what is the most useless school subject

[preilemus]

when i went to catholic school i had courses on the bible, though i would say that actually helped me see religion for what it is

 

[Scourgexlvii]

Honestly, I have a lot that I find useless:

-Engineering/Architecture: Very limited percent of my school will be engineers or architects. Probably less now that we've suffered through those classes.

-Gym: My school is kind of at the point that none of the students are really out-of-shape, and none will be star athletes, so gym is useless.

-Science Fiction: an elective (I happened to quite like it in fact), but after a total of about one hundred days in that class, I cannot think of anything I learned...

-Labs: I honestly don't see what they do for you, using simple experiments to show simple concepts. The only thing I can see coming out of it is knowing how to write a lab report, but honestly, That should take one class period.

-German: My Favorite class, don't get me wrong, but it really has no purpose. It's fun as hell though.

 

[Döden]

Info Tech. I hated it, I had no friends in there and it was awkward and all we did was make PowerPoints. A couple things people put in their PowerPoints:
"Apes walk on their uncles."
"This college offers incest science" (meant "insect")

I never took it but "Early Chldhood Development" just seems like a massive ugly pit in my already financially unstable school. Piaget's stages of development? Studies on children's interactions? Any sort of research or work pertaining to the subject whatsoever? Not on your life.
Nevermind that the materials probably don't cost much, all people did in there was make construction paper crafts and felt easter eggs.

 

[shadowdrums4]

I have to say there has been very few subjects in school I've liked or found useful.

In the second grade I was forced into a Christian private school, some of the most miserable days of my life. We had to recite bible verses each day. Then we were given workbooks and we had to get through a certain number of pages to go outside/go to lunch. It wouldn't have been too bad (work at your own pace quietly at a desk facing the wall and no talking FTW) but the subjects were boring, and the students were not very intelligent. In fact they despised smart kids. Which led to me and this other kid being pushed in a hole that was too big for us to get out of on the playground. I think that was when my hatred for school started.

The next year I was back at the private school and there was a program for smart kids that teachers decided to test you for based on what they saw in class out of you. I failed it on purpose, lazily drawing balloons out of the circles, (squiggly line yeah!) and missing some questions. The teacher figured out I had done it though because she gave me a different version as a game and I did much better. My answer was just "Don't put me in the program" and when pressed for a reason I responded "Just don't" which was actually good because that year I actually had my first music class which I loved.

P.E. was useless until high school. All we did was run and lift weights then and on Friday we took basic heath tests that we used the book on. It was very easy to stay with a kid who was in the middle and look like I was maxing out when I wasn't. I was actually a little ashamed because my class wasn't very fit at all. I mean I'm asthmatic for God sake. The worst was the gym teachers who tried to tell me asthma didn't exist when I was having trouble breathing. "Everyone breathes hard after they run" yes but their bronchial tubes don't constrict causing them to STOP breathing! "Well such and such athlete is asthmatic too" I'm not trying to get out of class! Just let me go to the nurse and get my damn inhaler jeez! I actually like working out and stuff I just don't like it on the public school level and there was a freaking dance we had to learn each year. SUCKED.

I normally love science and math but this year I was forced into Anatomy which I hate with a passion. This is partially due to the fact that the teacher is in her first year of teaching the subject and knows NOTHING about it. One kid asked for a real example of the process of the nervous system that was on our sheet. She re-explained it the same way (as she does with any question) and I raised my hand and tried to stay respectful "I think she means a real world example" and she stood there a few seconds and moved to the next slide. Worse she gives us packets that are basically busy work and don't help us understand it at all. We had to memorize the different bones. Now part of it is yes I was forced into the class (My school only requires 3 sciences and I asked to be signed up for no science but the teacher put me in anatomy saying "You can just switch out" but no they wouldn't let me take another band class! Um going to major in MUSIC!) This is the first class I've ever had genuine trouble in. I studied hard and got a 78 on the muscular test because she didn't teach us that crap! If it drops my GPA lower than a 3.0 I don't get the HOPE scholarship and that will piss me off.

