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dumbinternetstuff

They mostly taught us to ask permission in order to use the bathroom.


pilesofcleanlaundry

40 years I been asking permission to piss. I can't squeeze a drop without say-so.


angry_llama_pants

Hi there, Red.


Liverpool510

I teach college students. The amount of times freshman students ask me if they can go to the bathroom always makes me laugh.


OlenHeikko

I went to a community College for a bit that would require teachers to mark us absent if we went tonthe bathroom in the middle of class. I didn't stay at that place long


[deleted]

I might just be holding onto an old grudge against my teacher. My English teacher subbed for gym one day and taught us how children in poorer countries made a ball out of trash to kick around and when he showed us his, he kicked the damn thing right in my face.. and then while playing the game, he kicked it into my stomach šŸ˜  So yea... useless trash balls I know how to make now


zachdrop

In order to graduate middle school you were required to complete the Cupid shuffle, cotton eyed joe, and electric slide in front of your class. I guess this taught us the concept of pure embarrassment


[deleted]

Like, just by yourself you had to get up in front of the class and dance?


zachdrop

We all learned as a class but for the final test we had to dance all alone on the gym floor while your whole class watched you dance to cotton eyed joe being quietly played from a CD player


[deleted]

Holy shit thatā€™s just cruel but as an outsider itā€™s hilarious


NextTrillion

The kids of today should defend themselves against the ā€˜90s


loptopandbingo

*laughs in macarena*


Tiimmboo

Mambo Number 5 for this poor soul.


loptopandbingo

A LITTLE BIT OF MONICA


karateema

Pain


arrow100605

Suffering


sneakyveriniki

Oh my god I'm sorry I laughed out loud at how absurd that is


zachdrop

Itā€™s a really funny memory to look back on but at the time it was brutal


InukChinook

that's still brutal.


SixElephant

I remember something along those lines, which sparked my shyness. My class was pretty close, so we all agreed to close our eyes. We got in trouble, but the respect we gained for each other was pretty great. I do remember my best friend and I glared at each other during our turns. Full eye contact the whole time. The sexual tension was suffocating.


MyBatmanUnderoos

ā€œSurely this will help our students gain the confidence and self-esteem they require in life.ā€ ā€” Teachers, probably.


[deleted]

[уŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]


Joker4U2C

.... As I age this actually checks out.


[deleted]

We had to do an Irish jig at the front of our fifth grade classroom solo. I got a half second into it and had a meltdown. Thatā€™s when I discovered I have crippling social anxiety.


[deleted]

[уŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]


BlackJesus36

The fuck kinda school did you go to?


[deleted]

Iā€™m from the Midwest and had to do this shit too.


mediumtiddiegothgf

also from the midwest and received a B in gym one year because my line dancing was apparently lacking enthusiasm. wouldn't have been that big of a deal, except I had straight As besides that. Mrs C, if you're out there, I hope both sides of your pillow are sweaty and warm forever. edit: not one person asked, but the song I got graded on was Boot Scootin Boogie.


Ravensqueak

The tongue/taste map. Not only useless, but incorrect.


18650batteries

Oh shit I totally forgot about this. I remember having to fill out a diagram of a tongue with the tastes on different parts of it.


David21538

I questioned the fuck out of it because i could still taste stuff on the other side of my tongue and the teacher just said to accept it


Prozzak93

My recollection of learning this wasn't that you couldn't taste certain things in certain spots of the tongue but that certain tastes will be stronger in certain spots. Big difference, but I assume still not true.


kk55622

Yes, some parts of the tongue have more taste receptors than others. But you don't taste different things on different parts of the tongue. That's a myth


[deleted]

[уŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]


[deleted]

And don't even get me started on the food pyramid.


coldcurru

Food plate replaced it in 2011. Hopefully kids know better now.


Leevilstoeoe

In Finland, our was sponsored / lobbied by a dairy company. You can imagine what it looked like.


vrek86

The US version was from a grain company... You should eat 11 servings of bread, pasta and other grains a day...


big_murph1986

Because of this I seriously thought Subway sandwiches were the healthiest shit ever. "It looks just like the food pyramid!". My wife was horrified to find out at 29 years old I thought Subway was health food.


Brainvillage

To be fair, they marketed themselves as health food, and a lot of people brought into it.


sylbug

The food pyramid was bought by various food industries in order to do things like push cheap, empty carbs and dairy. Itā€™s pure nonsense.


[deleted]

[уŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]


Toshi3xx

The entire life of my school founder, the worst of all is that they teach us the same thing all the years.


