A Conversation for Ask h2g2

Things you missed out on at school

Post 21

Teasswill

My first thought, when reading the subject, was that in junior school I missed out on cane & raffia work. Being a girl, we had to do sewing & make a tea cosy instead.

At secondary school I had to make choices for O levels which meant missing out on any history more recent than about 1700 ( but I did the Tudors at least twice). Also saw that the geography syllabus was much more interesting than what we'd covered earlier (weather, geology instead of statistics about sheep farming in Australia & dates of dams in the Netherlands).

I had to give up Art to do Sciences, but did later do Art O level while doing my A levels.

Even though we did Cookery, it was fancy things like sausage rolls and fruit crumble - I didn't even know how to do basic veg!


Things you missed out on at school

Post 22

Mol - on the new tablet

You could only do 2 sciences at O level, so I missed out on biology.

At the end of our second year, I had to drop art, music and drama and continue with German instead. Still bitter.

Didn't do metalwork, woodwork, technical drawing or rural science, cos they were all boys' subjects.

Didn't actually learn how to cook *meals* in home economics.

Dropped geography at O level - the history department had much better teachers.

Didn't learn anything useful in PE.

Can't wait for the revolution - education will look very different by the time I've finished with it.


Things you missed out on at school

Post 23

Pink Paisley

Music.

I changed secondary school after my 2nd year and had never had a music (or French lesson). Yes, that was a pretty poor school which is why I changed. I found myself in a class where everybody else could read music and play some sort of instrument. I couldn't catch up and dropped music asap - not because I wanted to, but because I had to get some exam passes.

I've made up for it since.

I don't think that I was able to do Geography AND History either. Silly really since in many ways the two are interwoven. I too had plenty of exposure to the Tudors but no modern history beyond the industrial revolution. Don't mention the war! Perhaps the war wasn't history then. When does an event qualify as history? 50 years on? 100?

PP.


Things you missed out on at school

Post 24

ITIWBS

When I was in junior high school, they had a computer program in the next school district over.

I tried for an inter-district transfer, but wasn't allowed.

Unfortunate.

If I'd succeeded, I might have ended up on the ground floor with Java-Sun.


Things you missed out on at school

Post 25

paulh, vaccinated against the Omigod Variant

The most useless thing they taught me in elementary school was writing with cheap plastic pens that you dipped in ink and wrote with. Like quill pens, really. Ballpoint pens existed at the time. Good fountain pens existed. I never saw the point in using those cheap things!


Things you missed out on at school

Post 26

Baron Grim

The most useless thing they taught me was set theory.

And Richard Feynman pointed eloquently pointed out how inane it was to teach children pointless pedantry like set theory to school children. He described it as knowledge of words without real knowledge.

~~~~~~~
It is an example of the use of words, new definitions of new words, but in this particular case a most extreme example because no facts whatever are given…. It will perhaps surprise most people who have studied this textbook to discover that the symbol ∪ or ∩ representing union and intersection of sets … all the elaborate notation for sets that is given in these books, almost never appear in any writings in theoretical physics, in engineering, business, arithmetic, computer design, or other places where mathematics is being used.
~~~~~~

http://www.farnamstreetblog.com/2016/07/richard-feynman-teaching-math-kids/


Things you missed out on at school

Post 27

You can call me TC

What is set theory? (I honestly don't know).

I'm guessing it is something to do with what was called 'modern maths' in my day and it seemed they were determined to keep that mystery from us. I've never used a slide rule but calculators were forbidden. We only had logarithms.


Things you missed out on at school

Post 28

ITIWBS

Set theory not to be confused with group theory, which is used to figure odds for card games and similar problems.


Things you missed out on at school

Post 29

Mr. X ---> "Be excellent to each other. And party on, dudes!"

"one course in history won't do justice to the subject, but one course in geography should come close to being enough."


Ah, but everything I know about geography I learned from studying history. So it's still superior.

From what I hear I think I prefer the American education system.

smiley - pirate


Things you missed out on at school

Post 30

Baron Grim

I wouldn't, it's been decimated in recent decades.



Set theory is basically comparing sets. It requires the introduction of otherwise never use symbols in math which I can't render on h2g2. First is the Union symbolized by a san serif U shape. Invert that shape and you have the symbol for an Intersection, I'll represent it by a lower case n here. Sets are indicated by enclosing them in curly brackets (IIRC). So I'll give an example below using a set of even numbers and a set of numbers divisible by 3.

