Least useful/most bureaucratic things at school or work, and why they are there

[stompy]

<quote=John Galt>Failing that, telling your students they have a test should come at least four days before the actual test. When it counts as 25% of your grade, two nights are hardly enough time to prepare.

Thing is, in Sydney, our education administration, the Board of Studies, has this thing that notifications must be handed out 2 weeks prior to the assessment. Though teachers are less and less following this.

I mean, there was this science prac test we had on Friday, and we only got the notification for it the week before. What's worse is that other classes get at least 2-3 weeks more time to prepare, and they'll definitely know everything in the test by the time they sit for it, as it happens every time (if one class does a test before the other classes, then the whole school will know what's in the test by the time they sit for it).

 

[zen5887]

I found math ever so useless.. After you learnt to do the basic stuff its just silly..

Que people who are smarter then me telling me how wrong I am..

I didnt do math in grade 12 - I dropped it for music. This is why grade 12 was the best year ever =)

 

[crimson5pheonix]

Are you playing music professionally? If not then you wasted a year of high school to be lazy and the fact that this is an option in this country saddens me.

 

[zen5887]

Are you playing music professionally? If not then you wasted a year of high school to be lazy and the fact that this is an option in this country saddens me.

I plan too.. Considering it got me into my uni course I dont think it was a waste.

Any career that needs math is gonna be math B or C.. not math A.. sooo changing into somthing I enjoy was defently not a waste

 

[sevendeadlysins]

As an Education Major, I understand what most bureaucracy in schools is for, but there's one hing at my University that I just can't seem to fathom. We're required to take an English Composition course to graduate, and the course is supposed to teach us how to write good college papers. However, as soon as we leave this class, all the rules we just learned get thrown out the window. Now papers have to be done in APA format, which our compostion class didn't cover. Teaching for a purpose makes no sense if the purpose isn't followed through on.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

But taking a higher math would have better prepared you for college. In most universities you still have to take basics to my best understanding so you will still have to take Pre-calc and Calc. Because I took it my senior year, I won't have to take it again in college which saves in tuition.

 

[TomNook]

But getting back to a point, the current curriculum (at least in America) is a focus on English and History. There is very little Math and Science required of current students. In fact I could have stopped taking Math courses my Junior year as I already had Algebra II, but I still took Pre-Algebra so I wouldn't be a poetic brick of a person. I retook IPC not because I failed it, but because I corrected the teacher most every day.

And for the final slap in the face they don't even take English or History seriously! English devolved from knowledge and communications skills to reading about struggling over adversity. They took out "The Adventures of Huckleberry Fin" which is a great novel for "Life of Pi" which is a bout a Hindu boy being stuck on a life raft with a sea sick Tiger for 8 weeks! That doesn't even work! It was an insipid story that supplanted a masterpiece for the sake of looking more PC. There wasn't even any critical thinking skill exercises. No poetry analysis, no grammer understanding, no detecting of undertones in stories. The biggest fuss in English was making sure you had the right colored pens. Yes in order to write a paper to their liking you had to do the rough draft, then go over it with a red pen, a green pen, a blue pen, a purple pen, a black pen, and a pencil. It was retarded and it did not benefit us in the real world in any way. I dare you to think of a writing job where that is useful!

They dumb down English, remove Science and Math, and History is how awesome America is and how we are superior.

And of course there are the inane rules about clothing and outer appearance. Some of it makes sense such as no gang affiliations on your body, but for every one of those logical rules there are three stupid rules like boys hair can't touch his back collar or go past his earlobe and no black pants. I can't make something that stupid up, there were no black pants allowed at my school. I am thankful for graduating to get away from that intelligence black hole.

What school are you going to, all I hear about in high school is how important math is. All day I hear, colleges won't take you if you haven't taken Algebra 2(WHEN THE HELL AM I EVER GOING TO USE LOGIRITHIMS IN A NON MATH ENVIROMENT) or you can't take the advanced Biology course because you aren't in Pre-Calculus or higher. About History and English, my english teacher thinks that the U.S. government is responsible for AIDs, I pretty much read the entire period while my socio-economic values are torn to pieces in front of my peers. I did get the best history teacher ever though, a cursing chain smoking Vietnam War vet with a HUGE distaste for authority.

 

[klakkat]

English classes are as useful as the instructor I've found; the ones that focus on trivial bullshit tend not to expand either the minds of their students nor advance their writing talents. However, I've been blessed enough to see how a good english teacher works, and felt smarter for the experience.

