Useful Life Skills

The Swedes May Have Something Here

Last night I was at the annual ExtrABBAganza party at the Swedish Historical Museum (and yes, it is as fantastic as you think it will be) when I found myself talking to a Swedish woman there.

She lives here now but grew up in Sweden. I don’t know how we got onto the topic, but she mentioned that while growing up, as part of her education, they learned how to get out of a hole if they fell through the ice on a pond/lake/other bodies of water.

And I thought, “Wow, that is smart.”

Like I don’t fault my grade school education. 1. Our teacher did the best with what she had: a cafeteria and an outside field. 2. I’m sure learning how to dodge a ball has provided some helpful life skills. I can’t think of what at the moment but there has to be something.

But learning how to climb out of a hole if you fall through the ice? That is excellent stuff to learn.

So, on this topic, this is my list of other “really good stuff I could have learned in gym class”:

1. How to start a fire;
2. How do I come up with a good excuse to avoid playground games that I was terrible at due to my size, such as “break the chain;”
3. How to get over the trauma that was “break the chain;”
4. What to do if someone is bleeding;
5. What to do if someone faints;
6. What do you do if you fall and break something;