Times table - there are new and improved ways of multiplying large numbers, New Math, shortcuts, and rules of thumb we were never given. There are easier ways to do the math we did in the 1980s.
Cursive writing - this gives you the versatility to scrawl a note, write a letter, or fill in a box. I would say writing is an essential skill even though its usage is waning. I do NOT want to see my nephews printing everything because they weren't given the option of learning cursive. And that printing better look alive and worthy of what's being lost.
Self-improvement - kids had three years of their lives dictated by masks and space between people. I can't imagine trying to cope with self-improvement issues and any other mental health. It must be the toughest time to be growing up. Apathy does not count as "improvement."
Character - there are a lot of video games that require a character to be developed, that he or she has their experience gained, and their character is strong-sided, full of charisma, an extrovert, and an alpha male. This doesn't transfer well to an asthmatic who lives in his mom's basement with a pile of puffers. Character is a prime archetypical accomplishment, and kids should have been well into forging them when they're in the later grades. This will go over their heads until they understand it.
Chivalry, this option may be dead, but there is an expectation that people will develop habits and hold onto a set of rules that appears as delightful manners when you are with a woman or even your friends. Holding open a door for anyone should be a gesture of goodwill, and it ought to be something inside a person that reacts kindly to situations, doing much of the work people would do alone without your interventions.
Waving at a driver who let you cut in front of them. Perpetuated by immigrants, this feature of politeness has dropped off the face of driving for every age beneath my 56 years.
Using a rotary phone, phones went through the rotary phase early on, and although it's due to be lost with time, it was still a good tool to learn should there ever be a future game show called CAN YOU USE THIS?
Dealing with a payphone booth - calling home "collect" from a payphone is an international pastime. Everyone should be aware it may come down to calling Mom and Dad at 2am.
How to strike a match (and light a campfire) - the match is a crazy invention, it can light cigarettes, it can start a forest fire, or it can start a campfire. This must be a hands-on affair with you and your kids, just in case they're forced into a forest and need to build a camp.
Chess and the Queen’s Gambit - the opening move, whereupon you move the pawn in front of your queen, out two spaces, is called the Queen's Gambit; it's just an opening. But Chess is a game of the ages that requires a brain to campaign against your enemy and should be taught in school; at least the option best be there for schoolchildren to learn, even if it's just an after-school group and you are developing nrds for kods, it is still an essential skill. If Mozart helps a baby grow intellectually in the womb grow, chess will help it once it's out.
The breeze of touch-typing - try as you might, learning touch-typing is so much easier than the alternative, which I still use - a night school class didn't give me the foundation I wanted. Now, we have to make sure everyone can communicate as effectively and quickly via touch-typing as keyboards become ubiquitous and more information is put into a QWERTY-style device.
Driving a 5-speed - though manual transmissions are fading in North America, they're still all the rage in Europe. It is an extra talent in North America to drive a 5-speed. This is the Art of Driving. This is how to enjoy those Sunday drives and those travels along the hill-hugging, cliff-sided switchbacks, windy roads, and chicanes they show in car commercials.
Wilderness… at some point, maybe a picnic spot, you will see the wilderness, the bears, goats, and raccoons. You may have coyotes or bears encroaching on newly-taken human land, leading the animals to sniff through your garbage. One should be in a confident position using bear spray. Disney has given anthropomorphism a bad name, and kids think they can pet a bear cub.
Reading the 24-hour circular clock - army time, Europe time, Zulu time, the 24-hour clock. They are taught AM/PM for a standard 12 hours. What happens if a train leaves at 17:15? Or arrives at 22:35? Every country I've visited outside of Canada and America, uses the 24-hour clock. Even our own province of Quebec is in on it. I say this is important because every night you can watch history unfold. Think of the time and the year's date. 19:17, 19:59, 20:01, 20:25
Decoding cursive writing - doctors have some untranslatable handwriting. Still, for most of us, cursive writing was a personal collection of how we used a pen to write down information that someone would later have to transcribe. If you learn how a person writes, you learn a lot about them.
The fountain pen and calligraphy - the finest gift to language was the written word. And the extravagances that grew from that, from personal pens to diamond-encrusted quills, calligraphy is a great art to practice for better handwriting skills.
Table manners are essential. If chivalry is dead, table manners for, say, meeting your in-laws over dinner, are still the five-dollar skill. You don't have to know which cutlery is for the salad or the steak but you must differentiate yourself from an animal who is only glued to food to inhale it. Patience is lacking in all people these days. Being able to relax and have someone pass the salt, pour more wine, or successfully eat baby back ribs, is a key element to conducting positive characteristics related to dining out.
Shuffling playing cards, if you can't shuffle cards, you may look stupid to any onlooker who thinks it is a gift everyone is born with. If you are young and the opportunity comes along to play Poker with friends, or in front of a potential partner at a casino, you might want to have some of the essentials in your toolbox.
