Schools used to teach a lot of things that feel rather strange today, which is mostly because the lessons made sense back then due to the tools & jobs people had at the time. But as technology changed and new ways of living took over, these old-school topics quietly disappeared from classrooms. Here are ten examples of lessons that were once taught in schools and are now outdated. These things were dropped from the curricula—for better or worse.
Featured Image Credit: everett225/Depositphotos.com.
How to Use a Slide Rule
Students had to learn how to use a slide rule before calculators became cheap & easy to carry around—it looked like a ruler with a sliding part in the middle. You could use it to do multiplication, division, square roots and so much more, with students solving math problems by lining up numbers on the scales. The rise of electronic calculators in the 1970s meant that schools stopped teaching kids how to use slide rules, as there was no longer a real need for them.
How to Cook Using Lard
Home economics classes once taught students to cook with lard because it was cheap & easy to store—it was also used in a lot of recipes. Students learned the proper ways to measure and mix lard into doughs & batters, until worries about heart health made schools change their curriculum. They’re more likely to teach about vegetable oils and other lighter cooking ingredients instead of focusing on lard.
Penmanship with a Steel-Tipped Dip Pen
In the days before ballpoint pens were available everywhere, students learned to write with steel-tipped dip pens, which they had to dip into an inkwell every few words. They also practiced keeping the ink from blotting all over the page and learned that writing neatly with a dip pen took a steady hand. Thankfully, though, modern pens that didn’t need dipping became more common and this meant that schools moved away from teaching this skill.
Shorthand Notetaking (Gregg System)
Shorthand used to be a rather practical way to take notes quickly and students, especially those training for office jobs, learned the Gregg Shorthand system. This system used symbols instead of full words to save time and students practiced transcribing speeches at high speed. But new technology made it easier to record or type full notes, so shorthand lessons became almost entirely unnecessary. It’s a rarity to meet someone who still has this skill.
How to Use a Card Catalog
The majority of library catalogs are now online and this has meant that library lessons on how to find books using a card catalog system are practically non-existent. In these classes, students learned to look up titles, authors & subjects using small drawers full of alphabetized cards. They also had to understand the Dewey Decimal System to find a book’s exact spot on the shelf, although this skill isn’t that important anymore.
Morse Code Basics
In the early 20th century, some schools taught students the basics of Morse code and they’d learn how to tap out dots & dashes to represent letters for sending messages across telegraph wires. Morse code was particularly important for emergency communication but it was also a fun little party trick. However, technology moved forward and radios improved in a way that stopped Morse code classes from being a regular part of school programs.
Duck and Cover Drills for Nuclear Attacks
If you went to school in the ’50s or ’60s, there’s a good chance you spent time practicing how to survive a nuclear blast by hiding under your desk, which sounds rather strange now. But schools back then really drilled it into kids’ heads—they even showed black-and-white films where a cartoon turtle taught you to “duck and cover.” It took until the late ‘80s for people to realize that a desk wasn’t gonna save anyone and the drills mostly disappeared.
Home Economics Budget Books
Home economics classes once taught students how to do more than just sew a button, as they also had to sit down with a paper budget book and figure out how to afford groceries, rent, gas & bills. They had no calculators or apps—just a pencil and a lot of mental math skills, with the expectation that the students could add everything up by hand. The arrival of computers & financial apps meant that nobody bothers with budget books anymore in schools.
Typing on an IBM Selectric
There was a time when kids in business classes would hammer away on IBM Selectric typewriters and this model had a little metal ball inside instead of the usual arms—the lucky students got to swap it out to change fonts. Everyone tried to beat the class record for fast typing speeds, like 60 words a minute, without messing up. But computer labs showed up in the late ‘80s and ‘90s, which caused Selectric drills to fade away.
Floppy Disk Lessons in Computer Class
Speaking of computers, students in the ‘80s or ’90s had to carry around floppy disks like it was their life savings and they learned exactly how to insert them & eject them without crashing the system. One lost floppy could mean starting a whole project over, so it was rather important to understand how to manage these disks properly. Of course, when USB drives and online storage came out, schools stopped bothering with floppy disk rules.
Disclaimer: This list is solely the author’s opinion based on research and publicly available information.
Like our content? Be sure to follow us on MSN.