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.
Yes definitely! Every gym teacher I ever had. "Are you already good at sports? Awesome here's a ball go play! Do you have no clue what you are doing? Well umm, you'll get better if your classmates mock you for being terrible at sports right? No? Then just try to stay out of the way I guess. "
So much this. I was the opposite of athletically inclined. If they pushed me too hard-- which they often did-- I would taste BLOOD in the back of my throat. Apparently that's the sign of a *miniature heart attack* which many athletes can get if they push themselves much too hard. A PE teacher should really know that. But instead, I was told to 'stop being so dramatic' when I told her about it because it worried me. I was already having health issues, I'm sure that didn't help. Screw PE.
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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" 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.
It was torture for me. Small, quiet, not athletic in the slightest, always chosen last for a team, teachers not complying with the medical letters that say I shouldn't do any sports at the moment....even now, 15 years later, the word "exercise" makes me anxious. I call it "moving" instead.
Yep yep yep. My advice is that you try some different things, and start out very light and slow, until you find something you kind of enjoy. After a while of challenging yourself, you truly will start to enjoy it (endorphins and all that). Good luck!
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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
You've hit the nail on the head. I'm guessing you're from the UK (or Ireland) as my experience sounds the same as yours. I wasn't (and still aren't) interested in competitive sport like football or rugby but I was a half decent runner. Yet that was never even seen let alone encouraged in me. I hate to sound like a bitter old man (but eff it, I am) but PE teachers always came across to me as failed athletes trying to live vicariously through their pupils in the sport they personally had a connection to. Good at football? Great I used to play semi professionally. What do you need from me? Good at running? Don't care about that, how are the football guys doing?
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Changing clothes & taking showers with ppl who definitely didn't view each other as a team was very damaging.
Getting criticized in jr. high/middle school ( I had both, moving to another county)-body, hair, clothes-was fun.
Load More Replies... 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.
Very much this! If you were bad at some sport or other form of PE, you were made fun of and made felt like s**t. Then there were the team sports, we had a gymnastics team at our school, and because I wasn't one of the popular girls, I couldn't get in, even though I was hella flexible and really interested in the whole things. Outside of school I did soccer, but the team coach kept holding me back to force me to play with younger girls, because I was a bit short at the time, and after a couple of years of that I had had enough. I wanted to play with girls my age! The younger kids were so annoying! We also had sort of PE "exams" where they'd test out how many sit ups and push ups you could do, how much/fast can you run, how flexible are you, and other s**t like that, without actually training for it. In middle school and high school the PE teachers were super mean too. Oh, and we were expected to own a pair of skis and skates just so that we could go skiing and ice skating like 2-3 times
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.
On the other hand, you've possibly been spared some joint injuries that may have started giving you grief in your 40s-50s. I know several jock-types, male and female, who've needed knee replacements in their 50s, and one girl who needed one in her 30s from playing soccer.
Load More Replies... Yes! I hated the competition of team sports because I was rubbish at most of them and hated letting my team down. After school I found that I loved cycling by myself.
We had a couple standard fitness tests per year. No mandatory score, just to see where students are at. But all the gym teachers took those as an opportunity to high praise their prized athletes and put down those who tried so hard but were simply not good at sports. I was somewhere in the middle, no high praises but no ridiculing me either. Still put me off sports for many years
Sooo much bad PE; Most coaches only concerned with their favorite sport, and the jocks in them. Everyone else is just a distraction.
PE was a chance for us to work off our desire to strangle our teachers, that was our theory.
I work at a high school. There’s some unofficial truth to that.
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I have no idea why, but once in elementary school the teacher had us do these yoga exercises with a basketball. It was totally unusual, and I LOVED it. I remember feeling so calm but stretched out too. Best day of PE ever. She only did it once. I wish we had yoga and other choices like that for PE.
When I was in 7th grade I was very insecure. I was one of those picked last and I was afraid of the ball, pe was brutal. But when we had to run a mile in ten minutes I did really well! My teacher told me to try out track which I did and won city in the 880. This really helped my self esteem and I have run off and on in my life.
