Top 10 Most Pointless School Subjects
I was quite athletic as an adult, but as a kid, I experienced late puberty. The kid who started growing a beard at the age of 13 was two heads taller than me. I had the posture of an elementary school kid in early high school. Needless to say, I am at least one head taller than the early puberty kid now, but he was stronger than me back then. I promised myself never to wear sports clothing again after school was over. At the age of 25, I started cycling and some basic weight lifting. Now, I am athletic, but I spent at least 5 to 7 years after school refusing to do any physical activity because of PE at school. If they are supposed to teach you anything, it's how to avoid it. This is what I learned: how to be bad at sports so I wouldn't be picked. Even the teachers eventually let me sit on the bench for the whole course.
The only PE we should have are solo or pair activities, like hitting a badminton shuttlecock or playing with rackets, or solo activities like running. Anything that requires teamwork should not be mandatory.
Dance is pointless. There is no reason to fail a kid because he doesn't like to dance or can't dance. You would not go to a job interview and be asked to dance so you can get the job. Completely pointless unless you're going to be Michael Jackson, then it's better to take dancing lessons than dancing in school.
Why is this even a class? Literally, the only class (aside from maybe Aspects of Chemistry) where you can genuinely use the old "when will I ever use this in real life" argument. This class is stupid, to say the least.
This is literally one of the most garbage things to teach. It is like making kids memorize Tolkien because someone regards it as a religion. It is an absolute waste of time and brain cells. We are literally making kids fail at school because they didn't learn someone's imaginary friends.
Religion is the most useless and boring class, even as a religious believer. This class is pointless. They should teach us useful things about religion, such as how to increase our faith and worship God. They could save so many people from entering hell. Plus, some people don't even believe in God. So, if you force an atheist to study about God, even though they don't believe, then they will just hate religion even more. They should probably teach believers how to guide atheists to believe in God. And they shouldn't give us exams and tests about it because religion and the afterlife shouldn't be studied in a place that's about getting a job.
English literature is the epitome of pointless. It has zero value in being studied and serves no purpose in the real world. Math is used to make everything from computers to bridges. History is important to learn to prevent past events from repeating, and science is crucial because it relates to things surrounding us every day and has led to many invaluable discoveries, such as the cures for diseases. And of course, regular English is massively important for obvious reasons.
You may not necessarily use all the subjects I listed above, but this does not change the fact that they are still so important in our world, and a lot more problems would exist today if we stopped studying them. But let me ask you this: What would happen if people stopped studying old English? Let me give you the obvious answer: Absolutely NOTHING. Nothing would change because it does not affect our world in the slightest bit.
What is the actual point of reading this stuff? There is no point, yet high school students everywhere are being forced to waste their time on this garbage, when it would be such a better use of their time to study the type of English that we actually use today. Do people today say "thou" and "shalt"? NO, so WHY are we learning things like that? All it does is make more people hate English classes. The entire study of literature and old English should be completely removed from the English curriculum. Maybe then we can focus on the aspects of English that actually matter!
The use behind algebra is to get us to think. I believe they should introduce these topics in school but let the children decide if they want to move on. Most would disagree by saying that we would lose most people's interest in math by doing that because nobody would want to move on with math. But that's basically saying you have no faith in the children. I feel as if they are turned away because they are forced to learn the topic.
A place to learn mathematics and arithmetic meant for civil engineers and airplane control towers, the only math you need is money, percentage, negatives, basic math, and how to read pounds, ounces, tons, and the metric system. Other than that, you're fine. No one uses square roots or graphing to find out how much a burger costs, and your bosses don't ask for such work most of the time. If the world revolved around algebraic expressions, nothing would be done!
I have to vote for this one. I don't have Religious Education here (I don't go to a Catholic school), so I had to pick this one (I'm sure RE would be my pick if I had to learn it). Music class is pointless beyond pointless. In high school, I have to take an art to get my art credit, so I took visual arts in Grade 9 for an easy one. I didn't have room on my timetable for Grade 9 art in grades 9 or 10, as only two and three electives were available, and I took the courses I liked.