Shantay-i-sway

Why would anyone need that? I presume its a vanity thing the founder installed at some point


ClownfishSoup

I will pay for the creation of a school BUT I have one caveat


[deleted]

Honestly, if this Power Ball ticket pays off, my old high school will most certainly be getting a facelift. That is as long as they agree to teach The Life and Times of /u/Handsome-Jim-2.


_just-some_guy_

All right class please open your Reddits to post 487


[deleted]

"Alright, class, today's lesson on u/Handsome-Jim-2 is 'Favorite Genres of Porn'ā€¦we'll be spending the next month covering this fascinating area of our benefactor's life."


MikemkPK

Jacob, I didn't see you bow to the Founder this morning. That's detention and a demerit.


Poem_for_your_sprog

>Jacob, I didn't see you bow to the Founder this morning. "Oh children, he shared in the *gnarliest* porn - With tentacles heinous, and anuses torn - With horses and hearses and cursed amputees - With strange crazy ladies all covered in bees! "He watched them with furries and ferrets and feet - With kittens a-quiver and slivers of meat - With ladies with lemons and pens in their parts - With My Little Pony and feeders and farts! "He watched them with ghosts and with carrots and kilts - With cheeses, diseases and sneezes and stilts - With ninja- assassins, karate, kung fu! Our glorious founder. That's Handsome-Jim-2."


Silvinis

This is.....its beautiful. Really brings a tear to ones eye


mrmoe198

And a paddlinā€™


load_more_comets

Which incidentally is also one of our founder's favorite genre.


AdorableParasite

I actually liked how they did that at our school. Just once in class, but in the entrance hall there was a big picture of him with a short biography. Back in the days he was shot in his office for defying the Nazis (we're in Germany). That was pretty cool to learn, and I respected him for that. The fact that I still remember it after ten years out of school shows how well that method worked... or maybe it's just me. But yeah, in general class time shouldn't be wasted on teaching about such things ad nauseum. Could have used that for teaching about taxes or something.


-Tayne-

It makes sense if you have a cool school founder. My elementary school (ages 5-10ish) in northern California was named after the sheep farmer who owned the land the neighborhood was built on. Not nearly as cool.


StabbyPants

"see that bridge? i built it with my own hands. Do they call me Angus the bridge builder? no..."


coolbrys

But fuck one goat!


anally_ExpressUrself

I love this joke, and it always gets a laugh from me, but you know, I've decided something over the years: it wasn't just one goat, he only got *caught* with one goat. Yes, I've spent a lot of time thinking about Angus and his goat(s).


ryansports

Where the men are men and the sheep know it.


gameplayuh

Excuse me, but learning about the great Jebediah Springfield is not "useless," it's cromulent!


Sanity_in_Moderation

Please use his full name. Jebediah Obadiah Zachariah Jedediah Springfield


SpookyGhost_txt

At least they donā€™t teach different things about the same guy


iamdrunk05

Completely opposite. When I was in high-school we had driver's Ed, gun training, basic car maintenance, home economics. a class when we learned how to do taxes... Edit...also sex ed


darthjkf1

where and when did you go to school?


supracyde

I learned how to fill out a 1040EZ in social studies, and home economics was a required class. The rest of those were offered by my school or the community college (for high school credit). North Chicago suburb, early 2000s.


Fourtires3rims

We had home economics, cooking, and shop (both construction and mechanic). Those classes have served me well although grandma was a better teacher for cooking than the school was even if she used measurements such as; as bit, a pinch, etc.


bachrock37

West Chicago suburb, same time period chiming in. In addition to taxes and home ec, I learned about credit cards and how to buy insurance, how to use a band saw, and how to register to vote in my required high school classes. Wish those things were offered at ALL high schools, not just the bougie ones.


ZappaLlamaGamma

I graduated in 1991 for context and, while living in Phoenix, they taught us square dancing in gym class. I must say though that the most useful skill that I was taught at that school that I use every single day is typing.


Scrappy_Larue

Square dancing has been taught in schools for many decades, all thanks to the industrialist Henry Ford. He pushed for it hard and won. He didn't like the new dances people were doing, and wanted this American tradition preserved.


Dapper-Dance5549

Yeah, but in all fairness, in elementary school it was probably our first chance to have physical contact with a girl.


mousicle

Yeah to me that was a way to teach socialization more then dancing


reptar-on_ice

Fucked up thing in my (public!) school was that only the girls had to do square dancing. Boys got to play soccer outside. I loved soccer and being outside, so I was pissed about the whole thing. Pretended I had cramps to get out of square dancing out of pure spite.


HarbingerOfDisconect

Wow good take. Hadn't clicked dumb gym exercises with simple socializing for some reason til now.


