The most pointless school subjects

[LauraSol]

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!

What an unbelievably depressing thread. What about producing a rounded individual? What about intellectual curiosity? What about having the opportunity to discover what subjects you actually like, rather than not being offered subjects unless they are immediately practically useful? Some of the comments about MFL are particularly depressing.

Learning is a joy

The trouble is that for ever increasing numbers of children, it's not a joy at all. School environment has sucked out any enjoyment factor.

I hated my school years. Couldn't wait to leave due to horrendous bullying and crap teachers. A started my crap comp a straight A* pupil and 5 years later failed all my O levels.

My "learning" started once I'd escaped that hell hole. I basically taught myself and eventually got enough O and A levels to start accountancy training, I sailed through my 17 accountancy exams and qualified as an accountant. Since then, I've learned all kinds of things, I've done an Open University degree, I've taken A levels at the local college of FE, I've done far more courses than I can remember.

I can honestly say that school had a massive detrimental impact on my teen years and early adult life, including depression and suicide attempts. It was only that I had the strength of character to stick two fingers up to that school and the useless teachers that I turned around and decided to prove them wrong.

"joy of learning" my arse - some schools/teachers do more harm than good and some suck the joy out of learning.

I might get slated for this.
But... Welsh.
We are in South Wales all born in this town, nobody round here speaks welsh, nobody. But EVERYONE in school has to do Welsh up to GCSE level. It's pointless. Utterly pointless. All the road signs are in Welsh and English and it just makes it incredibly difficult to read road signs clearly and I'm sure there's probably been accidents because of this and how distracting it is. But that's a different thread.
If you want to learn Welsh I think it should be in your own time. Kids already learn a second language in school, I'm certain there's something else that is more important than spending time on a dead language (in South Wales anyway).

In defence of history, its not the content but the critical thinking and analytical skills that are important.

The exam boards say you have to include a unit from elsewhere in the world, hence the cattle ranches.

Also no gcse course needs to be three years, that limits the breadth of curriculum at lower school.

Languages should be done as a wider cultural study, looking at the religion, food, history and other information about the country together. I hated languages at school but did an evening course in a language in my thirties and it was as I described above and really interesting.

I won’t slate TwatCat for not wanting to learn welsh but isn’t putting it in the curriculum up to GCSE about keeping the language alive?

isn’t putting it in the curriculum up to GCSE about keeping the language alive?

I thought people were saying that there wasn't space/time to teach anything else such as useful life skills, yet, they seem to find the time/resources to teach Welsh?

So teaching life skills is the primary purpose of school now?

@Mrskeats why do I not value learning? From one post on a forum?
I tried hard in every subject and was constantly criticised for not trying hard enough. School was an awful experience for me so excuse me for not being perfect and loving every lesson because the teachers would ignore what was going on under their nose.
I encourage my dc to take part in a wide range of subjects but some they are just not interested in yet are being forced to take for 3 years it's hard to keep them motivated about it.

The thing is, having to pay attention to stuff you are not particularly engaged in is good preparation for work.

I like my job, but there are days when I would sooner do anything than review group balance sheet reconciliations. I do it because it’s part of my job. You can’t just switch off and decide not to do things because it isn’t holding your interest in the here and now.

Also, “I am not particularly interested in maths” (or spelling, or whatever) isn’t a valid excuse not to learn it. You (the collective you) need to know these things.

Also, “I am not particularly interested in maths” (or spelling, or whatever) isn’t a valid excuse not to learn it. You (the collective you) need to know these things.

Yet, it seems more and more people don't know these things, such as basic numeracy and literacy, so something is going badly wrong.

What an unbelievably depressing thread. What about producing a rounded individual? What about intellectual curiosity? What about having the opportunity to discover what subjects you actually like, rather than not being offered subjects unless they are immediately practically useful?
I agree.

I'd sooner leave teaching than have my subject reduced to some sort of utilitarian anti-academic, what do you need for work. There are many reasons why I love teaching and none of them are based on teach whatever life skill some parents think should be shoved into schools instead of broad topics because they've got a chip on their shoulder.

I personally feel sorry for maths teachers. They spend half their life having people say "so pointless when will I ever use trigonometry" and parents/society reinforcing how utterly irrelevant maths is etc.
I always think it must be fairly empty to have such an anti academic point of view or believe that because you haven't used something in life there's no merit in providing the foundations that will allow kids to specialise in their chosen areas.

Then again I find the attitude of "don't bother learning a language because everyone speaks English" quite depressing too.

There's a whole world of learning to be done and people would rather we taught budgeting and mortgages to 13 year olds instead of a range of humanities and literature.

I hated maths. I was utterly shite at it. Im now a financial controller!!

I could never be down on maths, loved it. Would be awful to only have learnt what I use today.

I too find these threads so depressing. Schooling up to 14 is pretty much giving you a taste of all the things you might be interested in and generally developing your understanding of the world and everything in it. From 14 you get to specialise somewhat, and from 16 still further.

I never use most of what I learned in physics in my daily life but I know that without physicists who do use it my daily life would be much less enjoyable. Ditto biology and chemistry.

