What was the greatest lesson you learned in school?
Of course there was the obvious ABC’s and 1,2,3 but in those early days of formation what helped shape you into the unique person you are today?
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62 Answers
The greatest lesson I learned is that pre-college schooling does NOT adequately prepare you for college.
@mambo Thank you for your response mambo. I appreciate it.
I was lucky to have been born when primary and secondary schools still prepared a student for the life ahead. When I graduated from high school, I was functionally literate; I could express myself verbally and in writing, and I was able to comprehend and analyze what I read. I also had a good knowledge of history, math, geography, and science.
Sadly, things changed over the years. There’s a reason why nearly every first-year college student is required to complete two semesters of basic English grammar and composition. I often take courses at my local community college, just for fun, and it’s painfully obvious that the recent high school graduates are unprepared.
@SadieMartinPaul Thank you SadieMartin souds like you concur with my new friend mambo.
Even teachers can be idiots.
How to make friends for life.
@Pachyderm_In_The_Room Exactly. Although I concentrated on my studies and received passing grades looking back I realize that part of school was learning to socialize with my schoolmates. Great answer.
To always be myself & fuck what blinkered, narrow minded teachers say…losers!
High school girls are backstabbing bitches. Later, I learned that adult women aren’t much better.
@ucme A lesson some folks never learn. Thank you.
@Seek_Kolinahr Teachers can be mean, too. That’s something that spans all eras and generations.
My grammar school principal was a nasty woman who hated children, hit the boys, and violently shook the girls. (Imagine any public school employee trying to do that today?) After a while, she stopped shaking me and, instead, resorted to verbal intimidation. Just a few years ago, my Mom told me a long-kept secret; she stopped by the principal’s office for a little chat and said that if the woman ever touched me again, Mom would come back and physically attack her.
Teachers can be funny too, or at least their names can.
Two teachers of mine were called William Shakespeare & Dave Crockett, okay it wasn’t Davey, but what do you want over here, blood?
@livelaughlove21 Back in the day, there was some cattiness among teenage girls, but nothing close to what goes on now. The attacks are vicious, organized campaigns, often supplemented by internet use.
What really scares me is physical violence among the girls. It used to be that female bullies used gossip and cruel words to intimidate, but they didn’t hit each other.
@SadieMartinPaul During my senior year of high school (2008), one girl pulled a knife on another girl and sliced her throat a little bit, right in the middle of the commons area. And this was in a very safe, upper-middle class area of South Carolina. Why? Fighting over a guy.
I’ve never been involved in a physical altercation – my high school “friends” managed to ruin four years of my life without laying a finger on me. That’s right, they were my friends.
@ucme I had one teacher who was a legendary because of his classroom antics. If he caught you mistakenly yawning in his class. He would stop teaching and go on a rampage of “Am I boring you?” “Do you think you can teach this class better than me?” “Am I disturbing your nap”? Looking back I can see he was very unstable.
@3easychords Oh I got that beat, one teacher would wear his pyjamas beneath his suit & three, count them 3 watches on each wrist. He kept a shoe in his desk drawer & threatened to beat the backsides of any unruly pupils, we just laughed at the daft bugger…mostly.
@ucme HA! Don’t see how they kept their jobs.
@ucme I suppose at times there are shortages and if someone is willing to show up each day and can pass the requirements then they are able to hold on to their position.
This one teacher got so many complaints even the parents wanted to get rid of him but the dean of the school wouldn’t hear of it.
@livelaughlove21 The high school suicides, caused by malicious and relentless bullying, are becoming much too common. Of course, just one such story is one-too-many, but there seems to be a similar news report every month or so.
I graduated from high school in 1974. Sure, there were some snotty girls with superior attitudes. But, what goes on today just didn’t happen back then.
@3easychords The dude I mentioned was a veteran, been there years. Guess they just felt sorry for him & tolerated his eccentric nature.
@ucme That would explain it.
Teachers are bias. I also learned while in school that you are garbage to the faculty if you are not good at studies. Always try to be teacher’s pet, they’ll give you marks with no regard to other students who work harder. I just hate my school days.
The quality of teaching is the most important element of a school. If teaching quality is not good then the students will not learn any thing. I owe my success to my College professors. They were the one’s who actually put effort into teaching me. They always encouraged me to do my best and always strive for the best and nothing less.
I don’t know what’s caused the decline of school systems – whether it’s been systemically caused by general societal changes, or whether it’s specific to problems in education – and I don’t have any solutions to offer.
