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

Following on from the 'Craft you made at school' thread:

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I realised I never did any craft at school whatsoever. No woodwork, no metalwork, no ceramics, nothing. We did have to attend an art class once a week in the first form where we painted messily without any tuition.

There were other things I missed out on too. We were taught no 20th-century history. I simply had no idea what the world wars were about until I watched The World At War on TV. My parents and grandparents didn't talk about them.

Neither did I do any drama or music (although we did have to have a hymn practice once a week in the early forms).


So what weren't you taught?

Interesting what is and isn't covered at school... I'm surprised you didn't do woodwork at least...

I did Woodwork, but not Home Economics. The closest I came to cooking while I was at school was when a volunteer helped a group of 8 year olds to do our Cook's Badge - she boiled an egg for us while we peeled a potato

My History lessons were mostly 20th Century, surprisingly (I much prefer classical history, but the knowledge of modern history I did gain is useful in many ways).

I was ill the week we did log tables, sin, cos and tan. I'd been average at Maths until then, after that point I usually just scratched my head and got the question wrong. I got no help from the teacher, but it was a class of nearly 40 and I think I just got missed. Got a B at O Grade, was advised to drop the Higher at the prelim stage because my marks were so bad.

That one week lost had a real impact on my career.

I missed a few math topics myself. I missed logarithms, multiplying and dividing fractions, and a few other operations because I advanced past them.

In 7th grade, I took a placement test that put me in Freshman Algebra a year early, skipping 8th grade mathematics where those subjects were taught. As a Freshman I took geometry instead, then Algebra II as a Sophomore, Trig/Analytic Geometry my Junior year... and that second semester class, sort of like a pre-calc class, confused the hell out of me and I didn't bother with math my Senior year.


Oh, and I was of the age that in my early school years, Jimmy Carter did the correct thing and tried to switch the US to the Metric System. Ronnie Ray-Gun reversed that advancement so I never properly learned Imperial measurements. I'm still bitter. The US is in a very exclusive group of nations including only Myanmar and Liberia.

I always read my textbooks the first two weeks of the semester then read pretty much anything I wanted to the remainder of the term.

Once went out on an early vacation, two weeks in May, 1963, to watch the ice breaking up on the Merced river in Yosemite on condition I keep up with my homework, and finished with my homework done for the remainder of the term.

None of the schools I attended had swimming pools, so I had no swimming lessons. I had to wait until college for that.

"I never properly learned Imperial measurements."

16 ounces to a pound. 4 pints to a quart, 2 quarts to a gallon.


The Soviet Union's contributions during World War 2 were heavily glossed over. As is true of most people, I expect, my own country's involvement was exaggerated.

Slavery was pretty glossed over too.

We didn't really do much 'craft' either, or musical instruments – my kids have been taught the cello and ukulele, however we weren't taught any musical instruments (the recorder doesn't count – not the way 5-year-olds play it).
Computers of course would be the big gap – there was a Commodore PET at my Primary School that I never actually saw switched on. At Middle School there were three or four BBCs the staff used to demonstrate things and at High School there were some Acorn Archimedes that we were occasionally allowed to touch.
We didn't do grammar in any detail, or languages. Everyone had to do French and learn how to speak French the way the English speak to other English people in 'French', which is of no use whatsoever if you actually want to speak to someone who is French. You were only allowed to do other languages (Spanish or German) in addition to French. Our school taught Classics, but only to those who also did Drama, and you couldn't learn both History and Geography.

<BB<

"and you couldn't learn both History and Geography."

Whyever not?

The history/geography choice occurred in the 4th year in our school, I think. Not that it was our choice - the school looked at end of year test results and assigned people to one or the other with a view to them taking it to O-level (exam at 15 years old).

They liked to divide people into either arts or sciences, as it made timetabling easier.

They wouldn't teach anyone both history and geography – you had to choose one or the other, even though many people wanted to do both.

At least I didn't have to do art any more in my final years at school. Art was one of those subjects that should have been enjoyable, but instead consisted of the teacher screaming at everyone 'You're doing it wrong!' I thought art was supposed to be about individual expression, but no – there was only one way to do art, and no-one else in the class could ever do it right. Especially not me – I wanted to do black and white drawings, but no. We all had to start with the primary colours and mix them to get a variety of colours we'd paint with. Being colour blind I never successfully mixed the paint colours and I'd get shouted at for colouring things in the wrong colour.

<BB<

Incidentally our art teacher was a good 6'5" amateur rugby player the year the local rugby team, the Hurricanes*, got through to a national quarter or semi-finals. I believe he may even have played rugby internationally (well, representing the Isle of Wight at the Island Games counts as playing internationally, doesn't it?) You could describe him as a tad intimidating.

