2wenty 3hree
I hear you... despite some very interesting stuff at high school, there was an awful lot of irrelevant rubbish that could have been better spent teaching us things that we would need in the real world. Instead of "take our daughters to work day", why didn't they do "take our sons and daughters into a bank and show them how to cash a cheque, withdraw money and open an account"? Or "show our sons and daughters how to change a tyre, replace a fuse, do odd jobs around the house"?
Instead of making chocolate bars and watching videos on nutrition, Home Economics should have been called Cooking, and we should have been shown how to make basic meals, work with a budget and maximise ingredients. When my mum was in high school, there was a flat on the school grounds, and every weekend, two students were chosen to live there. They had to do all the housework, do the shopping on a budget and other little jobs, and then on sunday evening they had to prepare a meal for the headmaster and some other teachers. It's a fantastic idea! The trouble is the Left strangled it back in the 1970s for being sexist.
How about doing useful stuff in Textiles? Rather than make stupid trinkets that would never be used again, why weren't we taught to repair clothes, and use the sewing machines to repair curtains and make clothes? The only reason I remember Textiles at all is that, as you know, I once spent the entire lesson walking around the room, and seeing how far I could go without being caught. I can't remember how many laps I did, but it lasted the entire lesson.
Graphics was always good... we actually learned a lot of really useful things about technical drawing and elementary geometry.
Art similarly good... apart from the lessons when the scourge of our lives, Mrs Ryder, would fill in, and we would draw a load of pots and bottles on a table.
Drama was the biggest doss of all... there were a handful of lessons where we had to act Shakespeare, but much of it was just playing games and making up little acting things. Nonetheless, it was a good confidence builder, and I now use killer wink in some of my lessons here in Japan, and it works like a dream.
Music was always fun, and there was some good stuff early on about reading and writing music.
Science was genereally shite... we didn't get to study any of the interesting stuff (black holes, chaos theory, viruses, explosions) and Aldous treated us all like 5 year olds. I still maintain that I learned more about the three Sciences sat next to Max Dann in a Diss factory for a year than the 5 years of Double Everything.
English was good. There was plenty there to be learned.
Geography and History were both ok, although again we didn't get to study any of the really interesting things (tsunami, the history of the planet, Eastern History, the Victorian era).
Games was good... I loved playing all the sports, except Tennis (which we turned into... what? I can't remember the name... we used to blast balls at eachother and have a kind of war... can you remember the name?) and Gymnastics, which tended to involve rolling onto a mat and doing a few squat thrusts...
R.E was a mixed bag... it was pretty glossed over, but at least we got to learn a little about the other religions of the world, albeit a little superficially...
French and German were always entertaining, due to the antics of the students, and some of the lessons were occasionally interesting, but as a way of getting us to speak French and German they were awful... reading from a text book a daft conversation about you staying in Paris for the summer and offering to work in the local shop for free can't help you to learn a language.
Yeah, a lot of time was wasted at school. I sometimes think that we learned more at the summer garden parties, chess nights and Experience writings than we did in those classrooms...
Instead of making chocolate bars and watching videos on nutrition, Home Economics should have been called Cooking, and we should have been shown how to make basic meals, work with a budget and maximise ingredients. When my mum was in high school, there was a flat on the school grounds, and every weekend, two students were chosen to live there. They had to do all the housework, do the shopping on a budget and other little jobs, and then on sunday evening they had to prepare a meal for the headmaster and some other teachers. It's a fantastic idea! The trouble is the Left strangled it back in the 1970s for being sexist.
How about doing useful stuff in Textiles? Rather than make stupid trinkets that would never be used again, why weren't we taught to repair clothes, and use the sewing machines to repair curtains and make clothes? The only reason I remember Textiles at all is that, as you know, I once spent the entire lesson walking around the room, and seeing how far I could go without being caught. I can't remember how many laps I did, but it lasted the entire lesson.
Graphics was always good... we actually learned a lot of really useful things about technical drawing and elementary geometry.
Art similarly good... apart from the lessons when the scourge of our lives, Mrs Ryder, would fill in, and we would draw a load of pots and bottles on a table.
Drama was the biggest doss of all... there were a handful of lessons where we had to act Shakespeare, but much of it was just playing games and making up little acting things. Nonetheless, it was a good confidence builder, and I now use killer wink in some of my lessons here in Japan, and it works like a dream.
Music was always fun, and there was some good stuff early on about reading and writing music.
Science was genereally shite... we didn't get to study any of the interesting stuff (black holes, chaos theory, viruses, explosions) and Aldous treated us all like 5 year olds. I still maintain that I learned more about the three Sciences sat next to Max Dann in a Diss factory for a year than the 5 years of Double Everything.
English was good. There was plenty there to be learned.
Geography and History were both ok, although again we didn't get to study any of the really interesting things (tsunami, the history of the planet, Eastern History, the Victorian era).
Games was good... I loved playing all the sports, except Tennis (which we turned into... what? I can't remember the name... we used to blast balls at eachother and have a kind of war... can you remember the name?) and Gymnastics, which tended to involve rolling onto a mat and doing a few squat thrusts...
R.E was a mixed bag... it was pretty glossed over, but at least we got to learn a little about the other religions of the world, albeit a little superficially...
French and German were always entertaining, due to the antics of the students, and some of the lessons were occasionally interesting, but as a way of getting us to speak French and German they were awful... reading from a text book a daft conversation about you staying in Paris for the summer and offering to work in the local shop for free can't help you to learn a language.
Yeah, a lot of time was wasted at school. I sometimes think that we learned more at the summer garden parties, chess nights and Experience writings than we did in those classrooms...
posted by Kenyon at 3:16 pm
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home