{2,4,6,8,10,12...}
{3,6,9,12,15...}

{2,4,6,8,10,12...}U{3,6,9,12,15...} = {2,3,4,6,8,9,10,12,14,15...}

{2,4,6,8,10,12...}n{3,6,9,12,15...} = {6,12,18,24,30...}

This would be stated verbally as "The Union of even numbers and numbers divisible by 3" and "The Intersection of even numbers and numbers divisible by three". A union is the set including every member of each set and the intersection is the set including only those members of each set that populate both sets.


This is the stilted language you have to use while doing set theory. Set theory is only ever practically used to describe different degrees of infinity, but those folks who were trying to reshape education in the 70s included it as a requirement for elementary students in their "New Math".

As explained in that article,

~~~~~
A proposed primer instructed first-graders: “Find out if the set of the lollipops is equal in number to the set of the girls.”

To Feynman this was a disease. It confused without adding precision to the normal sentence: “Find out if there are just enough lollipops for the girls.”
~~~~~


I'm actually rather surprised at how thoroughly I retained set theory, a completely useless subject. We were tested on this in 2nd or 3rd grade IIRC, somewhere between counting and multiplication. It wasn't that difficult, it was just pointless and it was graded more on "grammar" than comprehension.


Things you missed out on at school

Post 31

SashaQ - happysad

Interesting - quite often it seems people's expectations of subjects are different from what they actually are...

I didn't learn anything particular about countries in Geography, as there was a stronger emphasis on human geography, which does change (and is indeed linked to history). Similarly, my History lessons were less about historical events and more about methods for understanding historical events (which are useful skills for current events too).

I approve of including different bits of Maths in courses, to help people to learn that Maths is not just Arithmetic. Set Theory is interesting as it is something that is very pictorial on a simple level, but which was useful to me in my PhD thesis at the pure maths level. My sister did better at Algebra than Arithmetic when she was studying Maths, but she didn't do well enough to be introduced to the delights of Geometry, which she had to teach herself as it is useful for her artwork!


Things you missed out on at school

Post 32

Baron Grim

I loved geometry. It has such well defined rules and logic. I loved doing proofs. As I mentioned, I took geometry a year early. It was an early morning class and my busing schedule had me getting up well before dawn to wait for an overfull bus (three to a seat and standing in the aisle, no seat belts) so I'd get to school an hour and half before class. My geometry class was 2nd period, just in time for the morning crash. As much as I loved the class, and the teacher ("Coach" le Fluer") I had a struggle each day to keep my eyes open, constantly propping them open by resting my forehead on my hands with elbows on the desk. I sat front row center. I thought I was getting away with it...

Until, Clere Something, who sat against the wall, third seat, got caught sleeping with her head down on the desk one day. "Coach" le Fluer kept lecturing with an even tone as he approached her desk. All eyes were on him (even mine, his movement must have got my attention) when he KICKED the bottom of her desk.

Clere shot up with a start and gave him a menacing stare and then ratted me out. "Why'd you do that!? Robert sleeps in class every day and you don't kick HIS desk!"

Ooh... smiley - yikes

"Coach" le Fluer replied, "If you got the grades that Robert gets, maybe I WOULD let you sleep in class, until then pay attention!"


smiley - blushsmiley - laugh


Things you missed out on at school

Post 33

Baron Grim

MICHELLE CLERE! That was her name... I think...


I had a small crush on her until that morning.


Things you missed out on at school

Post 34

MMF - Keeper of Mustelids, with added P.M.A., is now in a relationship.

It seems I was very lucky in my schooling.
The difficult part was suddenly going from Imperial to Metric during my Day rimary School years. I did manage to pass my 11+ with my Father's assistance.

It meant I did go to Grammar School and had a good range of classes, some of which I found boring, such as Art (thrown out for drawing 'rude' stick men) in my second year.

History was pretty boring but I did enjoy the Scoences, eventually going to college on the back of Biology A level.

Struggled with Maths with private tuition to get me through O level (passed third time) and Physics only passed second time.

Music was boring despite playing the fiddle. Stockhausen and Cage still pass me by, but grown to appreciate some Glass. Useless at Woodwork. Hand to eye. O-ordination not my Forte.

Enjoyed geography. Loathed sport. Maybe my disability was already starting. Eventually got out of it by studying Economics. Didn't fully grasp it but enough to understand how modern history, politics and economics are linked.

History was very 'Dry' but enjoyed the early 1800's. Didn't cover much of WWII, probably because it was still relatively recent'.

Home Economics? Nearest I got was making bread in Chemistry. Not sure why. Not really explained. Or if it was, I didn't get it.

All in all, I had a good grounding and was able to decide on my future studying as rather than being taught 'Science' like today, but taught the pure subjects of Chemistry, Biology and Physics.

