I advocate since always that one also learns the old manual skills. I know that the brain gets materially altered and changed by manual work, and work with hands. Handwriting instead of typing, for example.
I use a navigation app when doping long bike tours, but I can also handle maps and compass, in civilised places as well as in the open wild. I can handle a sextant (learned it for interest, had a simple one from my grandfather), and I learned at least the basics for using a slide rule.
I would add chess as a general tool to alter cognitive performance for the better, and teach discipline, precision, concentration, patience, memorizing. I also would add playing a musical instrument. Well - I try, but I am late...
And then came the Japanese and stunned me again, with this:
Now I compare this with the German school system:
1. don't care about the actual performance level of the students.
2. abolish school grades in the subjects...
3. ... and replace them with verbal descriptions of social behavior, of course with positive connotations only, so that self-esteem is not hurt.
4. do not define the successfulness of the school system by absolvents' performance in studies and profession...
5. and fight school performance decline by lowering the performance level to guarantee consistently good ratings.
6. declare school grade comparisons in final reports from different states with different good school standards as "antisocial".
7. restrict the right of parents to choose their school, so that enough children have to go to bad schools to keep them alive - with their messed up chances for a better life.
No kidding. That's actually how it is in many states.