What school subjects did you find a humiliating experience?

[BeRubyReader]

Apart from PE
I would say Spanish , couldn't learn the language so humiliating when having to do the bit where you had to have a conversation with the teach inn the language

PE

I fucking hated it-and our teacher was a sadistic bitch

She'd openly tell everyone not to choose me or not to use me in a certain place as 'you want someone stronger and less shit at whatever we where doing than her','run faster you lazy,fat,useless lump' and 'we all know your crap at this'

(Same bitch once commented,loudly,that she could see my pubes through my swimming cossie-i was bullied for that)

Made me feel like shit-I'm not sporty but I always tried my best

Years later,my own dd started the same school and it turned out the same teacher was still there

I made it very clear that if she did to dd what she did to me,I'd come down on her like a ton of bricks and I meant it

Dd left that school and commented one day that the teacher had always treated her with kid gloves-a few other parents had said the same apparently

PE and textiles (needlework) - I have zero spatial awareness or coordination (thankfully no negative experiences from others but just was not very good at it) and would spend the entire textiles lesson valiantly trying to get the bobbin connected with the sewing machine 🤨

RE - teaching us religion as fact.
makes my blood boil as an adult. No wonder so many kids are indoctrinated.

Maths. May as well have been double dutch not a clue. So humiliating when test results were read out in class and I came last. This was 1970's and dyscalculia was unheard of. I could do the basics in my head but not on paper. That and P.E with a lesbian bully of a teacher who had her favourites and they always got to pick teams, was always last. And it was netball every games session. Hockey i liked but we never played much in favour of netball which I found boring, hence I would skive off on Wednesday afternoons ! However cross country runs I loved since most of my free time was spent scouring the local countryside, climbing trees, building dens I was a bit of a tomboy!

Maths I was always bottom of the class or next to the bottom with very few correct answer Also needlework never could learn to thread a machine I did want to learn In the end I used to always disappear for the lessonI remember disappearing from school and going to a nearby park I didn't get caught did this a number of times

Maths - got behind early on but because I was good at humanities was in a top “streamed” class in early secondary school.

I just couldn’t do the maths. The teacher did a test every single class, then we had to mark each other’s work, then PUBLICLY call out your mark. I’d be 4 out of 20, or worse, terrible compared to everybody else. it was humiliating. And yet, looking back, I can’t remember the teacher even speaking to me once. I just continued failing all year with no intervention.

Other context is that I remember sitting at the back of that classroom. The following year I realised other people could see stuff I didn’t and it turned out I was quite short sighted. So probably couldn’t see the blackboard in maths, which wouldn’t have helped.

And I was bullied in the maths class by a horrible boy called Wayne who sat to my right, so that added to the hellscape.

PE. Everything else I did okay at, even if I didn’t like it (like Maths).

Yup, me too. In two years of needlework I didn't even manage to make the bag you were supposed to carry your needlework in! Wasn't humiliating though, just very, very boring.

French. I was taken abroad by my parents and put In a French school. One of the teachers took an instant dislike to me and would have me out at the front of the class practising French Rs. I couldnt roll them properly and everyone laughed at me until I started crying. I was only 8.
After a year of this I had totally lost all confidence In .myself and would just not open my mouth.
My parents were too self obsessed to notice.

PE because of gym knickers. I was a tiny little thing but so pale. I just remember feeling very self conscious with my white legs.

I also found getting changed/unchanged stressful. You would be given about 1 minute to get changed and the teacher would be standing there yelling at the slow ones. I would get all muddled with my clothes in a panic.

I also hated being picked on in classes like French. I was so self conscious and knew I would probably get it wrong or my attempt at a French accent would be awful.

School can be rough!

Gymnastics or dance I think it was called. We had to wear a leotard in a freezing cold hall and we could wear footless tights as an option. It was horrendous for the more body conscious ones in our group. Many girls enjoyed imitating swans in the huge mirrors...but I found it so uncomfortable.

I was exactly the same, and was predicted an E but got a C thanks to WHSmiths GCSE revision cards. Think the maths teacher had given up by that point. Mind you, all he did was hand out the textbooks and we worked through them! No actual teaching went on. This was around 1989.

Other thing I was terrible at was Home Economics. I once made shortbread and completely forgot to add sugar. Another time the teacher screeched at me because my stewed apple was burning on the hob and getting stuck to the pan. Whilst I was probably staring into space...This was meant to be 'something suitable for a baby to eat'. Mine got bunged straight in the bin when I got home, never went near a baby, luckily.
The other issue was having to transport the product of the HE lesson home on an overcrowded bus, when I also had a schoolbag and PE kit too. (PE is another story, my absolute worst thing at school fir many reasons already mentioned).

Physics. I remember being told I would have got a higher mark in a multiple choice test if I had chosen any one letter and stuck with it for every answer, without reading the questions. I can still see 19% in red biro at the top of the paper.

