It’s inevitable that plane travel includes overhearing neighboring conversations how hard you try to ignore them….at least until you switch on your noise canceling headphones! Most are mundane, innocuous, unimportant, though occasionally you bite your lip to avoid ranting at someone for their obvious stupidity! Pay for economy, deal with the riff raff.
On a recent flight, a woman explained to her row mate how the mathematics being taught to her daughter were totally unnecessary, as she has never needed math. It’s not the first time I’ve heard this, usually about STEM, how the parent never had a use for it so why should the child. It should make you pause and reflect.
However, it did get me wondering what subjects I was required to learn were ultimately a waste. On the flight I didn’t come up with anything, but it became obvious when visiting museums in San José, Costa Rica.
Explorers!
The Museum of Jade and Pre-Columbian Culture – colloquially known as the Jade Museum – is an archeological museum and, besides Jade, has multiple floors of pre-Columbian artifacts, explaining their purpose and importance, very interesting stuff.
The exhibit discussed the important explorers of the region: Christopher Columbus, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, Hernán Cortés, others. I recognized the names – or believe I did – but aside from Columbus I knew nothing of any of them.
In fifth grade we focused an inordinate amount of time learning the most important explorers of the new world, memorizing facts, tracing routes, exploring nationalities, etc. Ponce de Leon attempting to find the Fountain of Youth. Amerigo Verspucci as the namesake of America. Obviously the clean version, without any mention of the rape, pillage, and plunder brought to the New World. And I couldn’t recall any of it if my life depended on it.
So fifty years later I can honestly say that the elementary school curriculum on New World explorers was wasted on me and totally unnecessary.
