What Is The Worst Subject?

[Subb]

So, what is the worst subject? Math, where you learn extremely complicated things you will probably never really use? English, where the teacher has the potential to make the class either really engaging or really boring? Or maybe x elective that you really have no business taking? No, I say that the worst class is something you might never expect.

Foreign languages.

This is actually a really simple conclusion to come to. What do other subjects succeed to do that most foreign language courses fail to do? They actually do teach you the subject. Any of the other classes, if you pay attention, you will learn something about that subject. If you pay attention in Algebra, you'll eventually get how quadratic functions work. If you're in US History, you'll pick up a few facts about the Civil War. But if you take four years of Spanish... You won't learn how to speak in Spanish. You'll learn Spanish vocabulary and Spanish grammar, but there is a really slim chance that you'll be able to speak it. Now, why is that?

Well, let's see what foreign language courses do differently than the other subjects, or rather what they do the same. Most school classes have the same goal; To teach you as much stuff about X as possible. And most subjects would at least benefit from you knowing a lot of facts about that subject. You may not understand the effects of the Civil War on today, but knowing the factual reasons why the war started would give you a start. Foreign language classes share that same goal, but the goal should be completely different. They need to get you to speak the language.

So... if you take a foreign language class, what do you sign up for? Mostly just phrases and groups of vocabulary. You never really learn what goes in to all the phrases, just that "Wie heisst du?" is "What's your name?" in German. So, now you can ask for someone's name. But if you contrast that to an English class (Leagues more advanced in the language than a foreign language class), the core is to get someone else's ideas in your head, and your own ideas out of your head. Shouldn't the same basic core be in a foreign language class? Instead of just learning words that you might come across in that language?

What approach should these classes take instead? Well, they should get you to speak the language as fast as possible. From day one, you should be able to pick up ideas and communicate them in the new language. The teacher and the resources need to be guides in the language, rather than direct teachers of it. They need to take a pause on grammar. Once you have been speaking the language for a while, grammar will actually seem useful, as it will keep your ideas organized. An activity that needs to be more utilized is sentence translating, where you make a sentence and use different dictionaries to translate it to your target language. A class that's grammatically incorrect but can hold their own if the class is entirely in a foreign language is loads better than a class that can't speak it but can conjugate verbs really well.

Will the conventional model of education be able to make those changes to language learning? Or will it continue to fail to teach it's own children bilingualism?

[wt43etri0feçrsfºll]

In my opinion, math is extremely boring.

[Ilija.m]

I would also say math is so hard for me when you need to learn it

[brainiac3397]

I find math fascinating. I simply had a bad teacher experience and my math education was stunted.

[Gwedin]

(11-01-2014 09:36 AM)brainiac3397 Wrote:  I find math fascinating. I simply had a bad teacher experience and my math education was stunted.

dis. Most of my math teachers were garbage but there was one that made the subject actually rather enchanting.

Ehhhhhh English is the worse IMO. Fuck that non-binary marking criteria.

[no]

Depending on the presentation, history is either absolutely fascinating or brain-explodingly pointless and dull (more often the latter).

[TasmSpectacular]

My personal rank of the subjects from best to worst would have to be:

History (Although I would say I'm pretty knowledgeable in the subject, world history CLASS is boring)

Math (Drowned and suffocated with letters, numbers, weird symbols, graphs etc. Teachers never explained WHY we were doing it, or how to apply math in everyday situations. That's why people hate it. In fact, math is very, very important. No sarcasm intended.)

Science (When it comes to science, hands on is a MUST. However, science labs are now being replaced with dry, boring textbooks, and even that made Einstein hate science for a FULL year after dropping out of high school. )

English (Ok, grammar is useless, but REAL grammar is useful. No need to know what a present participle and a conjugating verb is if you can speak as fluently as Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory. In addition, I find some of the stories in the textbooks quite interesting, but when it comes to novels, I'm tolerant of that. Tolerant until we have to ANALyze the shit out of it!!!)

P.E. (This class is awesome. Luckily, we don't force everyone to do jumping jacks and squats and all that crap as a "warm up". In fact, we have lots of sporting equipment and a big field that pretty much everyone is active in P.E.)

