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Thankyou! Felt like I was being backed into a corner!
I did do history for 7 years and continue to study it and it's more than just names and dates. How can you learn anything about today without looking at history and historiography?
I do childcare now and I suppose you could argue that there is some history in that, with the theorists and educators side of things and yes I learn about them but I needn't study history in order to learn about these people. Doing a vocational child care course has taught me about these people and what they found and did and I have the utmost respect for them. So why is history generally so important - surely it is better to learn relevant history in a vocational course rather than just history in general?
And since when has anyone ever studied history in general?
That is all we did at school it was general history
General history, so you managed to study all history spanning thousands upon thousands of years. Well done.
:yes: which is why when I learnt names and dates it seemed like a load of boring bollucks and put me off for life!
and Yerascrote you are just being daft now - you know what I meant by general history you are just being picky and not taking anyone elses point of view into consideration so it might suit you if i say the following
"history is vitally important and we could not live without it. Everyone must study it"
There we go.
History may be important to you and to plenty of other people, but its not an essential subject, any more than art is, which was MY particular pet subject.
Its not even the point of the debate though. Everyones going to have different ideas of what are important subjects to study, but the reality is, most people can easily get by in life without studying most of the crap they teach in school, although im not doubting that having a varied education in all sorts of things helps to make one a well rounded individual and increases prosepects in life.
No, I don't know what you mean by general history. That would imply all history. If you study WW2 you're not studying general history. If you study 1066, you're not studying general history. They all have a purpose and the study of them is important for understanding the world it is today. And I don't know what schools' you lot went to but my teachers actively encouraged us to question why things happened, for what reason and how they have shaped today.
Bollocks. The reason you don't think it's important is because you probably thought it was boring. Maths is boring, so is chemistry, does not mean they are not important.
Don't worry, I agree with you and SCC - though I struggle to see how we've got onto such a specific subject from the general school leaving age being raised.
I wouldn't consider History an important subject, unless it was, like Ashlee said before, the history of something I'm studying. "General" history (which is what I'd call my school History lessons - we studyed so many various time periods and so on that I couldn't just say "Oh I studied WW2" because I studied so many other things) it isn't essential unless it's part of your future. Which for the majority of people it isn't
Yes some people enjoy it, and fair play to them. But that doesn't mean people should be forced to learn things they don't want or need.
I know that. But to be fair, you go through all my old History books, and find me more than 3 examples of where I used all the skills you mentioned above.
Then go through my Maths and English books.
The amount of times they'd try getting us to do things, and explaining things in lessons like Geography and History - and R.E actually - and someone would call out "Ohhhh we did this in Maths/English/Science!".
Maths wasnt particularly boring, although i found it quite hard. Chemistry wasnt boring, although id argue that chemistry isnt that important either.
:yes: I HATED Maths, yet I was more willing to try in that than History. my History lessons were spent being dictated to, and copying names, dates and locations out of textbooks. In Maths, we were given things to solve, it made me think. My History lessons were mindless, my teacher was flabbergasted when I dropped it, because I'd got A's in all my work......
.... but to be fair, it's pretty easy to get an A for copying out of a book.
Moot point. All politics is inspired from historiography. Simple as.
Are you fucking serious? Go back to bed now, "Chemistry isn't important", fuck does any one here know what their talking about?
There are basic subjects that everyone needs a grasp in, and there are some, that while undoubtedly may come in handy in life, are not imperative that people learn.
Its NICE to know them, thats all.
Theres LOADS of subjects I think people should learn really, and plenty i wish id taken more of an interest in at school, but they havent been majorly important in my life.
These days it should probably be Maths, English language, IT, Home economics, with a few others, and plenty of opportunity to be able to choose other subjects if youre interested in them, with support and decent teachers.
Wow. Your selection of important subjects (Considering this would be secondary level) seems very strange to me.
Home economics? Errr. Yeah, that's incredibly important that. God knows where I would be now were it not for those fundamentally important lessons baking marble cakes.
IT? Really I think that that's a bit pointless as its own lesson, to be honest. Yeah, bit ironic coming from me as a tech graduate, but IT classes are, essentially, pointless. Maybe using IT is important, but that should come through use of IT in order to carry out tasks (EG for another subject). IT in and of itself is only really useful to people who want to work as IT people.