As for math being useless... That's a decision that should be made in college (or the lack thereof) as depending on your career it can be critical. I for one believe that everyone needs to have a firm grasp on everything up to and including Algebra and Geometry, while trig, calculus, and more advanced maths can be left to those more specialized persons (such as Physics geeks. Like me.)

Frankly, I see problem solving and logic as the most crucial point of education, since so many people seem lacking in that department. However, most subjects have strong importance in this area; even the inane analysis of poetry can be expanded into analysis of more complicated problems by a properly creative mind. The goal most teachers should have is to focus on this development, and show students how to expand upon what they've learned rather than simply stuffing facts into an uninterested brain.

 

[zen5887]

But taking a higher math would have better prepared you for college. In most universities you still have to take basics to my best understanding so you will still have to take Pre-calc and Calc. Because I took it my senior year, I won't have to take it again in college which saves in tuition.

Im going to a private creative arts college =)

EDIT: Im also not american..

 

[crimson5pheonix]

I was going to a stupid one and you missed the point. The point is you are required to take 4 years of English and History and only 3 years of Math and Science. That's going to give students the chance to be lazy pricks and they will take it. The valedictorian at my school opted out of Calculus because she didn't want to do work, so now she'll have to do it in college except in a class where the teacher doesn't care and she will have to pay for it pass or fail.

Edit: and to Klakkat as far as the English teachers go, In my school district all of the English teachers taught that way because of what the State imposed so yes and individual teacher can affect the students but here the teachers didn't have alot of choice and one of my English teachers told us as much and she was the best one I had, but next year I had a white teacher who spoke eubonics.

 

[TomNook]

Ahhhh touche.

 

[PurpleRain]

Maths was completely usless to me as well. It's great learning and knowing the basic stuff, but as of yet I have never needed the use of Pi, Algebra, any form of Triangle solving...

English was a waste as well. I enjoy english now more then I ever did at school. Instead of learning how to improve my writing and spelling, I learnt what discourses were.

The only subjects I enjoyed was Film and Modern History. In Modern, I had the best teacher ever. I learnt so much and was actually really fun.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

The only subjects I enjoyed was Film and Modern History. In Modern, I had the best teacher ever. I learnt so much and was actually really fun.

You're not from America are you? I want to know where you went to have a Film class, I would have killed for that! Though admittedly in the 6th grade I had a class where all we did was play Axis and Allies. I loved playing as the Russians and using Human Wave.

 

[zen5887]

English was a waste as well. I enjoy english now more then I ever did at school. Instead of learning how to improve my writing and spelling, I learnt what discourses were.

And we done that in every unit in grade 11 and 12...

 

[BlazeTheVampire]

For some silly reason, Asian Studies majors at my University need one more lab science than the general education requirement. Which means that next semester, I get to take Physics, and then some other science Spring semester. I'm a Theatre/Asian Studies major, so the extra science class makes absolutely no sense to me. I'm hoping to transfer to Michigan State University for Fall '09, so maybe that will change and I won't end up needing the extra science.

And then we have these really random classes. My university actually has a Pop Culture major, so we end up with crazy classes like "Reading Harry Potter," o.0

 

[crimson5pheonix]

And we done that in every unit in grade 11 and 12...

"And we done that"? I seriously hope you're not from an English speaking country because then you have an excuse otherwise you just proved my point that even though English is considered more important it still isn't taught properly,

 

[PurpleRain]

The only subjects I enjoyed was Film and Modern History. In Modern, I had the best teacher ever. I learnt so much and was actually really fun.

You're not from America are you? I want to know where you went to have a Film class, I would have killed for that! Though admittedly in the 6th grade I had a class where all we did was play Axis and Allies. I loved playing as the Russians and using Human Wave.

You played Axis and Allies as a subject?! Wow.

We had a course in my school (Australia) where we learnt a bit about film. It was really basic where we only really learnt the history of film and watched movies all day.

 

[PurpleRain]

And we done that in every unit in grade 11 and 12...

"And we done that"? I seriously hope you're not from an English speaking country because then you have an excuse otherwise you just proved my point that even though English is considered more important it still isn't taught properly,

Yeah, read my previous post to find out why.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

You played Axis and Allies as a subject?! Wow.

We had a course in my school (Australia) where we learnt a bit about film. It was really basic where we only really learnt the history of film and watched movies all day.

Sounds like my Spanish class lol.

 

[crimson5pheonix]

And we done that in every unit in grade 11 and 12...

"And we done that"? I seriously hope you're not from an English speaking country because then you have an excuse otherwise you just proved my point that even though English is considered more important it still isn't taught properly,

Yeah, read my previous post to find out why.

Sorry to be a prick but that rebuttle was aimed at Zen