Which school subjects are useless in the regular real world?

Dis86 said:
But that's kind of the point. They can't possibly tailor a course to suit all of the potential real world uses.
The courses are there to build and test a set of core skills and abilities. Taking RE as an example since its come up a lot. Its there to help you develop the ability to analyse texts and draw your own conclusions. What was the author of this gospel really trying to say. How can this religion be right, but also this one. Etc.
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I get that. But they shouldn't make science so interesting if The jobs are often so monotonous and badly paid (not all I know, ima mainly bitter about biosciences)

I know so so many people who did science, ended up in IT as they were obviously smart enough for it. And discovered there aren't many decent science jobs.

I'd have loved to have spent a year in it or even less to see that it was a bad choice. It would have helped no end.

A lot of people think uni was a waste. Would be nice to reduce that.
 
I think the big 4 of Maths, Science, English & PE/fitness should be the minimum needed for a core structure but I also think that some new short-term lessons in "being an adult" like finances, very basic car maintenance etc should be offered as more vocational subjects.

Dis86 said:
Then you either missed the point or were badly taught RE.
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In the 4 years between myself leaving high school in Stoke and sister leaving the same one, the RE (or RS) lessons changed from teaching kids all about religion (for me) to a more humanities based morality chat about general right/wrong etc (my sister) but that was way back in the early 90's. As a non-religious person I found RE boring as hell (pun intended) but I would have enjoyed the humanities/morality conversations my sister had.
 
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LOAM said:
I can't say RE provided me with anything worthwhile that an hour on Wikipedia couldn't have.

Other than that they all look ok although citizenship sounds a bit brainwashy.
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Despite being a staunch Atheist, I think RE did a lot of good for me. I learned a lot about people and took away a reasonable amount about how I should act (at least that's where I think it come from, and I suppose should is subjective). I enjoyed learning about religion in many ways though. There's no fantasy that comes so close to reality, and I do feel like that's a void that I'm always trying to fill with my personal interests. It also gave me a good perspective on other cultures, and arguably most importantly, gave me a good understanding of religion so when I met religious idiots as I got older, I had ammo to fire at them.
 
Nasher said:
Definitely RE. Even the teacher didnt take it seriously at my school. Luckily we were allowed to drop it for GCSEs and do something else, so everyone did.
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I got marked 1% at my RE exam. I failed it intentionally out of principal, although saying that even if they hadn't I'm not sure I would have passed it.

My teacher was ****** at me.

Although I remarked it myself based on what she had marked as correct and incorrect, and it was actually 3%.

Guess she wasn't very good and maths.
 
RE was useless in our school as the teacher seemed to have given up. It's a tough subject to get headstrong teenagers to take seriously and takes a special sort of teacher to do it properly.

Looking back I wish D&T was more in depth. We only did silly things like make a wooden box but kids in decent schools now get to play with laser cutters and learn about cnc design.
 
R.E. wasn't a problem, I was banned from the lesson and had to sit at a desk outside the staffroom whenever R.E. was on the timetable. We had Technical Drawing which was pretty much useless, there's only so many times you can be told how to use a compass, protractors, triangles and how perspective works before it gets tedious.
 
English.

Still not sure what the hell I was meant to learn from Shakespeare or far from the madding crowd
 
RE was in a weird place when I was at school - first couple of years or so it was heavily religious, last 2 years it was moving more towards general morality and "well-being".

If taught properly I don't think it is a useless subject - while maybe not a particularly useful subject vocationally for a lot of people it can help to open people's minds to a wider perspective and trying to understand other people's points of view, etc. and even a certain degree of introspection.

The branding back then at least was all wrong IMO not sure how it is presented in schools now and/or what has replaced it if anything and likewise it needs a healthy balance - not pushing all this over the top hippy well-being **** that seems to be in vogue in the workplace currently.
 
"General studies" - we were forced to take this at secondary school/GCSE level.
R.E.

I think those two are in a league of their own, tbh.
 
413x said:
I think one of my biggest dissapointments from school is this.

The subjects aren't taught in a way that represents real world jobs.
Science was always interesting, I loved it. So much that I took all of them at A level.
Even did it at uni. Wasn't until during uni I kind of picked up on what the jobs were like. I wish I could have known earlier. Biggest regret in life was doing science at uni. Well. The science I did. Waste of time and money.

Obviously you aren't going to tell a kid in primary school 'this subject is a terrible job' but as you come towards college and uni I wish there was a way (like extended work experience) to understand what the jobs would be like. When I was at school none of this happened.you were basically told to do what you were good at
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Agreed. Fortunately I did plenty of reading on the subject (plus watching movies and TV programmes) and so it never appealed to me as a career. From a young age I was aware that scientists have a crazy high risk of being eaten, annihilated, possessed or transformed into a hybrid alien monstrosity.
 
We did drama, it was amazing! It was in a static classroom that was lined with blackout curtains which were fixed at the bottom and mostly joined together up the sides, except in one of two spots. The goal was to do a lap around the classroom behind the curtain, one of the chaps got 75% round and set the fire extinguisher off through the curtain right in the face of the teacher.

Totally not a waste of time.
 
Lessons that should be compulsory but were barely covered (or not at all)
Car maintenance
Electronics
Cooking
Metal work (including welding)
Wood work


Classes that I'll pass at:
Drama (maybe this would have been better if they moved teaching Shakespeare to the Drama lessons?)
Art (made worse by the teacher being a nob.)
Music (prior to GCSEs, after when taken as a option it actually makes sense and has a purpose)

Classes that I think could be reduced and altered to a more focused applied curriculum:
English
Maths
Geography
History


I didn't mind RE, but I expect that was because the teacher was good at targeting the lessons appropriately. I think PE should have been more regular.
 
Trifid said:
I didn't mind RE, but I expect that was because the teacher was good at targeting the lessons appropriately. I think PE should have been more regular.
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PE was a joke. The teachers would gather the pupils that showed promise in x,y,z sport, and literally leave the others to play by themselves.

Only the students that would/could play for the school teams were given any tuition or help. The rest were essentially just given a tennis racquet (or whatever) and left to their own devices.

PE is great - I agree - but the PE we got at school was utter crap. How do you expect pupils to get involved or develop if you are only interested in taking the already athletic/strong/fit and **** all the rest.

I hated that aspect. The fact that (being in the small/weak group) the PE teachers couldn't have been less interested AT ALL in what we were doing. **** those PE teachers. **** them.
 
BowdonUK said:
I generally liked all of my classes at school. But I always remember at the time people who were older than me and had left school saying some subjects are a waste of time in normal life.

As I've grown up passed the big 40 I'm thinking back and I have to say I agree.

https://www.gov.uk/national-curriculum

I looked at the subject list today on the government website. The only compulsory lessons in my opinion should be English, Maths, Science, Physical education and Computing. Everything else should be an optional choice.

Currently Design and technology (don't know what this is), History, Geography, Art and Design, Music, and Ancient and modern foreign languages, and citizenship are compulsory.

Which subjects do you guys think are a waste of time? Or at least should be optional?
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No education is worthless.
 
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