# What were the most useless skills you were taught in school?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-most-useless-skills-you-were-taught-in-school/1030648
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [June 5, 2026, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-most-useless-skills-you-were-taught-in-school/1030648 "2026-06-05T19:11:43Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 15
### Author:  [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)
#### Post date: [June 9, 2026, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-most-useless-skills-you-were-taught-in-school/1030648/281 "2026-06-09T23:39:00Z")
> [@Mighty\_Mouse](#):
>
> Surely for track meets you need to tack on the ~9m at the end for any times to be official. Or is a track and field mile just 1600m?
I am sure you know this, but, to be clear, there is the 1500m event, and “1 mile” which is indeed 1 mile, not 1600m 🙂 For the mile, you start 9 metres behind the line…
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [June 9, 2026, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-most-useless-skills-you-were-taught-in-school/1030648/282 "2026-06-09T23:59:29Z")
Well, 9 meters plus ~1 foot. 🤪
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### Author:  [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2026, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-most-useless-skills-you-were-taught-in-school/1030648/283 "2026-06-10T00:12:54Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#):
>
> Knowing that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell.
Well, you’re misremembering unless your biology teacher misinformed you. The powerhouse of the cell is the mitochondrion!
(mitochondria is plural)
Sorry, retired bio teacher here.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2026, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-most-useless-skills-you-were-taught-in-school/1030648/284 "2026-06-10T00:26:56Z")
> [@DPRK](#):
>
> Richard Feynman recounts a “contest” with an abacus wizard in Rio de Janeiro, which demonstrated that the abacist sure could calculate fast, but did not really understand what he was doing.
He still won, though. He attributed that to luck, because the numbers chosen just happened to be ones that he could apply certain mathematical tricks to. I suspect, though, that for any given numbers, there would have been some trick or other that he knew.
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### Author:  [@Mighty\_Mouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mighty_Mouse)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2026, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-most-useless-skills-you-were-taught-in-school/1030648/285 "2026-06-10T00:30:20Z")
I did not know whether or not the 9.x meters was added on. I’m not a big track & field person. I considered the possibility that 4X400 was considered close enough.
Our high school (6th to 10th grade) had a 300m “track” (just an oval marked in chalk in the dirt/grass) and we did indeed have 100M, 300M, 600M and “metric mile” as events in sports day.
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### Author:  [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2026, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-most-useless-skills-you-were-taught-in-school/1030648/286 "2026-06-10T06:03:00Z")
I found a photo of an actual track, by the way:
[ ](https://www.trackinfo.org/CSUN/1mstart.jpg)
You can see the starting line for the mile is, indeed, behind the finish line, and set up for a waterfall start
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### Author:  [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2026, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-most-useless-skills-you-were-taught-in-school/1030648/287 "2026-06-10T13:50:01Z")
Disclaimer: I didn’t read the whole thread, but I saw in early posts complaints about sentence diagramming and Latin.
I use what I learned in both of those subjects _almost_ every day. Because I diagrammed lots of sentences throughout my school years, today my subject and verb always agree, my modifiers are accurately placed, and my pronouns are never handicapped by unclear antecedents. Diagramming a sentence forces you to see visually how a sentence is structured, and to write a sentence that is clear to other people. If that’s what you want.
I often use my four years of Latin to suss out the meaning of a new/unfamiliar word. When the word “cisgender” popped up in common usage, I remembered that the Romans referred to the part of Gaul (France) on the _same_ side of the Alps as Rome with the term “cis-Alpine” Gaul and the part of Rome on the _other_ side of the Alps away from Rome as “trans-Alpine” Gaul. 💡 Get it? Plenty of the words we use have Latin roots, and I like knowing that kind of stuff.
I’m a committed, even passionate, believer in knowledge for its own sake, for the sheer joy of knowing. I’m glad that the kind of education I got in the 1950s and 1960s in mostly public schools (California, Massachusetts, upstate New York) filled our heads with all kinds of sparkly bits with the aim of making us “well-educated.”
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### Author:  [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2026, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-most-useless-skills-you-were-taught-in-school/1030648/288 "2026-06-10T14:17:11Z")
> [@wolfpup](#):
>
> That’s not really a signature, it’s a lazy abbreviated form of their actual cursive signature.
I’m not sure how you can say that about someone you don’t know - my husband signs everything, including legal documents ,with what I can only describe as a squiggle
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### Author:  [@sunacres](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sunacres)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2026, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-most-useless-skills-you-were-taught-in-school/1030648/289 "2026-06-10T14:21:04Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#):
>
> I’m a committed, even passionate, believer in knowledge for its own sake, for the sheer joy of knowing.
Seconded. But I wish we could figure out a way to reduce the spiteful feelings that seem to arise among those less stimulated by knowledge. The world, and the U.S. in particular, is crippled by the problem.
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### Author:  [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2026, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-most-useless-skills-you-were-taught-in-school/1030648/290 "2026-06-10T14:23:24Z")
I almost exclusively write in cursive - except for my signature ( sometimes) \* , my handwriting is legible and I can write in cursive way faster than I can print.