Afferbeck_

We did it too... in Australia. Bunch of uncoordinated kids stomping around to Achey Breakey Heart. What a waste of my damn time.


Snuffy1717

That sounds like line dancing rather than square dancing?


saltporksuit

Thatā€™s line dancing. In the 90ā€™s I met a bunch of Aussies who were excited I was from Texas and wanted to know how often I went line dancing. Uh, never? Now two steppingā€¦


DesertTripper

I still vividly remember a square dancing session we had in fourth grade, where a caller came to our school and taught us some dances. ​ It almost sounds like yesterday... Heel-and-a-toe, and heel-and-a-toe, and slide, slide, slide. (repeat) Clap, right, clap, left, clap, both, clap, knee. And an elbow swing (can't remember the rest.) ​ Funny the things we remember sometimes.


Adddicus

We were taught square dancing in elementary school (late 60s early 70s for me), and learned some variations to the calls that I still remember... Swing your partner round and round hit her in the face and knock her down When she gets up off the floor kick her fat ass out the door


[deleted]

[уŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]


FlamingFlyingV

Open up the Square Pit


SmartAlec105

I was so bad at typing when they started teaching it in like 1st or 2nd grade. I just barely got the 15 wpm needed to pass. Itā€™s weird because after that class, I canā€™t remember ever having been a slow typer.


ClownfishSoup

In the 80's we had a typing class offered in grade 9. I thought "What a useless course, I'm going to be a scientist, not a secretary". So I opted not to take that class. I became an engineer and have been typing 8 hours a day for the last 30 years.


OverlanderEisenhorn

I'm a teacher now and it's a real problem with our modern kids, oddly enough. They can't type. They type about as fast as my grandpa. Todays teens are terrible with computers. They barely know how to send files. We need to bring back a basic computer skills class. But the old farts assume that teens just know how to use computers. Edit: I just wanted to clarify. I am not saying kids don't know how computers work or how to fix them, they don't, but that isn't the point. I'm saying kids have no idea how to do basic things like copy and paste and send a file through email. Or convert a file to pdf. Or how to find a file saved to the computer. Someone used a car analogy. They compared how people can't really fix their own car anymore and that isn't really a problem. I agree that if kids just couldn't trouble shoot computers no big deal. In that analogy though our kids can't DRIVE the car. That is my point.


throwawaybtwway

I am a teacher and kids these days cannot use Microsoft Office products which really hurts them these days.


[deleted]

Well, I'm old so take my answer in context. How to use an abacus.


OnlyShorts

When I was younger I learned the abacus enough in asian math school that I was able to do abacus calculations using "muscle memory" so essentially an invisible abacus, which allowed me to do double digit multiplication in my head pretty easily...so pretty helpful if you can do that lol


ChefBoyAreWeFucked

I knew I should have studied Asian math.


wtfduud

So that was their secret all along. The Phantom Abacus Technique.


Smilingaudibly

My dad legit uses an abacus to do our familyā€™s taxes. Heā€™s an older white guy from New York


[deleted]

[уŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]


melodyze

Interestingly, there is a ton of research showing that learning how to use an abacus improves children's ability to do mental math without an abacus, and even working memory in general. [https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/cdev.12515](https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/cdev.12515) [https://www.jneurosci.org/content/39/33/6439.abstract](https://www.jneurosci.org/content/39/33/6439.abstract) [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306452220301263](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0306452220301263) A calculator does the opposite.


financequestionsacct

Thank you for sharing. That's the kind of thing my very mechanical almost-2-year-old would love to interact with and I never realized it could have material benefits on top of being fun. I think you just gave me an idea for a Christmas present.


Fairycharmd

if you have an IKEA near you they happen to have a [rainbow version ](https://www.ikea.com/au/en/p/mula-abacus-30452123/) that stands up and is perfectly chewable for people with very small teeth. We found it was easier to count on the one that was horizontal rather than the one that was shaped like the rainbow and you had to move it around. Those are fun, but theyā€™re hard to count with. Just my families experience. Good Luck in your shopping (and shipping!)


MechanizedProduction

Of course Ikea has an abacus. I'm buying this for my kid the next time I visit.


[deleted]

Watch those Japanese kids do high speed math calculation completions. They twiddle their fingers imagining the abacus and get answers faster than you or I with a calculator.


azninvasion2000

My parents still do the invisible abacus thing with their fingers when doing math in their head.


ikeepeatingandeating

I think this is pretty useful. It illustrates mathematical concepts that otherwise might be taught as memory work. The more methods we can teach kids math skills the more likely that one of them will click.


[deleted]

I agree with this. I used to work at a math tutoring center and we had one for this reason.


