What subjects do you feel you were taught badly in school?

[Notthesameasitwas]

I had a reasonably well-rounded education for its time (1970s) but I feel I really missed out on learning about and enjoying history. I remember copying from the board every lesson all through secondary school and not understanding a word of it. There was no explanation from the teacher and most of it was political history with no attempt to make it relevant or interesting. In the school I used to work in, the history curriculum and teaching of it was fantastic and always engaged the pupils.

Anyway I was thinking of this today when I had to google something which I probably should have known but there are big gaps in my knowledge compared to other subjects. Does anyone else feel the same about some aspects of their education?

PE. I loved netball at primary but the secondary teachers just berated everyone bar their two favourites. I was a bit chubby (prob a size 12) compared to some of the other girls to in the teachers' eyes I was a fat lazy loser. I began to loathe team sports. I'd have been quite happy to run on a treadmill and learn about gym equipment but it was always standing outside waiting to be the one who got blamed for something or other.

Most of them.

Yes, to this. I went to school with 5 cousins and my sister, all in various years. A few of my cousins and even my sister were excellent at art, naturally. The art teacher obviously thought I was a waste of space. She actually held my work up to the class and told them how not to draw. Bitch.

Luckily, in ds school, they teach them techniques, etc. In fact, I think school looks far more fun than it did I the 90s. I remember typing out info oit of a business studies book on to a computer for one lesson. Why didn't she get us to create and plan our own business, develop a business plan etc. 🤔

I hated school and lessons and was pleased when it was all over.
I learned more out of school than what i did going to it.
Walked out at 14 and never went back .
Still to this day i hate schools and im not keen on most teachers.

PE. Taught no skills and no understanding of movement for health.

Textiles. It was 'just' more art. I really wish id been taught tecnical sewing. Our woodwork and metal work was much more skilks based

Omg PE, it was like their aim was to make you hate sport and exercise for life.

Textiles. It was 'just' more art. I really wish id been taught tecnical sewing.

Actually one of mine is doing this at GCSE and is being taught stitches and dying techniques - practical things- there's quite a bit about finishes in written bit as well - it's very good and she loves it.

I don't remember being taught much at all in my textile lessons.

Maths.

It was fucking diabolical. Inner London and we did a system called “ Smile”.
Fucking DIY and speak to the brainiest kid in the class to help you.

I sat with the boys. Needless to say, never passed. Fucked about and had zero teaching on any Maths whatsoever. It was shambolic. Teacher just waltzed about doing fuck all. Literally.

Languages. In other countries they can actually speak the language they have learnt by the time they leave. Our teaching and results are pitiful

I feel very lucky with most of my PE teachers.

I was crap at it and hated most of the team sports, but they did at least try and teach the rules and techniques.

It got better when I got to GCSE years and they just did aerobics classes for those of us who clearly had no interest in games or gymnastics.

Shakespeare.

His plays were written to be performed on stage by professional actors who can bring the txt to life, not to be studied in a classroom. It’s no wonder this approach bores students rigid & puts people off for life.

PE. Awful aggressive teachers who would humiliate you. Some people just aren't sporty and struggle. I found out in adulthood physical reasons why I was crap at sport and why it was painful. I even got told to try to run back halfway through cross country running because I wouldn't make the circuit in time for double maths next lesson. I can still picture the look of total dissatisfaction on that teachers face.

Also, the molecular biology lecturer in my final year at uni talked in a code a lot of us didn't appreciate. He just complicated reasonable information just for fun🤣

PE. I was never taught how to run or catch a ball, just humiliated for not knowing. It gave me a life long fear of any exercise because I couldn't face putting myself through that again. Joined a running club as an adult and found it's actually good fun. Plus you don't have to wear a tiny skirt and aertex top to do it, if you don't want to.

English - 1970s. Primary we just about covered Capital letters and full stops, and nouns, verbs and adjectives. I went to a girls grammar school and never got further than those basics! Never taught any more punctuation, how to right an essay, tenses etc. With literature we had no instruction beyond reading the set texts. I only got the basics because I read a lot.
When I saw what my DCs were taught for their SATs and the help and teaching they had for GSCEs I was amazed. Learnt a lot when helping with revision 😁

P.E. no explanation of how to play team games. Just go play netball, all the girls on the netball team on 1 team. Everyone else just get on with it. Same with hockey, here is a stick off you go. Rounders was the same. Cross country was basically run 3 laps of the field. There was no teaching of technique or anything. One term we were allowed to play tennis and we were all just given bats and find a mate to play with. Half the class were either on their period or had forgotten their p.e kit. One term in yr11 was a fitness class with a proper instructor from the local leisure centre. No one had a period of forgot their p.e. kit that half term. It was really enjoyable.