I think this class is absolutely useless in every way possible for me because I already know how to play music way better than my teacher. In addition, my teacher does not know what she is talking about. Furthermore, she gave the whole class a 100-point test with an open-ended question. How unfair.
I love watching beautiful things but definitely not making artworks with my poor painting and hand-making skills. This subject is supposed to teach how to draw properly, not stress students who lack art knowledge with difficult artworks, and then give them bad grades due to their less appealing creations. I do not understand why art teachers judge people by their artworks and call students "hard-working" just because they draw better.
Overall, people who want to learn arts can simply join supplementary classes or watch YouTube videos. Assigning challenging art homework is not what we, the untalented, hope to get from art lessons.
This topic is more suitable for A-levels (college). It's so worthless that many university courses don't even accept it. It's pretty hilarious.
I've never had this as a class, since these skills can be taught in other subjects.
The same school that says we have to be ourselves wants us to change. It's not really something we need.
Honestly, to me, this is the most useless subject, and I feel it should be something you learn in college or when you know what job you want. There are so many jobs out there, and very few involve the education of history. To me, this subject is somewhat important, but I just don't understand why we have to memorize everything. If I had a job that required knowledge of history, couldn't I just learn what I needed for that job? I feel like this should be an elective. My opinion may be influenced by my teacher. She gave us a 6-page review packet that was due in two days. But even my other history teacher was the same, so I don't know anymore.
Teachers and parents say that Latin will help with my vocabulary, but it really hasn't. I've never looked at a word and thought, 'Oh, that word's root is from the Latin word...'. Also, they say it helps with other languages. However, it's never helped me in French or Spanish. Parents also say it helps with maths and science. In maths, it is standard to learn about kilos, etc., and Latin has never helped me in maths, same goes for science. Latin is a dead language and no one speaks it. Hindustani/Urdu is more useful than Latin even though I'm never going to go to India or Pakistan.
French, for me, by far is the most useless subject. I'm a freshman, and I don't need French to become a Neuroscientist! My French teacher even talks to us in French, and we have no idea what she's talking about. She made us write a paragraph in French in a test, and my classmates left that out. The test paper was out of 80, but on my grade card, it was out of 100. I used to do so well in French last year with my old French teacher. My main class has two French groups since a lot of classmates and my other class chose French. My main class has 24 students, and the other class has 25 students.
This subject can be useful... Not when you have a teacher who thinks of pointless activities, though. And they don't teach you how to make a CV, how to get employed, or, better yet, how to be confident at an interview.
We can just learn it from the people around us instead of from school.
Just like algebra and trigonometry, basic math is good, like adding, subtracting, dividing, doing percentages, etc. Some medium math could also be rather useful, or at least it could teach you how to think a little bit. But higher math at school is an absolute waste of time. Logarithms, exponentials, limits, imaginary numbers, integrals are also pretty useless. I do not care if your computer runs it in its core. You do not need to know about it, much like you do not need to know how many bones you have in your body because you are not a doctor.
A topical area of our time and not worth teaching until the hysteria around it settles.
Why does this even exist in the school's education?
The 2020 version of old Soviet Marxism-Leninism lessons. Only useful if you plan on becoming a mindless, submissive conformist.
Chemistry could have been fun, like adding a mild acid to a base or something and seeing the color change. Put some electrodes into a saline solution and connect a battery to see how oxygen and hydrogen are separated. But learning formulas, trying to memorize the periodic table, and knowing which substances can attach to others, etc., is all bonkers. You are not going to need this at all unless you are in the chemistry field.
The formulas, equations - who needs to know them! Almost everyone you ask will have a non-chemistry related job (unless a chemistry teacher). It doesn't help you in your later life whatsoever, whereas Biology helps you learn about your body and how it works, which is obviously important. Physics helps you understand how the world works and can explain necessary things like gravity, etc. But Chemistry helps you know the chemical formulae of Fluorine! Who cares? It is simply giving pupils more stress to learn something which will be completely irrelevant in their future. Get rid of it!
