system for the day? Why does glue taste like rice? How come compasses are dangerously sharp when the safety scissors can't negotiate construction paper?

I took a long personal inventory, and discovered that, why yes, I learned quite a lot. Mostly from what my classmates heard from their siblings, and things we found out on our own. Because I am condensing over a dozen years of experience and history, it was not an easy task to compile these nuggets of wisdom. Putting this list together took almost all four quarters of a professional basketball game, and stopping to pay the pizza delivery person at halftime.
Some you may recognize from your own years at elementary, some from high school. Here is what twelve years of school will teach you. And yes, there will be a test at the end of the chapter.

-Never put your mouth directly on the water fountain.
-Teens are the oldest, tallest people on the planet, and therefore the coolest. Grownups and teachers simply don't count.
-You can't get through an entire school year without someone vomiting in the classroom.
-Gettting stabbed in the hand with a sharp pencil will leave a green dot there forever.
-School nurses are expected to fix everything with a cup of ice.

-Anyone who sits in the center seat in front is automatically the Teacher's Pet.
-Unless you agree to distract the teacher while your friends goofed off in the back row.
-If you touch the kid with cooties, you are going to have to marry him or her.
-At least one kid is going to be designated "Gross Girl" or "Booger Boy". They will one day marry each other.
-Pop Rocks and soda consumed together will make your stomach explode.