“School Days” is one of those old songs that everybody seems to know – or at least they know the first few lines. Particularly this part:

“Reading and ‘riting and ‘rithmetic. Taught to the tune of a hick’ry stick.”

Also known as the 3Rs, even though only one of the words actually starts with an R. (NOTE: We addressed the second part of the line in No. 40) Those three subjects have been considered elemental to education for as long as people remember. 

They’re also three subjects that the last 70 years have tried to render obsolete.

Perhaps math is the one that has suffered the most.

As someone who enjoys math more than most people, I loved playing with adding machines at my father’s tire store in the early 1960s. I thought the adding machine was an impressive piece of technology.

But, in 1974, my parents bought me one of the first Texas Instruments calculators. It ran on batteries and was a wonder. And, since I’ve used it on the job, it has corrected vote totals in two elections – a school board race in Evanston and a congressional contest in Michigan.

Calculators are everywhere. I really don’t know how many I have, not to mention the apps on my phone. And when it comes to doing your taxes, do you trust your math skills or the solar-powered calculator you got as a tchotchke at a home fair? Kids even use calculators on tests, including standardized ones.

Sure, you have to know whether you need to use the add or subtract or multiply or divide functions. But that’s it.

Writing was a lot of people’s least favorite subject in school. I never seemed to be able to satisfy either a teacher or my Mom with my penmanship.

Now, I don’t care. My writing is illegible. If I want to jot something down, I can type on any number of devices. 

And there is no way the signature you create on one of those supermarket checkout screens resembles what you would sign with a pen. I’ve stopped trying – a couple of swirly lines seem to do the job.

Reading is the most persistent R. After all, that’s what you’re doing right now.

Except if you’ve got a program that converts text to sound. Then some robotic voice is reading this to you. I’m guessing it doesn’t sound like me, but that’s not the point.

You also don’t have to know how to read to read a book. (that’s not a typo!)

The first audiobooks were developed to help the visually impaired soon after record players became widespread. But the selections were limited – usually somebody, often a service group, read a book after it was published.

When cassettes became popular in the 1970s, publishers got the idea of recording a book at the same time the hardcover was released. Then books would show up on CDs and now they’re available as digital files for play in your car, on an airplane or anywhere else you can think of.

I doubt schools will ever stop teaching the 3Rs. But do you need to know them? Hmm.