h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I remember Sex Education at our school. After a few rudimentary drawings on blackboards, our entire year was gathered in the assembly hall for a *very important* film. Permission slips had to be signed by parents, all the curtains were drawn and teachers posted guard on the doors. Expectations (amongst the boys anyway) were that this was almost going to be a soft porn film, especially when we were told it was Swedish.

In the film, a guy with a beard and a woman with a moustache went to the beach. We knew they were "in love" because they held hands, stared into each others eyes and carried a picnic basket. The first five minutes of the film established all this in scene one. Scene two, the couple ran laughing into the sea and splashed water on each other. Scene three, the couple are at a hospital and she's getting an ultrasound scan.



We deduced that splashing water on a girl at the beach got her pregnant.

I deduced that, from graffiti, if I were to insert my finger in my preferential female's ear then procreation was completed!

They were very poor images!

MMF

As a kid, I knew that a condom prevented pregnancy.

I also knew that a "condo", such as some friends had, was a kind of apartment.

So I assumed that a "condom" was a matching set of single beds rather than a double bed

Ah, y'see, in Scotland the only condos we saw belonged to suave American medallion-man types on the telly who always brought the heroine back to their "condo" for sex, so we deduced that a "condo" was a bachelor pad for sh@gging.

Mind you, I say "we", it might just have been me

I took GCSE in 1995 and I was forced to take all three sciences. We had the option of separate science or dual award; dual award meant that the pupil studied all three sciences but received two marks (and there was some kind of weighting system whereby the lowest coursework mark was dropped or somesuch.) I took the separate option but I wish that I could have dropped chemistry (as was possible for my brother and sister doing o-levels in the 80s). I didn't enjoy it and I'd already got the basics so my time would have been better spent on other subjects. But I did get taught all three sciences until I was sixteen so don't be too quick to dismiss double science RF

GCSE "options" were a joke; English language, English lit, maths, physics, chemistry, biology and technology were compulsory. I had a choice of modern history or geography and then a choice of two other subjects. Essentially, of the ten GCSEs I took, I was able to choose two. The comprehensive education had worked quite well until then; I was glad to have studied RE, music, art, chemistry, geography, needlework, woodwork and various others but I didn't want to have to carry on for another two years. Making me study chemistry and technology was a waste of my time and a waste of the teachers' time.



Surely that depends on what history one is studying? Would any history A-level course describe how select committees work or what they are for? Does a study of the Russian revolution necessitate an understanding of the role and history of the speaker in the House of Commons? Does history A-level cover how MEPs are elected and the what the role of an MEP is? Would the events of 1066 have been different if British people had had the option of a single transferrable vote?

Poilitics is not a subset of history.

Back to the question, I wish I'd been able to learn Latin and Greek at school and I wish I'd been taught Classical Civilisation and Ancient History before A-level. And it would have been good to have learnt economics because at least now I wouldn't have to have economic theory explained to me before I can argue against the illogicality of much economics.

Ooh, the the thing I most wish I'd learnt at school is Parkinson's Law

Given the exponential rate of change in which we're living, (Google "Shift Happens"...)how do we decide what to teach to today's children, when the jobs they will be doing in 10 years time probably don't even currently exist?

Learning how to learn (and how to keep on doing that even when your schooldays are over) is far more important than a handful of facts and dates.

I never learned music at school, but I can still manage to play the piano and guitar, and with software like Finale can compose and produce mp3 files.

Handwriting? Are you serious! Who needs good handwriting these days?

There was something on the radio here in Oz about a school which is teaching their students philosophy ... from the age of 7 or 8!

It's more about ethics and such and how to debate and how to think critically but, they say that, given the opportunity, they will introduce the kids to the great philosophers in time.



I would have loved to learn that at school! Do you think that they'd notice a (slightly) older student sitting in?

Dark sarcasm.

TRiG.

Yup. Philosophy. Ethics. How to debate properly. How to frame an argument. These would all have been good. (I learned it all from hootoo, and have a good deal yet to learn.)

TRiG.

I wish I'd learned that 'history' didn't just mean the second world war.

