Saturday, September 6, 2008

Education

Being educated is awesome.

Go ahead and roll your eyes, but you all know it's true. In fact, if we weren't educated, you wouldn't be reading this right now because I wouldn't have had the mental capacity to have typed this up. But you know what? Being educated about stupid things that you won't even use in real life is not awesome. In fact, it's just plain retarded. Of course, basic subjects that can be found from kindergarten up to elementary school are acceptable, as they will make up the crux of your general knowledge, but everything else that isn't related to life, your future job, or how to shit money, has no business being a subject in a high school/college curriculum.

Take for instance, chemistry. Sure, a little knowledge about chemistry can come in handy now and then, but all of that shit about how gold is more valuable than silver, or how acid can melt your face can be learned by either watching the movies or paying attention in general science in elementary school. I mean, what the fuck were they thinking when they started teaching teenagers about balancing equations? Nobody in the real world cares about balancing equations, so unless you plan on becoming a scientist, can you really put "Knows how to balance chemical equations" on your resume?

Let's not forget about physics. Oh physics, how I wanted to punch your inventor in the nuts. To me, physics was one of the most irrelevant subjects in high school. It's just stupid. I mean, they'd ask you questions like, "If Pete leaves his house in a car at 2:00 PM and drives with an initial velocity of 2.0 m/s and accelerates at a constant rate of 1.2 m/s, at what point will he pass by Steve, who leaves his house at precisely the same time and drives at a constant velocity of 10 m/s?" Answer: Who the fuck cares? Unless Pete and Steve are planning to fill their cars with high explosives, crash head on, and tell me beforehand so that I can videotape them, I wouldn't have given a flying fuck about where they were going to meet on the road. I mean, physics doesn't even have merit in everyday life. Who the hell goes around calling their friends asking, "Hey man, you driving to work right now? How fast are you going? Oh, 50 MPH huh? Well, I predict that you'll get there in 2 minutes and 23 seconds. Isn't that awesome? I learned that in physics during high school. What's that? I'm going to die alone and a virgin?" *click* (Line goes dead)

And don't get me started on math. Holy crap. Even today, math remains as the bane of my existence. Don't get me wrong, I see how math has merits. Counting money, telling time, you know, the basics. What gets to me is why they need to teach us the really advanced stuff. I mean, I'm currently enrolled in a business course, so math is probably going to haunt me for the rest of my life, but I know for a fact that I can get through life without ever knowing how to calculate for the standard deviation of a population mean. All the math you need in life, you learn as a kid. Adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing, percentages, decimal points, etc. These are the only things you need to concern yourself with, and even then there's always this little invention called the calculator. As a matter of fact, some of the most successful people in the world owe their success to things that aren't even remotely related to math. Did J.K. Rowling become successful because she wrote "Harry Mathnerd and the Area of the Circle?" Did Will Smith ever get nominated for an Oscar for "Best Application of Logarithmic Differentiation"? Did Oprah Winfrey ever tell her audience to go learn how to solve for the continuity of functions of one variable? Hell no! Sure, these people may have a few math skills here and there, but they'd probably only use them so that they can count their assloads of money.

Of course, who can forget P.E.? The ultimate waste of time, the subject that everyone knows is a joke. In fact, I think that the only reason P.E. was even considered to be a subject in school was so that the morons who took up teaching in college but failed miserably would have a place to go to. I mean, even the teachers who teach P.E. know that their subject is a joke. Most of them just let the class pass by with a glazed look in their eyes, always dreaming of what they should have done right in college, while others, try to justify their current situation to themselves by trying to make us take the subject seriously. The first kind is alright. Sure, it's a monumental waste of time and money because they just sit around and let you do whatever the hell you want, but at least they're not like the second kind. The second type of teacher is what makes P.E. hell on Earth. Not only is P.E. such a drag to go to (as it's usually held either after classes or on days wherein you have no other classes), but it's even more annoying when the teacher actually expects you to take P.E. seriously. Sure, playing basketball or dancing with a hot classmate can be kind of fun, but the moment the teacher actually gives you homework and/or written exams, it starts to fuck things up. We have enough on our plates already, and a lousy, useless subject demands our already strained attention to it. And you know what the worst part is? If you're unlucky enough, your P.E. will be scheduled on either a Saturday (which means going out with friends), or before a class. What's so bad about that you say? Double back for a second and think about it. Most of the time, P.E. will require physical exertion of some kind. Physical exertion is synonymous with sweat, sweat is synonymous with a gross/sticky feelings, and interesting yet nauseating smells, which then lead to a general loss of friends, and overall depreciation amongst the opposite sex.