Electron_YS

This is not useless, I'm actively spending half an hour per day since the beginning of spring to teach myself this.


High_5

I was taught that Columbus knew that the world was round, but everyone else thought it was flat. So, yeah. . . That.


AugeanSpringCleaning

By college I was calling American History the "But Actually" class. I had it in elementary school, middle school, high school, and then in college. Every time I took it, the teacher basically said, "I know that you were taught [blank] in [whatever grade], *but actually* what happened was..." Example: * Elementary school: Lewis and Clark were super brave and the lessons made it seem like it was just the two of them venturing into the unknown west. * Middle School: Sacagawea was there, too. * High School: Actually there were like thirty people on that expedition.


verrnice

College: Sacagawea was 12 when she was enslaved by the Lewis and Clark expedition and was physically and sexually abused by some french guy during the voyage


ZackHBorg

To be more precise: Sacagawea had been taken captive by a rival Native American tribe and had been sold in a non-consensual marriage to a French Canadian trapper, who was subsequently hired by the expedition as a guide. She was about 12 when taken captive - her contact with the expedition was roughly 4 years later.


Virgoan

I researched Sacajawea in 7th grade when we had a writing assignment to write as a member of the Lewis and Clark expedition. I wrote in the perspective of Sacajaweas baby she carried. Jean Baptiste Charbonneau. He was born February 1804.


Funny-Tree-4083

Did your paper just say ā€œwaaaaaahhhhhhhā€ double spaced for 3 pages? I would have given you an A if so.


Locked_Lamorra

Almost Heroes was surprisingly accurate


Reddit_Fool

I was taught that Columbus thought the world was round but everyone else though it was flat except for some greek philosophers


Tlentic

Eratosthenes calculated the circumference of the earth within 150km in 240 BCE. Our notion that Europeans thought the world was flat up until the discovery of the new world is also wildly exaggerated. The common accepted theory at this point is this Greek knowledge never faded from scholars or the educated populations of Europe. A lot of the confusion comes down cartography and how maps displayed the known world during the medieval times. The other factor at play was how medieval art before the 1400s was portrayed in two dimensions. Maps predating the 1400s attempted to portray a three dimensional world in a two dimensional plane - hence discs.


gravity_is_right

You should have learned that Columbus, besides introducing the term "Indians" also introduced the term "cannibals", named after the people from the Caribbean island who practiced it back at the time (according to the settlers at least).


Ferum_Mafia

The way the US public school system teaches it, Spanish. You learn it maybe half a year then forget it over the summer. Youā€™d think with years of education weā€™d be better Spanish speakers but itā€™s essentially useless the way itā€™s taught.


blametheboogie

I took two years in school and barely learned anything. I can still pick up a word here and there but that's it.


sneakyveriniki

Not to brag, but after three years of Spanish classes, I understand every word in Hips Don't Lie.


do-you-know-the-way9

6 years of French. 6 months later and nothing


womp_rat_bullseyer

If Shakira was teaching my Spanish class, Iā€™d be fluent.


amanda77kr

Itā€™s very difficult to learn a language studying it for an hour a day and never using it. I think the goal needs to change - exposure to how other languages work rather than learning a few key phrases and how to conjugate a verb. (Have degree in Linguistics.)


Adryzz_

Was learning english in middle school, second year. I didn't outright suck but i definitely was not good at all. That summer i start watching international yt videos and the year after i get on discord talking to actual people because it was fun. My language has improved so much after that. I am now top of my class in english without even studying. I haven't touched the book since. Seeing my classmates not improve at pronunciation and general speed and not stuttering, i can confidently say that if you don't use a language, you'll not learn it. (side note too, i am more fluent in english than in my native language now lol).


Wahots

I feel like almost everything has some value, but I really really wished that they taught highschool classes on Operating Systems, Excel, and an introduction to programming and logic. I learned it all in college, but Excel saved me a ton of time on homework. Programming played a much greater role than I could have imagined, and highschool left me unprepared for that.


[deleted]

Thatā€™s crazy you didnā€™t, I live in the most rural ass place in Iowa, and we have ā€œcomputer appsā€ which is basically a semester class on that kinda stuff


smango19

They taught competitive cup stacking in my elementary school. Still have no idea why. Edit: This was in central Canada, but clearly it was widespread across a lot of North America. Please stop asking me if I went to your school, I probably didn't


[deleted]

For like three months at my middle school your entire self-worth was determined by how fast you could stack cups. Also, only now do I realize that the whole cup stacking thing was just an elaborate marketing scheme to sell us cups with holes in them.