The idea that we only learn languages so we can speak them on holiday is so reductive. The ability to use language is unique to humans, so thinking about language, how we use it and even at a basic level learning that other languages work differently from English is so much richer and more meaningful than picking up a holiday phrasebook.

The idea that the study of history is only about knowing facts is also terribly limiting. You learn to analyse different viewpoints, assess source materials and think critically. Learning about the Wild West or whatever surely is a great insight into the challenges other people have faced and what decisions they made, and presumably also it is fascinating to see a 'cowboy' view of what happened versus a Native American view.

I was good at maths but didn't enjoy it.

I was terrible at a couple of subjects, but couldn't imagine being so down on the fact that I had a broad education and wasn't pushed into a narrow pathway from 12. DT wasnt my cup of tea, but the graphics section was fun (as long as we were on computers as I can't draw). Art was terrible when we had to draw and paint, but I really enjoyed other topics.

I think what's telling is that many private schools have a much broader curriculum and really value enrichment, in part because it's the right thing to do, in part because the parents who generally send their child private are likely to care about a broad education and a range of experiences.

Meanwhile the parents who take the utilitarian, what you need to get a job/what you'll use in life etc types don't value a broad education and so don't pass on that value and breadth to their children, who then sit in lessons complaining that they'll never need to learn about rivers, Shakespeare, the Troubles, trigonometry etc. They could find their area of interest, but it's less likely because the message from home is that 99% of that doesn't matter anyway, but at least get you C/4 in English and Maths.

I don’t think any subjects are pointless .

DT wasnt my cup of tea, but the graphics section was fun (as long as we were on computers as I can't draw).

My son thought the same and chose it as a GCSE option. Seduced by the tech classroom that had banks of computers, 3d scanners, cad/cam machines, laser cutter, and the infamous Lego Mindstorms sets. In reality, they were never allowed in because their "tech" teacher apparently wasn't trained in the computerised equipment. So he had to do all the designs/drawings by hand and make the project manually, with handsaws, manual drills, etc. It was a complete fiasco and he got a ridiculously low mark. The school definitely "mis-sold" the tech course. And then they wonder why so many kids don't like tech! Teach it properly!!!

Also, “I am not particularly interested in maths” (or spelling, or whatever) isn’t a valid excuse not to learn it. You (the collective you) need to know these things.
The collective 'we' do learn Maths. Guess which subject has the highest number of entries to take the A Level exam. government website

That was in response to the poster talking about kids being forced to study something they aren’t interested in for three years. Not interested in maths? Tough luck, is my response. You still need to study it to GCSE level. You’ve no chance of understanding how loans and mortgages work - the ‘numeracy life skills’ so many posters seem to be keen on, to the exclusion of trig, algebra and stats - otherwise.

I think that we can only deduce that something is useless because we actually tried it and have the benefit of knowing how our adult lives turned out.

Not enjoying it doesn't mean it's useless. School PE was a waste of time for me but exercising isn't useless.

pikapikachu
Not only that but it's about potential.

One of my friends wanted to be a fashion designer or a fashion journalist. Her GCSE options were taken around it. She took 3 sciences and maths for a level to study medicine at university.

Medicine wouldn't have been an option if she didn't have a broad educational foundations.

What most people are talking abut here is rubbish teaching, not the actual subject.

Yes to that. My son was an avid reader at primary school - one of the first in his year to attain the "free reader" status. I took him to the library every week to get books. He was reading before he went to primary school.

Secondary school sucked the life out of it for him. He had the same dreary old teacher for 4 out of 5 years. He just lost all interest. He'd bring books home from school but wouldn't read them. Despite top grades in other subjects, he'd always get low grades in English, he stopped doing English homework. All that changed in year 9 when he got a different teacher - back to top marks and being interested again, we thought he'd turned a corner. But no, he got the same old Mrs Dreary for GCSE years 10 and 11. She chose Macbeth for one of the set-texts and just drearily read through it, lesson after lesson. My son hadn't a clue what was going on. She never explained anything. Then came the poetry anthology - same, just drearily read the poems in every lesson.

My son went from someone who'd happily read a wide variety of books, to someone who's not read a single book for years. All because of Old Mrs Dreary. We met her at parents evenings - she just sat there completely glum looking - she hadn't a clue who my son was - couldn't give any constructive advice when we told her he used to read a lot but had lost interest. We could see what my son meant - she had about as much life/interest as a dead fish. Just biding her time until she retired.

What a depressing thread. I am old, and my mum (obviously) is even older. She was just as bright as my uncle but wasn’t allowed to go to grammar school, because why would a girl need to do that. Some of the comments on here don’t seem much different to that attitude, without the sexism.

@LauraSol since you’re using our opinions to write your article, perhaps you’d like to link to it when it’s published so we can see how we’ve been (mis)represented.

JoxerGoesToStuttgart wish I had gone to
your school - I love languages - have studied them on and off all my life - they’re a lot easier to learn in your teens than in your sixties!

Suspect OP could have done with some Critical Thinking lessons...