The math I have this year is my 5th (I doubled up sophomore year) and it's completely useless calculus. At the beginning of this unit, there was a disclamer "*Graphing calculators have made calculus obsolete but we still learn it anyway (I interpreted it as because the government said so! I think it gave some problem solving spill)" I liked algebra and geometry quite a bit. Trig was useless but I did like the teacher a lot.

Art classes were pretty useless to me too. I can't draw or paint to save my life. I have the art skills of a kindergarten student and not a particularly good one. Most of my art teachers were douche bags except one, (Elementary school art teacher threw a chair at a student)

Music theory is my favorite class (except maybe percussion.) The cool thing about that class is you had to take a year of band, guitar, or music appreciation before you could go into it. In other words, you had to know what you were doing and be genuinely interested in music. (I've been told that college will be a lot like this class and I hope so.) The school only offers it to look good though. "Look we are watching for our little musicians isn't that nice" and there is no higher level after that. (I'm a senior anyway but it would have been nice to have some kind of 4 year course on it.)

*Just remembered this is a useless subject thread. The absolutely most useless class we have is called "Instructional Focus" It's basically like a homeroom/study hall mix. If it was study hall the whole time, it would be okay but the way they do it is stupid. The first 45 minutes you go over something stupid (The juniors had to sit through a presentation on sexting) where they give us no duh information most of the time. Occasionally it's something useful, like we went over credit scores at one point, but mostly business communication skills and such. The second half is a study hall recovery period, this would be great but what they do is have you get these green passes for where you are going. You have to get there in the first 6 minutes and stay there the rest of the block. Missed 2 quizes and could knock them both out one after the other? Too bad, Even worse this year they decided that kids weren't allowed to go to the band room and practice. Um we have PLAYING TESTS, concerts to get ready for, and again I'm majoring in it, I need to get as good as possible! If I'm caught up everywhere else, what's the problem?

I don't like advanced comp either. Useless essays where we have to stay in the given topic even if you don't agree with any of the things you are supposed to be proving. We also go over basics from elementary school, seriously what senior doesn't know what "Cause and Effect" are? Oh man and the Laws of Life essay, complete bull. (I need to write one, and I may take the brainwashing quote )

I always sat in most classes going, "If I wanted to know that I would have looked it up" I'm a teenager that hates school. That's a real rarity huh? </sarcasm>

 

[Sparrow]

Ethics and religious cultures. We learn about religion, ethics and morals. El oh el.

 

[Adymus]

I took a Health class in junior high that was a total bullshit class. The bulk of it was on not having sex until marriage and not doing drugs.

 

[bananaphallus]

'Intro to Computers', a prerequisite I had to take freshman year. Oh my f*cking goodness. Every nook and cranny of every Microsoft Office application, we had to know, and the tests were based in the programs themselves, you had to know where to click, the contents of every menu, no trial and error allowed, etc., it was like one enormous and extremely complicated game of Simon. Gah, I honestly hadn't thought about that class until just now. Sure there's some use in becoming familiar with these applications - which I already was pre-taking-the-class - but it was just taken to the absolute extreme, needlessly in-depth.

 

[echoplex]

Lunch.

Who had time to eat with all the fascinating, though-provoking learning going on? Wonderfully stimulating and not the least bit repetitive or boring.

Amirite?

 

[Words]

I know I'll face conflict but I'll say it: Mathematics. None of my preferred jobs requires this and its extreme repetition uses too much time and EVEN effort.

 

[intuitivet]

Having both Religious education AND citizenship! They're the same subject D:

 

[BigApplePi]

Theoretical physics in college was totally useless for me. I paid good money for that? Lots of equations and they didn't explain any of them. Made no sense. At least the class was useless. I didn't hate it because after introductory exposure I stopped paying attention. My advice is don't take theoretical physics unless you are a physics major. Can't remember what grade I got. The prof probably never bothered to grade anyone.