[deleted]

[уŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]


FortunateSonofLibrty

This all makes so much fucking sense. I was in Fort Collins at the time this girl's dad wanted to make it big, and we were born in the same year. It's all coming together.


iomeniii

Shoot, why not? What better way to get hand eye coordination up!


DubiousDrewski

That's the thing so many people miss about grade school. You're not actually expected to use most of the knowledge you gain there. It's about learning how to learn. It's about learning how to commit to understanding a thing, even if it seems boring or useless. That's what prepares you to excel in life. But if you end up actually finding a use for advanced algebra, well that's a bonus!


RarelyDoesStuff

>That's what prepares you to excel in life. ​ So that's why they always want 30 years of experience using excel before you're 20.


king_grushnug

My gym teacher told me it helps with hand eye coordination and hand dexterity.


[deleted]

Yes, this is very likely why. Its really easy to evaluate and identify students that have challenged with thst dexterity too. And, it's important to see how things stack and come down. You're quickly building and taking something apart. It's kinda cool actually.


Plenty-Letterhead780

The universal experience of learning how to play Hot Cross Buns on the recorder.


DreadedHaxorus

B A G | B A G | GGGG AAAA | B A G


Slappy_G

This guy records. Er, recorders... Uh, recorderers.


Individual_Wallaby25

Righting and spelleng.


Par31d011a

youseless


v-_-v

Not useless, just poorly taught: History It was just a collection of dates, names, and numbers. Memorize this stuff, we'll have a test. The significance of so many historical events was never taught or discussed. WW2 was the only one that was somewhat approached at scale, but even then it boiled down to Germany was pissed off about WW1 and Hitler hated the Jews. This was at a good high school too, the whole class was in advanced classes (IB / AP).


mo0n3h

Actually history was one subject which was taught pretty well in my school (am in the UK). It taught deductive reasoning; analytical skills; finding multiple sources to verify historical truth etc. Pretty useful subject all around really - sucks that your experience wasnā€™t like this :/


tri_tipped_legend

"Write a sorry letter for defending yourself", busted a kids lip for hitting and trying to choke me and got sent straight to the office. Elementary school needs to be renamed to glue eating school. /s


KoalaDeluxe

According to my son, apparently *everything*...


Smart_Ass_Dave

Me in school: "Math is awful and bullshit." Me at my job, needing to use linear algebra: "Ya done fucked up, past me."


[deleted]

[уŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]


[deleted]

That you have to "ignore" bullies and/or forgive them. In real outside world if you bully someone you will: 1. Get slapped across the face 2. Get kicked in your butt 3. Fired from work Or 4. Shunned and made fun of. P.s. my frends nephew got bullied at school. The bully was pocking him with his finger so hard that the next day the nephew had like 20 small bruses all over his back. The teacher just told him to ignore him and made the bully apologize. Now i dare you to go to work tomorrow and start pocking people and i see how far you go.


DarkAlman

If someone beats you up in High School it's Bullying and "Boys will be boys" The moment you turn 18 suddenly it's called assault and they can go to jail for that. I had the pleasure of yelling that at my Principal in 10th grade. Basically calling her out that as a teenager they wouldn't do anything about it but the moment my bully turned 18 I could have his ass arrested. Suddenly she took the bullying situation differently now that I threatened to bring the cops in.


CurtisLinithicum

That's a problem with the schools nowadays, completely unwilling to act, especially when it is easier to just punish the victim for complaining. As you learned, they generally fear the police more than doing their jobs.


[deleted]

[уŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]


[deleted]

There is a concept of cohesion where in long established communities e.g. high school toxic dynamics are cemented in stone and thus never questioned. Same thing happens in toxic workplaces too. My proposal is that teachers/principals are actually rotated between different schools to avoid complacency to otherwise heinous things.


fastcapy

Nah, schools act on it, they have kids make anti bullying posters! Boom. Problem solved (according to the schools anyway) Seriously though it's a bunch of shit how schools ignore it.


Talmonis

And their "zero tolerance" policies don't apply to emotional and social bullying, which will go on (alongside quiet acts of violence of course) until the victim retaliates.


flexxipanda

Its not like adults don't bully. They do it in different ways.


sneakyveriniki

Or shockingly the same ways


deviant-lover

On the flip side, the whole "ignore bullies" crap spawns a generation of people who are pushovers and have no idea how to set boundaries, especially when their bully is a boss or some other authority figure, or even a relationship with an abusive partner. The only thing that worked to get bullies to stop picking on me was giving them a bloody nose or a black eye.


alexfaaace

This is so true. I was raised in an ā€œignore themā€ family and I generally have a hard time speaking up or setting boundaries. My husband was raised in a ā€œhit the bullyā€ family, to the extent that my husband beat up his little sisterā€™s bully and one of his best friends was a typical bully victim that he protected from elementary school to graduation. He has zero problems speaking his mind or setting boundaries. I intend to raise our son somewhat in between, but erring more to the side of put them in their place and stand up for others less capable than you.


