I read an article recently- maybe on here- in which a British surgeon talks about how he is beginning to see problems with surgeons-in-training due to a lack of hands-on skills for much of anything, due to the prevalence of cell phones, gaming, and so forth.
I think we need to go back, way back, and restart teaching kids things like how to tell time on an analog clock (think about it, this is a completely different skill than reading off numbers to “tell time”. Teach cursive writing again, for the same reason: it’s training the brain.
Then teach what we used to call “basic math” or “consumer math.” (Without benefit of calculators). Everybody does not need algebra; in fact, probably very few people actually need algebra.
Then, go back to courses like Home Ec and what we used to call “Industrial Arts.” Learning hands-on skills, even if those aren’t used in a career, can’t be useless and likely helps train the mind and the muscles to learn more skills.
The day will come when people who know how to farm will be worth their weight in gold.