30 Things Taught In School That Raise The Question “What Was The Point?” As Shared By People In This Online Group

Words cannot describe how much I hated PE class throughout my school years. It put me off exercise for years. I didn't realize that moving my body could be fun until I was almost 30.

"In my experience, the way gym and PE were taught were pretty useless because they never taught us how to train or improve our athletic abilities" Perfect description. When I was at school it was obvious some people were more naturally athletically inclined and were fawned over whereas those of us who had potential but needed guidance were blanked. Always seemed strange to me as physical education was still meant to be EDUCATION.

Unless you are actually any good at sport, PE was just a bit of mandatory excercise. It sure as hell wasn't fun. Playing touch rugby when the ground was frozen and it wasn't fit to play normal rugby or when it was too wet, doing cross-country. The only sports I liked were badminton, mainly because it was indoors, and hockey becase nobody would come near me when I was waving a hockeystick like a golf club! :D

Yes! And no allowances were given for differing levels of athletic ability. So those of us who were less athletic were humiliated by classmates and teachers. It put me off physical activity for a long time, too, which is pretty much the exact opposite of what it was supposed to do.

I'm 37, and only started working out (lifting weights and now running and going to spin classes) in the past few years, because I had a miserable time in gym class. It was designed to get people on sports teams, and to leave everyone else behind. It's the only class in which the "cool" kids can openly torment (and even injure) the not cool kids, and it's all considered part of the class. There's no actual teaching involved, as there is in science and math and english and social studies - if you aren't naturally talented, you're left behind. Physical education classes in school are the embodiment of toxic jock culture. If I had actually been taught about how to keep my body strong and healthy, I would have been healthy my entire life, rather than waiting until my 30's to just get started. And now, to learn what I should have learned in grades 1-12 (really, 7-12 are when it got awful), I have to spend hundreds of dollars a month for a personal trainer.

Also, I hated that any art project got letter grades. Like I'm sorry I'm not as talented as Ashley/Jessica/Brittney or that my dad wouldn't buy me the correct supplies. I tried. I did what I could with the resources I had. That deserves better than a C, doesn't it?

The schools place more emphasis on standardized testing than what the children really need to know. They dont NEED to know about Shakespeare and how to read his works, although he was a great author. But they do need to know basic math and life skills and how to read in order to function as adults

So how do you determine whether a child is learning, without some way of measuring whether they understand the work? Skipping crucial steps prevents progress and leads to the ignorance we now see in graduates. What's a better way?

Still do. What are salaries, if not adult test scores?

I KNOW RIGHT, MY FUTURE RELIES ON A LETTER!

"I used to think the honors students were smarter than the regular students. Then I realized that they're just better at cheating." (my AP US History teacher)

white privledge, money, some unimportant status.

Depends how you define cheating. I don't understand why you can't use reference material that would be available to you normally.

What's with this arm? Is it Ron Jeremy's?

Cheaters, bullies, the general scum of society....always floats to the top.

Teaching a book is how to kill any love of reading, IMO. Had I not read the classics for fun ---- not knowing they were classics ----- I'd have loathed being taught "literature".

I love reading but I hate how schools force you to analyse and it takes so long you never finish the book

I'm an avid reader and a fast one at that, so I'd finish the books for English class quickly. Then I got to endure weeks of the book being beaten to death, being forced to read out loud in class and the endless busy work quizzes that boiled down to "did you read this chapter? Did you memorize every mundane detail? What color were Miss Haversham's curtains? You obviously didn't read it if you didn't pick up on every tiny detail and memorized it! " and when it came to actual discussion over the book, woe betide you if you developed a different opinion than your English teacher! Classes taught this way are guaranteed to make kids hate books.

Classical Literature is timeless.

Is this an American thing? Does any other countries do this? We certainly don't (Norway)

I think this person means the fact that a majority of the schools spend all their time in the US prepping the students to take the national tests. From what I understand (and I could be wrong) a lot of the school districts' funding is based upon how well students perform on these tests. Therefore they spend copious amounts of time hammering what it is in these tests to students all year long instead of teaching them applicable skills that will help them succeed in life.

I'd rather learn the material. Pass the test to prove I learned the material. Than spend sooooo much time on pointless homework assignments. Homework was why my grades sucked. I just couldn't wrap my brain around countless, pointless, time waste while I was in my 'absorb everything like a sponge' years.

Linking Standardized tests to school funding is probably the worst thing to ever happen to formal education

The problem with this is that many schools require test scores in order to apply to them. I feel bad for kids today. They are guinea pigs for standardized testing.

For if at first. Perfection is attained, not made.

For some reason that I don't understand, victims of bullying are treated much the same way as victims of sexual assault. The authority figures tend to side with, or actively protect, the bully. The general thought is that the bullying victim did something to "ask for it" or misconstrued the situation. They rarely receive any actual help and are left to endure continuing bullying that escalates. If/when the victim of bullying, snaps and fights back, THEY are the ones that are punished. What a f*****g joke!

Bullies get promoted, nice people get walked over. This has been proven over and over in studies. It's apparently a scientific thing to do with human psychology where we flock to bullies for leadership as they seem so self assured and knowledgeable, when they're really talking out of their over-inflated a**, but the rest of us don't have the confidence to call them out on it.

I was bullied from grades 2-8 at the same school. (USA). Not looking for sympathy. Just facts. I KNOW bullying. Now, at 49, I’ve had a 15-odd-year-long career working in adolescent residential treatment canters. I am not condoning violence. But I can say with certainty that no anti-bullying program has worked or will work. Ever. I mean, getting the police involved - as bullying is a crime in the USA (or my state at least) - will get the bully removed. But...the stigma surrounding the victim will remain and still be felt by both the victim - AND the outside supporters of the bully who maybe laughed on the sidelines. They remain. The victim is not suddenly going to be accepted by peers is what I’m saying. And, removing the bully - while likely the safest physically for the victim and the school - will likely lead to new stressors for the victim. I have found (through my work with teens) that the effective solutions are either (sadly) physical retaliation or changing schools. Thank you

This needs to be up higher

We told our kids that if they are getting bullied they need to tell the teacher and then tell us. If it doesn't stop we would step in. We also told them not to put their hands on anyone but if someone puts their hands on our kids, we instructed our kids to finish it! Defending themselves is a skill they need to learn!