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Original poster

The most pointless school subjects

203 replies

LauraSol · 10/09/2019 15:11

Are there any school subjects you think are/were pointless? Is there anything you wish you'd been taught instead? I'm conducting research, thanks very much!

OP posts:
MyCruiseControl · 11/09/2019 14:25

Latin, German and Needlework. Latin because even though I have two science degrees I have yet to see the point of it. German, how many people speak German? And all the Germans I know speak English very well. I would have preferred Spanish or Portuguese on top of the French. Needlework, I am on the fence about it because now I feel really proud of my sewing skills when I have sewn name labels onto 30 pieces of clothing and wash after wash, week after week they don't fall off. So maybe needlework wasn't pointless after all.

OooErMissus · 11/09/2019 18:13

Some of the comments on this thread are just ...

Has the OP even bothered her arse to come back?

BogglesGoggles · 11/09/2019 18:16

Career development/emotional well-being/research project type crap. All skills you would pick up elsewhere and boring as fuck. I used to deliberately schedule appointments during these subjects to get out of wasting my time.

AgeLikeWine · 11/09/2019 18:16

RE, obviously. We live in an increasingly secular society in which religion is a complete irrelevance to most people, at least until they decide they want to get married in a church with which they have no connection because it will look good in the photos....

BogglesGoggles · 11/09/2019 18:19

I know this isn’t the point of the thread but thought I should add the most useful subjects I’ve done were philosophy, literature type English, RE and woodwork.

Oliversmumsarmy · 11/09/2019 18:38

Languages are useful as you learn how people in other countries live and think
GrinGrinGrin

This brings back the time when we did German and were made to watch a programme about how a German family ate Breakfast.

We were all watching quietly the ordered way the table was set and the family were sitting round the table passing the cheese and bread and butter and hams to each other when one of my classmates pipes up asking if any of us ate breakfast like that?
As hers just grabbed bread or toast from someone's plate then ran for the door or if some did sit down then they just argued or talked to each other really loudly

Most of us agreed it really wasn't a true representation of how a German family ate breakfast.

Ericaequites · 11/09/2019 20:33

At my private all girls school in the States, I was taught to play English handbells, do mime, listen to classical music on ancient records, and copying a picture from Natiinal Geographic in tempura paint. My parents were quite annoyed they had to pay for typing lessons, and buy me a typewriter. Guess which skill I use every day?
Students should have a financial literacy class to learn about budgeting, loans, and investments. So many American teenagers take on huge student loans to study subjects at university that won't pay enough to repay the loans.

MildThing · 11/09/2019 21:17

I failed Physics, barely passed maths and work in a field miles from the any STEM subject. I don’t ‘need’ these subjects.

But the bit of knowledge and understanding I did glean really helps me identify the bollocks in crank marketing, contemporary ‘old wives tales’, faulty logic and lack of empirical evidence, and fake news.

General knowledge is powerful.

MildThing · 11/09/2019 21:17

P.S for me: needlework less so Grin

Original poster
LauraSol · 12/09/2019 14:09

Hi everyone. Thanks for your messages, I have been reading them!

@OooErMissus subjective answers are okay, as I'm just looking to get general opinions/attitudes.

@JustWonderingWhether I'm a freelance journalist so wanted to gauge attitudes that will help steer the piece I'm writing currently!

OP posts:
dontpanicmrmainwaring · 12/09/2019 14:49

ds did in secondary that was pants: drama, art, RE, music.

now he`s online schooled. does none of those!

Trewser · 12/09/2019 15:15

I literally couldn't have gone out with a bloke who didn't like drama art and music.

QuaterMiss · 12/09/2019 15:42

ds did in secondary that was pants: drama, art, RE, music. Now he`s online schooled. does none of those!

Forgive me, but I would consider an adult who had had no education in any of those subjects to be scarcely half a person.

If they had missed out through the deprivation of war / poverty / illness I absolutely know that as soon as I discovered the lack I would set out, with reckless enthusiasm, to rectify this gap in their human development.