Welding/ Woodworking {Elective} (BEST CLASS HANDS ON (pun intended) !!! Especially when you actually get do learn real skills and work with your hands. I never thought schools still offered trades as an elective. If you are ever offered a trade in school, take it. It will serve you REALLY well later on, and I mean it! There is always a car that needs to be driven, a fence to be repaired, houses to be built, and people to serve. )

The quote from Einstein:

“One had to cram all this stuff into one's mind for the examinations, whether one liked it or not. This coercion had such a deterring effect on me that, after I had passed the final examination, I found the consideration of any scientific problems distasteful to me for an entire year.”

BTW, this is my 2nd post in the SS forums, and I am surprised that cussing is allowed in these forums, yet the members are not trolls, fools, or idiots you would probably find online like on other forums. Very mature. I am looking forward to my next post! Thanks.

[GamerGurl]

(11-01-2014 10:57 AM)TasmSpectacular Wrote:  BTW, this is my 2nd post in the SS forums, and I am surprised that cussing is allowed in these forums, yet the members are not trolls, fools, or idiots you would probably find online like on other forums. Very mature. I am looking forward to my next post! Thanks.

I would highly reconsider this thought. xD

[Gwedin]

(11-01-2014 11:07 AM)SirMarty Wrote:  

(11-01-2014 10:57 AM)TasmSpectacular Wrote:  BTW, this is my 2nd post in the SS forums, and I am surprised that cussing is allowed in these forums, yet the members are not trolls, fools, or idiots you would probably find online like on other forums. Very mature. I am looking forward to my next post! Thanks.

I would highly reconsider this thought. xD

don't listen to him.

[MurkScribe]

History class is just cramming down hates and events of history, so you could prepare for a test, only to forget it weeks later.

[brainiac3397]

History is dangerous. Improper presentation can smudge facts and make it boring.

Proper presentation can make you the star of any party with your cool obscure historical facts.

[KFC Nyan Cat]

Physical Education and Health. Phys Ed is a class that teaches you how to play sports (important. I know) and Health teaches you shit you learned at home.

[brainiac3397]

Sex ed. Cuz its corny.

Never had it our school due to "religiously moral objections" but of the other sorts Ive heard, they all sound pretty corny.

[xcriteria]

Interesting how the replies all address the question in the topic. It's a good question about personal preference, and it's interesting to read the responses. For me, I'd have to say much of school math, since it's really irrelevant for most people in life, and to the extent it's useful, it'd be better learned by me, at least, in the context of actual projects, not in a stand-alone class.

But... Sub also raised a specific set of points in his post about learning foreign language in school, though, that also merits discussion.

I personally learned very little in the couple of foreign language classes (Spanish) that I took in school. I think it's possible for a foreign language class to be effective, but many aren't. Learning languages also tends to require a concerted effort on the part of the learner, including active immersion in some form. There are lots of tools, books, recordings and software programs for learning languages, that make self-directed study possible when it comes to memorizing words and rules. But then there's the aspect of actually applying language in conversation.

I've struggled to learn languages even on my own, mostly due to not sticking with it. But some of the best learning I've done came from trying to read foreign-language stories and texts... and basically looking up every word and figuring out the overall meaning.

To some extent, it's a matter of personal preference. But in general, I think interest-based approaches can be especially useful for languages... and that's often not how language classes work. However, there are surely exceptions.

Thoughts on that? Have any of the rest of you experienced foreign language classes, and/or tried learning on your own?

[vonunov]

Pretty much any class can be bad for certain types of learners in that passively taken rather than applied information can be difficult to retain. If I can see it in action, and preferably make it happen, I'll remember the whole process much better. Some subjects need adaptation for this. Math, for example, can be rather abstract, which I'm not incapable of grasping, but if there's not a real-world application shown, the whole thing is inhibited by "who cares?"

I took a two-part Spanish I for two years, and then I took Spanish I again for another year, because I changed schools and people are stupid.

