Comment by teeray
3 days ago
> Education? You probably mean repeating exercises in rote? You likely mean memorisation? That’s not education.
There’s so many classes that I want a refund on my wasted childhood time. Reading the “classics” in English, studying foreign language, Theology (Catholic schools), History (yes, History). I hated all these classes, didn’t learn much from them beyond what it took to pass the tests, then quickly forgot what they taught. Anything useful that would have come from those subjects I learned later, through alternate more enjoyable means (e.g. Assassin’s Creed was way more effective in teaching me the history those games covered).
I never read pretty much any book written before 1970, never learned a foreign language beyond a single semester of Spanish, and certainly had no Theology in a US Public school. Now as an adult, I do want to learn all those things (to some degree) and feel like I missed out on it; “If only I had a better education.” But I probably would have been more like you, uninterested and equally as dismissive of my childhood education if I were forced to learn all of those things at that age. Is it a problem with educators, families, or just the children themselves that they will grow up and realize the opportunities they’ve lost?