Poll: Are most of the things we learn at school useful?

[SSoSFAGTiaCaGwaP]

Are most of the things we learn at school useful? Personally, I think most of the stuff you learn will not help you in life. I'm not talking about multiplication and learning to write, that stuff's important. Being in high school at the moment, I find in class I'm thinking "Do I really need to know this?" a lot. I reckon we should just learn the most important stuff, then leave it at that. After that, you should choose what career you want to pursue, and learn all the necessary education for that.

Thoughts?

Is school useful? yes.

Are most of the things we learn at school useful as the actual poll asks? No.

Acknowledged and title changed.

 

[The Maddest March Hare]

Everything will be important to someone. General schools are more about teaching you a little of everything so you find what applies most to you ready for the education in college and university that is based on your own choices of subject.

Personally I felt that way about chemistry and music, since chemistry felt like a list of inane facts about the boiling point of Potassium and music wasn't about what instrument you were actually interested in. We were made to learn Recorder, which I'd have gladly used to do something unspeakable to the annoying teacher we had for it.

 

[Lawnmooer]

It depends...

If you want to go into higher and further education then it is useful.

If you want to go straight into work after leaving then it's only use is getting good grades in your exams.

Since leaving school the only time I've used anything I learned in lessons (Because stuff I learned outside of lessons was completely different) is when I get bored and started doing some maths and science to pass time (And win a few arguements) though it's likely to change when I eventually start working towards the PHD I'm aiming to get (And of course the job I'm aiming to get it for)

 

[magicmonkeybars]

Let me put it this way, people living mostly devoid of technology still achieve the same thing as we do living with technology.
All we ever accomplish as a species is survival and that we simply achieve through breeding like any/every other animal.

 

[Knusper]

Once you get to the hardcore stuff in that topic whenever you reach A-levels (or whatever equivalent foreign), that's when you get to do the useful stuff - you spend all that time up to then doing the foundations before you do the useful stuff. Think about it as you spend the first 11 years learning your scales and arpeggios so that eventually you can learn to do the solos.

Also, if you take it far enough, you should have an interest in it anyway.

So I guess the first stuff we learn is not directly useful unless we take it further where we can get some use, or at the very least interest, out of it.

 

[Gammayun]

OK some of the stuff you learn will only be useful in specific jobs, but if you choose not to learn these things your deniying yourself options of what to do in the future. And anyway how do you know this knowlledge wont be useful some point in the future.

 

[FunctionZ]

Yes.

I would say it was useful. I was able to learn and educate myself with the subject's that I was studying.

I was also able to develop some social skills while in school and enable myself to do better with people (which I have a problem with). I used to be really shy and tend to only stick with my close friend when I until I was around 15 which then broke thanks to school. As I started to hang around more and more people.

Kinda glad I went to school for that. Allowed me to get where I am in life so far. Getting a good degree and having a good job XD

 

[Darius Brogan]

School is only useful after a certain point in your life. University, for example.

When you're young, you have no idea what you wish to do with your life, or what you'd be best at, making it difficult to accept most of the generalized lessons in school without question.

The very basics of Reading, writing, and mathematics are taught (Read: Should be taught) by your parents, and the only things you learn from then on are higher levels and complications that will get you nowhere in life unless you choose a field in which they factor heavily, which the majority do not.

History, social sciences, trigonometry, calculus, anthropology. None of this is necessary for any average person, yet most of the time it's taught anyways, cluttering up your mind with unnecessary knowledge that brings down your ability to absorb other, more important lessons.

Advancements in these fields should be taught only if they are chosen by the student, and only after high-school graduation, because that means the student intends to choose a profession where they are necessary.

Other than that, Math, Science, and Language Arts are really all that's needed in pre-secondary schooling.

 

[Trippy Turtle]

The stuff you learn their isn't important its being able to learn it is the goal.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Alot if it isn't, but you don't know what you like or what you are good at until you do it.

You have to try everything till you find out what you should stick with, if anything.