Music. Only top set were allowed to touch the (20 year old) precious keyboards. Everyone else was plonked in front of random films for the year. Think we watched 2 fast 2 furious at least 4 times that year, Anna and the king 2x, braveheart 3x. One music lesson we combined with the drama class and watched the music teacher do a rehearsal piece with their band for the local open jazz night.

Art. No techniques shown or colour theory or anything. Just draw this, that's wrong it should look like this.

Drama was the same as music. The music and drama teachers were all besties. Top set all belonged to theatre clubs. Everyone else watched the film with the music class. Drama and music teachers used to sit at the back drinking. One lesson the music class and the drama class were ushered into the drama hall whilst the drama teachers rehearsed their part for the local amateur dramatics Christmas performance. One of the music teachers read the script for the other parts in monotone. Never did go see Calamity Jane at the local theatre.

Maths. Hated it at school, didn't get all the abstract concepts and the teachers wrote me off as terrible at maths. Honestly, I just gave up when we got to the Nth Term, couldn't understand it at all.

Turns out, I'm just terrible at abstract maths - I manage huge, complicated budgets day to day in my work without breaking a sweat,

Also physics. You could be learning about space and time and the cosmos, and instead you're sliding a block down a plank over and over again 🙄.

This was at a posh all-girls school in the late 90s/early 2000s

PE - my PE teachers were SO shouty and grumpy. I don’t think any of them liked their job, it was like we were all a chore. I look back and can’t believe how awful they were, I can’t remember a single positive interaction. It put me off sport and fitness for years and I didn’t really start doing any exercise until my 30s because I just associated it with negativity and thought that it was something for other people because I must have been so bad at it.

Geography - the headteacher used to teach us geography and half the time he’d forget to turn up. I remember one lesson he just wheeled the telly in (showing my age…) put some 20 minute BBC schools thing on but then never came back. The rest of the tape was a documentary he’d obviously taped off the telly on spontaneous human combustion so we just sat and watched that for the rest of the lesson. It was well graphic!

Year after year of disinterested/incapable teachers who basically hadn't a clue in Maths and woodwork/metalwork.

And PE/Games where you weren't actually taught rules of competitive games etc so if you didn't know, you were ridiculed when you made mistakes, and of course, the obligatory "wait of shame" as your classmates picked out their teams and the unfit/uncoordinated or obese children were left to the last and picked as consolation prizes.

I think we must have been at the same school! Awful History teacher. And as an adult, I'm actually really interested in IT, but our lessons were literally copying as the teacher wrote on the blackboard.

Art also - I see what me child learns at school for Art GCSE now and am appalled at the terrible teaching (or lack of, more appropriately) and one or two of my friends were quite talented actually.

At Secondary School....
Music wasn't taught as a subject, we just practiced the hymns for school assembly. Why on earth didn't they at least teach us to read music?
The school had physics & chemistry labs, with sinks, gas taps for Bunsen burners, fume cupboards etc, but no one was ever taught either subject, too difficult for our fluffy female minds obviously, in a girls' school.
Later on, I changed schools and did O Level Physics with Chemistry which I loved.

At Primary school...
Some of the teachers had been through the post war scheme giving a fast track teaching qualification to ex service personnel after a year of teacher training. They didn't have much interest in children or teaching! One of them used to set us to copy out a section of the Encyclopaedia Brittanica every day!!

Music. It was taught absolutely terribly by a teacher who wasn't interested if you didn't arrive age 11 already knowing your scales.

maths and physics. It was taught to the 5 % who were good at it - and we were left to drown.

A level Pure Maths.

I was bad at ball games except netball, where the ball is large. I was condemned to years of standing around while the games mistress coached the girls who were good at hockey and tennis. I should have been sent to jog gently, or walk, round a playground. I would have got much more exercise and it would have been better for my bones.

English.

This is something I’m quite passionate about as an English Lit uni lecturer. Student numbers are dwindling each year and I genuinely think a big part of that is the uninspiring curriculum and teachers. I know my English teachers were rubbish and the curriculum even worse. I just naturally always loved English and had a talent for it so pursued it, it had naff all to do with my secondary education. The only inspirational English teacher I had was my college A level teacher, great guy.

Loved pe at school, but home ec was rubbish a ridiculous amount of cakes/scones and no meal planning or much nutrition at all.