\* My signature on the first document I sign looks very different than the 50th. To the point that I had a signature stamp made when I was working.
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### Author:  [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2026, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-most-useless-skills-you-were-taught-in-school/1030648/291 "2026-06-10T14:50:26Z")
> [@doreen](#):
>
> > [@wolfpup](#):
> >
> > That’s not really a signature, it’s a lazy abbreviated form of their actual cursive signature.
>
> I’m not sure how you can say that about someone you don’t know - my husband signs everything, including legal documents ,with what I can only describe as a squiggle
You may be right, of course, but my assumption comes from the fact that the aforementioned swirl is so simple and superficial that pretty much anyone could duplicate it. So my assumption is that the doctor, who probably signs many dozens of prescriptions every day, just does a lazy swirl which is not the same as their full normal legal signature. Your husband’s “squiggle” may not be a legible signature, but I’m sure that it’s distinct. That’s the whole point of legal signatures – that they’re hard to counterfeit.
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2026, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-most-useless-skills-you-were-taught-in-school/1030648/292 "2026-06-10T15:21:18Z")
On a lighter note, here is one well-known expert’s take on what is and isn’t important to learn while growing up …
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfzpAv1hi2Y)
The vid has some really amazing 1960s newsreel footage. Worth a watch for that alone.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2026, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-most-useless-skills-you-were-taught-in-school/1030648/293 "2026-06-10T15:27:33Z")
> [@wolfpup](#):
>
> That’s the whole point of legal signatures – that they’re hard to counterfeit.
Ah, here’s the source of confusion. A signature doesn’t authenticate an agreement; it solemnizes it. You don’t establish that a signature is genuine by analyzing the precise shape of it: You establish that a signature is genuine by asking the person “Is this your signature?”. The purpose of the signature is to establish that the signer really meant it.
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### Author:  [@abcdefghij](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/abcdefghij)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2026, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-most-useless-skills-you-were-taught-in-school/1030648/294 "2026-06-10T15:28:46Z")
> [@wolfpup](#):
>
> full normal legal signature
You act like a doctor is likely to affix their “full normal legal signature” to anything more consequential than the distribution of controlled substances
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### Author:  [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2026, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-most-useless-skills-you-were-taught-in-school/1030648/295 "2026-06-10T15:57:21Z")
> [@abcdefghij](#):
>
> You act like a doctor is likely to affix their “full normal legal signature” to anything more consequential than the distribution of controlled substances
I “act like it” because it’s true that the doctor’s actual signature on a prescription form has very little relevance. The pharmacist has no way of verifying the signature. They do, however, in the modern world, have the ability to verify the authenticity of the prescription with the issuing office.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2026, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-most-useless-skills-you-were-taught-in-school/1030648/296 "2026-06-10T16:00:02Z")
Yup, on a prescription, authentication actually matters, so they use a system that actually works for authentication on those, instead of relying on the signature, which doesn’t work.
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### Author:  [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2026, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-most-useless-skills-you-were-taught-in-school/1030648/297 "2026-06-10T16:10:18Z")
> [@Chronos](#):
>
> A signature doesn’t authenticate an agreement; it solemnizes it. You don’t establish that a signature is genuine by analyzing the precise shape of it: You establish that a signature is genuine by asking the person “Is this your signature?”.
In a court case (e.g. a contract dispute), a signature may be analyzed to determine whether it’s authentic. And in voting by mail (in California, at least), a signature has to match the signature on file for a ballot to be considered valid.
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### Author:  [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2026, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-most-useless-skills-you-were-taught-in-school/1030648/298 "2026-06-10T16:29:25Z")
When I last renewed my passport at the post office, the clerk reminded me several times to be sure my signature on the renewal form matched the signature on my current passport.
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### Author:  [@Dorjan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dorjan)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2026, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-most-useless-skills-you-were-taught-in-school/1030648/299 "2026-06-10T16:55:03Z")
> [@Monty](#):
>
> Cursive is one of those things I believe should not go the way of all flesh. There is an indredible amount of written material in longhand and when nobody can read it, that information is lost.
I don’t think this will be the problem you think it will. As I mentioned in my earlier post, my teenage son never learned a bit of cursive and had no real issues reading the old docs that I had him look at, namely the Declaration of Independence and a couple of other documents from the National Archives. Now, he’s a bright kid and has always read much higher than his grade level, but I don’t think that’s giving him an undue advantage here.
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### Author:  [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)
#### Post date: [June 10, 2026, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-most-useless-skills-you-were-taught-in-school/1030648/300 "2026-06-10T18:07:36Z")
> [@doreen](#):
>
> I’m not sure how you can say that about someone you don’t know - my husband signs everything, including legal documents ,with what I can only describe as a squiggle
It is like Mondrian, Rothko, et al.: you can only legitimately claim that your canvas with a couple of abstract squares on it is a tree if you have got there through decades of studying the subject…
I really have to ask, was anyone really taught how to “print” in school? Is that word just thrown around loosely, or was a print typeface really used as a model? Grotesque or Antiqua or…? Was calligraphy a separate class?
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