“What did you learn at school today?”

As we sit around the dinner table each evening, this is a question that is regularly presented by my parents.

Sometimes my brother and I reply that we didn’t learn anything, but I know this isn’t true.

I learn a lot in school. However, sometimes I don’t think that it is necessarily what my teachers thought they were teaching.

Being in multiple AP and advanced courses, I always have a full plate in front of me. It often seems like it should be impossible for me to absorb all of the information presented to me, but somehow I manage. I think this is due to the process of time management that I’ve been taught over the years. Each day that my teachers assign homework and I know I have an activity that is going to take up my evening, I am taught that I need to step back and prioritize what needs to get done. Essentially, every homework assignment I have is teaching me something other than the material we are covering in class.

In school I learn important communication skills. With such a vast variety of people in my midst, I am forced to be in situations that require communication skills that might not be used if I wasn’t at school: I have to communicate with my teachers about difficult concepts or missed days, I have to communicate with my peers on subjects that we might disagree on, and I have to keep a polite, friendly attitude toward everyone I come across.

Scholastically speaking, I have learned quite a bit as well. I think that my teachers do a great job of teaching their subjects in my classes. I mean, I know a lot more about Calculus than I ever thought I would! So, when the question, “What are you really learning in school?”, comes up, I can honestly say, more than you’d think. There is a lot more to school than the academics, and I think that is a good thing.