They focused quite a lot on grammar, which was fun at the time, but I don't know if it's especially useful for a beginning learner. Now I know how to conjugate everything (because I studied more of that by myself than I was really meant to) but I lack chunks of vocabulary and knowledge of real conventional usage. Granted, this was Spanish I. If I'd stuck to the curriculum I'd have ended up with a stunted vocabulary and basic grammar. The path of learning made sense somewhat, but it didn't seem geared toward immediate functionality so much as building a foundation for later, that wouldn't be especially useful outside of the classroom in the meantime.

To be fair, I never did go past Spanish I in school, though I arguably could have tested out of it and through part of II by the time I was done, so I don't have perspective on more advanced language courses. This is probably where the really useful stuff comes out. The mistake they make in these courses is thinking that you have to amass a knowledge of not very useful things on which to build the real stuff, when it's perfectly fine to go top-down instead, introducing the functional, useful things first, letting you see how they interact as you learn more of them, and then going back to explain why. Is this not how it is in the beginning? We don't acquire our first language by studying the simple present conjugations and then memorizing some vocabulary words.

I like the way Pimsleur approaches it. Immediate, real situations, here's what you say, here's what it means, a little about why, but we don't go off exploring the meanings of all the other forms of what we just said because that's not what we're saying right now. It's all introduced in relevant context so it fits into the growing model more easily.

Compare with Rosetta Stone. The girls read. The men swim. The women run. Oh wow, thanks, these are totally the things I'll need to function in a foreign environment.

Quote:English (Ok, grammar is useless, but REAL grammar is useful. No need to know what a present participle and a conjugating verb is if you can speak as fluently as Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory.

Sheldon is a pretentious tit and if you talk like him you should really work on changing that.

I read quite a lot growing up, so I developed a sort of intuitive sense of grammar, to where I could tell whether something was incorrect, and correct it if so, but I couldn't necessarily explain why. I really enjoyed learning the why of it. It allowed me to solidify my understanding of the whole system and be more certain of my editing choices.

Knowing exactly why something is or isn't correct may not be terribly important for most people, but when I want to help someone (who has asked for it) with grammar online, or pick up some copyediting work, I have to be able to explain to myself (to be sure) and the other person (so they can learn fully) why I'm making the correction I am.

[GamerGurl]

TBH, there is no worst subject for me. I always performed poorly in the classes where the teacher was an insensitive prick. The classes where the teacher was at least friendly I'd perform good in.

[TasmSpectacular]

(11-01-2014 11:38 PM)vonunov Wrote:  I read quite a lot growing up, so I developed a sort of intuitive sense of grammar, to where I could tell whether something was incorrect, and correct it if so, but I couldn't necessarily explain why. I really enjoyed learning the why of it. It allowed me to solidify my understanding of the whole system and be more certain of my editing choices.

Knowing exactly why something is or isn't correct may not be terribly important for most people, but when I want to help someone (who has asked for it) with grammar online, or pick up some copyediting work, I have to be able to explain to myself (to be sure) and the other person (so they can learn fully) why I'm making the correction I am.

I must agree with the fact that understanding grammar is essential when correcting a person who made a grammatical error. And yes, it does help when you know how to explain to them the error they made. Right on!

What I meant to say was that grammar is not really needed if you plan to speak fluent and perfect english. Sure, you might need to know what a noun is and how to conjugate a verb (which I did in French last year), but when it comes to gerund phrases and infinitive clauses, things start to get very confusing and abstract. Not everyone needs to learn grammar to learn how to speak better. But it can make you a better speaker.

[KFC Nyan Cat]

(11-01-2014 11:07 AM)SirMarty Wrote:  

(11-01-2014 10:57 AM)TasmSpectacular Wrote:  BTW, this is my 2nd post in the SS forums, and I am surprised that cussing is allowed in these forums, yet the members are not trolls, fools, or idiots you would probably find online like on other forums. Very mature. I am looking forward to my next post! Thanks.

I would highly reconsider this thought. xD

Trolls:

Hidden stuff:

Fools:

Hidden stuff:

Idiots:

Hidden stuff:

[brainiac3397]

Coulda fooled me.

