Difference being, you chose to learn the latter. You were forced to learn the former.
Also: you chose the way it’s presented. I’ve always been into history (mainly ancient Egypt and medieval Europe) since I was old enough to hold a picture book but I absolutely hated most history classes in school because the presentation wasn’t right for me. They made us memorize dates, names and what specific event caused a certain war but in the end, those don’t really matter that much.
The important thing to take away from history is the big picture and ironically, the best way for me to get that is by listening to a bunch of individual, personal stories and figure out how they fit together. These days, I listen to a weekly history podcast (shout out to “Geschichten aus der Geschichte” for those who speak German). For most episodes, I still won’t remember individual names or dates but pretty much every episode there are a few moments where I go “oh yeah, they mentioned that aspect in an earlier episode” even if they don’t point it out explicitly. I’ll never remember what year the second defenestration of Prague was or which Emperor it was directed against but after listening to a couple of episodes that roughly relate to that, I will forever remember the broad strokes about what caused the Thirty Years’ War in the 17th century which superficially was about conflicts between Catholics and Protestants but on a deeper level centered around the question who would rule Bohemia and the Empire as a whole.
Whose to say the dolphins didn’t mentally force themselves onto OP? I heard they’re pretty… Nonconsensual.
I used to also think about former when I was a kid. Then I grew up and realized how important history is (especially the recent one). It gives context to what’s happening today explaining why. Also when society knows history it might be less likely to repeat the same mistakes.
Ok but I got to choose
My biggest pet pieve about the sentiment that it’s a waste of time to learn things you won’t use, is that many things people complain about they ought to be able to use, or at least it helps them form an understanding that helps them learn other things in the future.
The mfs who are practically innumerate bother me, because it’s so easy to lie to them.
If you don’t know how to multiply, then I want you to go learn it.
I knew someone I worked with in a cafe, that couldn’t do the multiplication necessary to sell some remaining beans less than the 250g bags we usually sold, at a pro-rata price.
i.e. if the beans were $15 for a 250g bag, she couldn’t calculate the pro-rata price for 178g.
It hurt my soul.
I wish, that I could tell younger me about why fractions are important to learn.
Don’t think the little asshole would listen…
The challenge I had as a kid was that everything was taught either as abstracts, or in ways that wasn’t interesting to me.
Like I remember so much math class, the teacher was using sports metaphors. And I remember tuning out the moment football was discussed.
I always find real life examples when my students come to me with math/physics questions.
Trigonometry, thermal expansion, leverage, functions, fractions; “let’s go downstairs to the machine shop, and I’ll show you”.
Same thing for me. I struggled heavily with algebra and geometry, but physics? That was cake because it was real, measurable, and practical. It made sense to learn, and it was interesting enough to keep me focused.
“Yo tiny six-year-old Danekrae, one day you’re gonna encounter parts of stuff and you’re gonna need to describe it in words. Also what happens if some bully takes ‘some’ of your candy bar? How are you gonna tell the teacher how bad you got robbed?”
Nice try but I didn’t get half of what your saying. Three eighths at best and my minimum is three sevenths
I feel the same way about all math. I had such shitty math teachers, sometimes they literally did not know the subject at all (e.g. geometry). Now I find it fascinating, but so daunting to approach from scratch. I want a Numberphile-style teacher to explain why all the concepts are actually important, exciting, mysterious, etc.
For me, numberphile felt boring but Veritasium hit the spot. Everyone’s different I suppose! (Numberphile is great and maybe I should check them out again but it just wasn’t my pace, that’s all)
I agree Numberphile can be slower, but I love James and watch a lot of Matt Parker (Stand-Up Maths), too, whom I discovered through Numberphile. There are a few good presenters on there, but others are a bit dull.
I do love Matt Parker too!
I still don’t get why I needed to know the name and date of birth of every king, and date and place of every battle. It took me half a lifetime to be able to get interested in anything that happened in the old days because of this, I had an instant mind turn off reaction to anything history related.
People would tell you the intention is to equip you with the tools to learn early in life so you have the skills to do it later for the things you need or want to learn.
I’m not sure the education system actually does that very well but here we are.
I mean when it comes to subjects like math, languages and the various sciences - absolutely, they provide you with some basic tools that you may or may not use later in life. History is the fucking worst though. And a lot of it is the teachers’ fault. You could design tests to be more about explaining what happened, why it was important, etc. But at least in my school, you could barely get a passing grade on only that type of knowledge. You really needed all the dates and shit memorized for a good grade. Really strict teacher, not pleasant at all. Funnily enough - if you took any of her elective classes (extra history and philosophy) that only had like 6 or 7 students each, she was a very different person and the tests were a lot more about your general understanding, rather than being rally anal about very specific facts.
There’s no standardized testing for history in Estonia. No final exam to worry about. The teachers make up their own tests. Only in a few subjects did we actually have national exams. Estonian, English and math are the ones I had to take in high school. They could make significantly better tests if they wanted to. Teachers vary a lot by quality too, so in middle school my biology grade was a 3 (lowest passing grade in Estonia) and in high school it was a 5. The middle school teacher sucked at keeping students interested and the tests were uber strict. Miss one word in an explanation and you lose the point. The high school teacher was way friendlier, more engaging and paid more attention to what you knew, rather than how well you knew the minute details.
I didn’t like it in high school because I was forced to do it with hundreds of other people that made my life hell.
Now I can do it from a comfy chair with a lap full of cats in my slippers.
There’s a podcast about Dolphin social hierarchies? Where ?
Usefulness is irrelevant, only how interesting it is to you.
I think kids might get more excited about math if we showed them how it was used to make video games.
It would be a lot easier if the kids at 12 years old could tell their exact life’s plans so we can tune their curriculum to all their future needs.
Being well-rounded is important. Not every class is there to help you make more money.
That’s essentially the entire premise behind unschooling.
I get it.
I was always thirsty for knowledge.
But you retain “enough” by understanding basic concepts* for later, if needed, to learn more & even get a proper skill out of it.
But it’s pointless to learn stuff you don’t get just got grades. Well, unless to train memory, but there are better ways for that.
(*depth of basic concepts can be pretty significant, I don’t mean that just as a superficial knowledge of a general subject)