Trewser · 12/09/2019 16:22

QuaterMiss me too.

joyfullittlehippo · 12/09/2019 16:33

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

ImAShowPony · 12/09/2019 16:38

No school subject is pointless. Even if you're not interested in acquiring the knowledge, you are learning how to learn and to apply yourself to something difficult... writing skills- grammar, report writing, essay writing, developing an idea, constructing an argument; communication skills, research skills, developing self discipline, organisational skills, time management bla bla bla. How is that pointless?
I agree competitive sport/ games aren't for everyone and health/ fitness based alternatives should be offered- gym/ yoga/ etc

JamesBlonde1 · 12/09/2019 16:45

Nothing is useless as a whole, it may only end up useless to the person who is useless at it or isn't interested in it.

PE - you might be shit at it, but on the other hand, learning a new skill might send you on the road to either fitness or an Olympic medal. It teaches you teamwork and achieving goals.

Needlework - I was shit at this but someone else might end up working in fashion.

History - important general knowledge and you might want to progress your interest in a degree and beyond.

Nothing in education is useless if you don't want it to be.

I'm afraid the education system can't afford, nor is it of benefit to children, to hive everyone off to a school specifically designed for their talents. You all get thrown in, see what you're good at and get on with it.

Craftycorvid · 12/09/2019 16:46

Pretty much all of it! Not so much the subject areas but the focus. PE - which was competitive sports, about which I could not, and still cannot, give any actual f**ks. Fitness classes would have been great though. Cookery - fine if we had covered things such as budgeting and meal planning rather than ‘laying out a tray for an invalid’ (no, it wasn’t the 19th century) and making rock buns. Needlework - repairing and altering your clothes? Sign me up! Applique’d place mats? Don’t waste my time. Maths- budgeting, working out compound interest, how mortgages work - not frigging algebra and trigonometry unless you are preparing for careers requiring those subjects. Languages - great but badly taught in my day and much too late (we were 12 before starting). English - I eventually did an English degree then a Masters, but it’s as well I loved the subject anyway as school would have killed it for me otherwise.

JamesBlonde1 · 12/09/2019 16:49

Following on from another PP, it's a bloody good job some people are well educated in art and music as we'd have a very bland and miserable society if we couldn't listen to amazing music or see stunning works of art. How grey life would be.

I don't want me or my family to be educated to survive, I want us to be educated to live a full life and all the wonder it holds.

MoobaaMoobaa · 12/09/2019 16:58

History.
Having DS who's just done GCSE history, it's something that's has been bugging me for a while. 2nd world war? yes ok. American history of the wild West and ranches? just why?

He has been taught nothing about British history and politics, so English, Irish, Scottish, welsh history not important. No hint of European history, nothing about all the empires colonising and devastating countries, nothing about China, India Africa ect..

Nothing at all of the above through all his time at school.
But 3 years (they started in year 9) of American cattle ranches is apparently very important.

What a waste of time. So many Things they could have learnt over all the years in school. I know world history is huge, and it's impossible to cover everything. But come on!

Iamthewombat · 12/09/2019 17:03

It doesn’t make history pointless as a subject. You might not think much of the curriculum but it doesn’t devalue history as a concept. Maybe the Wild West thing is designed to engage kids and hold their interest? If they get a taste for history they can read on themselves about other eras and countries.

MoobaaMoobaa · 12/09/2019 17:08

Iamthewombat I understand that, but I'm just so pissed off at the waste that is the curriculum at the moment.

Wild West thing is designed to engage kids and hold their interest? I would agree if you were talking about primary children or years 7s if it was a one term subject. But 3 years of GCSE indepth study of ranches is a fucking joke.

Streamingbannersofdawn · 12/09/2019 17:20

Blanket MFL... my son has autism and frankly, struggles in English. The school seem genuinely surprised that French and Spanish baffle him. Im not against any subject really but schools should have decent funding and more discretion so that in situations like my son's they can stop flogging a dead horse and run extra maths or english classes or whatever is really needed.

The way education assumes everyone to be the same drives me mad.

Trewser · 12/09/2019 17:23

I'd be annoyed about the wild west for 3 years too!

Sunflowers211 · 12/09/2019 17:35

Funny I have just had this discussion with my kids. My youngest has been learning about The Anglo-Saxons this week and seemed to enjoy learning about it. I questioned the relevance of learning about this as not once have I ever needed to use it in my life. I am not convinced History or RE should be taught, but would like to see relevant lessons that our Kids need to know, for example First Aid, Banking, all about your Credit File and what it means etc.