Have you ever done well in a subject/exam and now know very little on the subject?

Yes, math and I CRS now.
I don’t care either….whaaa haaa haaaaaa! ;)

Most of the classes I took in middle school. I still remember bits and pieces of the stuff but not much, especially US history. I aced all of it while in school but like a computer with limited space I rewrite my brain space to make room for new knowledge and I dont ever use the stuff I learned in US history and such so its gone.

Yeah, Geography. Must have sunk in from sleeping on the Encyclopedia’s.

Formal education provides a broad base of knowledge and skills from which one finds his/her place inthe world. At my age, I’ve forgotten more than I ever learned ;-) Use it or lose it!

Barely missed an A in Algebra 2. Now it’s just a memory.

All the time. And if you don’t exercise the knowledge, you lose it. It’s that simple.

It just makes me think how useful exams really are if so many people who pass forget what they’ve learned and of course I assume most of us learn a huge amount without ever taking a course on it but in our spare time because we enjoy it and this means nothing unless you have a qualification to back it up to some people.

Well, you never know where your life is going to take you @sunssi. When you have a well-rounded education you have a lot more control over that. When I graduated from HS I didn’t even think of becoming a teacher….but when all was said and done I was awarded my education degree when I was 31, thinking to start teaching at the elementary level and work my way up. Had dreams of teaching college lit. However, as it turns out, I now teach adults in a high school diploma completion program. It’s not a GED program. The actually take the classes they missed, so I have to know everything I learned in High School. If I’d had the choice of opting out of something, I’d be at a serious disadvantage.
Besides, even if you don’t consciously remember something, it doesn’t mean that you don’t use it unconsciously in different ways through out your life.

As to what your said about self-teaching subjects that you enjoy…absolutely! I can pass a HS science or history class without even looking the chapter over! I can easily explain things to the students in those subjects. I do have a harder time in English and Math, but I’m getting it, slowly but surely.

Yes, Biology… In Icelandic, because most of the times I learn things by reading what it says and memorising those lines and words even when I don’t know what they mean. I usually do well on the exams ;)

Biochemistry. Now I can’t remember the Krebs or Cori cycle for crap.

Spanish. Got A’s all through middle school, high school and first 2 years of college. I could only EVER understand my own teachers, never could understand native Spanish speakers. I could read and write it very well, but not now. And I was shy, so I could never speak it to anyone other than my teacher.

Latin. Now I don’t remember much more than semper ubi sub ubi, which isn’t even proper Latin.

yes, i always got a perfect score

I seem to remember doing well in a class on atmospheric science. Now I know so little about it I’m almost qualified to be a television meteorologist.

I got perfect grades in French BUT after 20 years of not speaking French (and I had been nearly fluent) much of it is gone. I think it would come back fairly fast if I were to pick it up again, though.

In school, for classes I really didn’t care much about, I used the BBB (bullshit baffles brains) system of answering questions. It worked and I often got a great mark.

Absolutely. If you aren’t using the information, you will forget it. I did French at school for about 12 years… I hope I never need to speak it now though! I also studied shorthand and could once take it at over 100wpm and transcribe accurately. I used it for a living for years. Now… not a hope in hell. Use it or lose it.