Talk about pointless stuff...

Just think about the ‘useless things you’ve learned, like cursive, or joined-up writing for instance. I went to the experts, and asked some contemporary educators what were their most pointless learning experiences.

English teacher Jack, asked “when was the last time you had to check the PH level of a liquid, or know whether its an acid or alkaline that turns litmus paper pink?” Julie and Leanne, in student support, echoed so many of my colleagues in asking “what the point is of algebra?” Come on, 7x-y(-3)= ????. Really. How many of you out there have ever used that kind of algebra outside of school?

Science teacher Emma, learned in her classes, weirdly, that on snooker tables, the cushions are exactly 3/5 of the height of the balls to maximise the bounce off the cushion... Now I’m not just being daft, but it’s my guess that even the great Ronnie O’Sullivan doesn’t know, or need, that priceless nugget. While PE guru Amy’s most pointless was “in yr5 we did an entire term on the Tudors, but the related PE lesson was wearing Tudor dresses and learning to ‘Tudor dance.’

Engineering teacher Jason, learned how to gut a sprat, a small fish, at school, which he thinks “would only be useful if he ever washed up on a desert island.” Meanwhile Office Manager Mandy spoke of learning to use a lathe in Yr9, playing the recorder flute, identifying rock formations, oxbow lakes, and river formations, in geography, and somewhat surprisingly, has not differentiated an equation since Yr13, though she can, quite some years later. Mitochondria and chloroplasts seemed important too, once.

Ben, a Maths teaching carnivore, was taught how to make a fruit salad. He also, for a French assessment, had to describe his bedroom, something he had never done before. His “Ma commode en bois est a cote de mon lit. Sur ceci se trouve une lampe” therefore remains, in his eyes, something of a ‘lemon,’ even if it is a magnificently posh description of his childhood bed next to a wooden set of drawers with a lamp on top. And speaking of food, we all learned to make cupcakes and sponges in cooking class didn’t we?

Everyone says Shakespeare is divisive, with his thee’s and thou’s, his to be’s and his not to be’s, his “Wherefore art thou’s,” his “If music be the food of love...” and “Friends, Romans, countrymen...” etcetera, he is either seen as the doyen of all playwrights, or as a complete waste of space. The issue is that while one achieves a literary appreciation through such study, that’s not something you use every day, is it?

A pet hate, even of English teachers, is Emily Dickinson’s poetry. It’s stark, it’s black, and when contextually applied to a young woman who virtually isolated herself to death because she was either unlucky in love, or just got a massive ‘sulk’ on. Either way it doesn’t help our young teens to have a miserable woman who wrote miserable poetry, as someone to focus on.

And don’t get me started on Latin, or the periodic table. Has nobody realised we all have mobiles, laptops, tablets, Google etc, etc? The reality is that less than half of what our kids are taught is any good to them, but learning how to find stuff... is. And on that theme, Scientist Steve smiled as he recollected his teacher once saying, “It’s not as if you’ll be walking around with a calculator or computer in your pocket. Is it?

As such budgeting, credit ratings and debt, investment and interest rates, savings, debit and credit cards, pensions, real estate... in other words money management, and certainly also respect for oneself, and others are vitally important.

We really do need changes to the education system, because it’s not, and never has been knowledge that is the way forward, but enhancing understanding oneself, and others, and developing skills.