What do you remember from high school?
I was reading a book about history this morning. More than a history book it was a discussion about the accuracy of some accounts/analyses of history. It made me wonder about what I actually rembered from high school history and then what I remembered about the courses I took in high school, in general.
I did use the high school math and omputer programming knowledge when I was in college. I even used the programming I learned when I went to work after grad school. But I can honestly say that I don’t think I remember anything specific that I learned in high school English or history. Hmmm, well I do remember reading Beowulf and Ivanhoe. But I’m not sure what I gained from doing so.
I learned way more about world geography when I got software to explore the world.
The theatre and journalism courses did give me a foundation for learning more about theatre and writing later. In fact, I learned more about writing in my journalism course than I did in English class, I think. (Although it was not until college that I learned that good journalistic writing is useless in freshman English!)
This has made me think more about what high school classes should be. I’m still working on that, and I’d appreciate your comments.
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Comments
It stole my thought provoking comment.
The most valuable thing I learned in High School English was to be short and to the point. My teacher had a rule about essay questions - one side, wide ruled, every other line. He said if you cannot answer the question in that space you don’t know the answer.
It was totally invaluable during college where I repeatedly got A’s on essay questions. And it helped me greatly in journalistic writing.
Also I had a history teacher that believed in presenting both sides of the issue. One week we had people from various countries in the Mideast speaking about the history of war there. There is no right and wrong side. Just bullheaded people like our ex-president.
hmmm. Well, since they were largely useless from my pov I’d say, teach them to think. First, teach them to read, then teach them to think. I suppose math is important since I’m still challenged to read the lines on a ruler, but clearly didn’t gain anything from they tried to teach me about that. If I’d learned to think through it, I might have grasped. A whiz at memorization i was…but it left me empty. Glad to see you’re posting.