I used to really like PE to play soccer and cricket...and then I hated PE because the teacher would always expect everyone to have the same athletic prowess...I've always been chubby so it was never fun even though I always tried.
Wait there are schools who teach you useful thing is PE!? My entire physical education was just sports. Now I hate sports with a burning passion. Each and every one
When I was in 7th grade, the PE teacher allowed another student to put their foot on my back during a stupid physical fitness test. I was already struggling and felt humiliated, thinking back on it just makes me sad and angry.
Fully and totally 110% agree. I was always what you now call a curvy girl but I was never taught how to exercise for my size and how I didn't have to run marathons to lose weight. Exercise can also be simply taking long daily walks and portion control, none of which I was taught in school.
We had to do sit ups with legs flat on the floor, no one holding our ankles. No one could do it. I was yelled at for jamming my feet in the angle where floor and wall me, bending my knees a little and doing 20 sit ups...I cheated. The Royal Marines can't do sit ups with straight legs and no one holding their feet down.
I absolutely HATED PE until my HS jr. and sr. years, when I finally got a good coach (same teacher for both) who actually assigned useful activities and graded us fairly by participation and effort. Pretty chill dude if you didn't cross him. Wished he'd been my dad, uncle or at least cousin.
Change basketball to soccer, and it fits to my school sports times.
That and it seems to have carried over military and other areas where physical fitness is important. Just do this and don’t ask why. No education is taught in physical education 🤦🏻♂️
I can't stress enough to the younger ones. WHAT HAPPENS IN HIGH SCHOOL DOES NOT MATTER! It is 4 years out of your entire life. The teachers do not matter, the groups/cliques do not matter, clothes, fads, sports, the whole experience does not matter so never let any setbacks rule your life or dictate who you are or what you want to be or do. Get good grades and graduate.
Yes because what they described is better than playing basketball for a year
My class would always get the "disappointed speech" after we ran the mile and an entire three kids made it in under 10 minutes
I, with a genetic disability, fresh out of hospital for corrective surgery, just weaned from crutches to help me re-learn how to walk was sent on a mile-long run and got s**t for coming last. Not sure if many people have had their Achillies tendon cut and lengthened, but it hurts like a burning fire stabbed into your soul with every step you take. And yeah, I still limp to this day many years later
Also if you weren't good enough at sports to be in competition, you were invisible. The teachers only cared about you if you were good at a sport.
I have two words for you: Apparatus gymnastics. Mandatory each winter, and I just couldn't do it. I have really bad eyesight, leading to extreme vertigo and fear of heights. Every year my PE teachers would bodily force me to do certain tasks because otherwise I would fail the complete class - while I was scared sh!tless in full blown panic mode. Several times I hurt myself really bad because of course you do not have normal reactions in case you fall when every muscle in your body is locked with fright. I hated it so, so much. For nearly 30 years I was convinced that I would NEVER do any kind of sports because it is just not for me. Now I am a yoga teacher and TEACH people HOW to become strong, flexible and to move your personal limitations just a little bit every day...
For me gym class was totally useless. The gym teachers would throw in a ball and say "go play" and stand in the corner of the gym and bullshit. Athletes were favored and automatically got an A, the rest of us received C's. In my district gym teachers makes close to $140,000 in wages and benefits. Totally overpaid.
I was SO PISSED OFF when I joined a gym as an adult and found out what exercising is supposed to be like. Shout out to my Year 11 PE teacher, though, who trusted us to go for a walk instead.
I remember one time with all the girls in gym class we revolted and said we are not doing this again! It is all guys sports like football (soccer) and basketball and it is just no fun for us. Teacher empathized though and we said we wanted to play hockey or softball and that was OK.
Our PE teachers were vile. If you weren't good at sports they went out of their way to humiliate you. I used to forge many notes to get out of it or skip it altogether and just go for a walk round the school. Put me off sports and exercise for many many years as was humiliating at school and didn't want to repeat that experience ever again.
It was painful to run and I would get yelled at for stopping. I learned years later that I have "duck feet" which messes with the muscle and prevents a person's foot to face straight forward when running. So, yeah, thanks for making me look stupid and cry in front of the class.