Backgammon strategies, Chess is a metaphor for life, a gruelling war between your thoughts as the pieces on the board. If you only play checkers, you are missing the larger picture. If you can't play Hearts, Backgammon, or Cribbage, you will miss whiling away time waiting for your overnight train to Cologne (Koln), Germany at 23:55. Board and card games rule where Chess isn't the dominant game. Around the world you can find taxi drivers playing Chess on their taxi hoods. And so it should be, this world needs an aspect ratio of things we used to do in our past.
Family Genealogy, my grandfather was deeply involved with our family tree. He was seeking, armed with a typewriter, envelopes, and stamps, the links of our roots to the 15th century. Few people are so lucky to get to glimpse into one's own five hundred year old self. Few of his offspring, and grandchildren have been inclined to follow him with his fervor. Who will teach kids about their heritage, their DNA sequence decoded to lay bare your genealogy.
Counselling, in high school we had counsellors who were, de facto, there for your mental health. They masked it by trying to sort out your lengthy career goals but they were there to attend to us. With a diversity, inclusion, and equity world upon us, it's possible kids don't get the benefit of a good therapeutic counsellor, whoever that might be, a physiatrist, a psychologist, or just a good friend.
To speak in public. This is allegedly the greatest fear among humans, although making a fool of yourself and death rival our for our amygdala's time. But the time may come when you have to address a large group of people and you'll want our youth to do it right. I went to Toastmasters for a year and gradually shed my fear and embraced the world of podium-speaking. I was not a natural. I don't see Toastmasters around anymore, they're smaller if that's an indication of time and societal biases.
Compass and orienteering. If you do happen to end up lost, in a forest, city, or a corn maze, knowing which way is north will be of great used to you. In a world that is GPS-dependent, having the skill to orient you, your ship, or a maze will be key to your survival.
Semaphore, Morse Code, DOS, Secret Messages, HTML - Latin is considered a dead language but more people study Latin or Esperanto than are learning a working knowledge of Semaphore (which is a person holding up two flags to spell things out in the alphabet from a mountain top). If you ever end up at a black screen with only a blinking cursor, you may be forced to boot your computer using DOS. It still exist and is just a few clicks away to where you may never, ever return from. No one teaches the basics anymore.
NORTH BY STARS Stargazing, celestial navigation, anyone who has seen the night sky without light pollution knows there is a wealth of imagination happening above our heads. Of the 88 constellations, Ply the Elder charted 44 of them, ascribing their luminocity and brilliance to a set of mathimatical entities we enjoy. I was only 100 years ago that Edwin Hubble realized that some of the stars our ancestors watched were actually whole other galaxies with billions of stars. And swiftly after that, he noticed a redshift in the light from these galaxies and discovered they were all flying away from us, some at beyond lightspeed. It's a fascinating at the heavens, it should be passed on before Elon Musk's satellites mess up the night sky with silent orbs of light disrupting it all. At the very least kids should be able to identify the Big Dipper, the North Star, and Cassiopeia.
Physics 101, I am a closet theoretical physicist. My friends are cold, hard numbers. I get excited thinking about String Theory and the wave/particle duality takes my breath away. But I had to elope with physics on my own since there was no higher mathematics in high school than algebra. Not even calculus. So absolutely no particle physics or Quantum Mechanics fell upon my eyes until i read a book. But kids need to be made aware of some of the incredibly impossible-to-grasp concepts of modern scientific thinkers. I think at least one hour out of twelve years of school ought to be dedicated to planting the seed in a young person's mind.
Chronologies: timelines of history, and the scientific method, today is the 80th anniversary of the liberation from Auschwitz. A news item said that more kids nowadays believe the Holocaust was a hoax. A generation that does not have to go to war may live to see a greater tragedy befall their eyes as 9/11 did to me, watching it unfold live on TV. How many people know the scientific method? How many people back science instead of G-d but would be lost to explain quantum entanglement, supersymmetry, or superpositions? We should not expect this information to fall upon people without them wanting it. Kids should want to know how science actually works and that flame should be fed gasoline because much of the subatomic world defies logic and is holistically unintuitive. "If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't." said Richard Feynman. It's a fascinating universe and it can not be deduced or manipulated by rational thought but only be explored through information.
Storytelling, the ability to tell stories, whether they actually happened to you or someone else, or you are just making it up, is key to good communication with people. Anecdotal evidence to support your claims about love, the world, or the best movie you ever saw, will go the distance in rewarding you with a great character skill that people seem to be lacking in. How many people can tell you the same experience going to Disneyland?
Basic survival skills - from chopping wood to settling kindling to putting the food bag high enough that bears can't get it, the old Scout booklet was a great book for explaining the basics to kids.
Drums, there is a natural rhythm within me but I cannot dance, play basketball, or play the drums. But I know there is a natural rhythm within me, all people, that we could expose by playing its beat on a drum. If you can't keep a simple beat, the violin is a light-year away from you.
CPR and basic first aid - minimal first aid should be given to anyone going hiking. It may fall across your kids that they dress a would or shoulder you out. They shouldn't get 'grossed out", they have to know this is life and death. The "Golden Hour" is the critical window of time to get someone from an accident site to an emergency bed. Wouldn't it be great if everyone took a one-day course on saving each other?