If thee was anything I missed it was Latin as I wanted to understand Linnaean naming of nature, the Latin derivation of flora and fauna names but was advised, until I improved my French(a U at O level much to the surprise of my Belgian friends!) Latin was out.

Sport involved Rugby, Hockey and Cricket. Football was forbidden, thankfully. Swimming was in an outdoor swimming pool and could explain why I am useless and actually sink if not flapping my arms and legs.

MMF

smiley - musicalnote


Things you missed out on at school

Post 35

Icy North

Set theory as taught in schools seems incomplete to me (I didn't study it then). As you described, there's little practical application. It seems only to be introducing you to the strange notation, which you're very unlikely ever to use in adult life.


Things you missed out on at school

Post 36

2legs - Hey, babe, take a walk on the wild side...

I was lucky in some ways... not so in otters.

I had a fabulous home economics teacher, at middle school; I still use the mthodology she taught me, for washing up dishes, and her m method for threading needles, and tieing off thread at the end of sewing, etc, and probably helped get me started on cooking (now one of my main passtimes as an adult) smiley - chef
we did a fair bit of CDT; woodwork, some electronics but very little metalwork (sadly they removed the decent metalwork equipment the year I arrived at middle school as it was going 'out of favour' ) - Also got to do some CDT stuff working with acrylic perspex and suchlike smiley - zen
Maths I missed out a lot in; they'd sort of given up teaching tables etc, so my mental arythemic is useless, though I can do algibra and statistics and stuff, just not do basic in my head maths day to day smiley - doh
English spelling had gone out of favour so I neva learned to spel proper. - then by the time I got to Uni, we were using computers anyhow, so had spell check. smiley - doh
We did have drama and music, i had some flute lessons paid for by the school, plus the useual learning the recorder etc, and self-taught guitar, but never did properly lean to sight read smiley - doh
No language teaching at all to speak of, well, there was but I spent all my French lessons playing cards with friends in the back of the German class instead, but sadly didn't pick up any German from that smiley - doh
Geography wasn't geography, it was geology, so I don't know where anything is, in this ocuntry let alone aroudn the world.
history was apauling, we just did the second world war, again and again and never learned anything much about it, as each new year seemed to be doing the same basic stuff; I've learnt more history through watching TV I'm faily sure smiley - dohsmiley - huh
PE/sports taught me to utterly despise all sport and physical activity, which had me fully trained to believe such, until I got beyond the age of 40 when I randomly discovered I really like physical activity smiley - huh - by which time I really could have done with a few decaded physical activity having occured already whilst I was a bit younger smiley - laughsmiley - erm
Science was pretty good though, but a bit thin on physics which I'm still rahter bad at smiley - doh
Art was just a waste of time and a lessons no one took seriously, least of all the teacher I expect smiley - doh


Things you missed out on at school

Post 37

Baron Grim

Sight reading! smiley - yikessmiley - run



One of the most traumatic school experiences I had was in my freshman year. I was choir in middle school (grades 6-8). In 8th grade, the high school choir teacher basically had us audition for the high school choir. Every other boy's voice deepened but mine so he was eager to have me as a male alto (strike one to me prepubescent masculine ego). Now in my 3rd or 4th year of choir, I somehow had never learned sight reading. I knew musical notation, of course, but I could absolutely not see a note on a page and "know" what note to sing. I knew only relative pitch, higher or lower and roughly how much. I would usually just follow along sotto voce until I got it.

Then we went to a regional choir competition...

and we were individual competitions...

and one was sight reading...


As much as it must have pained the ears of the judges, the excruciating embarrassment I felt was far more tortuous.


Things you missed out on at school

Post 38

Mr. X ---> "Be excellent to each other. And party on, dudes!"

<>


"I wouldn't, it's been decimated in recent decades."


smiley - erm I was there in recent decades; it seemed fine to me. And I turned out alright.

Needs more money, of course, but I believe its supposed wreck is exaggerated.




"I approve of including different bits of Maths in courses, to help people to learn that Maths is not just Arithmetic. ... [My sister] didn't do well enough to be introduced to the delights of Geometry, which she had to teach herself as it is useful for her artwork!"


See, this is exactly my point. In America there's a greater emphasis on insuring each student is at least INTRODUCED to every subject, rather than steering them down one path or another, because they ARE interconnected.

(Or so I hear.)

smiley - pirate


Things you missed out on at school

Post 39

Teasswill

Do you think you can learn sight reading music?

In our choir we do various musical exercises to get used to different intervals between notes, which helps a bit, but I certainly can't sight read accurately without some accompaniment to guide me. I think you need an innate musical skill to do it.


Things you missed out on at school

Post 40

Teasswill

PS Playing an instrument is different - sight reading is possible there.


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