30 Things Taught In School That Raise The Question “What Was The Point?” As Shared By People In This Online Group
School is all about learning things, and the more you learn, the smarter you’ll be, right? Well, some don’t really agree that everything taught in schools is actually useful in life.
Folks on AskReddit have been listing and discussing things and topics that are taught in schools that are actually pretty, if not completely, useless given what you actually end up using in real life.
Reddit user u/highnrgy asked the lovely people of Reddit what’s the most useless thing they teach in school?, getting over 17,700 responses with nearly 35,000 upvotes on the post.
Bored Panda has gathered the best responses and turned it into a neat curated list below, so be sure to scroll through it and give your two cents on the topic in the comment section.
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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. It was just weeks of half heartedly playing basketball with minimal adult supervision, and then one day we had to run a mile and the coaches would go out of their way to humiliate anyone who couldn't just get up and run a mile under 10 minutes with no training or preparation. It put me off running and exercise in general for a long time.
That your entire self worth is based off of a letter and score.
“Cheaters never prosper.” Yeah cheating is bad, but trust me, they prosper.
That classical literature is the end all be all of reading. I get some books have cultural significance, but that doesn't warrant a 6 week in depth analysis of a book kids can't relate to, with most being about challenges they will never face, culminating in an essay that's basically "I understood it" repeated over and over backed up by quotes.
If you want your kids to never touch a book in their lives ever again, THAT is how you do it.
That learning how to pass tests is more important than actually gaining knowledge.
Ok…unpopular opinion, sometimes this one is needed. Like if you are good at X, but freeze during tests but need to pass a certification test for X, sometimes test taking skills are necessary, briefly.
That you have to "ignore" bullies and/or forgive them. In real outside world if you bully someone you will:
- Get slapped across the face
- Get kicked in your butt
- Fired from work Or
- Shunned and made fun of.
This is going to sound stupid, but history the way it's taught is basically meaningless.
A long category of dates and events without context or real discussion. The vast majority of history is trivia, because the real story is the cyclical nature of events, the rise and fall of empires, the periods of enlightenment and advance and the reactionary times that bookend them.
You learn that there used to be this thing called "yellow journalism" but you don't learn that what kicked it off was the sudden availability and popularity of newspapers, and nobody draws the EXTREMELY OBVIOUS parallel to our modern blog driven media. If I told you that in the mid to late 1800s (when newsprint was blowing up) that it was extremely common for papers to blatantly copy each others stories with added editorial bias tailored to their viewers...Sounds a little familiar, doesn't it?
Drawing parallels between the robber barons of the late 1800s and the current ones. Drawing parallels between the labor movements of that era, and the ones that are growing again today. S!@#s relevant, and important to realize in context.
But no. Just memorize some f!@#$%g dates and names, so you'll have some s!@t to spout at trivia night later.
So totally true. The book that turned me on to history was William Manchester’s brilliant *The Glory and the Dream* which came out in 1974 and covered American history from 1932 to 1972. Those years encompassed the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, the rise of the industrial state, and was written as a series of events presented in chronological order, showing how one inexorably led to the other. And here and there a person, place, or thing would be highlighted in a small portrait...the Studebaker sticks in my brain as one of these portraits. I think the rise of unions might be in there. I think I’ve read everything he’s written. A World Lit Only By Fire is another great one. If you want to learn history as a series of stories, William Manchester is your go-to author.
"The bell doesn't dismiss you; I do."
Of course the bell dismisses you. What you're being prepared for, however, is a lifetime of bosses telling you that coming in 15 minutes before your shift, and staying 10 minutes after, doesn't count as overtime and doesn't need to be paid. That it's okay to violate that safety rule on-site because OSHA isn't paying you, I am, and the customer is waiting on you.
Basically, anytime an authority figure isn't following the rules they themselves set for everyone, you are being trained to accept that behavior in your adult life.
I graduated in 1991 for context and, while living in Phoenix, they taught us square dancing in gym class. I must say though that the most useful skill that I was taught at that school that I use every single day is typing.
Sex and drug education. The entire lesson plan is:
"Just don't do it."
F!@#$%g bulls!@t.
I feel like almost everything has some value, but I really really wished that they taught highschool classes on Operating Systems, Excel, and an introduction to programming and logic.
I learned it all in college, but Excel saved me a ton of time on homework. Programming played a much greater role than I could have imagined, and highschool left me unprepared for that.
