The perpetual debate: Knowledge or skills?

I saw a brilliant post on my Facebook page the other day. It went like this... “Another day has passed, and I haven’t used this: (a+b)²=a²+2ab+b²”. And it got me to thinking... How many of us use, in our ‘real’ lives, much of the stuff we have rammed down our throats at school?
I am absolutely convinced about the merits of learning and being able to use our language effectively, so we can converse and communicate effectively, sharing ideas and information. We need arithmetic to be able to function effectively in societies that rely so much on our ability to know figures, whether for our daily shopping, household and personal budgeting, borrowing, bank account and cash management, home loans, and maybe even investments. Beyond those, even as an educator, I’m uncertain we are treading the correct pathways.
Cooking skills, once labelled as home economics, were invaluable to earlier generations, with simple culinary and cooking tasks of yesterday still relevant today. Being able to make sandwiches, to prepare salads, to scramble, boil and fry eggs or make omelettes, to make curries, stews, roasts and casseroles, to cook simple pasta and rice dishes, and to understand the roles of natural versus processed foods in our diets for our future health and wellbeing. These are all essential in an environment where ‘fast’ foods and ‘energy’ drinks do us no favours at all, yet healthier alternatives are rarely taught today.
I’m also convinced that ‘soft’ skills need to be a part of today’s educational experiences, such as communication, including effective listening, conversational cues and conflict resolution. Whether the interactions are familial, social, platonic, romantic, or professional, employment-related, communication is the glue that holds our relationships together. Personal hygiene too has the potential to be almost a ‘forgotten’ skill, or a sensitive, almost ‘taboo’ topic, yet bad teeth, bad breath, coughing and sneezing management, smelly armpits and stinky feet, even yawning inappropriately, or inattentiveness can appear offensive, and significantly affect how others see us and respond to us.
Some see the manual skills of woodwork and engineering as redundant today, but how valuable is learning to use a measuring tape, a square, a hammer, a saw, a drill, a hacksaw, a file, and to respect the heavier, floor-mounted machinery such as lathes and pillar drills, to solder and weld metals? You learned the golden rule of those workshops, to “measure twice and cut once,” to rewire plugs, change tyres, fixing leaking or blocked pipes, bleed radiators, or replace door locks, among hundreds of similar ‘jobs'. You would not believe how often these skills come in handy ‘around the house'.
Critical thinking is defined as the process of interpreting, analysing, synthesising and evaluating information to reach supportable conclusions, the need for us all to determine right from wrong a thousand times a day, while we are manipulated by advertising, media, politicians and governments. In this, we will realise artificial intelligence isn’t always friendly, often antagonistic, selling fallacies to insidiously shape our future thoughts and behaviours, our very futures. We dare not let this happen!
Finally, schools must educate students how to face challenges and to understand the role of resilience in responding to those myriad challenges. Resilience, today, particularly in social media, can be brutal in its dynamism, can catch its victims so unaware as to be incredibly harmful and even life-threatening. Social media comes softly, yet with the complexity of the two faces of Janus, the deceit and malice that the faceless one’s treasure, so the younger, outwardly naïve generation, needs the reassurance, the relative comfort and security that resilience offers, and manifests itself as strength.
In the cold light of day, I’m less convinced about education prioritising science and mathematics, seeing it as a waste of teaching and learning, unless they have scientific or technological ambitions. We may even find that much of school is not only wasted time but wasted opportunity.