[Rule_BreakerXVIII]

Quote:What approach should these classes take instead? Well, they should get you to speak the language as fast as possible. From day one, you should be able to pick up ideas and communicate them in the new language. The teacher and the resources need to be guides in the language, rather than direct teachers of it. They need to take a pause on grammar. Once you have been speaking the language for a while, grammar will actually seem useful, as it will keep your ideas organized. An activity that needs to be more utilized is sentence translating, where you make a sentence and use different dictionaries to translate it to your target language. A class that's grammatically incorrect but can hold their own if the class is entirely in a foreign language is loads better than a class that can't speak it but can conjugate verbs really well.

I went to a German camp (language-oriented, damn it...) and they taught us 2 school years worth of Deutsch, in a month, by simply creating opportunities for us to use our vocabulary, which they taught us every day. It went like this- the teacher taught us something new, and showed us where and how we could use it. This was followed by awkward conversations in said language which used the concept taught to us. It was really fun.

[Mo the jo]

Math, by the way. Schools make no effort to say how this will help you. They just teach it because the state requires it. Math, actually, can be facinating. Like, if I'm playing with my ti84+ and I see a math symbol, I wonder what it is. As I say, it's not the subject, it's the way it's presented. Yeah, math is one of the subjects I sleep in the most. It's just so boring. History is mysery.

---

Oh yeah. Annalizing the shit out of novels makes it the most boring thing ever!

[brainiac3397]

Especially proofs. School makes em boring but math proofs are like the core of mathematics. Using logic to determine the legitimacy of a formula.

[Rebag102]

Spanish.

[Missile]

I hate my spanish class as well

[Rule_BreakerXVIII]

(11-05-2014 01:36 PM)brainiac3397 Wrote:  Especially proofs. School makes em boring but math proofs are like the core of mathematics. Using logic to determine the legitimacy of a formula.

Surprisingly (or not?) I started enjoying algebra and trigonometry once I got out of school. When I was in school I hated those things like anything.

[Marlena403]

P.E, ICT and Geography are my least favourite subjects. ICT, because it's too hard and I can't even learn anything in there and when I was learning it in Year 7 and 8, I couldn't pass a single test. Geography is just boring as hell! P.E. because I'm bad at it, naughty girl tried to make me move to a mental illness school, even though I only have autism which is NOT a mental illness, kids used to hit me and swear at me all the time, stupid girl from another P.E. teacher's class pissed on the floor in the changing room, teacher made us play netball outside when it was cold and people kept spraying even though they weren't allowed to. I do not learn any of those subjects anymore (Well, the teacher might make me do P.E. next year.) I also don't like German class because it's hard (That's why I transferred to French) and English because I have a stupid idiot English teacher who punishes wrong people for wrong reasons, misspells words all the time, gives five homeworks in one English lesson, takes people's reward points away, has an ugly face and she even moved another student to another English class, so that she can't move me there AND because that student was naughty. She could've moved me too, but she'd rather torture me, treat me like a dog and make my life miserable! She ruined English for me forever!!! I even tried sticking over the teacher's initials and the room number on my timetable and that didn't get me moved to another English class! However, my English teacher threatened to put me at the back of the classroom that I want to move to FOR TALKING OVER THE MOVIE! Shame she didn't actually do it. I hate my English teacher and she hates me. The only good thing she did to me is giving me a C4 (Departamental detention and four negative points. C4 should also be a removal, but I didn't get removed from English that day as it was nearly lunchtime.) And the Head of English is THE ENGLISH TEACHER THAT I LIKE THE MOST IN THE WHOLE ENGLISH DEPARTMENT. When my English teacher found out that I like the Head of English, she didn't give me any more C4's. My English teacher is also the reason why kids make more fun of me than they used to. Next time my English teacher tortures me, treats me like a dog or makes my life miserable, I will complain to the Head of English, My Form Tutor, My Pastoral Leader, My Head of Year, one of the Deputy Headteachers (Since she is an English teacher and the Head of Behaviour), the Headteacher and finally, The person who creates the timetables. I will tell them that I do not want to have that stupid idiot as an English teacher for the rest of my time at school and that I have good reasons not to! I bet my stupid English teacher has a fat mum too!

[the Analogist]

in reply to the topic:
gonorrhea