Well I did a course when I was 15-16 to learn Word Processing, Spreadsheets and simple Databases, simply to play with the computers. Don't laugh, but I got an 'F'! Mainly because it was assessed on typing accuracy and not my understanding of what I was using. I also didn't take the 3rd module, so the highest I could get was a 'D'. From 17-18 I did a Computing qualification which did actually involve programming, but sadly back in the 1980s, it was a case of teach-the-teacher - my programming skills were already way above what the course was teaching - but at least I got a piece of paper to say that I could do it. I then went on to do a degree in Computer Science. So much better for kids now, learning to program with Raspberry Pi's and the like.
In the U.S., probably the Pledge of Allegiance.
We did that every day from first grade through 12th grade. Let's say it took a minute per day. That's five minutes a week. Every 12 weeks, that's an hour. You're in school roughly 36 weeks a year, so that's 3 hours a year. Multiplied by 12 years and that's about 36 hours of your youth academic career spent talking to a flag.
Everyone in my class just straight up refuses to do it, we just keep doing the warm up.
‘You won’t have a calculator in your pocket in the real world!’
Yes, I know how do do math, I’m an engineer and I like math theory, I promise I’m not a brain dead mobile addict.
Yes you will. People don't calculate the trajectories of rockets on paper lol.
The way the US public school system teaches it, Spanish. You learn it maybe half a year then forget it over the summer. You’d think with years of education we’d be better Spanish speakers but it’s essentially useless the way it’s taught.
American history. For gawd's sake most americans can't find one other country on the map so why keep navel gazing, why not teach students about other countries, culture, and language? Met some guy in grad school who was doing his thesis on General Hooker's buttons. Why, just why?
They mostly taught us to ask permission in order to use the bathroom.
I was taught that Columbus knew that the world was round, but everyone else thought it was flat. So, yeah... That.
The amount they teach shakespeare. Like, sure once is probably good, not every year grade 9 to 12.
hizzoze said:
That hiding under your desk will keep you safe from bombs and tornadoes. (Yes I know what it's actually for, it's just always been a silly visual.)
vegdeg responded:
That wasn't the lesson you could have learned.
The real lesson was that people tend to panic, and panicking causes unpredictable and dangerous behavior. When you drill an action that makes a population feel like they have self control over a situation, they will tend to follow that.
Same as with patients and a disease - so often there is conflict between clinician and patient because the clinician will see it as the patient not being able to do anything (medically proven at least) - whereas the patient is looking for some agency, some self control over a situation, even if that is drinking carrot juice or whatever. This helps explain the multitude of holistic medicines and why they are popular - because there is always something you can do (or feel like there is) to have agency in a difficult situation.
As others have said - the lesson wasn't always literally the subject matter/what was being taught.
That conduct grades matter. I have a friend whose child got a "needs improvement" conduct grade. WTF is that about? If her 8 year old is causing problems, address it then. Why wait 9 weeks and slip it onto the report card? My friend is also a teacher and completely agreed with me. I got plenty of "unsatisfactory" conduct grades in school and yet I still managed to get a college degree and have a career. Screw that nonsense.
I was graded on "friendliness." I got " unsatisfactory" for several years. Well excuse me for being bullied every day and having major trust issues and social anxiety because of it. Damn positivity project.
They don't do it anymore, but back around 2000 in health class we all had to plan a wedding. Like, pair up and budget out a rental space, food, rings, etc.
Looking back: What. The. F@#k?
Maybe the subject matter (a wedding) is a bit skewed, especially if it's repeated, but event planning such as this is a hugely important skill. We did a cookie business - come up with a recipe, work out prices, including overheads and advertising, put forward a business case for a loan (even though in reality it was our parents providing the materials). Then bake and sell and report back how successful we were. To be honest, I would have preferred the wedding planning as I was partnered with someone who could burn water!
My biology teacher was supposed to teach us evolution, but had us memorize a bunch of birds in the process?
A pop quiz would be him walking into the classroom with a boombox, hitting play, and he'd play some chirping noises that he recorded himself. He'd ask us to write down the scientific name of the bird. Or he'd show us a drawing of a bird and tell us to write down the common name of it. It was a mix.
But that's it. There wasn't any question about evolution on the quiz at all. It was entirely about memorizing birds.
This was the class that broke me. When we studied the cell, I got a 97 for the semester. When we studied evolution, I felt like a dog jumping through a hoop on command and decided I wasn't going to memorize birds. F@#k you, flunk me.
I would leave the quizzes blank on purpose.
I grew up in Massachusetts, so maybe this is skewed because of the proximity to early settler and revolutionary war sites, but EVERY year in history, from like 1st grade to 12th, we learned the same stuff on the early settlers to revolutionary war. That would be the majority of all history classes. Yes, it’s very important history (and I do thoroughly enjoy history and that time period in particular) but when it’s all that’s covered and everything else is glossed over, it doesn’t feel like we learned as much as we should have. It was also always taught through rose colored glasses.