The very basics of Reading, writing, and mathematics are taught (Read: Should be taught) by your parents,

I'd disagree...that only works if the parents have the time and ability to teach those things to their kids. What about single parents who are working fulltime, and/or are crap at teaching maths?

Having professionally trained people to do that seems a better idea to me.

 

[Esotera]

For Higher Education, yes, it's an important primer. But the people going into HE are capable of learning it much earlier than everyone else, who should be learning something more relevant to real life, along with basic math, science, english.

 

[SSoSFAGTiaCaGwaP]

Alot if it isn't, but you don't know what you like or what you are good at until you do it.

Spoiler: This is what I imagine every time someone says alot

Read this:
http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/04/alot-is-better-than-you-at-everything.html

 

[Jadak]

Is school useful? yes.

Are most of the things we learn at school useful as the actual poll asks? No.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Heh, ok, that was pretty funny.

But, yeah, generally, if I'm not being grammatically correct, I could care less.

[small]Heheheheh[/small]

 

[ulzugot]

It is very useful if you plan to get into the college and later on into a well paid profession; every bit of knowledge can help you in the future. For example a businessman that has no idea about foreign client's country and culture, seems incompetent and is a lot less likely to make a deal. Colleges and Grad schools like students that are well rounded and their knowledge is not limited to only one field.

Besides that, high school will help you discover more about yourself, your interests, and pick the way in which you want to educate further. The more diverse classes you take, the more likely you will find something that interests you. In high school I unexpectedly discovered my enjoyment of philosophy, sociology, and after calculus class I was also amazed by the math (which I used to despise in past). Hell, thanks to knowledge from non-western history class, my friend got girlfriend - she came from China and was amazed that my friend knew about Manchuria, the region she was from; other guys she met in the U.S. (even the Asian ones) did not know that.

 

[Vault101]

well as a starting point...YES at the most basic level you learn stuff..but its not just about hwat you learn but given the opertunity to learn further if its what we want...I hate to use the term, but to "expand out minds" and its what kills ignorance, its the reaosn we arnt all dumbasses and zealots (generally of coarse)

now once you get past a certain point it depends entirely on what path you want to take, if your set on being a brick layer then algebra is just going to bore you rather than be useful

 

[MorphingDragon]

It really depends what you get into.

Scientists use Science. Musicians use Music. Mathematicians use Maths.

At least in NZ, the compulsory classes are meant to give you a taster of each subject then you can choose your specialization.

Personally, I do software dev and I'm also a Casual IT Admin/Advisor. I use all of the maths and stats I learnt at high school and even more-so at Uni level. ALL OF IT. I even use the Physics stuff occasionally too. I even use some language theory and maths that would fly over most people's head.

Deterministic Finite State Automata <- LOOK AT IT AND BE AMAZED.

 

[Jnat]

I found this video interesting:

 

[dvd_72]

It's not just about what you can or will use later in life. It's about becoming a balanced individual and learning skills, not just facts, that can be applied to many parts of your life.

Take history for example: even if you're not going to be doing anything remotely related to history, the lessons teach you to look critically at the information you are provided, judge how usefull and apropriate it is to what you're trying to reason/study/whatnot, and take from it what you need.

or to take one of your examples, Chemistry: A simple copout would be to say that it teaches you to memorise things, but it's more than that. It teaches you, allong with maths, how to look at information provided to you to come up with an explenation or answer to a question.

To sum up, School is about more than the facts you learn. It's about the skillset the various classes provide you with, not to mention the social skills you learn by interacting with other people. But that last isn't relevent to your point is it?

 

[Lizardon]

Oh my god a poll! An actually working poll on an Escapist thread! It's so beautiful.

OT: Beyond the basics of reading, writing and mathematics, whether or not you'll need the knowledge will depend on what you do with your life outside of school.

My chemistry teacher use to say that the content we were taught is useless, but the skills of problem solving, logic, hard work, time management and analysis were what's important.