School- Necessary or Waste of Time

[Mungo Boo]

Some things they teach in school.. are they really necessary for the real world? Like how a plant goes through photosynthesis? Who really cares!? Also, Math, you don't really need all of it, maybe up to algebra. Unless you are going to be an engineer or something. I think that they should just make you take classes that will go well with the career you want.

What do you think?

[LOL UR FACE]

Some required classes are to open your mind to possibilities for your future. I can pretty much promise you that you have no real idea of what you want your career to be in high school. I'm sure you think you do, but you will change your mind so many times in college it's not even funny.

For example when I was working on my AA I had to have a physical science class. I took geology because my mom said it was easy. Well thanks to that class I am now going to major in geology and I would have never taken it if it was for fufil a requirement to graduate. :3

[Gladde]

Although it seems like a lot of the classes that are taken in high school do not seem necessary, I think it is still good for students to take them. For one, it helps expand on your skills or, at the very least, expose you to subjects that you might not have ever considered, like LOL UR said above me.

Also taking classes outside your comfort zone, might spark a new way of thinking or understanding the world. This is even more so in college. There are some classes that I thought would just be for my degree, but I ended up really taking something from them.

As for math, I'm not really excited about it or anything and will probably never take another one, but I am glad that I do know it and have been exposed to it. I think in that long run, I may find that I will have to use majority of the math that I have learned, even if it is not at this moment.

[Haley]

I believe, as said above, that although high school throws a lot at you that you may or may not need, it opens your mind to a whole new world. It broadens social development, shows options and original stems of careers, and of the like. Plus, it never hurts to know things ;]

[Vixie]

these days it seems like more of a waste of time because the teachers are useless and parents arn't bothered weather or not their kids turn up

[Icy]

I agree. But They should teach a certain amount of math, science, ect. So you know what it is and maybe you will be interested in it. But when your a little older and know what you want to be or generally what you want to be. (like some sort of artist, a job dealing with animals) Then you should just take classes that deal with that area.

[Rae]

I agree that some things taught in school are a waste of time.

Like so much of it is memory. You memorize random facts for tests (like a date of a history event) and as soon as you don't need it, you forget it! It's so pointless.
But I don't find most math and English a waste of time.

[Kitty]

Most things are not unless you want a specific job. I mean if your going to get an average job. When are you going to need algebra? Seriously.

[TheRipper]

most of the stuff they teach you in school is completely useless and has no effect on your life, the only things that are mega important are Maths and English really! so school is abit of a time waster!

[Mella]

It depends, because people change their minds. Like if I wanted to be a nurse or something, I wouldn't really need socials then, right? But what if during high school you wanted to change into a career which socials IS REQUIRED, then it would be a pain to have to take all of the courses you missed in summer/night school, now wouldn't it?
I know I especially think that sometimes math is useless, because really, when will I ever have to know the quadratic formula/ect?
But it would really be a pain to schools to have so many different specific courses and stuff

[Mystic]

Here's a question for you all who think you don't 'need' to know something.

Are you psychic? Can you foretell your future needs so exactly that you're 100% sure you will never 'need' to know a given bit of information?

Unless you are, you truly have no way of knowing if you will ever need to know something or not. A broad education helps prepare you to deal with a wide array of situations and on top of that, also is critical for developing various skills that transcend the specific subject you're being taught. Further, ignorance on a subject is a cause of problems. A democracy can not run well if its citizens are not relatively well-educated, for example, because the citizens will simply not understand government, the problems it needs to wrestle with, etc.

No offense, but to say that 'most' of what is taught in school is a waste of time or useless is both short-sighted and naive. Such talk sounds to me like the whining of an immature school-aged child who doesn't understand how incredibly important our education system is by virtue of them not being out in the 'real world' yet. I'll grant you that at that age I didn't understand it either. Until now I actually have a job that uses that supposedly 'useless' stuff I was taught earlier in my education.

[poetsespresso]

Some reasons education of a diverse sort is important is that it's like an element of parenting, only thing is now most people are no longer schooled as much by their parents anymore. Parents want to show the things that make the world we live in work, so that we might adapt, despite how irrelevant the little things are when looked at separately they fit together in a way that makes sense after a while.

Imagine what would happen if people didn't believe the world was round because they've been left out of the education system, I've known a couple people in my life that thought the world was flat, that were extremely limited in their education... partly because evolution, in their opinion, conflicted with religion, which it doesn't in my case. Imagine taking that same viewpoint that why would even want to know that the world is round? Because it fits into a grander picture of what the universe is like, and by understanding it, gaining a greater appreciation for all the knowledge that took hundreds of lifetimes to accumulate over history.

[lunexor]

[Chi]

I haven't read what other says so I'm just going to go with my own opinion? Sorry if it's been said twice. xD

Let's say you want to be an artist and you want to learn just basic elements of art and whatever else. But, you had to take darn biology and you learn all these crappy subjects about plants, fungi, and bacteria. Although, something caught your interest and you started to get interested in that subject and you started to want to hear more. And because you learned about it you may want to become a biologist to learn more about that sort of species or whatever. And then you have a career there.

Another example would be that you couldn't become an artist and you needed money badly. But, thankfully you learned about math and you were listening about it in class, you could get various other jobs to accept you because you do know how to work out the length. ( If I made sense, not sure if I made sense in this paragraph xD )

So yeah.

[Transcendence]

In a way yes. I think that it would be better for people to start in the direction they want. However what if in the end that isn't what you want? You would have to start back at square one. The whole point of high school is to get a good base for you learning in any field you may want in the future. You may decide to do biology but then grow bored of it and then chose something totally different like be an English teacher.