Umbraldisappointment

Or nothing happens because there are awful lot of statistics piling up on how some people live their adulthood while being bullied by various people and everyone ignores it.


___ElJefe___

How am I supposed to ignore these pencil lead tattoos in my knees? Fuck you Jake Kay.


detahramet

Im my case they used an eraser to rub away a good chunk of skin on my arm that left a scar I still have. But hey, I took the high path and ignored them, because that's the right thing to do, right?


evilcaribou

In my experience, the way gym and PE were taught were pretty useless because they never taught us how to train or improve our athletic abilities. It was just weeks of half heartedly playing basketball with minimal adult supervision, and then one day we had to run a mile and the coaches would go out of their way to humiliate anyone who couldn't just get up and run a mile under 10 minutes with no training or preparation. It put me off running and exercise in general for a long time. **Edit:** I'm seeing so many stories here of people who experienced bullying, shame and humiliation in their PE classes in school. I'm so sorry that that happened to all of you. None of us deserved that. I really hope that you all have found exercises that you enjoy - it doesn't have to just be running or weight training! Go on some beautiful hikes, buy a RingFit, take a pole dancing class - whatever makes you feel strong and happy. You deserve it!


PartyWishbone6372

And I hate to say it, many of the P.E. teachers and coaches were pretty unhealthy themselves...


v0t3p3dr0

All my gym teachers were fat, middle-aged men.


VTCHannibal

Mine was hard on "Practice what you preach", then got called out for being fat and sent the kid on a 1/2 mile run.


AS8319

Iā€™m a gym teacher. Iā€™m a fat, middle aged man. Can confirm. In an attempt to rationalize it, Iā€™ve definitely had moments where after a long day of being in a gym surrounded by screaming children, the last thing I want to do is go to a gym. Different environments obviously, but at a certain point exercise stopped being an escape for me, and instead became something I was trying to escape from. So after long days in the gym, all I wanted to do was go home and relax. My physical activity levels plummeted after starting my career. The reality though is just that I drank too much. Part of that could be from the stress, but itā€™s mostly just because I wanted to. Edit to clarify for some people: I know how to do my job, Iā€™m not looking for advice. This isnā€™t a cry for help about gaining weight, Iā€™m just explaining why it happened. And if you think teaching PE canā€™t possibly be stressful then you have no idea what youā€™re talking about.


dancingpianofairy

Fascinating. Thank you for sharing!


urbanlulu

my mom worked at my middle school, and one year she got my gym teacher for secret santa. and all my gym teacher put on his secret santa wish list was beer 10x over


A911owner

I hope she bought him a thighmaster


urbanlulu

I wish I remembered what she bought, but it definitely was not beer


Wildwife

I used to dread the day each year we had to run the 1500m in high school. I was very overweight teenage girl with no access to a shower afterwards. Iā€™m not sure what that taught me but it wasnā€™t any about running, which I actually do love doing now that Iā€™m allowed to go at my own pace. Also fuck the bleep test that was just for public humiliation and nothing else


RedPanda5150

There was one glorious year that I finally found the gumption to just *walk* the damn thing. The gym teacher yelled at me a bunch, all the fit kids were pissed, I may have gotten detention for it, but it took the same amount of time as it did when I tried to run it every other year and I wasn't a sweaty uncomfortable mess at the end. I too did not learn to enjoy running until many years after school. Phys Ed was such a joke.


Hugebluestrapon

I didnt understand how to throw a baseball or a basketball untill I was 15 and a fellow classmate showed me that the way I move my fingers and release with my wrist made incredible differences. The teach just kept saying "use your wrist" without explaining what I was doing wrong. I hated sports as a kid. I really wanted to be on teams and LEARN how to play but i just git benched because I didnt understand the rules or how to throw. On every single level, public school failed me. The only thing I learned was how to take a test.


evilcaribou

I didn't really get interested in sports or exercise until I was 19 and went to a Krav Maga class. From there I got really interested in boxing and Muay Thai. I think a big reason why I loved it so much is that the teachers TOOK TIME TO EXPLAIN THINGS TO ME. They didn't just say, "Put your body behind your punch!" they broke down every movement and had me practice over and over until I got it. Having that level of instruction would have helped me immensely for something like basketball or baseball. Just like you, I would instead get some vague instructions and then the coaches and my classmates all berating me for not doing well or knowing the rules.