I didn't learn about the "Spanish American War" until I was out of school and an adult. CT schools.
They taught competitive cup stacking in my elementary school. Still have no idea why. This was in central Canada, but clearly it was widespread across a lot of North America.
Hi, language teacher in the uk.
This is more what they don't teach but....
They often teach the rise of the British empire but seldom about the fall. Which leads students with a very British centric approach to a lot of their studies. I'm aware of this in languages but I've seen this in history, RE and even English language. I'm not blaming the teachers or the students, the curriculum is f!@#$d. But as a result from this I hear way too often "learning X language is pointless, everyone speaks English!"
For me it was social studies, specifically politics that only really focuses on the 50s-70s and ignores everything else and tries to use the period of time where people literally couldn't lose money on anything and use it to justify trickle down economics of today's society as a good blueprint for running a country.
I'm too old for this, but I can totally see how this would work. "Oh, see that nice way it worked that we totally skewed for our trickle-down economic fantasy?"
How to say and spell antidisestablishmentarianism.
My 1st grade teacher told us if you go outside and stand really still, you can feel the earth rotating...
Three simple words... "Five paragraph essays."
English being the only class that is/was required during all four years of high school, we had it constantly drilled into our heads that it was the only way to submit short papers and that we would need to perfect the application if we wanted to succeed in collage.
First day of Comm 101 in collage while the professor was going over the syllabus, and that everything needed to be submitted in MLS format, someone asked what MLS was. The professor stopped, "Let me say this to all of you that graduated high school last year and are just starting your collegiate lives... if ANYONE turns in a paper in five paragraph format you will fail the assignment."
Found out from everyone I knew that was taking other professors for English or Communication classes that they got told the same thing.
MLA is guidelines for research papers. How you do anything in proper format for formal english writing, from what I recall. I still have the handbook.
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This is nonsense. MLS and the five paragraph essay format aren't the same sport. The idea of writing with an introduction and thesis, followed by evidence, followed by a conclusion is good training for writing coherently and for just understanding things in general.
No... they in *collage*. Lots of little pictures glued together.
Load More Replies... I see the word "collage" and I just can't make the connection to "college". Like "decoupage" and "décolletage".
The U.S. pays garbage wages for teachers and so have a huge population of relatively incompetent people doing it, mixed with some few angels in human form who sacrifice themselves for the job. But overall, end up with incompetent curriculums and teaching. Because we don't want rich people to help support the society that makes them rich in any way.
I took the test for teachers in Texas (has it been 20 yrs? Oof) and am shocked that the others said it was too hard. I finished and reviewed my work in an hour (we had 4), and found one error. It was basically multiple choice, write three different notes to parents.
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As soon as I was in 10th grade my teacher told us to forget the 5 paragraph essay, and taught us how to find our own preferred writing style, for academic and creative writing.
Nice...a teacher who actually taught something intensely useful.
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The 5 paragraph essay is essentially a way to learn how to open a discussion/argument, support it with multiple examples and sources, then close it properly. The problem is it's taught as the ONLY way to do this. I'll tell you my senior capstone paper followed that flow, but it was more like 26 pages. This was for undergrad. Please, high school teachers, tell me how I would've gotten through this study with 5 paragraphs
The way I was taught 5 paragraph format though it made a lot of sense. 1st paragraph was your proposal/thesis statement/opening; next 3 were your main proofs/evidence/ points of discussion; 5th paragraph was your conclusion.
As a teacher, I use the 5 paragraph essay as training for writing longer research papers. While the 5 paragraph essay is very basic it gets a student ready to organize and write much more complex papers. The 5 paragraph essay has a place in college for essay questions in others classes like sociology or western civilization. This week our first research paper is due and I am excited to read what they have written.
One way is a gift. If you go to work where written communication is important you will have to master; one sentence, one paragraph, proposals, rfp, rfq, ppt, etc........... Many people can't write effectively, and many leaders ask for things in writing. Learn as soon as you can.
Yeah, but college English 101 and 102 teachers shouldn’t talk, because they do the same damn thing for non-English majors. We were taught MLS constantly, but APA, which is used in all other majors, got a quick 15 minute skim over on the last day in class. Like an afterthought. Chicago/Turabian wasn’t even mentioned. I was a social sciences major, and used APA almost exclusively, except for profs who preferred Chicago/Turabian.
