A couple of years ago, CompassPoint.org took a poll of it’s visitors, asking them to identify what skills they learned in elementary school that they continue to use today, and what features of grade school they wished carried over to adult life. The results were nostalgic:
Of skills most often used in adult life, 50% of respondents said spelling and grammar skills, 28% said learning how to play nice with others, 11% said how to calculate percentages, 6% said how to dodge things coming at you, and 6% said how to stand up for yourself and what you believe in. On which feature of grade school respondents most wished carried over into work life, 59% want recess, 18% want field trips, 6% want bake sales, 6% want slumber parties, 6% liked knowing when your work was finished, and 6% liked the more structured exercises in personal affirmation that took place in school, but that don’t happen in real life.
Field trips and recess—I loved those days. Didn’t you? And I’m surprised only 6% identified ‘like knowing when your work was finished’ as a feature they missed. Today my work seems never to end. Projects just kind of blend into one another to seem like one long project. Only the grantwriting I do has a sense of completion. That is unless I have overlapping deadlines.
(I searched the CompassPoint site to find the poll, but it is no longer there).
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