Back in my teen years, the Alabama public schools mandated "Computer Applications" as a high-school graduation requirement. This was a whole semester of Microsoft Works. Most of the term was learning how to use a word processor; later, we graduated to (dun dun DUN) spreadsheets.
There was a test you could take to try to exempt out of it, but they said it was "very hard -- no one has ever passed". To this day, I'm still convinced that they rig the grading, because -- let's be honest here -- there is no way that I could have fucked up a ten-line spreadsheet. I'd been *programming computers* for over four years by that point. When I cared, I got things *right*.
I *was* able to convince them that I could touch-type, so I didn't have to take "Keyboarding".
@bstacey I got out of it too, but I didn't actually "pass" the test because I apparently used the wrong fingers to touch-type. He let me out with a low pass so I could take choir instead. Keyboarding class was the most boring two weeks of my life.
@bstacey Same, but they let me drop it. It was kind of a secret that if you took both French and Choir, they didn't make you take keyboarding because the schedule conflicted.
@bstacey I partially took choir to get out of keyboarding, but ended up loving it and staying in it for the rest of high school.
Two weeks? At our school, Keyboarding was an entire *semester*.
@forestine