 

[Luminates]

For me, it's hard to tell what a "useful" class is. Most of my classes have random teachers that act like they want me to sleep. My current SENIOR math class is just a weekly packet about stuff i learned in the 8-9th grade. So to me, its 20 min of work and 50 min of sleep. I also have another teacher who specializes in Psychology classes and at least the first half of class is just a sit-n-gossip, well for the class at least, i'm in the back with my head down

But as for a specific class, i would have to agree with majority in saying Health class. It's all about "how" we should live our health life. there not really pushing me to do it, just telling me and giving us random facts like ones you would find in trivial pursuit "Health Edition"

I know I'll face conflict but I'll say it: Mathematics. None of my preferred jobs requires this and its extreme repetition uses too much time and EVEN effort.

~in case of double poster haters~

I agree with you there, but some math classes are very well needed and useful. My current class however is a complete joke. I have forced myself into believing its a nap time class, the teacher doesn't care, not one kid complains about the laziness of both the class and teacher, well .... its just a mess. lol

 

[Architectonic]

"Social studies"

It might be good if they taught it properly. But as it turns out, the people in those fields have no idea how to produce comprehensive systematic research. (slight exaggeration)

 

[intuitivet]

"Social studies"

It might be good if they taught it properly. But as it turns out, the people in those fields have no idea how to produce comprehensive systematic research. (slight exaggeration)

Ah yes, this happened in my Psychology class. We learnt the theory and yet we wont be putting into practice as the exam board decided to stop doing the active coursework! So now I will just think about doing a study

 

[Maiken]

I loved religious studies Even though I'm an atheist I thinks it's a good thing to learn about different religions. (Also, it was an easy A.)

The classes I found to be useless were:
- German. I really don't like it, when I go to Germany I speak English even though I should be able to speak German.
- PE. Stupid, stupid class!!!
- Drama. Even more stupid!!!
- Classical studies. Reading The Iliad and looking at old vases, hmmm... ???

 

[intuitivet]

I loved religious studies Even though I'm an atheist I thinks it's a good thing to learn about different religions. (Also, it was an easy A.)

The classes I found to be useless were:
- German. I really don't like it, when I go to Germany I speak English even though I should be able to speak German.
- PE. Stupid, stupid class!!!
- Drama. Even more stupid!!!
- Classical studies. Reading The Iliad and looking at old vases, hmmm... ???

What's wrong with PE? It gets people to do exercise and is good for you overall. Sure, it's competitive which is a pain, but it's still a useful class.
Never heard of classical studies!

 

[Maiken]

What's wrong with PE? It gets people to do exercise and is good for you overall. Sure, it's competitive which is a pain, but it's still a useful class.
Never heard of classical studies!

Yeah, i guess it's useful. I just prefer exercising on my own. The only thing in PE I enjoyed was learning to dance tango and lancier for prom.

Classical studies = ancient greek stuff = boring
I dont know when I'll ever use it. I think I have already forgotten most of it.

 

[citrusbreath95]

I don't think any subjects are completely useless, you can always learn something from them, even if it doesn't relate to the topic what-so-ever though, my least favorite is health class

 

[Geminii]

While I had classes that bored me rigid in school, I can vaguely see how each of the subjects had a core of usefulness, even if the expression of them was fossilized. I would have liked the ability to test out of various classes, though. Even if it was only testing out of a few months' worth and the freed up time had to be spent on researching/reading for the more advanced stuff in that year, and retesting every couple of weeks, with failing to keep X months ahead meaning having to go back into the classroom.

But nooo, that would have meant social separation from my peer group, and different schooling experiences, and we couldn't have THAT.

 

[Cati]

My most useless subject would have to be either Keyboarding or Job Search, both classes required by my high school. Keyboarding was an hour and a half of surfing the net while "taking typing tests" and Job Search was 90 minutes of copying documents and throwing paper at each other. Then there was the SAT prep class that actually lowered my scores by 60 points. And Food Nutrition, where I learned how to properly set a table. Now that I think of it, I've taken many useless school subjects, though I guess I probably should have paid more attention to Job Search...

