Lyrics You Don't Learn That In School - Remastered 1996 - Louis Armstrong

I wasn't taught how to get a job
but I can remember dissecting a frog
I wasn't taught how to pay tax
but I know loads about Shakespeare's classics
I was never taught how to vote they
devoted that time to defining isotopes
I wasn't taught how to look after my health
but mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell
Never spent a lesson on current events
instead I studied The Old American West
I was never taught what laws there are.
I was never taught what laws there are.
Let me repeat - I was not taught the laws for the country I live in,
but I know how Henry the VIII killed his women.
Divorced beheaded died,
divorced beheaded survived glad that's
in my head instead of financial advice
I was shown the wavelengths of different hues of light
but I was never taught my human rights
Apparently there's 30, do you know them?
I don't Why the hell can't we both recite them by rote?!
I know igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rocks
Yet I don't know squat about trading stocks
Or how money works at all - where does it come from?
Who controls it?
How does the thing that motivates the world function?
not taught how to budget and disburse my
earnings I was too busy rehearsing cursive.
Didn't learn how much it costs to raise a kid or what an affidavit is
but I spent days on what the quadratic equation is
negative b plus or minus the square root of b squared
minus 4ac over 2a That's insane, that's absolutely insane.
They made me learn that over basic first aid
How to recognise the most deadly Mental
disorders // or diseases with preventable causes //
How to buy a house with a mortgage //
if I could afford it ‘cause abstract maths was deemed more
important than advice that would literally save thousands of lives
but it's cool, ‘cause now I could tell you if the
number of unnecessary deaths caused by that choice was prime.
Never taught present day practical medicines,
but I was told what the ancient hippocratic method is
"I've got a headache, the pain is ceaseless what should I take?"
umm... maybe try some leeches?
"Could we discuss domestic abuse and get the facts or
how to help my depressed friend with their mental state?"
Ummm... no but learn mental maths because
"you won't have a calculator with you every day!"
They say it's not the kids, the parents are the problem
Then if you taught the kids to parent that's the problem solved then!
All this advice about using a condom but none
for when you actually have a kid when you want one
I'm only fluent in this language, for serious?
The rest of the world speaks two, do you think I'm an idiot?
They chose the solar over the political system
So like a typical citizen now I don't
know what I'm voting on which policies exist,
or how to make them change mais oui, je parle un peu de Francais
So at 18, I was expected to elect a representative For
a system I had never ever ever ever been presented with
But I won't take it
I'll tell everyone my childhood was wasted
I'll share it everywhere how I was "educated"
And insist these pointless things #DontStayInSchool