This question is another one of WordPress’s classics — the kind that feels like it was written by a pimple-faced intern throwing darts at a board covered in random words.
“What’s the last thing you learned?”
Really?
That could mean almost anything.
It could be something trivial:
We were out of coffee.
My dog soiled the rug.
My wife left early for work.
Or it could be something much bigger:
Trump and Israel bombed Iran.
There are police at my door serving a search warrant.
When a question is that broad, it almost begs to be ridiculed. A better question might have been something like:
What’s the last skill you learned?
What’s the most recent news you learned?
What’s your favorite thing you learned in school?
But since the question is what it is, here are a few things I learned recently.
In the classroom, I learned once again how little historical awareness many students have. While talking about the difference between reading news on a screen versus reading it in a printed newspaper, I asked my journalism students where Joe Biden is from. Not one of them knew it was Delaware. Only one student even knew that Jimmy Carter had been a president — and that he was from Georgia.
That told me something important about the world they live in. When people used to read newspapers, they saw the whole page. Even if you weren’t trying to learn about politics or history, you still absorbed it. Today people read the news the way they scroll social media: only what they already want to see.
From the actual news, I learned we’re getting a new Secretary of Homeland Security. Kristi Noem is out, and Markwayne Mullin is in. I’d be willing to bet that most people have no idea where that guy is from — or even that the position changed.
At home, I learned a practical skill: how to unmount a broken 50-inch television from the wall and replace it with a 55-inch model by myself. No help. That felt like a solid life skill to pick up.
I also learned something interesting from history. I watched a video about the Ford Pinto and then went back and read the original 1978 Mother Jones article about it. The thing was basically a firebomb on wheels. It’s a scandal that’s still worth knowing about nearly fifty years later.
And finally, I learned — once again — that WordPress needs some better daily questions.
But I suppose that doesn’t count.
I already knew that.
Copyright © 2026 Doug DeBolt.
