Pointless Education

[naomi24]

I’ve just been listening to a discussion on the new National Curriculum where one man said that most of what he’d been taught at school has proven useless to him. Personally I can’t think of anything that I was taught at school that has never been of some use to me - even if it only amounted to scoring extra points in a quiz. How about you?

[horseshoes]

My English teacher taught me to love literature, my art teacher taught me a love of art, my history teacher, a love of history. I went to an old-style grammar school and I will be forever grateful for what I learned there (including Latin)! I can't think of anything pointless, although perhaps "crop rotation and sheep farming in Australia" comes pretty close.

[gness]

You'd be grateful if you had met and fallen for an Australian sheep farmer, Horseshoes.....I've always kept all my options open......☺

[Prudie]

Gness completely off topic but I saw this at the weekend and thought of you ;-)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2739248/My-secret-happy-marriage-Keep-husband-shed.html

[ludwig]

// most of what he’d been taught at school has proven useless to him //

It's the process of learning that's important, not just the accumulation of facts.

[jim360]

By contrast I use quadratic equations and differential/ integral calculus etc all the time, and never need to analyse poems or the like. But still nice to have seen them at school. Even so what is taught at school isn't always what should be taught.

[ludwig]

// I use quadratic equations and differential/ integral calculus etc all the time //

You should probably invest in one of those electronic calculators jim.

[Svejk]

he could put his socks back on, then, Ludwig. ;)

[jim360]

Well mathematica does a lot of it for me but it's rather dumb do can't tell me if I got the input wrong. This has happened a lot sadly...

[ladybirder]

You lot are lucky you can remember what you were taught at school. Wistful sigh.

[boxtops]

I can't agree LESS -everything I learned has been useful, even if only periforally - and I've never needed to use a slide rule since leaving school! My love of language was enhanced by the Latin - anyone who thinks Latin is old hat doesn't realise how often we use words either directly from or influenced by Latin. I loved geography, history not so much, but from that I learned about architecture, fan vault roofing in particular.... None of it was completely useless.

[boxtops]

...and I still do long multiplication and long division by hand, to keep my marbles working!

[Retrochic]

What I brought away from a very expensive education: How to cook, how to iron a shirt, where my bananas come from and how they get here, what most of the Lake District is made of and the difference between a glacial and a rift valley. How to calculate how much wallpaper, fabric or carpet needed, and how to calculate the volume of my new fish pond. Also how to balance an cheque book and work out simple percentages, why it would be unwise to stand under an apple tree in the Fall, and how babies of all species are made. Then there was learning about team work, how to tackle someone in hockey without drawing the eye of the ref. and most of all how to shorten the cross-country run and stop off for a quick shandy without 'Miss' finding out.

[boxtops]

I also learned to make curtains as part of our Needlework course, and that you don't have orgasms in flour - it's "organisms" :-)

[ludwig]

School teaches you how to learn, communicate, and gives you a grounding in a variety of different subjects - some of which you will never have an interest in, others you may go on to develop a passion for. The specific facts, like Pythagoras theorem or the repeal of the corn laws don't matter as much as the process of learning, and the development of an inquiring mind.

Most of the so called 'useful' stuff is acquired later, and is as often as not boring as hell (how to fill in a tax return for example).

[jim360]

You just need to try harder...

[ludwig]

// you don't have orgasms in flour //

Speak for yourself.

[Retrochic]

boxtops lol! our geography teacher Miss Stevens got a very red face the day she explained in a lesson that the rubber tree exuded 'Durex' stead of 'Latex'

[Prudie]

In an effort to remember for a Geography exam about 4th year I devised the aide-memoire of Churchill and Limcot - to tell me the Chilterns were made of chalk and the Cotswolds limestone. I have actually used that in quizzes!!