Things We Learned in School that are Now Useless
Remember in school when we had to write in cursive, make something out of a shoebox, or even how to climb a rope?
I remember the time when my elementary school forced me and the other students to take Music, Art, and French classes (three classes I later can simply choose to not take in middle school). Music class in particular made me play the recorder, and I had to read off a clefs that's basically the treble clef but the notes are shifted down the staff by 2 steps. This skill is only valuable if you're playing the clarinet or other similar instruments, which most people aren't playing, if they're even playing instruments at all, that is.
I use this every day of my life. In the shower, while reading, and to freak everyone out by making it sound like a squeaky door that people think someone is going to come through and kill me. One time, I encountered a lion, and was able to scare it off with a recorder. Thank you fourth grade music teacher!
My school taught me how to do tin whistle. Tin whistle is literally the worst instrument in the entire history of the universe! Nobody uses the tin whistle no more brah
After playing the recorder for a while in the 5th grade, it was almost never mentioned in my middle school years at all. In the 6th grade, I always wondered what was the point of was playing the recorder if you're not even going to play it again in middle school.
Who does this in real life? This one is fun but doesn't really matter at all. Do you really think I would plan on intentionally dropping an egg and thinking It won't break? No I wouldn't.
This one's actually important because it's the context that matters: to wear a helmet. But seeing this at #3, I'm no longer surprised why teens still cycle without helmet and break their life.
Most useless subject ever. How will you do this? That is also a waste of eggs and it is very gross, and someone will have to clean it up.
What the... in what class did you learn that, for what reason and how did it fit into the context of the subject?
Gladly we hadn't had to memorize and could just use the printed table for tests. Chemists can use one too, but they have to somewhat know it by heart, because they need the elements a lot and it takes some time to look everything up every few seconds.
In practice you'll always have a periodic table to reference, and important values you'll memorise naturally through practice. The only people who benefit from memorising the table of elements is teachers who want to make tests.
Biology, chemistry, and history is memorization (of course history is by far more than either, chemistry and biology do take some understanding), physics and math is understanding.
I actually did this. Maybe not all the little numbers and all that, but if you feed me a symbol, I can give you the name of the element. Easy stuff.
I would usually use just 3.14 for finding area of circles, so yeah I kind of agree, memorization gets you about no where for math, and 25 digits is really not that impressive either.
Why would we need to know this? When are we going to go to a shop and wonder what are the frickin first 25 digits of pi? We have Google and the internet to ask that.
Impractical, but an alright way to impress people. Although I don't know if people have to memorize more than a few digits.
Only useful when you're trying to prove you're a math genius, otherwise absolutely useless.
Good thing, because my friends from public school can't read my cursive because I switched from private school to public school and I guess they didn't learn that, it's like a secret code.
Writing in cursive also means you can easily read things written in cursive. If you're studying history, then it becomes useful when reading old documents or letters becomes a necessity. I personally find it as an advantage for writing signatures and such. While it is still important in other countries where there is less technology, I can understand why people find it useless if they do not put it into use, but most forget that writing in cursive improves motor skills—which in this case isn't "useless".
My handwriting not in cursive sucks now that I type everything, I don't even have a pen around. Cursive is absolutely useless, I never used it except for when I'm trying to show how smart I am in front of younger kids, and it was only kinda useful back then.
I actually never learned this because I was only in 3rd grade public school for a little bit before my mom pulled me out because the teacher was so mean. Even though people now make fun of me for not knowing cursive, I still don't think it's necessary.
We have calculators man. We don't need this. Math excluding basic math is useless considering how when your math teacher says you will use an equation in the future you won't.
Trust me, when you get into college or at the very least, a college-level class in high school or a community college program, you're GOING to want to memorize this for tests even if you've long forgotten it prior to taking the classes. I know this because I took a math class for my Career and College Promise Program and we had to do an entire lesson on it and practice at home online to memorize the formulas.
I say, that even though I HATE math, learning to do this stuff is important. However, in real life, your boss won't be like: "ShOw Me YoUr WoRk" and then count you out if you don't. I real life, people use calculators, or other forms. Like my dad uses Xcel to do quick math. I real life, you boss just wants the answer. He/she doesn't care how you got the answer as long as its right
Heh, I had to take an exam and we weren't allowed to use calculators. Luckily I still have those techniques drilled in my head which saved my grades.
I checked my school's card catalog, and it only had books from ancient time to the 1990s, and we literally just got new books!
Does anyone even read books anymore?
I never had to do this but my cousin did.
Didn't learn it, didn't need it.
Why are we learning about Geometry when it is so useless? Two thing number 1: This does not apply to real life and number 2: Nobody gives a frick about geometry.