Obviously PE, but that aside any element of presenting to the class had me in a cold sweat. I actually got myself excused from German GCSE after the mock spoken exam almost gave me a panic attack.
Surprised at all the people saying art though. I'm no artist but most of the class wasn't, being mediocre didn't mark me out there.

PE. Always PE. But not because of the subject itself, which I regard as highly necessary, but of course because of the bullies disguised as teachers.

Art definitely. They used to rate us in order for exam performance on our reports (the 80’s were harsh). I came last in the entire year in art. Bit of a badge of honour. I still don’t know how they scored them? I was generally quite good at the rest of subjects.
When I rocked up at the option evenings at the art table and I swear the art teacher went pale. She looked relieved when I just said I was with my artistically gifted friend.

Another vote for PE here. I was bright, generally a good student, and quite happy at school. But my enduring memories of PE are of freezing, in our little gym knickers, in the rain, while our PE teacher screeched at us from the warmth of her puffa jacket. She used to track in her diary when each girl had last had her period, in case anyone tried using that as an excuse to get out of swimming. God forbid anyone's cycle deviated from her permitted 28-day pattern 🙄
One hockey lesson in year 10 she just kept shouting, "Square! SQUARE!!" at me, with no explanation as to what that meant, and I put my hockey stick down, told her "I'm not doing this anymore" and never went back to PE again.

I've often wondered why PE teaching seems to attract that personality type. Not all of them of course, and plenty of sadistic teachers in other subject areas too, but a disproportionate number within PE it seems!

PE.
I was shortsighted and got glasses to read the blackboard at age 12.
I didn’t realize I needed the glasses to see the ball when playing rounders during PE. So, since I couldn’t see the ball, I just swiped wildly, hoping by chance I might hit the ball. Once I did. The bitch of a PE teacher led the whole class in a slow handclap, saying “she’s FINALLY hit the ball”.
If only I could go back in time and tell her what I think of her, I’d eviscerate her.

Art - the secondary school teacher laughed at one of my pictures

Many of these stories are appalling tbh. I was a teacher in a school for several years and I hope that nothing like these happened in my school :(

I don't know how far back people are going obvs (my schooldays were pre-GCSE as I am ollldd) but I really hope we have moved on. Sports days in my DCs' schools were a lot more inclusive for sure. Art at the school I worked at was popular with all abilities which was a massive improvement.

I'm sorry that so many hated PE and hope you have been able to enjoy being active in some way as an adult. And for those who felt humiliated by maths, again I hope you have been able to value your abilities now. And it’s not cheating to use a calculator @Bulldog01 !

I was humiliated in Maths too, at primary school. Sent out of class for not doing the work I didn’t understand. Then at secondary I had a teacher who didn’t like me so I never felt able to ask for help. Got an E in my GSCE. I did retake it in my 20s and got a C, but I still don’t like it, and it can actually make me cry if I have to do anything more than basic arithmetic. My brain just doesn’t compute numbers.

PE wasn’t actually too bad, despite not being sporty. Athletics was the worst, because I’m not. But the teacher was ok, and there wasn’t any humiliation from not being good. I did ok at hockey and football, was completely crap at netball and just mucked about with my friend when we did tennis.

Drama. I was chronically shy as a kid, so drama was horrific for me.

French to lesser extent. Any language I speak unfortunately comes out in a Derbyshire accent 😂

And some bits of art. I have sensory issues, so used to cry and find things like clay very difficult as I couldn't cope with it drying on my hands.

I was mediocre at Art, but enjoyed it. I didn’t really consider taking it for GCSE as I had no idea how to get a good grade (I couldn’t tell the difference between a sculpture graded A and another one graded D).

All our art teachers seemed to be barking mad and I had no idea what they were talking about, except when they went off the topic of art and started talking about prostitutes and Nazis. One of them was sacked for smoking marijuana on school premises.

All of them, (subjects) as I was bullied throughout secondary school... by the students.. but some of the teachers made life hell too.
I especially hated P.E though (although I did quite enjoy running). I was never chosen for any teams and the P.E teachers were absolutely horrible, unless you were one of the popular girls. I was actually rather good at throwing the ball into the net in netball and I specifically remember this P.E teacher saying loudly, for all to hear.. "we've finally found something that FORESTWANDERER is good at!!"
Another time, I remember a different P.E teacher taking me to one side and making me look in a mirror and telling me how ridiculous I looked, as I was wearing cropped leggings underneath the ridiculously short p.e skirt, which I was self conscious about.
I felt about a few inches tall and nearly cried, after she had singled me out and made me feel so humiliated. These things were about 30 years ago..

English and the forced reading aloud to the class. Although I was an avid reader, for some reason I could never read aloud as I couldn't get the words from my head to my mouth if that makes sense? Its hard to explain but its like there's a disconnect there. So I would read ahead to my part just so that I was familiar with what to say when it was my turn. I was so worried about it that I didn't take in the plot or any other details so when asked I had no clue. I think most of my class thought I was stupid. So humiliating. In hindsight, I wonder if I had some kind of undiagnosed issue like dyslexia?