 

[Starfruit M.E.]

Er... Physical Education was basically useless. But it was fun. Career Pathways was useless to me, but other people might have been assisted by it. Four years of health class was useless because we should have covered that junk about the body in science... and what we couldn't do (like nutrition and sex) should have only taken a year to cover. Required study hall, and study hall in middle school are useless. But hey... I learned to draw anime in there! Anyways, I feel there were a lot of useless classes. If I have kids, I might tutor them and save their time.

 

[HecticRat]

Dance class was mandatory at my elementary school. That sucked.

In high school, I'm not sure. "Lifestyles", maybe. It was basically health class only they tried to present us with teen issues in typical "If you do drugs you'll shoot yourself in the face" fashion.

In university, I can't say I've found any of my classes useless so far but the labs and tutorials have been for the most part. I'm not saying they serve no purpose, I'm just saying they're poorly organized - and on top of that, some of them must be taken (ie. paid for) in order to get a course credit despite the fact that attendance is NOT mandatory. For example, for the first 4-5 weeks or my geology lab we just looked at 40 or so rocks and minerals and were then tested on how well we could visually identify them. This exam was worth 10% of our grade in the class. Then, without warning, the next 3-4 weeks involved meticulous geometry work that could easily have been done in about 30 minutes on a computer. Also, I haven't had one lab or tutorial with a teacher/supervisor (ie. a student with no training in education) who could speak English fluently.

 

[Geminii]

A bit more flexibility would have been nice. Part of growing up in a smallish isolated city and not going to a fantastically expensive high school was that the choice of subjects was extremely limited.

I wouldn't have minded doing languages so much if I got to choose the language. Instead, I had mandatory German for two years and a choice of French or Japanese for the same period. None of these were things I was particularly interested in at the time. Likewise things like Photography and Typing (on manual typewriters - and yes, we had a computer lab which was hardly ever used). These last two were just huge lumps of wtf. At least, looking back, I can kind of see the reasoning behind the German - "English and German are closely related, therefore German should be easy to learn."

Ironically, these days I consider both French and Japanese might be interesting to have learned. Heh. C'est la vie. Still, it's not as bad as the kids in other schools in the area who had to suffer through Indonesian "because it's a nearby country".

We had six months of sewing/textiles. Even in that decade, tailoring and home clothing repair was pretty much a dead art. I wouldn't have minded spending a week learning the basics of setting out a pattern, pinning it, and maybe reattaching shirt buttons, but six months?

Likewise the six months of cooking. If I ever needed to learn to cook, there were cookbooks.

The six months (each) of woodwork, metalwork, and technical drawing were fun, but I still question their necessity in a modern school environment. Or the need to drag the process out over six months when six weeks would have covered it.

I don't mind electives per se. It's just better when they actually are elective, and not mandatory. Particularly when they're based less on what would be useful to the students and more on whatever ancient leftover tools the school happens to have lying around.

Including primary school, I took five years of German. two of French, and one of Latin (that I remember). As a result of those eight collective subject-years, I can count to ten in two of those three languages. And these days, if I wanted to know how to do that in any language, I could look pronunciation guides and voice clips up on the web and in two hours have my counting-to-ten accent at least reduced down to the 'intelligible' level in that language.

 

[LifeLine]

I'm in public school, and we have a church across from our school where students can get out of class to learn about Christianity. What's the point of that?

I'd have to say that any sort of agricultural class (yes, we have them as electives) is useless. In this day and age, computer education will take you so much farther.

 

[chanjhj]

Honestly? Er...Mathematics? Hahaha, sorry. Mathematics and I have an odd love-hate relationship. Mostly hate though, like 99.9999%. I've always been more partial to languages even though I couldn't take on a third language in school simply because I didn't do thaat well for my second language which I didn't really have an interest in at that time. I would've loved to take Japanese. Or French. But truly, as for useless, probably Physical Education or Civics and Moral Education. I mean you do learn things. but they're...well...
Design and Technology was rather useless too, at least for me, since I saw no point in it.