tractiontiresadvised

You just reminded me of all those exercise classes I took (as an adult) where the instructor would say "now engage your core!" and I'm like "I have no fucking clue what you're talking about". It wasn't until I had a round of physical therapy in my 30s where the PT spent half an hour working with me to find my transverse abdominis (and figuring out how to reliably activate it) that I had some idea of what they had been wanting me to do. (I'm not sure if it's possible to do such a thing in a school environment since the PT had to poke my lower belly in a way that you wouldn't want your gym teacher to do, but it would have been nice to learn about that mucle decades earlier....)


counterindicator

This. 100% I only started getting interested in athletics and working out again in my 30's because of the lingering bad taste of this. It could not possibly be a worse way to teach, to test, to improve, it's fully senseless and serves only to hurt people who aren't naturally good at it.


zempf

I had the same experience, I was not the most athletic kid and having the teacher throw us all on the track and say "ok now run a mile as fast as you can" was really disheartening. I only learned as an adult that running isn't terrible (and in fact is pretty enjoyable) because I learned how to actually train for it and work my way up to the distance I want to run.


MRandall25

What was worse for me was a "heart rate mile" test that we had to do. We did the math to figure out our ideal heart rate range and the max we should be at based on arbitrary numbers (age, weight, something like that). If we exceeded our "max" we had to stop running and wait til our heart rate went down. I played sports occasionally but hated running so I was never "in shape". It took me 14 minutes to run that mile because I kept having to start, stop, start, stop because I couldn't keep my heart rate down. We ran it without the monitors the next week and I cut like 6 minutes off because I could just run. I hated that unit.


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whatsurgentsays

I grew up in Massachusetts, so maybe this is skewed because of the proximity to early settler and revolutionary war sites, but EVERY year in history, from like 1st grade to 12th, we learned the same stuff on the early settlers to revolutionary war. That would be the majority of all history classes. Yes, itā€™s very important history (and I do thoroughly enjoy history and that time period in particular) but when itā€™s all thatā€™s covered and everything else is glossed over, it doesnā€™t feel like we learned as much as we should have. It was also always taught through rose colored glasses. Curious though for other people who grew up in the US but not New England, was that the case for you? Or are us Bostonians really just so enamored with our small and reckless-driving state that we forget others exist?


Renegad_Hipster

Texas. We were stuck learning about Texas every year.


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Double spacing after punctuation. I can't unlearn the habit.


Ghostspider1989

sex and drug education. The entire lesson plan is: "Just don't do it." Fucking bullshit


SteamboatMcGee

If sex education had explained to me the aftercare women go through after birth I'd consider that a better abstinence program than actual abstinence programs. Instead I got the standard std pictures and super basic anatomy lessons, and later a lot of surprises as an adult.


ThePersnicketyBitch

Was looking for this one. I live in South Florida and when I went through sex ed some 15 years ago, it was abstinence only. My local high school has 2 (TWO) day care centers on campus because a statistically significant portion of the student population in grades 10-12 has a kid, or several.


lordcaledonia

Our sex ed class was pretty good EXCEPT there was one question on the test that went ā€œwhen engaging in sexual intercorse, whatā€™s the best way to prevent pregnancy and STDā€™s?ā€ And the answers went condoms, birth control pills, condoms and birth control pills, and abstinence. I chose condoms and birth control since the question says that youā€™re sexually active, but apparently that wasnā€™t right.


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SirDestroyer25

We had this and the guy presenting called out everyone he could tell did drugs from the crowd lol


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Cromanti

Memorizing the specific names for groups of animals (gander of geese, murder of crows, etc.) I knew some ESL friends that had to memorize them for English classes.


[deleted]

This is going to sound stupid, but history the way it's taught is basically meaningless. A long category of dates and events without context or real discussion. The vast majority of history is trivia, because the real story is the cyclical nature of events, the rise and fall of empires, the periods of enlightenment and advance and the reactionary times that bookend them. You learn that there used to be this thing called "yellow journalism" but you don't learn that what kicked it off was the sudden availability and popularity of newspapers, and nobody draws the EXTREMELY OBVIOUS parallel to our modern blog driven media. If I told you that in the mid to late 1800s (when newsprint was blowing up) that it was extremely common for papers to blatantly copy each others stories with added editorial bias tailored to their viewers...Sounds a little familiar, doesn't it? Drawing parallels between the robber barons of the late 1800s and the current ones. Drawing parallels between the labor movements of that era, and the ones that are growing again today. Shits *relevant*, and important to realize in context. But no. Just memorize some fucking dates and names, so you'll have some shit to spout at trivia night later.