Personally, I'd list down some slightly different important subjects -
History - The importance of History really shouldn't be under-rated (though it is.) History classes teach massively important skills such as dealing with evidence to prove cases, the reliability and bias of subjects, and constructing arguments. These things are not covered by English classes.
Latin - Very few people will study Latin these days, which is a shame, but there you go. Of course, I don't find it useful because it means that I can string together Latin sentances to talk to all my dead buddies in the Roman army. No. I can't really remember the Latin words and such. However, I think it's useful because, as a subject, it explores the genesis of our current language, and puts a lot of importance on how words and language is formed. It means that now, today, in the fairly unlikely event that I don't recognise an English word, I'll have a good chance of knowing what it means anyway, even if that's at a subsconcious level.
French - In combination with Latin, probably means that I could get by in most of Europe. I wouldn't necessarily say that it's any better than any other European language to learn. But useful, yeah.
Physics / Chemisty - At secondary level, probably more useful/important than following maths. Maths starts to diverge off from being useful and cover more abstract concepts. Physics and Chemistry however teach us how and why some things in the world behave the way that they do. They tell us that, if we build a table, it will be useful to have legs supporting the weight evenly. Or if we make a fireplace, don't build it out of wood. That sort of thing.
At the end of the day though, I'm finished with my education, so the only way any of this will affect me is when I have a kid who is coming up to the age where he or she needs to decide on what subjects to take further. And by that time they'll probably have completely change the school system so you just do whatever you want.
I think it is necessary to have a grasp of the past in order to understand the present, and the future. The way the world is today is clearly shaped and influenced by the past. Right now I'm looking at the French Revolution and the ideas of Rousseau and I can see how the themes and ideas of 18th century France continue in society today! Human society moves in cycles and I think it is comforting to know that. (This probably doesn't make sense to anyone but myself!)
As for the actual issue being discussed... I am in favour of raising the age of leaving education to 18. I think those who favour a vocational course should be allowed that freedom (as is suggested in the article) and those who want to follow a more traditional path will continue to do so.
In the job I do I talk to parents of 16/17 year olds on a daily basis and it is very rare to speak to someone whose child has a well paid job that gives them fulfilment and pays well. Most 16/17 year olds who aren't in education or doing some sort of training seem to me, from the figures I've had access to at work, to be dossing around sponging off mummy and daddy.
I agree GOOD HE lessons would give valuable skills for living on your own. I mean I did HE for 3 years and why wasn't I taught how to make a roast dinner? I knew how to make fairy cakes, it was real food I didn't know how to make. Home Economics would be a very good, useful subject if it was taught correctly. The same theory probably applies to many other subjects also, like D&T (please teach me how to put a shelf up not make a stupid box) and History (please teach me who was amazing people to shape the world today not just copying from a text book).
At the end of the day people are always going to disagree on this. I say history is rubbish because the history I was taught was rubbish. I say ICT is fantastic because my ICT lessons were fantastic. Everyone went to different schools, and has different interests therefore we all view different subjects differently and hold different thoughts on what are "important" and "valuable" lessons.
I didn't know home economics was taught anymore, I thought it had been relabelled as food technology or something similar. When I did it it had pretty much nothing to do with giving you the ability to cook a roast dinner or whatever, it was about the technoogy side of it all. We learnt about ingredients and their purpose (how does yeast make bread rise and why, for example), nutrition and health. Sure, when we were in years 7-9 we made cakes and macaroni cheese but it wasn't so that we could make them, it was so that we knew how to use an oven, and why cakes rise etc.
Personally I think it is a parental responsibility to teach children and young people to cook.
general sciences should teach the scientific method and many of the main things it has showed us
english teaches skills in subjective arguments and clever use of language
history teaches skills in source criticism and a basic grounding of historical events that are relevant socially/culturally and politically and the causes/aftermaths of them
from working in a school, it seems like most schools are just exam passing factories though ie learning for a means to an end, not to remember afterwards, much like the driving test
remove national exams up to KS4 and increase the amount of variety of options post 16 and for adults too, so it isnt just vocational or just academic, but a mic for people who would benefit from a varied education post16