<BB<

* Named after the Hurricane pilot who crashed on my school playing field during the war. He was trying to do a crash landing on the field, spotted there were children playing where he was about to land and rather than crash into them, chose to nose-dive straight into the ground, saving their lives at the cost of his own. Shortly after I left school they discovered there'd been a giant UXB under our sports hall...

When I have met up with old school classmates we all agree that we were very fortunate, blessed even, with our education. Although it was a Grammar School, and a tiny one at that, with only 300 pupils, the headmaster insisted that we all took music, art, domestic science (this latter only for the girls, though, I think the boys did Local History, which surely would have been nice for the girls too).

In the 5th Form, we did a course on computer science, and went to Cambridge Tech to see the computer there, we were even allowed to punch our own cards and try out the programs we had written. I doubt if there were any exams offered in the subject in those days, but when I took a course on computing about 25 years ago (I was already quite used to computers by then, but in Germany you have to have pieces of paper to say you can do things) my notes from school were very useful.

We all *had* to take 9 'O' levels - unfortunately for me, music was left out of that, and art was taken up to 'O' level (Can't draw for toffee). There was no choice. History, Geography, Art, English Lit, English Lang, Maths, French, 2 out of Chemistry/Physics/Biology. This was unfair on some who struggled a bit, and may have done better if they had only had to take, say, 5 'O' levels.

Thanks to good teachers, we had a very good grounding in grammar and the sciences; our history and French teachers were strict but very effective.

The History curriculum covered the obligatory Tudors and Stuarts in the run-up to 'O' levels, but in the first 3 years we did the Stone Age, the Egyptians and the Romans and so on, but also a little about the Industrial Revolution and, as the 6 days war cropped up in the News, we covered that, too.

The First World War was covered by English Literature in a way, as we did Robert Graves' autobiography "Goodbye to all that" and the usual War Poets. But, as has been said, the 2nd WW was prominent by its absence from the history (or any other) lessons.

Of all the subjects we did, French has been the most useful - I left school fairly fluent, and second to that, much of what we learned in Physics has spawned an interest in scientific developments which have been manifold since I left school in 1972. History gave me plenty to build on, for all its gaps, and even some things I learned about composition and colour in our art classes have stuck. (Although memories of the art teacher's groping are more prominent)

Life has shown me that we should have done more Geology and, as has been said, a more generalised and less insular history curriculum would have also been nice to have. There was also a serious lack of subjects such as economics and things which would have a really practical use later in life such as business practice. Some subjects such as British Constitution were taught at the Secondary School next door, or Philosophy, which is, I think, compulsory in French schools. Thank heavens for our Domestic Science class which taught me as much about cooking and sewing as it did about how to cope in a room full of girls (shudder).

British Constitution? I didn't know we had one!

Mr. X, I didn't say I was unfamiliar with imperial measurements, I said I never properly learned them. Even in the simple example you give, I have to think for a moment about whether "quart" is short for quarter gallon and make a mess of the floor when I try to pour 4 of them into a gallon jug.

To me a mile is "five thousand and some-odd" feet. I have no idea how big an acre is other than it's "about 4 times as big as my home's yard". A hectare? no clue. A dram? a small shot glass? Furlongs? Forget about it. Is a firkin a small barrel or a leather vest? I know a fathom is 6 feet only from submarine films. I long thought (as many do) that "20,000 Leagues Below The Sea" was very deep indeed. (I now know it's a distance traveled, not a depth and either a large fraction or small multiple of a round the world trip.)

We were given a cursory introduction to imperial units then focused on the much more sensible metric units. But then we abandoned those completely in 1981 with the new administration so even my competence level using some metric units is a bit weak.

I don't think I've ever poured 4 quarts into a gallon jug.

But since I'm only 59 there's plenty of opportunity yet.

PP.

You need a special fluid shoehorn to do it.

I think there must be an awful lot of history to teach, and the amount grow every day, not to mention new findings that change what we know about it.

Geography may have its share of new discoveries, but by and large there aren't many continents that have been formed since last Tuesday. Granted, some poor farmer Mexico might wake up one morning to find that his field is now a volcano, but that's rare. Changes are more likely to come when one country swallows others, or previously swallowed countries break free. There may be times when this happens a lot, but by and large if you were in the middle of a particular country a year ago, you're still in the same country now.

Therefore, the dilemma is this: one course in history won't do justice to the subject, but one course in geography should come close to being enough. On the other hand, you may find yourself in present-day Mexico City without knowing much about the place, but your chances of running into Montezuma are vanishingly small.

But if the curriculum had covered more geology you would be better informed and better prepared.

That's certainly true. You'll have the rest of your life in which to read about history on your own. Geography could be valuable fairly soon.