 

[Jedi]

I gained the most physical education during recess in elementary school. "P.E." was a complete waste of time and energy.

 

[The Lurker]

We had mandatory "dance" lessons in Elementary School PE. Positively awful for the super shy and unpopular kid that I was, surrounded by others in a school perplexingly filled to bursting with soon-to-be "jock" assholes. Gymnastics was also terrible, and that was mandatory every year from 1st to 6th grade.

We also had a manadatory *semester* of Spanish in 7th grade (what did they hope we would actually learn from and retain in a few months, especially given that foreign languages weren't truly offered until 9th grade?). I personally believe foreign languages should be left to electives and in a large variety...our high school only offered Spanish and German (the latter of which I actually wanted to learn) when I entered, and only introduced Latin and Japanse, at an enrollment cost of ~$300 due to "distance learning", or something to that effect, in my Junior year.

And Keyboarding. Don't get me started on this class. Our teacher scolded me daily on my typing techniques, even though I held top scores in words per minute. On top of that, we had to make numerous and inane PowerPoint presentations regarding such riveting topics as the geography of Japan, just because she once visited there like 10 years prior. It wouldn't have been so bad if the topics we had to write on were actually interesting. Stuffing the curriculum with irrelevent BS, much?

A year after that was a second computer-related class which, as you've probably guessed, was a glorified Microsoft Office tutorial. Torture.

In 9th grade we had Health class which was extraordinarly useless. Here is a summation of what we "learned": "Exercise often, don't get yourself an STD, drugs are bad."...in other words, common sense, and stuff that we learned in Sex Ed. starting in, like, 4th grade. It was an easy A to be certain, but a crushingly boring, tedious A.

Since then, oddly enough, no class has immediately jumped out to me as being useless, though a year of "English and American Literature" proved to mostly be one giant snooze-fest for me.

 

[Jah]

I like your signature Lurker.
Though I cannot remember where it is taken from. (yes, I know what it means, German is an easy language to decipher)


I think Religion was the most useless one due to the teacher. (Efficiently skipping the chapter on Satanism, remarking when I questioned her that "you probably know enough about that" which I did, but that was not the point, since I knew most the things she was supposed to teach me) Who gave good grades to those who embroidered the pages and wrote long answers, rather than correct answers, giving us asinine homework like drawing crucifixes (as though any sensible 16-year old would consider this related to education) and focusing solely on educating us in the ways of Christendom and it's variations rather than the multitude of religions we should be taught about.
Never accepting questions relating faith that might actually bring enlightenment into the classroom as to what faith was about because of her choice to accept the simple answer of Authority. (Like that ever excuses anything, Explains anything or is wrong to question.)

Needless to say, I never really could get her to accept that I knew the answers and my unwillingness to raise my hand was due to me realizing that as long as she heard the answer I didn't have to "ruin" the education of the others, as well as her forcing me and the only other above-average intelligent person in the room to sit on the two desks in front of the classroom so that we wouldn't sleep through her classes. (In fact I did raise my hand experimentally a few times only to confirm that her blind-spot was in fact right in front of her nose. She seemed content to nag me to raise my hand since I did say the answers loud enough for me and her to hear due to automatic responses once questioned about fact.)

(side story: she kept remarking how me and my friend were clearly the most intelligent, but she wished we would participate more and work more. Here's a hint, if you want me to work you need to challenge my intellect, not dull it by asking simple questions.
School never agreed with me on that, and seems bent on dulling the smart ones down to average and somehow evening it out by raising the more intellectually slow to the same average. Some fear that there might turn out to be some people better suited for certain tasks than others. Forever trapped in PC hell. )

 

[onthewindowstand]

Prolly sex ed. people are going to have sex whenever they feel like no class is gonna stop that. LOL

 

[The Lurker]

I like your signature Lurker.
Though I cannot remember where it is taken from. (yes, I know what it means, German is an easy language to decipher)

It's from a Rammstein song titled "Haifisch". That verse itself was adapted from a verse in "Die Moritat von Mackie Messer" (Mack the Knife) from Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera).