I do have a friend who taught high school for many years. She finally gave up because she was so disgusted by the parents. According to her, too many parents care only if their children are “happy” at school. They don’t want their kids to learn from challenging classroom lessons and homework assignments, because hard work would make them “unhappy.” They become furious if a teacher, or other school official, punishes them for bad behavior; heck, nobody’s “happy” when being disciplined or held accountable for having done the wrong thing.
How to share. As an only child, it was a great lesson for me, and I care and empathize for others.
@3easychords I’d name & shame him, sure he died years ago & it’s not like anyone here would know him, but it still doesn’t feel appropriate somehow :)
@Smitha I’m sorry to hear that you had a bad experience in your lower grades Smitha yet I don’t feel it is uncommon. So glad to hear that you excelled in your College years.
@SadieMartinPaul I’m not sure either how we can turn around the school system. For some it is used as a daytime babysitter or just a tool to weed out those who will never make it past 11th and 12th grade. Some teachers are highly dedicated and others are there for a paycheck.
@ucme No. There is no need enter his name.
@ucme What would be weird if you did say the name and someone logged on and said “I knew Mr. So and So”. “He was my English teacher.”
Stranger things have happened.
I had more than my share of crappy teachers during my school years. One fell asleep in the classroom pretty much every day. One had a huge chip on her shoulder about race (which makes me wonder why she took a job teaching in a mostly white district in the first place). I’ve had science teachers who didn’t seem to understand the first thing about science, social studies teachers who were more interested in talking about sports, history teachers who’s idea of history was talking about shit out of the Bible, and an art teacher who I’m fairly certain was drunk every day. But, those few good teachers I did have had a ton of impact on the person I grew up to be.
@Darth_Algar Yes I also must admit that good or bad eccentric or otherwise some how these adults have molded and shaped me into the person sitting at this computer screen today but with all the rulers that cracked my knuckles all the “I shall not talk in class” done 100 x’s I had to write, all of the laughter they made me suppress I basically haven’t changed much over the years.
@ucme That’s the power of the internet. We never know.
I learned that teachers were human and to value the good ones and vowed to surround myself with ‘teachers’ for the rest of my life. I never got to a proper 4 year degree university, but I surrounded myself with books and people I would learn from. I have little patience for idiots trying to teach me what they think they know. That is what I learned from school.
@cazzie Excellent answer. Thank you cazzie.
@ucme I always had that one little thing on my grade card throughout school “talks too much during class”, so I feel ya on that. We can’t help it we’re hilarious!
That people are cruel and mean.
@Lorna A lesson that we learn at much too early of an age.
That education is broken and the only way to get educated is to seek it out for yourself. I had a couple of good teachers, several bad ones but most were indifferent. Socially I realized that people generally don’t hate or love each other all that much on the whole. We kind of just put up with each other and tend to gather into like-minded groups. True friendships are rare and are cultivated through sharing important life experiences together. School is one of the worst ways to have kids socialize together, things like scouting I feel were one of the best.
@ARE_you_kidding_me Very interesting. I had a lot of so called friends at school but my best friends didn’t attend the same school I went to. My best friends like you said were from my neighborhood whom I laughed, cried fought with and defended.
Good answer.
@talljasperman I wish I would have known that at an early age. I spent too much time trying to fit in and be popular. It wasn’t until I got much older that I realized that sink or swim it would be totally up to me.
Thanks
@thorninmud Yes. For all those kids who were told that this is the best years of your life.
Thank you.
Sit in front if you want to learn
They weren’t the best years of my life. I am glad they are over and I wouldn’t want them back for anything.
How to get along with people. And it seems to be the one skill sadly lacking in home-schooled children.
That kids, especially girls can be very cruel.
Basing my data on my teachers, and the school principals, only 60% of people are good at their jobs.
That statistic has held true throughout my life.
I had a group of teachers that did an alternative school within my jr high. For half the day we went to an auditorium. It was called Jefferson ll. they taught us the problem solving process and we were allowed to do any project we wanted as long as we presented it in the correct format.
I studied music from the 60’s, painted outhouses in the forest and worked on political campaigns in that class.
The same teachers taught debate in the scientific, point scoring way. It was amazing and helped me to look at different points of view objectively.
Probably the greatest lesson I learned in school was discipline. I went to Catholic Schools and everything was geared for College or the Military.
You reap what you sow. If you work hard, you will soon have positive results. If you choose a bad path, nothing would turn out great for you.
Understanding the hard stuff means being able to explain it to fellow students. Lessons learnt: become a volunteer to explains things to others.
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