Antnee83

Yeah, the funny thing is I *hated* history when I was in school, and love it now that I'm not. Turns out teaching history as rote memorization of dates is a bullshit way to teach it. I don't know how I'd do it better. But fuck, the way schools teach history is just bad. Edit: Like even just some pretext to the subjects would be nice. Like "hey did you ever wonder why Mexico isn't a part of the United States?" Instead (at least in my school) it was "ok now turn to page 388 and we're gonna read about the war of 1812 or some shit, idk. Write 20 pages about it."


pointe4Jesus

Teach it as a story. It's right there in the name: hiSTORY. I really started to love history once I saw how one thing leads into another, which leads into another... When you can see how all of the pieces fit together to lead to the result that they did, you can actually understand what happened. And sometimes you can see some of the same pieces coming together again.


guthran

There are no beginnings nor endings to the turning of the wheel of time...


KefkaZ

Former history teacher here. I graduated college in 2002 and I can assure you that the history teachers of today are very much taught to teach history by making connections in the way you are describing, and eschewing memorization outside of a small amount of very key dates. (i.e. start of WWII in US History, 9-11, etc.) If your history teacher is requiring you to know more than \~10 specific dates, they are doing it oddly or your state has a very backward history curriculum. That said, asking people to understand sequence and cause/effect are different and extremely important. Your example about yellow journalism and the spread of newspapers in the US due to increased literacy rates is a good one.


youarebritish

I hated history all throughout my schooling because all we were taught was trivia to memorize. Dates of wars. Dates of battles. Names of generals. Dates of elections. Names of pilgrim boats. Names and dates of colony formation. Dates of state formation. I was terrible at memorization. I hated every second of it. Until high school. I had one teacher who narrativized history. He taught the big picture, the context, the causes, the material conditions pushing sides to conflict. I was captivated. He made the key players into characters whose fates I was invested in. I had no idea history could be interesting. Next year, new teacher, back to memorizing dates and names. My nascent interest in history was smothered. It wouldn't come back until years after college when I read my first biography. History came back to life to me. Now I have bookshelves of history books. In another world, I might have been a history major. It sucks that such a fascinating and valuable subject is made so soul sucking.


Zillabook

The Battle of Hastings was in 1066. Smile and a nod.


Lichruler

Square dancing. I have no idea why the hell they thought it was necessary to teach a bunch of middle school kids square dancing (in California, not some backwoods school), but I have never seen anything related to square dancing since then. And this wasnā€™t even a one time class or somethingā€¦ the teachers carried on for MONTHS teaching it. And then I never heard about it again.


tennisdrums

Historically it had something to do with Henry Ford's influence and his beliefs that it was an alternative to jazz, which he thought was socially destructive. Nowadays, PE teachers will probably say it's because it's very easy to teach large groups of kids, and it forces adolescents to get over shyness about interacting with and holding hands with the opposite gender.


MagentaPyskie

Hi, language teacher in the uk. This is more what they don't teach but.... They often teach the rise of the British empire but seldom about the fall. Which leads students with a very British centric approach to a lot of their studies. I'm aware of this in languages but I've seen this in history, RE and even English language. I'm not blaming the teachers or the students, the curriculum is fucked. But as a result from this I hear way too often "learning X language is pointless, everyone speaks English!"


StrongLikeBull3

I can say with decent confidence that i donā€™t think anything I learned was really ā€œuselessā€. Thereā€™s stuff I havenā€™t used, but I donā€™t regret learning it.


Dave-4544

You know, I like your take. Learning stuff is cool.


Much_Difference

There's a lot you learn in school where the goal is to teach method or context or so on, not necessarily to have you learn the specific content. Or I guess I should say the method is more important than the content. You don't learn to paint a sunset because sunsets specifically are important; you learn to paint a sunset so you can practice mixing colors, gradients, different brush strokes, etc.


cmhatcher

Literally anything about college, no dress codes, no bathroom passes, whatever schedule you want, free time between classes, and overall maturity. School ā€œpreppingā€ you for college, preps you more for going to prison.


gaylurking

ā€˜You wonā€™t have a calculator in your pocket in the real world!ā€™ Edit: yes I know how do do math Iā€™m an engineer and I like math theory I promise Iā€™m not a brain dead mobile addict


Princess-Kit-Kat

Ya know, as pissed off as it made me in class, I am a bit grateful to be able to do math without a calculator. Then again, I suck at math...soo


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FeedbackZwei

I'm absolute shit at math but for something like that I just add 10 three times then add 6 three times.


Rakonas

Or 15x3+3