http://herzeleid.com/en/lyrics/liebe_ist_fuer_alle_da/haifisch

 

[Alexk]

Most useless class I took in high school Counselor Assistant. Granted I had the class because of strange circumstances, but the five of us sat in the main guidance office and played games all day, except for the one day we had to seal envelopes because the machine that did it broke.
Most useless class I had to take... History. Anyone who argues that history is important because you may repeat the mistakes made in the past doesn't think that maybe by not being as much of a moron as those who made the mistakes, you won't make them. I believe it's important to learn what they discovered what they did, but not the events.

 

[Alana]

basket weaving... yup...

 

[ohrtonz]

I took a class called Film Lit. The history of movies and broadcasting. Watch a lot of movies though. But take stupid notes like "who is the actor" "what were they wearing". It almost helped me in a game of Scene It for an old movie but I couldn't remember the name.

But I like movies. I watch a lot and dig up actors to see what else they did, or that one person who had a small part. So I guess I have a broad understanding of movies and history, and I keep learning and watching special features anyways.

 

[JUN]

Everything is worthwhile / if the soul isn't small.

• Original: Tudo vale a pena / Se a alma não é pequena.
• Poem "Mar Português", Verses 7-.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Fernando_Pessoa

 

[Spectrum]

I'm currently in high school in Georgia (US) and it's all useless shit. I'm not even learning anything in Honors Chemistry......

 

[Reptillian]

school is like prison for kids. oh and they spend less money on them than actual prisons.

And to add more words to there. You are sent to the so-called wonderful education only for your age and adults often denies your situation while taking away your own rights only for the solely purpose of fundings and economic-related topics than the purpose of your education. There are so many illiterate graduates that comes out of high school right away and there is a lot of college students taking remedial classes simply because school obviously do hinder their development of mastering the material by simply affecting their behavior in a negative way which in turns affects the mind in a negative way. The brain mechanism has been observed to be affected by the environmental factors and experience factors and the brain could be in trouble state when the environmental factors and environmental feature isn't merely meeting the student's needs. Why it is homeschoolers and unschoolers are doing far better under the circumstances of having more flexibility? It's simply because flexibility are the key to help meets the needs of people.

You are told what to do and obey in prison and school. The food quality is very low for both sections. The bathroom qualities are unsanitory. They give the bullies a break just like they give prisoners some breaks. Boot camps are known to be used as an eliminator of those who opposes school for a reason of maintaining the state of society.

The next few sentences is not directed to you anyway. The real freedoms starts at age 21 whether they deserved it or not. Surely your mind can be more developed, but the thing is if you're not using the mind properly and you're only abusing your freedom at that age, why should I honestly give a shit about you. There's plenty of documents of teenagers who brain are more developed than adults before the age 18 and the real final development of the brain stops at 40 according to recent researches. Age is the least important factor when it comes to the way the person should be treated due to the fact that age affects maturity in the physical sense and it has been proven that proper experience and environment do benefit a lot more than aging alone.

This wall of text might piss some people off, but this is exactly how I feel as an anti-society culture. This is coming from a person who was raised by people who supports society and living with people who support schools entirely all my life.

As for the question of the title itself, no subjects are useless unless there is absolutely no benefits for you out of the subject itself. Every subjects is admirable in a way or another.

I can add a whole lot more to this and a whole lot of argument why school doesn't work for a lot of students, but I'm keeping the post like this for now.

 

[Dogod]

I'm currently in high school in Georgia (US) and it's all useless shit. I'm not even learning anything in Honors Chemistry......

My H Chem teacher is INTP. That, plus the fact that I've always been into science, makes that class one of my favorites, even though I knew a lot of the material already.

As for most useless, I'd have to go with either Health, PE, or English. I did learn that I'm good at tennis in PE a few days ago. It's also fun. (Partially because I don't have to be social to play.)

 

[zxc]

At my school it was woodwork

In some ways the most practical subject, I found it extremely useless, and just plain boring. The fact that I was terrible at it didn't help my opinion of it.

