Specifically, I was talking about the French song you learned. Many of us learned the same damn song, but it didn't equip us for life, did it? That's the problem I have with a lot of education is learning extraneous stuff unrelated to life skills. Of course, the French song may have been helpful if you went on to be a French major and worked as a translator, but we have software that does that function for us now.
The French song, just by itself? Prepare me or anyone else "for life?" Almost certainly not, but even if so, the ways in which it did/does won't be immediately palpable, but that doesn't mean they had no role in preparing us for it somehow. Were you seriously posing that question?
I think the totality of the experiences I and others had in nursery school and kindergarten prepared us for something. Some of those skills -- reading, writing, adding, and subtracting -- are ones we use frequently for the rest of our lives, some -- for me, speaking French -- we use less than frequently.
Nonetheless, I think the central point of your first post in our discussion together, thus the point forms the basis for yours and my remarks, was essentially that preschool is a waste to the extent one expects more from it than basic babysitting. No matter how "life preparing" learning French, reading, writing, 'rithmetic, etc. are, it is undeniable that each of those skills develops a set of skills and abilities that directly and indirectly positively benefit the children who learn them in preschool; they are skills that if taught in preschool, demonstrate that more than just babysitting is going on in preschool.
I have no issue with "life preparing" skills, but reading, writing, math skills, which are life prepping do not happen in nursery school. They happen in elementary school, unless you went to a way more advanced system than I did. Learning nursery songs are good things for toddlers as it gets them intellectually stimulated. Stimulation is a fine aspiration. I just hate to see too much emphasis placed on that which doesn't relate to life preparation.