I am someone who spent about a month writing five paragraph persuasive essays in 8th grader for standardized testing. Though I rarely wrote them later, what I DID learn was how to organize my thoughts based on this format. Even my thesis for my bachelor's degree was based on the concept of Introduction, Point 1, Point 2, Point 3, Conclusion.
I hate five paragraph essays with a burning passion. I had to write dozens of the stupid things every year since 4th grade.
Earlier this school year(college freshman), I was given an assignment that said something like, "analyze the plot of [film name]." Without reading any further, I wrote out five paragraphs. I looked back at the instructions and noticed it later said to just use two, maybe three paragraphs. F**k you, high school. Same for you, eighth grade.
My beta, that helps me with the fanfiction I write, has taught me more about writing and grammar than any teacher I've had.
I had to submit in APA format and don't remember being taught about"five paragraph essays". I guess it's a thing.
Teachers know that... But they do it just because they are pure evil.
Note: this post originally had 39 images. It’s been shortened to the top 30 images based on user votes.
Why aren't financial literacy and self defence on the curriculum? Much more useful than trigonometry or hockey.
But trig applies to so many fields! Astronomy, geography, satellite navigation, computer music, chemistry, medical imaging, electronics, electrical engineering, civil engineering, architecture, mechanical engineering, oceanography, seismology, phonetics, image compression, game development, the list goes on. I used it in both of the tech jobs I had.
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One thing I've understood about schooling in hindsight is a LOT of it is just teaching you how to pass exams. The emphasis seems to be on learning chucks of information that can be parroted back based in an established testing curriculum rather than imparting the knowledge AND methods for problem solving in a real application of learned information. Does that make sense (just read it back myself and I'm not sure but I hope you're getting what I mean)
We may never use some of the things we learned in school but having the knowledge expands our minds.
When I was a kid we had to learn the capital cities of almost every country because it might come up on the common entrance exam. Not only have I happily forgotten most of them but also most of them are now obsolete. Capital of East Germany anyone? East Berlin by the way, west Germany was Bonn. Now only useful in TV game shows.
I remember having to learn all the European capitals too, and also noticed how many no longer exist.
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A good portion of schooling is making you figure out HOW to learn, HOW to memorize, HOW to think. Unfortunately, they do a crappy job of explaining that to you. But memorizing capital cities isn't important because you need to know the capitals, it is important because you will need to memorize things in life (for your job or whatever), and learning HOW to memorize things is a skill you will need. Also learning forces you to think (in theory), and practicing thinking makes your brain more efficient in general.
They didn't TEACH HOW to learn the capitals just that we needed to KNOW them for THE TEST.
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Wait, i got stuck in the reddit thing. There are people out there, that have to DANCE to graduate? Maybe i got something wrong, because it is 3am here and i should sleep.
I actually read a story about that, apparently it was started by some dud who didn’t like jazz and had a lot of influence in schools, so he had them all teach square dancing so kids wouldn’t get into jazz. Dumb idea, I know. I do like square dancing, though.
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I don't know about other countries, but here in the USA each state's governing body decides the curriculum and what students need to be taught. Schools are TOLD what to teach, we are TOLD to give standardized tests, we HAVE to do these things because the government tells us to. To the person who angrily says "I wasn't taught x subject in school, I got ripped off": yeah, you were. You were too busy scrolling through your phone or talking.
This is less about what people learned, and more about what they didn't.
Kids aren't even taught how to deal with minor medical emergencies because schools are brainwashed into thinking that they'll get sued for doling out medical advice without a license. But the worst offender is the (Gaussian) Bell Curve:, as in, ''If you're in the top percentile, you've got to be good''. I had a student from China break down in tears because she had studied English pronunciation back home for ten years only to discover that none of her Canadian co-workers had any idea what she was talking about.
What about diagramming sentences? All those crazy lines. What was that about?
Learning parts of speech. The diagrams are kinda worthless but knowing what is a noun, verb, adverb, adjective etc and their place in sentences is useful
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Algebra calculus and all other maths that use letters and symbols. And then there are the imaginary numbers. I am in my 40s and I have NEVER used any of these since I have left school.
We do but don't realize it's algebra. But yeah on the imaginary numbers.
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I would love to enroll my child in a private school became of all the nonsense above, and my poor personal experiences. I don't want him trained to be a factory worker that is brainwashed to never question anything and just repeat empty facts so he would get a "good" digit on a piece of paper. Now if only it didn't cost my annual income per semester...
Private schools have their own set of problems, though. Plenty of private school students are so sheltered they basically don’t understand how the world works and are taught even dumber stuff.
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I could not read this. It just makes me angry, the amount of unessecert s**t I had to put up with from lazy deppresed teachers who just dont care about anyone!