 

[Fghw]

English anywhere beyond 5th grade

 

[ummidk]

Well english class is completely arbitray.......that being said its prob the most useful class for a majprity of the population

uhh drama is fairly useless but prob has more practical application for most than both music and art both of which ppl who are interested will pursue outside of class and of no real value to those who are not. Also im not a big art person but i cant be the only person who finds the idea of being able to teach art laughable.

 

[snafupants]

I guess useless depends on dynamic work environments and individual needs. I mean, if all professions started employing math skills more, math would become more relevant overnight. English, especially grammar and composition, is somewhat important because our world is composed of words, and writing is essential for most jobs. Succinct expression makes a good impression.

 

[snafupants]

English anywhere beyond 5th grade

The research shows early reading, writing and arithmetic are very predictive for academic success, and even broader intellectual development. So, if English is taught well early, then I kinda agree.

 

[just george]

Climate science. Pure propaganda with no basis in reality.

 

[Etheri]

Old dead thread is old. Whatever...

Chemistry was useless in the real world and its issues. So was Calculus. Read world application, please! Not for me, anyways.

MADNESS. Just kidding, you're right. It's often not the most useful for those who don't study on, tho I do thing it's very valuable for alot of people who get into either bio or chemistry later... Which admittingly isn't that many people.

Climate science. Pure propaganda with no basis in reality.

I've had very decent climate science classes... Then again i'm talking about classes for peicience. Those in highschool were coupled with geography and geology and rather useless.

Personally, I never really got why I had basic french literature in french, dutch literature, german, english, world history and esthetics as mandatory classes while I had chosen maths and sciences in the last two years of highschool... Reinforced general education until 18, ...
Then again, now that i'm done with it I don't really mind. I can tell a roman styled church from a gothic one, atleast? (I swear this will be useful knowledge one day... Or not.)

 

[Wolf18]

Gym class and English. As a classmate wrote in our school newspaper for a debate about tracking English, "I've been learning to write a thesis sentence for the past 5 years. And, to be perfectly honest, I'm tired of it." And she's right. I'm reading Macbeth in English right now, which is something that I read already when I was 9 years old because I wanted to and saw performed when I was 8. Now there are a bunch of teenagers trying to read it and complaining about the Shakespearean English. I'm learning the same things every year and it's boring. On to gym: in primary school, gym was good. We had a great, fair teacher and I really enjoyed it. Now it's a bunch of annoying students doing boring stretches with no opportunity to actually exercise.

Many people seem to be saying that religious education is the most useless. I disagree. My teachers are all brilliant, and I am learning a lot of skills that I can apply to the modern world, namely logic, deduction, problem solving, introspection, and creative thinking. It's one of my few classes in which I can truly think, ask any type of question, and apply it to the real world. Even if you don't look at it from a religious perspective, it's pretty cool. Not to mention the fact that I can understand and read Aramaic (ancient Babylonian) which is useless but still pretty cool. Unfortunately, it means that are school day is over 9 hours long.

SW

 

[SpaceYeti]

I would have to say it's English. Four years of your own language, and you still suck at it by the time you're done? Or maybe nutrition.

 

[snafupants]

I would have to say it's English. Four years of your own language, and you still suck at it by the time you're done? Or maybe nutrition.

Couldn't that indicate you suck?

 

[redbaron]

English by far. I learnt literally nothing in the 6 years of the subject at secondary school, despite getting pretty much straight A's. Total joke.

We had a great, fair teacher and I really enjoyed it. Now it's a bunch of annoying students doing boring stretches with no opportunity to actually exercise.

@Wolf18 I'm curious if gym class is similar to P.E. (physical education) in Australia. In Australia P.E. actually covered some parts of biology and had theory work, stuff about plyometrics, different types of weight training for different results etc. I actually learnt heaps about optimal training and how to target different types of fitness.

