Here comes the list

"I'd like you to be able to look back at your time in this class and think that it wasn't a waste of time"- Dr. Tim Hillman, PhD and master of digression.

Or the quote was something like that, anyway. I do feel that this class is not a waste of time. However, thinking about this made me wonder: what classes were a waste of time? After thinking about this, I came to the conclusion that the only class I find to be technically a waste of time is gym. That's not to say that I don't like gym, I love it. But objectively I have to say that I dont think my brain grew much from running around like a maniac and completing the occasional "Drugs = not good" posters that we are forced to make for the "health" portion of the class.

I do think that there are many classes that students dismiss as useless without giving much thought to the statement. I decided to make a list of some of these classes and explain why I think these classes can be useful as long as the student tries to make the most of it.

English- "English? Who needs that? I'm never going to England" - Homer Jay Simpson.
Whether or not the teacher does a good job teaching the class, english class does give an oppurtunity to learn worthwhile skills. I have found through writing research papers that even though they're not fun to write, I gained an ability to develop my own opinions from writing them. Also, learning vocabulary words is only truly useless if the learner has no intention of remembering or using them after the test. I am guilty of forgeting most of these words myself, but I'm just saying it's not a bad thing to find new ways to express yourself. Ever hear a rap song where the artist just throws in fifty swears into one song because it sells and there's no challenge in expressing things that way? Maybe artists like that could use a vocab test or two.

History- I've heard others complain about this one too, because when will we use this in our lives? Learning about past mistakes is the best way to not repeat them ourselves. Sometimes the only way to learn is the hard way, but if we look at events that took place before our time, we can take what worked and do the same and try to avoid doing things that caused great pain and suffering. For example, history shows us that all great empires that were once in power eventually crumbled as it tried to gain more and more power over others. If the majority of the nation paid attention to things like this, it might have been less likely that we would get someone in office who says to the whole world "You're either with us or against us" without caring what the consequences are.

Math- "Why do we have to learn this? We'll never use this in real life" - Just about every kid in any given school that I know of.
I always have a few arguments toward this point. For one, at least math teachers use this in real life, because they have to teach it to other kids. Secondly, it's not the math teachers job to know exactly which math skills you will need in your entire life. He/she just can't do that, and neither can you. Most importantly, math is used one way or another every day. Every video game and computer program that we take for granted had to have some math behind it. People have to make measurements when they create buildings. And heaven forbid if the cash register broke at stop and shop, the clerk might have to subtract $1.46 from five bucks to get the correct change without the help of a machine!

The bottom line is that if something we are taught is not immediately practical in every day life, we regard the content we're learning as useless. It is a sad truth that the concept of learning for the sake of learning is becoming more and more foreign to us as society changes.