I'm sorry you had that experience and that every teacher you came across was lazy and depressed. Too bad you didn't attend the school where I teach--we actually care about students and what they're learning. Of course, I'm SURE you were a model student and joy to have in class.
Load More Replies... Usually the people who make that type of comment are the ones who flaunted the rules and spent all of high school in trouble, or didn't even graduate.
Load More Replies... Why aren't financial literacy and self defence on the curriculum? Much more useful than trigonometry or hockey.
But trig applies to so many fields! Astronomy, geography, satellite navigation, computer music, chemistry, medical imaging, electronics, electrical engineering, civil engineering, architecture, mechanical engineering, oceanography, seismology, phonetics, image compression, game development, the list goes on. I used it in both of the tech jobs I had.
Load More Replies... One thing I've understood about schooling in hindsight is a LOT of it is just teaching you how to pass exams. The emphasis seems to be on learning chucks of information that can be parroted back based in an established testing curriculum rather than imparting the knowledge AND methods for problem solving in a real application of learned information. Does that make sense (just read it back myself and I'm not sure but I hope you're getting what I mean)
We may never use some of the things we learned in school but having the knowledge expands our minds.
When I was a kid we had to learn the capital cities of almost every country because it might come up on the common entrance exam. Not only have I happily forgotten most of them but also most of them are now obsolete. Capital of East Germany anyone? East Berlin by the way, west Germany was Bonn. Now only useful in TV game shows.
I remember having to learn all the European capitals too, and also noticed how many no longer exist.
Load More Replies... A good portion of schooling is making you figure out HOW to learn, HOW to memorize, HOW to think. Unfortunately, they do a crappy job of explaining that to you. But memorizing capital cities isn't important because you need to know the capitals, it is important because you will need to memorize things in life (for your job or whatever), and learning HOW to memorize things is a skill you will need. Also learning forces you to think (in theory), and practicing thinking makes your brain more efficient in general.
They didn't TEACH HOW to learn the capitals just that we needed to KNOW them for THE TEST.
Load More Replies... Wait, i got stuck in the reddit thing. There are people out there, that have to DANCE to graduate? Maybe i got something wrong, because it is 3am here and i should sleep.
I actually read a story about that, apparently it was started by some dud who didn’t like jazz and had a lot of influence in schools, so he had them all teach square dancing so kids wouldn’t get into jazz. Dumb idea, I know. I do like square dancing, though.
Load More Replies... I don't know about other countries, but here in the USA each state's governing body decides the curriculum and what students need to be taught. Schools are TOLD what to teach, we are TOLD to give standardized tests, we HAVE to do these things because the government tells us to. To the person who angrily says "I wasn't taught x subject in school, I got ripped off": yeah, you were. You were too busy scrolling through your phone or talking.
This is less about what people learned, and more about what they didn't.
Kids aren't even taught how to deal with minor medical emergencies because schools are brainwashed into thinking that they'll get sued for doling out medical advice without a license. But the worst offender is the (Gaussian) Bell Curve:, as in, ''If you're in the top percentile, you've got to be good''. I had a student from China break down in tears because she had studied English pronunciation back home for ten years only to discover that none of her Canadian co-workers had any idea what she was talking about.
What about diagramming sentences? All those crazy lines. What was that about?
Learning parts of speech. The diagrams are kinda worthless but knowing what is a noun, verb, adverb, adjective etc and their place in sentences is useful
Load More Replies... Algebra calculus and all other maths that use letters and symbols. And then there are the imaginary numbers. I am in my 40s and I have NEVER used any of these since I have left school.
We do but don't realize it's algebra. But yeah on the imaginary numbers.
Load More Replies... I would love to enroll my child in a private school became of all the nonsense above, and my poor personal experiences. I don't want him trained to be a factory worker that is brainwashed to never question anything and just repeat empty facts so he would get a "good" digit on a piece of paper. Now if only it didn't cost my annual income per semester...
Private schools have their own set of problems, though. Plenty of private school students are so sheltered they basically don’t understand how the world works and are taught even dumber stuff.
Load More Replies... I could not read this. It just makes me angry, the amount of unessecert s**t I had to put up with from lazy deppresed teachers who just dont care about anyone!
I'm sorry you had that experience and that every teacher you came across was lazy and depressed. Too bad you didn't attend the school where I teach--we actually care about students and what they're learning. Of course, I'm SURE you were a model student and joy to have in class.
Load More Replies... Usually the people who make that type of comment are the ones who flaunted the rules and spent all of high school in trouble, or didn't even graduate.
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