I always find it strange when people complain about 'gym' class, it makes me wonder if in the states it's anything like what I was taught in school, which had a decent amount of theory work and was all about how to practically apply what you learnt. In one point we had to choose a specific attribute that we wanted to improve in ourselves, I can only remember four of our choices which were:

- vertical leap
- sit and reach flexibility
- max push-ups in 1 min
- 1.6km (1 mile) run best time

We had to implement a program based on 3 exercises that would improve our ability. I chose vertical leap and actually improved by 18cm (roughly 5 inches) in only 4 weeks. The class had homework which was pretty much based on following set routines (of your own choosing) and then hypothesising as to why (or why not) they weren't successful etc.

Is 'gym' class in the U.S. anything like that? I have a feeling the answer is no to be honest, but for me it was by far my favourite subject.

 

[pjoa09]

English by far. I learnt literally nothing in the 6 years of the subject at secondary school, despite getting pretty much straight A's. Total joke.



@Wolf18 I'm curious if gym class is similar to P.E. (physical education) in Australia. In Australia P.E. actually covered some parts of biology and had theory work, stuff about plyometrics, different types of weight training for different results etc. I actually learnt heaps about optimal training and how to target different types of fitness.

I always find it strange when people complain about 'gym' class, it makes me wonder if in the states it's anything like what I was taught in school, which had a decent amount of theory work and was all about how to practically apply what you learnt. In one point we had to choose a specific attribute that we wanted to improve in ourselves, I can only remember four of our choices which were:

- vertical leap
- sit and reach flexibility
- max push-ups in 1 min
- 1.6km (1 mile) run best time

We had to implement a program based on 3 exercises that would improve our ability. I chose vertical leap and actually improved by 18cm (roughly 5 inches) in only 4 weeks. The class had homework which was pretty much based on following set routines (of your own choosing) and then hypothesising as to why (or why not) they weren't successful etc.

Is 'gym' class in the U.S. anything like that? I have a feeling the answer is no to be honest, but for me it was by far my favourite subject.

@redbaron

Lucky bastard.

If I did that I'd be dunking basketballs by now.

Can you dunk though?

How did you improve yours?

 

[redbaron]

@redbaron

Lucky bastard.

If I did that I'd be dunking basketballs by now.

Can you dunk though?

How did you improve yours?

I could 'just' dunk - one-handed rim-rattlers. But I had to have perfect conditions, I never managed to dunk in an actual game, but it was cool to do it just in a warm-up. Though since I'm only 5-9/10, if I had the same vertical but was a decent height I would have been slamming it. My 6'5 friend with the same vertical could really slam it down, I was a little jealous at that

I did two plyometric exercises and one weighted exercise (squats).

First one was from a complete crouch, a two-footed jump as high as possible, then when landing go straight back into a complete crouch and then use the 'bounce' to then jump as high as possible again. Basically plyo is supposed to teach you co-ordination as well as power, teaching you to recruit fibres in the correct sequence (this isn't really a conscious thing, it's basically muscle memory) and a bunch of other stuff.

Second was one-legged hops, basically from a half-crouch, jump (hop) off one leg as high as possible, then land on the other leg and again use the, 'bounce' to jump as high as possible off one leg again.

Squats I had to play around with, the focus was on developing power so I worked with my teacher on breaks to get the optimum weight. We ended up deciding that about 20-25% of my 1rep max was best (roughly 20kg, pretty light for squats), because I could do it fast without breaking form.

I did it 4 times a week, every second day. The sets from memory of plyometrics were generally like 3 x 20, 16, 12 or something. I can't remember exactly, they're pretty gruelling near the end especially.

The reason it worked so well though was also that I assessed results with my teacher every week and we tweaked the sets/reps each time so that I would be basically working until on the last few reps of the set would be to pretty much muscular failure, based on how I'd improved in fitness over time. Although I'm not 100% sure if that is actually safe to do with plyometrics, I think I read it can be dangerous and you're liable to injure something doing plyometrics with bad form - so basically not to do them to the point of failure. Though this might be more of a precautionary thing aimed at idiots who are in terrible physical shape who suddenly want to dunk a basketball.