Ugh don't even remind me
This is hell on earth
But that can be useful in some situations, because in a lot of movies, characters go into action and climb on a rope, but if they fail, they fall to their deaths. Imagine having that same experience, because it is not easy to survive in a movie.
Gym is literally the useless class for me and others too. All I do in gym is try not to be killed with flying basketballs by stupid boys. I got hit in the leg and my arm this school year, nobody gave a crap neither...
Sports class... I hated it and always failed. But it actually is useful to know how to climb in case you are in danger and have to flee from somewhere quickly.
This is actually useful during an emergency where you have to go down (or up) using the rope when there is fire...
They teach you how to spell things on a calculator, and then don't even let you USE the calculator. Like, WHAT. THE. HECK.
Is this even relating to education?
We can teach ourselves.
I have seen that in so many American high school movies and series. Can somebody explain this to me? Why this is taught in American schools, what subjects it belongs in and how it became a thing?
I won 1st place for this thing and I was so confused it was some foamy liquid and a huge..ok just stop teaching this!
Teach us how to dodge a volcano instead. Don't give us a worksheet though.
Do you actually do that in American public schools? Also, what is the point?
We can learn it ourselves. School is for preparing you to get a good job
This is alegbra whether you believe me or not. It doesn't apply to real life and in alegbra they put letters in math. That makes no sense at all.
I personally think that math is important, not just because I study it, and it's used a lot in science, but it develops people's critical thinking skills.
What the heck is that
If you really need to know them, you'd have gone and learned them for yourself. What good does it do to me, especially when we have the Internet at our fingertips, to know that the capital of Montana is Helena? We invented Google for a reason, so let's be reasonable and actually go use it for once.
This should be common knowledge in times of wide global communications (I mean, we have at least 3 nationalities alone commentating on this list) and although I am horrible in Geography, this is by far the most useful item on this list.
I literally know all 50 states of the US and their capitals off the top of my head. Don't know what to use it for though...
Alright I agree with this one, I really don't get why people focus so much on memorization but not understanding.
In 4th grade, I had to understand Sonnet 116 or something, and it was all about romance!
Why do we learn this when we have calculators.
There are Calculators on Phones!
I do that all the time
This is normal, basic biology. It is helpful to have a bit more knowledge about what makes up life.
Why do we need to know that?
We already have to deal with algebra, why replace our numbers with letters!
Excuse me? But I made a word quiz for the grade where we start learning Roman numerals
It's not like I'm going to travel to rome or anything.
It's pretty good for lawyering tho.
Do we really need to be able to read a hand clock when we can learn from a normal clock that says the time in standard form?
Out of cell phones, alarm clocks, and all that other stuff would someone really buy a clock instead?
We have watches, we have cell phones. Really?
Who ever used this in real life?
When I first heard about this I was grossed out. Now I still think it's pointless unless if you're training to be some sort of scientist or surgeon, which let's be real, most people aren't going to be those.
I dissected a chicken wing in 4th grade, we learned which vein or muscle to move if you want to make the wing flap, and all the other girls freaked out! It was HILARIOUS!
In Science class, I dissected a chicken wing. And in the next month, I dissected a frog. This is one of the most disgusting things I had to do in Science, also that is considered animal abuse.
It's also called animal abuse. Animal bodies aren't the same as ours. So basically schools are promoting more animal abuse.
We didn't learn anything about our constitution. But it would have been a great thing to base political debates on. Especially because such papers constantly need to be reworked to fit our modern society.
Points for US school system.
Dumb nationalism. The constitution is meant to be a living document, not a dogma kids have to recite.
Worse for you if you hate presenting.
This might be useful for repairing small tears in clothing by yourself but other than that, it's not very useful for most people.
You can either teach yourself or have your mother, grandmother or any other female relative teach you, but we ain't gonna have the teach show you.
Fun, but really kids should be learning more abstract things in school, I feel. They will learn things like sewing by themselves anyway.
What about going to a party or something and you have a rip in your pants?
I'm not going to be a president, I'm going to write comics! You don't need to know what some idiot guy did 200 years ago when you're writing comics!
I don't care about history. Why do I care what some idiot did 200 years ago? It's not my problem anymore. Columbus went to North America and thought it was Asia? Great?! Why do I care? Washington was the first president? Okay, fine. Sure. Amazing. WHATEVER. All I really care about is the current president. History is a complete waste of time. If you become a historian, it's your JOB to relearn that history. So why do the rest of us need to know that so and so fought a pointless war on January 15, so and so year?
USELESS. When's the last time you used this, or any history, in your life? If you did use it, was it worth the some 2 thousand hours you spent learning history?
Schools say that they prepare us for the future. If that's so then why do they teach us about the past!
Sure, we don't need to know that, but I think it was pretty fun.