When I was in middle school, PE was essentially just an attempt to burn off students energy via calisthenics, running endless, puke inducing laps and occasional dodge ball, supervised by emotionally damaged, lazy adults wearing those gray shorts and polyester short sleeve shirts. Nothing prepared you for that first day of middle school gym class and the shock of group showers. ( High school was marginally better as some sports were attempted).
Remember the "Presidential Physical Fitness Award" test? We had no training Or even pre-warning for it. Set up to fail and feel crappy about our little fifth grade bodies.
PE was the only class I ever got a C in. Gymnastics, volleyball, track, and the other things we did just didn't appeal to me. After high school I found my own interests in sports, learned how to train properly, and now at age 59 still lift weights, bike, ski, and do other activities.
My school did this, and had a compulsory 5K run as part of it - you 'had to' get under an hour. My DOMs the next day were so bad I was incapable of getting out of bed without screaming. I had to take a week off school because I literally couldn't walk.
Nature does not humiliate you, it turns you into the fear you run from.
Our PE was in groups. Group 4 were all the out of shape kids, group 1 the athletes or genetically gifted fit with 2 and 3 in between. Groups 1 and 2 got all kinds of additional training on improvement group 3 not so much, and group 4 just played pickleball or walked around the track. This broke me at first of ever wanting to run but when puberty kicked in I shifted from 4 to 1 in 8 months and was surprised at the different experiences of the groups.
What did you think of those Physical Fitness Awards with no training? I had an undiagnosed blocked artery in my right leg and literally couldn't run. To be laughed at, shamed by my teacher, was let's say, damaging.
This is why it is everyone's favourite lesson, imagine if you had to do drills week in, week out.
I'm adopting this as my excuse to justify my hatred and not participating in exercise. Hahaha
The rope climb was the worst. When you have severely dry skin it's impossible to get enough grip and dangerous. If I were to manage to get up on the rope I wouldn't be able to get down, or I would slip down the rope or fall.
Their goal is tou humiliate you enough and to make you suffer enough until your will and self-respect disappear so you will be an obedient citizen and worker, as bitter and frustrated and your teachers.
Goals of PE are introducing students to sports, making students able to participate in sports and keeping students active/motivated for life. So actually this class in school is the only one that should contribute to staying healthy. (And of course this all stands or falls with the teacher, like every class)
If that's the goal, they are failing MISERABLY. See my post above on this. Also, why is sports the end goal? Shouldn't general physical fitness be the goal? And education on how to keep your body strong and healthy without injuring yourself? Pretty sure team sports isn't the only way to accomplish that.
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We had weight training in my school. No supervision or instruction on proper training by any school staff, but we helped each other out.
In my entire 13 year formal education, I did 1 week of weight training. It was the only week of gym class that I didn't totally hate myself
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I got the hell out of normal PE for this reason. Did leadership course instead. Sooooo much better.
oh my god the amount of times someone almost died of either the heat or dehydration
PhysEd. goes back to German & English schools’ revival of ancient Greece in the 18th C. The USA took from those traditions, especially during the Cold War to get our kids in shape to fight the Commies (remember JFK’s Presidential Physical Fitness Award? I didn’t get one). By the 80’s we were more afraid of losing our jobs to Japan, so the emphasis was shifted to STEM, and with the Digital Revolution, everything had to be presentable on a handy pie chart. TL;DR: your gym teacher’s real job is being the team coach, and his or her job hangs on that metric.
The f*****g bleep test. THE F*****G BLEEP TEST WAS BULLSHIT. It was one of the first things we did at the start of each year and f**k that s**t.
One of the high schools I went to had a teacher who had been a fencer, so I learned how to fence, which was very groovy. The other high school was in a different school system and had a set up where on Mondays everyone went to all six classes for 50 minutes, then on Tuesdays/Thursdays we went to odd numbered classes for 100 minutes and Wednesdays/Fridays to even numbered classes. In swimming class students were required to spend 15 minutes in the pool, so at this school I got an amazing tan.
You had to run a mile one time?! We have to run one every single monday
We're playing ultimate frisbee right now. ULTIMATE. FRISBEE. what does this teach us?? NOTHING.
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.
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.
Load More Replies...