I'm not against learning for the sake of learning. In fact, I think that everyone needs to adopt this kind of attitude towards knowledge in general. It's just that it bothers me that our educational leaders of the past, present, and possibly the future, suddenly decided to stuff "knowledge" down our throats. Knowledge shouldn't be forced on the student, the student needs to be willing to accept it. Ask any adult who's graduated from college about the shit that they've learned in high school and I guarantee you that they've forgotten most of it. Hell, ask yourself about the crap that you've learned. You'll find that most of what you remember is either something that caught your interest, made you laugh, or made you fail. I know, because the only reason I remember the term "Gluteus Maximus" is because it means "ass".

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

There are some "common subjects" that courses have... there are also pre-requisites being offered and required to be taken just because the university says so, and yet has very minute pertinence to your goal... sighs... the capitalism of education, the commodification of education where you buy three useless units and its only a win-win situation if ur will shall allow it.

Anonymous said...

ohh love this entry! haha.

Kwagoo said...

i'm gonna kick your Gluteus Maximus...

hahahahaha....

Maricel said...

lovin' every bit of this entry! (although I must say I was a bit serious during my highschool days... ssshhh...) LOL!!! But yeah, forgot them all! HAHAHAHA!!!!!

I'm even surprised that you remembered those "standard deviation" term! I totally forgot all about them! YIKES! And to think I loved math for that matter... EEEWWW!!!!

Anonymous said...

ok nice rant dude...but take no offense if i disagree a little about the content =) haha God strike me down with lightning if I didn't admit that I also hated taking these subjects lol... but i had to take this into mind, that these subjects actually make our lives easier today... take for example chemistry, most medicine treatments wouldn't exist if not for the subject, and we would have cable cars and elevators that crashed with its passengers to their deaths if their makers didn't know how to calculate tension and whatever they needed...=P Let's face it,not all of us are contented with knowing the basic things, that's why they add these subjects to HS curriculum, probably for the reason that maybe some kid would be more interested in some complicated math theory rather than going out with his friends and contribute for the betterment of all mankind... i get your point about knowledge "being stuffed down our throats", but if ever we actually removed these subjects from the curriculum and offered them as optional credits instead, would somebody take them? It would become a catastrophe leading to slowing or even a standstill of our progress, i mean how many teenagers today would blow off their time of having fun and go to class and sit through boring lessons of science and math... less potential scientists and mathematicians will emerge, less research, less development...

haha... sorry for being too serious about this lol...i know you wrote this to have fun... just wanted to give my opinion on the topic =)...

Kevin said...

A strong kick-ass finish. :)

Razaele said...

Heh. Thanks for all the comments guys! Don't worry marlon, I take constructive criticism positively. Just remember, my rants aren't to be taken seriously most of the time. Sit back, relax, and enjoy!

Anonymous said...

You have an interesting Education system- P.E. Was always treated as a normal class with regards to scheduling in both of the high schools I went to.

Which meant at the first it was a daily thing, and in the second, due to blog scheduling, it was more or less an every other day thing.
I usually had them first thing in the morning, too, but oddities of scheduling.

I tend to see the merits of these so-called "useless" subjects in nearly everyday life, too. It gives me an interesting way to look at things.

In short, I respectfully disagree with your stance here, and am bewildered and confused by your P.E. rant.

Anonymous said...

A line spoken by the Cheshire Cat to Alice in American Mcgee's Alice:

Your knife is necessary but not sufficient. Collect all that is useful, reject only your ignorance and you may survive.