I was thinking about my compulsory education recently – high school in particular. And I was trying to remember a single thing that it taught me. I thought long and hard. Truly.
What did I learn in high school?
After much deliberation, here’s what I came up with:
Wait for it …
Wait for it …
- Nothing.
The end.
I can’t remember a single thing that I was taught in high school and I haven’t used anything I learned in high school as an adult.
Math
Yes, I took math classes and I did well in them, but I can’t remember any of those super-applicable equations now, and I’ve never had to use math past elementary level as an adult. And often times I use a calculator to do that!
History
Yes, I took history classes, and did well in them, but I hardly remember a single nugget of it. The history I do have in my noggin is from stuff that I pursued as an adult because I was interested in it. All that I can recall of my world history class in ninth grade is that the teacher really liked history, that we took an insane amount of notes, and that I really liked a boy in that class. Great.
Literature
Yes, I took literature classes and did well in them, but I hated grammar lessons and I thought the reading choices were too diluted and I hated analyzing literature. Sometimes a guy fishing is just a guy fishing, you know?
Science
Yes, I took science classes and did well in them, but I remember one percent or less of all the biology, physical science, or chemistry that I “learned.” And haven’t suffered for the loss at all.
Out of all of my four years of high school, the only thing I can come up with that may have been useful are my Spanish classes. And it was the only class I ever failed! (Because I simply was not motivated.) I still cannot speak Spanish, but I at least understand some of it and am familiar with it, phonetically.
That’s. It. The only thing I learned in high school was elementary Spanish.
- I did not learn how to change a diaper. I learned that from having a baby.
- I did not learn how to balance a checkbook. I learned that from having a checking account.
- I did not learn how to pay bills. I learned that by being independent.
- I did not learn how to cook. I learned that by burning stuff.
- I did not learn how to be a writer. I learned that by doing it.
- I did not learn about nutrition. I learned that by reading voraciously as an adult.
- I did not learn about parenting, or vaccines, or the benefits of breastfeeding.
- I did not learn how to clean my house…
- I did not learn about social media because it didn’t exist yet.
I certainly didn’t learn about God or discipleship or my spiritual gifts.
I did learn quite the repertoire of bad words though …
So . . . remind me again, why do we make our children “learn” all those things that the mass majority of them are never going to use again?
This is why, when people worry that Unschooling high schoolers might be “behind” or have gaps in their education I think:
“So what! Who cares if they aren’t force-fed and then tested on something they’re never going to need again anyway.”
That’s my 2 cents, at least.
I understand that some people do in fact use a least a small portion of what they learned in high school as an adult. Like, to write college papers or something? So, be honest – do you think the majority of your high school years were well spent?
~ Jessica
Great post! A good reminder that the subjects taught are very rarely ever the lessons learned!
I can remember a few things I learned in high school. But very little that was valuable and helpful to my life.
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It’s funny because when you’re in high school, you’re well aware that you’re never going to use any of the knowledge they’re filling your head with. All high school taught me was that I was smarter than the majority of the other teenagers there. I had a 3.8GPA in high school even though one teacher that was trying to fail me. Spanish was the most useful class I had too, even though I can’t remember a quarter of the words I learned, I do remember how to pronounce them.
Interestingly, my parents were practicing a degree of unschooling with me in my elementary years. Oh, I still had curriculum, but I could complete it as quickly as I wanted, so I only spent 2 hours a day doing schoolwork. If nothing else, it taught me self-discipline and encouraged a love of nature, reading and writing. The degree of unschooling that they experimented with (in the 90′s) was letting me naturally develop an interest in whatever I liked at the moment. I think the strongest benefit was that I have a wide range of interests and hobbies as an adult, all of which I have a good deal of skill and self-discipline in. When I picked up couponing, my friends did likewise, except that now, two years later, I’m still couponing and they are not.
And yet the teachers usually try to scare you into believing that those grades are the beginning and end of the world, right?
I learned a lot in high school.
I learned how to write well. I learned how to read and enjoy looking at syntax and word usage; I still count lines and syllables and match rhyming words when I read a poem because it helps to understand it. I learned how to view the world in a different way through science classes, and I still use that knowledge to this day – even chemistry. I learned how to debate well. I learned how to get a point across effectively. I learned history, and I still remember it, 13 years down the road.
The only thing I don’t remember well is math, and that’s mainly because the only people who use Calculus frequently are math teachers and mathematicians (although when my sister, an unschooler who teaches high school math, is talking about a concept she’s teaching, I can normally remember something about it). I use algebra and trig all the time.
It was an important, formative experience, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I wouldn’t be the well-rounded person I am today without it.
You learned (and retained) a lot of stuff that I didn’t!
It can be rare to come away with that experience.
I learned much in school, retained quite a bit and still use a good portion of it today. We homeschool our children but I can’t say that I didn’t learn anything in high school.
You have to remember, part of what is taught in school is taught to teach you different ways of thinking and looking at things. It’s not always about the actual topic or retention. Sometimes it’s about giving your brain a new way of looking at things, even when you don’t realize it.
Good post though. Perhaps it’s time the public school system looks at adding some of those learning needs to the school system. It’s already completely different from how things were when I went to school. What’s a little more change?
Several people have said something similar about learning to think about things in different ways. I honestly didn’t experience this, but it’s good that some people do have that growing experience.
I suppose it’s hard to teach someone a new way of looking at things if said someone is mostly being bored out of their mind and wishing they could go home and go back to sleep.
I don’t think it’s so much that teachers or high school can see into anyone’s future to teach what you will use (if we had such powers, we’d surely play the lottery and not worry about anything). It’s to offer opportunities to students to study topics beyond what they may or may not know about or have access to. If you don’t learn grammar, it’s harder to write so anyone will respect what you have to say in your writings. Sure, most math you learn in high school will not save you anything at the checkout counter, but going through the process of problem solving (much more is required of students now than ten years ago) will help you to better analyze situations and consider other options, even if it’s not math related. There are courses (in Georgia and probably other states) that address what you learned in real life: Mathematics of Finance (deals with insurance, mortgages, banking, etc.), Family and Consumer Sciences (deals with nutrition, cooking, wellness, etc.), Introduction to Childcare (deals with all things related to babies and children, including taking care of a “baby” for three days to get a small sense of the responsibilities of such a task), Web Design, Engineering Graphics, Drafting, the list goes on. To do well at any of those careers now requires a good foundation in math, science, and communication, even if a student doesn’t pursue post-secondary education. Not all parents or students may be as motivated or resourceful as you, so high school is a great (tuition free) resource for preparing for life as an adult or for college.
That’s a good point, I think a lot has changed in the 10 years since I graduated, even where I grew up. And some people did graduate, even then, with the experience of having taken some of the more “life applicable” courses. I do thing the majority of us didn’t, though.
I definitely don’t blame the teachers, though. They’re doing what they can, within the perimeters they’re allowed.
Nah, nah, nah, naaaaaaah, nah: I learned more than you did. I learned to type. AND, wait for it, I learned that Fe is the chemical symbol for iron. Which helped me once in my life. I was an exchange student in Costa Rica and still spoke very little Spanish and my host mother was trying to explain to me that some vegetable with which I was not familiar had something that I didn’t understand. My host brother said, “Oh, do you know chemistry? It’s Fe.”
There. That is the sum total of what has been useful to me from what I learned in high school.
[...] (ou plutôt ce que je n’ai pas appris…) J’ai découvert un article sur le blogue Christian Unschooling qui m’a fait beaucoup réfléchir… En résumé, l’auteure fait le bilan de ce [...]