Philosophy would have been good too, as would music - not how to play necessarily, but how to appreciate it. Music history in fact. And art history too, not the pointless art gcse I got a D in as I can't draw.

Useful foreign languages (ie not bloody french) would be nice.

I was the second year to take gcses and was forced to take double science, the jump from there to A level physics (I took 3 science a levels so no maths to back up the physicws) was enormous.

I'm surprised by some of the things people say they weren't taught in school (fuses, for instance). Perhaps we *were* taught all these things we now wish we'd learned, but we just weren't paying attention.

I wish I'd learnt about flirting and other such related stuff that the people at the mixed schools got.

And really, changing fuses and light bulbs is not something that a person should need to be taught. It takes at most a few minutes trial and error to figure out.

Without meaning to sound like I'm whingeing:

I wish I'd learned what it's like to be part of a group. With an amazing number of different schools under my belt, I was the perpetual new kid, and usually had no chance of entering the established cliques. I eventually stopped trying, compounding the problem. Due to the bullying that went on, I now suspect ulterior motives from people even when they're not there, and it's hard for me to accept doing things just because it's what the group wants...

I've often thought one of the useful things I did learn was typewriting which I took as an extra in the 6th form

Certainly didn't have much of the vocational type stuff that's available now unless you went to the local college after 16.

Never made it into any cliques either as I was an unsociable when I was a teenager or so my mum's friend told me

I wish I was learning a programming language or two, and also how to build computers. Got to wait to be taught that.

Oh look. I went looking for a comic and I found a blog post about it instead.

http://xkcdsucks.blogspot.com/2008/12/comic-519-worst-comic-ever-made.html

TRiG.

I started primary school in 1993. I learned how to change a lightbulb at girl guides. I figured out how to change fuses all by myself about two years ago. I did learn music, and how to appreciate it. My handwriting is only neat because i made it that way during secondary school. I wish i had taken modern studies aswell as history, And I wish i had taken Biology instead of Chemistry.

But overall my schooling wasnt too bad. Never should have taken 'Administration' though.

mini

I, too, never really mixed with established cliques. I started school at 9 already reading and writing well and never really struggled academically (I was never brilliant and had my frustrations, but I was never in danger of dropping off the bottom end of the scale) but most of that I put down to being taught at home such a wide range of things including how to talk to people, how to solve problems, how to find out about things...

(Ok, I'm no good at research but that's a problem of motivation, not ability!)

However, I couldn't have picked GCSEs or even A levels that were completely relevant to me... I didn't know then what I wanted to do in the long term, and I still dont, really! Being a practical sort of person I went with the apprenticeship into mechanics that I got ap lacement for. Without that, I'd have studied A-level RE (apparently far better than a-level sociology, my RE -non GCSE- teacher was really enthusiastic about me taking it. Lots of moral dilemma and stuff like that to discuss ), art, maths and drama at 6th form.

Incidentally, I did the double science thingy too. And you do still study all the sciences (well, the top three ) and you are tested on them all. Despite my problems with numbers and formulas, chem is and will always be my favourite!

Proper art classes with a teacher who *teaches*, and talks about things like perspective, geometry and anatomy. Every art class I had in school consisted of someone handing out sheets of paper, then everyone doodling while the teachers sat there reading the paper or chatting to another teacher who didn't have a class.



Doesn't happen in MY art lessons..I want to teach them 'how to'.

I will SHOW them and I will demonstrate how..But I won't respond to those students who want me to do it for them..

I too suffered from teachers who wouldn't teach me..I've had to teach myself and buy books on 'how to' so I could teach students as no one ever showed me how..

Also I'm into 3D art and I'd show you in clay and other 3D media.

"I too suffered from teachers who wouldn't teach me..I've had to teach myself and buy books on 'how to' so I could teach students as no one ever showed me how.."

Self-education can be a great way to learn too, though. Someone made the point earlier that education doesn't have to stop when you leave school, and that's true. It shouldn't. But it *does* seem like such a waste to spend a lot of time cooped up in a room and take nothing away from it. Even in *prison*, people sometimes leave with a degree.