What Was Your Most Useless Required Class in School?

Washington State history was a questionable use of an entire high school quarter.
 

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Marie5656 said:
Ladies, who remembers Shorthand? Back in the sexist late 60s, yep, if we were in the business program (for girls, think secretarial) we took shorthand. I never got the hang of it, never learned it.
I liked home ec...but kind of wish I could have taken wood shop.
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I was in the Business programme class in my school aka the Commercial class .. and learned shorthand and typing as well as Bookkeeping and accounting . We spent most of our study time in commercial class as well as Sciences ( had to take all 3 chemistry, biology & Physics) no opting out ,... Maths, English French , History, geography and Social studies, with a side serving of Art, Homecraft, (sewing) , homecraft (cooking) PE, Drama and Music..

I hate Homecraft. I only had 2 periods a week of it, I couldn't master the sewing machine. It was a total waste of 90 minutes a week for me when I could have been in another class taking something I enjoyed like English or Music...

as an aside..only the boys in our school were permitted to take Woodwork, technical drawing or metalwork classes... otherwise I would have chosen the woodwork class, I'd have been so much better at that, being the offspring of a carpenter!!
 

Pepper said:
I can't get the sight of the frog's heart beating, when we took off the chest skin with tweezers, from my mind. Luckily, I almost never think about it.
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It's one thing I never had to do in Biology . for some reason in our school only the boys were expected to disect things. there would be an unholy outcry nowadays but I'm very glad there wasn't in the late 60's and early 70's.. otherwise I would probably still have the horrors of it today..
 
I understand the meaning of this thread, what course was totally meaningless to you? Yet, I really don't know of any course that didn't teach us something about the universe we live in. I have never whipped out my compass and figured out the height of a mountain. Nor could I care if Bill was two thirds of Sam's age when Sam was 8, and Sam was on a train going west @ 45 miles/h.........All those courses were aspects of the world, we live in. So we, at least, know something about that world.
 
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Butterfly said:
Did you dissect LIVE frogs? That is horrific. I can't imagine that actually taking place in a school.
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In my (useless) biology class, the psycho female teacher first "anesthesized" the frog by sticking a pin in its brain, while the frog struggled. Yeah....never underestimate how much can be learned by torturing animals.
The teacher explained that they use frogs because their heart continues to beat after they're dead (or some such nonsense.
 
Butterfly said:
Did you dissect LIVE frogs? That is horrific. I can't imagine that actually taking place in a school.
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Yes, live frogs, 7th grade bio. In high school I got to know frogs as I worked in bio lab and they lived in the refrigerator. Sometimes, some or all would escape & that was pandemonium!
 
I hated those dissections, we had at school also, and felt we could learn more from the colored diagrams in books.
And after all, we were not training to be surgeons, either.

I also disliked being required to memorize historical time lines, especially of long lists.

I did enjoy learning something about some subjects, that were not meant to be my own expertise, and that I didn't ever end up using, but were nice to know something about.
 
Shop and biology were two that I felt useless. But I had so much trouble with all my classes
because I missed so much school each fall semester, being pulled out to work.
 
Biology was fascinating to me. I loved history and geography....the two subjects were inextricably related to one another I thought . I loved wood and metal shop. I liked art. Phys ed. was pointless to me, I was in good enough shape on my own and sports are still boring to me.
I've never used algebra but had to take it twice in high school to get the decent grade that university admissions were looking for.
All English classes were easy for me. Grammar, punctuation and spelling seemed pretty straightforward and the literature part of the courses opened up whole new worlds for me. I'm glad I took French even though I've never been very fluent at speaking it. Every single native French speaker whom I've ever met had better English that my French.
 
High School was 3 wasted years. I didn't bother with a graduation ceremony; I walked into the office & said, "Just have my diploma here; I'll pick it up." The administrator said, "Why....you only graduate once; why wouldn't you want to celebrate it?" I said, "Celebrate 3 wasted years of B.S.? I'd rather forget it."
 
win231 said:
High School was 3 wasted years. I didn't bother with a graduation ceremony; I walked into the office & said, "Just have my diploma here; I'll pick it up." The administrator said, "Why....you only graduate once; why wouldn't you want to celebrate it?" I said, "Celebrate 3 wasted years of B.S.? I'd rather forget it."
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If your HS education was three years of BS, that's on you, not on the administrator you chose to insult.
 
Algebra Not once since graduating have I ever needed to know why an A was used to represent a number.
 
I wonder if there's ever been a human being on earth who liked algebra! I've never met one.

However, I did enjoy geometry and trig in high school. Don't know why, but they were a lot more fun than algebra.
 
Even though any kind of mathematics has never been my favorite subject, I do know that one of the explanations for learning it is learning how to think and how mathematics relates to other disciplines other than pure mathematics
 
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PVC said:
Yet, according to this article, there are lots of jobs that benefit from a knowledge of algebra
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That is very interesting! Myself though, I cannot think of any jobs I had, that I used it. :oops:
I would have liked to find some use for it! ;)


Olivia said:
I do know that one of the explanations for learning it is learning how to think and how mathematics relates to other disciplines other than pure mathematics
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Another interesting idea! I do wonder if it accomplishes that for some people.

Perhaps it taught me something of the nature of "logic" as opposed to the general concept of logic, as common sense, which math does not always seem to follow. :sneaky:

But "LOGIC" as definded by learning conclusions one can validly draw, such as, remember those statements...
If A is true, and B is true, then if C = A + B, then C is also true.
If A is true, and B is false, then if C = A + B, then :rolleyes::unsure::cautious:o_O:cry:
probably C would be false?
:ROFLMAO:

Well, all I remember for certain is that 2a + 3a would = 5 a ! (y):giggle::geek:
 
Common sense and logic aren't always the same. Speaking more about formal logic, though.

However, when it comes to music and mathematics, they are definitely related.
 
Olivia said:
Common sense and logic aren't always the same. Speaking more about formal logic, though. However, when it comes to music and mathematics, they are definitely related.
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LOL, that reminded me of the movie, "Close encounters of the third kind'', I don't know if you saw it. The scientists used music and math to communicate with the aliens. I didn't understand that concept, but I did love the movie.
 

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