What was the most pointless thing your school made you do?

Furryanimal

Furryanimal

Y gath o Gymru
Location
Wales
As a teacher I made it my mission to eradicate rules that made no sense and caused more trouble than they were worth:)
 

Projects as in "do a project on Ancient Egypt" without any guidelines.
All that happened was that we copied slices of encyclopedia onto a sheet of cardboard and then tried to hand copy some maps and illustrations. Complete waste of a child's time because no actual learning took place.
 
That's a tough one.

In elementary school, starting in 1st grade (5 years old), the girls had to wear dresses at school. It was a cold climate. We all wore snow pants to school, took them off when we arrived, and put them back on when we left. Back in the dark ages when I went to school.:rolleyes:
 

Warrigal said:
Projects as in "do a project on Ancient Egypt" without any guidelines.
All that happened was that we copied slices of encyclopedia onto a sheet of cardboard and then tried to hand copy some maps and illustrations. Complete waste of a child's time because no actual learning took place.
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Happened all the time when I was a pupil.Problem is lots of politicians think that constitutes learning.
 
NancyNGA said:
That's a tough one.

In elementary school, starting in 1st grade (5 years old), the girls had to wear dresses at school. It was a cold climate. We all wore snow pants to school, took them off when we arrived, and put them back on when we left. Back in the dark ages when I went to school.:rolleyes:
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In my secondary school in the seventies there was one senior teacher who declared that for as long as she was in the school girls would never be allowed to wear trousers. I asked her once why she thought this and was torn off a strip for being rude to her!!Today my teenage nephew attends the same school and the girls can wear trousers.
 
Grade school science projects. Paper mache volcanoes were popular, along with dioramas of the solar system. I mean, what do expect from grade school and junior high students?
 
I went to grammar school in the fifties. The first day of school the teacher told us we needed to have a loose leaf note book and an assignment pad. That would have been ok but she wanted us to have it the next day and the assignment pad had to be exactly the dimensions she gave us. My Dad worked late,we only had one car, and back then there were no malls and stores closed early. My poor Mom borrowed my Grandfathers car and we rode around to the few stores we had looking for the darn pad. Sometimes they were sold out because other kids got there first. Somehow we managed to locate the proper size and I breathed a sigh of relief. The teacher actually did measure the pad the next day. How I would love to go back in time and give those teachers an ear full.
 
For me, it had to be 10th grade History class.

The whole school year, the teacher expected the class to take dictation. No kind of books involved. He'd go on and on about History and we had to write word for word in notebooks, every single day, what he said. Couldn't be taken in shorthand, had to be completely written out. Our notebooks would be graded on neatness and content, and we also would have tests on what we learned, every semester. Talk about a boring class! Might as well just have handed us History books and tell us to go read them, then test us on that.
 
Butterfly said:
In the fifth grade I had to make a Parthenon out of sugar cubes. All it got me was ants in the living room and my mother had a FIT! Why would anyone want to make a Parthenon out of sugar cubes, anyway?? I cannot envision any possible scenario in which that particular skill would do anyone any good at all.
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Completely weird.
 
Carla said:
Grade school science projects. Paper mache volcanoes were popular, along with dioramas of the solar system. I mean, what do expect from grade school and junior high students?
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As a teacher of 7 to 11 year olds I had classes make such things.But I made sure the science behind them came alive.
 
Gemma said:
For me, it had to be 10th grade History class.

The whole school year, the teacher expected the class to take dictation. No kind of books involved. He'd go on and on about History and we had to write word for word in notebooks, every single day, what he said. Couldn't be taken in shorthand, had to be completely written out. Our notebooks would be graded on neatness and content, and we also would have tests on what we learned, every semester. Talk about a boring class! Might as well just have handed us History books and tell us to go read them, then test us on that.
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History is exciting. I have a degree in it and trained to teach it but taught like that a complete turn off. Had a geography teacher who wrote notes on the board every lesson for us to copy. Boring.
 
Our school had a road round its perimeter. Boys were supposed to walk clockwise round it and girls were supposed to walk anti-clockwise. I don't suppose they realised that we were bound to meet in the middle!

There was also a rule that we shouldn't fraternise with the pupils from the 'secondary modern' school in town. That didn't work either - I married one of them 43 years ago.
 
I also have to say algebra. I have never, ever needed it, in all of these years. What a waste of time.

The other pointless thing was to make us go outside whenever a bomb threat was called in. Since they didn't have caller I.D. back then, students routinely phoned the school, making bomb threats on a daily basis. This was in Junior High School.
 
Butterfly said:
In the fifth grade I had to make a Parthenon out of sugar cubes. All it got me was ants in the living room and my mother had a FIT! Why would anyone want to make a Parthenon out of sugar cubes, anyway?? I cannot envision any possible scenario in which that particular skill would do anyone any good at all.
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Hahaha Butterfly?
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You have a valid point there.
In grade 5 once our history teacher got mad at a student so punished us all by making us twist our heads to look at the clock from 3:15 to 4:00. Most of us had crocked necks and most parents were furious. She then got mad at us for complaining about hurting but it truly was needless barbaric punishment. She never did it again but we were all hoping she’d get expelled. She didn’t.:cautious:
 
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jujube said:
Memorizing dates, i.e. when was the Battle of Hastings fought? If, 40 years later, I needed that information, I'd look it up. But, for some reason memorizing the date was more important than learning WHY it was fought.

Has anyone walked up to you on the street and asked, "Pardon me, but do you know when the Battle of Hastings was fought?" I didn't think so.
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Bet you were taught Harold was shot in the eye....not at all certain...
 

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