Umm, in my class, this is a follow-up from reasoning, UK class, just saying. So it's like Odd one out: oh yes, the others have a triangle and this one is a square. The snore of the week and the reason I no longer look forward to Friday.
This is a skill that can be taught in other classes.
I have a BA and an MS and am working on a JD. I think I have figured out how to study at this point in my life. Why am I forced to take and pay for a class that is an utter waste of my time and only serves to add to my workload, which, for a JD candidate, is already heavy enough? The four hours a week of work it adds is disproportionate to the one hour of credit I get, which isn't even required by the degree.
There is no reason why this class should not be number 1 on the list as the biggest waste of time.
They do not work for everyone. Every person's brain works differently. A human is a complicated being. I am able to learn in my own way. You don't learn in the same way as me.
What was the point of this class again? Oh yeah, there's no purpose to it. Geography has taught me nothing new. I've only had maps and pointless essays shoved in my face. In addition, I've lost countless hours of sleep typing those damn essays. I think I've only learned to hate - despise even - this absolutely useless and boring class. Thank God this is only a semester-long class at my high school.
Geography is about learning about the earth and what goes on below your feet. I don't care about how people live in Uganda, an actual examination I had to do. Is this going to benefit me? I want to learn about the formation of volcanoes and how earthquakes occur. That sort of thing is INTERESTING!
There are computers now, and they have keyboards. How much do we really need to write? Not much, except when schools make you WRITE essays. Typing is way faster and, especially with modern technology being more and more accessible, handwriting is not important.
Not my problem if you can't read my handwriting. I'm better off typing anyway. It's faster and much more time-efficient, and I don't lose marks for stupid reasons just because my handwriting isn't up to par.
The reason I wanted to break my hand. To get out of this abomination of a subject.
10 years later, my handwriting is still atrocious. Proof it doesn't work.
Who writes joined up anyway?
There are only two languages you should be forced to learn: your native language and English, since English is the main language of the worldwide web. Forcing another language on a person simply because the country you share borders with speaks it is ridiculous.
Oh my god. This should be number one. I will never understand why colleges require foreign language for two years for admission. I know someone who took Spanish to get into college, and she doesn't remember ANYTHING about her classes.
Spanish is pointless. The majority of people are not going to go to Spain. If they are going to teach a language at all, Chinese would be a good one as it's the most widely spoken.
Just like algebra and math, some basic trigonometry is okay, but the higher trigonometry is too hard for no reason. Basic math is good, like adding, subtracting, dividing, doing percentages, etc. Some medium math could also be rather useful, or at least it could teach you how to think a little bit. But higher math at school is an absolute waste of time. Logarithms, exponentials, limits, imaginary numbers, integrals are also pretty useless. I do not care if your computers run it in their core. You do not need to know about it, much like you do not need to know how many bones you have in your body because you are not a doctor.
Unless you want to be a journalist for a tabloid, a film-reviewing feminist, or are interested in working for the mainstream media or film industry, or in marketing in any way, there is really little point in picking media studies. It doesn't really teach you anything valuable or useful that you couldn't learn in sociology or English class, or by downloading Photoshop and a movie editor. Trying to find what the color blue 'signifies' on a man's shirt on a magazine cover is NOT education. Most of the course was painfully common sense-based, and I regret choosing it because it isn't a very valuable A-level. I wish schools didn't mislead us like this.
What? This should be part of a Social Anthropology class, not a subject on its own.
Leave it as an elective. It's not necessary for everyone to learn.
Why would I care about the states of Latin America or just Latin America in general? POINTLESS.
By far the most useless. A question for the school board: Will we EVER, and I mean EVER, use the information we learn in Biology, Chemistry, or any other mainstream science in normal everyday life? No, we will never use it unless we are in that specific field in the future (and in that case, it should be either an elective or a college class only). Honestly, Financial Education should be put in place of Science in the High School requirements to graduate. And honestly, half of what modern High Schools teach should be elective ONLY! I rest my case.