Boring Subjects

Originally posted: FEB/26/08

This is a rant about boring subjects in school. There seems to be too much of them these days.

A lot of subjects in school are just really boring. So boring, in fact, that I sometimes get so bored that I can hardly motivate myself to move my penicl across the paper. And I wonder, "Why am I being forced to do this?" It's not like I'm actually learning anything. It's usually too boring to follow.

I talked to my teacher about this, and he asked for suggestions that would make it more fun. I thought about this for a while, then I finally realized that those truly boring subjects just simply can't be made fun. I will admit that some subjects can be made more fun, but most cannot. Let me explain.

Let's say a teacher tries to make a subject (history, for example) more fun by making everybody get into groups and act out a part of the history textbook. Of course, there will be a few people who will enjoy this a bit more. But, it's quite likely that there will be even more people that really don't want to do that, and the boring subject gets even worse to them.

So, what are we supposed to do about it? There's not much we can do about it in this current school system. So, again, we need to change the system. Here's what I think.

When children are very young (too young to make responsible life choices), we teach them the necessities. Everything that's needed in every career, such as most math, english (or whatever language they speak in their country), some basic computer skills (currently, this isn't even taught in most schools at all), and a few other things. Everything else, in my opinion, should be optional.

I believe this because our education should be fine-tuned to what we want to be in the future, as I said in the Forced Education rant.

So here's the bottom line: No matter how you try to dress it up, a boring subject is still a boring subject. You need to teach kids what the really need to know, and then what they want to know. Anything else is a waste of everybody's time.

I'm out for now.

~Alway