Years Later, How Much Of What You Were Taught At School Do You Recall?

[Jockice]

I did three years of German. Literally all I can remember is how to tell someone that an umbrella is blue. It helps break the ice at parties, that one.

New page kraut of order.

[Dr Rock]

So, Oxbow Lakes, and igneous and sedimentary rock aside (both of which have come in dead handy in later life), can anyone remember anything from Geography? Not how you mucked about, I can remember all that, but the stuff they were paid to teach you?

[Non Stop Dancer]

I've often thought about this, funnily enough. The only thing I can say 100% I learned from school is that there are evergreen trees and disiguous ones. That was from when I was about 6. Oh, I also remember how to do addition on paper but I can't remember subtraction, multiplication or division. That's literally it. I was notoriously a lazy, badly behaved shit at school though. Probably be diagnosed with something these days.

[Zetetic]

So, Oxbow Lakes, and igneous and sedimentary rock aside (both of which have come in dead handy in later life), can anyone remember anything from Geography?

Scree slopes.

Think sensible approaches to binning in the context of chroropleths might have come up, and if so that was probably helpful priming.

Something about why men enjoy weeing, which I don't think was on the curriculum.

[Buelligan]

I've often thought about this, funnily enough. The only thing I can say 100% I learned from school is that there are evergreen trees and disiguous ones. That was from when I was about 6. Oh, I also remember how to do addition on paper but I can't remember subtraction, multiplication or division. That's literally it. I was notoriously a lazy, badly behaved shit at school though. Probably be diagnosed with something these days.

Deciduous, I'm afraid.  So that's another loss, usually in autumn.

[jamiefairlie]

I've never got the point of making kids read texts aloud in English lessons. What's to be gained by having someone with no acting/speaking training reading aloud a text they've never seen before? It's obviously going to be boring as fuck.

I'm not sure that was ever really communicated to me though. It was more 'Oxbow lakes are a thing! Remember this for the test next week.'

(I suppose that might be my overall beef with comprehensive-style education, from academic stuff to sport/PE. You're forced to embarrass yourself by doing something badly, but nobody ever actually teaches you to do it better.)

(Edit: Don't want to imply that I'm against comprehensive schools in principle btw, just that's how the system seemed to me.)

Oh yes, the concept of actually teaching you a skill was utterly alien. My weak spot was art/drawing, which basically consisted of being told to draw something and being given no clue as to how to do it.

[drummersaredeaf]

When compiling a recent Zoom quiz round of trees common to the UK, I was reminded of the task to collect leaves as a child of (2)8 or so. I was only reminded of this because the teacher failed to inform us that they could all be gathered from the park neighbouring the school and I was engaged on a hunt of every wood and cemetery in a 15 mile radius in a bid to locate the last couple.

I've also realised how many of my teachers were utterly ill suited for teaching. The head of geography that was permanently teetering on the edge of a breakdown, but also spent the classes making excuses for not having marked anything for 6 months as well as failing to cover the material in class. Same geezer kicked me out in the last period of a hot day for being 'disrespectful' for not putting my hand up high enough. Unsurprisingly, the cunt had a massive heart attack a few years later and had a pig valve inserted. Whatever he's up to now, I imagine it's not teaching.

[pancreas]

Our geography teacher doubled as the PE teacher. One cannot find a purer embodiment of evil.

[idunnosomename]

favelas

[Sin Agog]

I've been clinging onto this trifling goose egg of a memory for so long that it'll probably be the last thing to survive the total entropy of my long-dead brain, but I remember answering the question, 'Where does most of the world's oxygen come from?' with 'the ocean,' only to be shamed by my Alaistair Sim-looking biology teacher in front of the whole class.  Bitch, all the plankton and floating flora in the big blue produce way more o2 than any poxy little rainforest.

[Ferris]

So, Oxbow Lakes, and igneous and sedimentary rock aside (both of which have come in dead handy in later life), can anyone remember anything from Geography? Not how you mucked about, I can remember all that, but the stuff they were paid to teach you?

Scree slopes (active and/or inactive)

[Buelligan]

Our geography teacher doubled as the PE teacher. One cannot find a purer embodiment of evil.

God, ours too.  She desperately fancied my dad, it was quite stomach-turning.  I always thought she richly deserved the cunt.

[Jockice]

My Geography teacher said at parents night: "Your son is a buffoon." I don't know what his problem with me was quite frankly since we shard a common interest in 14-year-old girls.

(This is entirely true, he once called a girl in my class 'a tasty bit' and  when the year above did an end of term cabaret once there was a sketch based on him leering at and feeling up pupils. He didn't seem to mind it though and neither did his wife who was also a teacher there.)

[petril]

Standard Grade English taught me that everything written in dialect basically resolves to sectarianism and/or desolate urban family life

[Thursday]

Geography is the weirdest subject. Utterly unfocused, because while it is mainly about lakes and rocks and weathering. It's not important enough to hang out with the main sciences, so in an attempt to be different, it get's ideas about it's station and can stray into more sociological territory in looking differences in societies in different countries. It's an interesting area to study, but has no business sharing the same category as weathering.

[idunnosomename]

should just be an exam on capitals and which bits used to be pink (not the colour i would've chosen etc)

[Brian Freeze]

So, Oxbow Lakes, and igneous and sedimentary rock aside (both of which have come in dead handy in later life), can anyone remember anything from Geography? Not how you mucked about, I can remember all that, but the stuff they were paid to teach you?

Longshore drift and getting to do lots of colouring in.

Plus the old Oxbows. There's one forming nearby but I don't think I'll see it to completion.

[Clatty McCutcheon]

Standard Grade English taught me that everything written in dialect basically resolves to sectarianism and/or desolate urban family life

That must be why our primary school teachers waged a war against anything that wasn't expressed in standard English. For about two years, I sat next to a boy called Ross who simply refused to accept the word 'yes' in preference to the word 'aye'; but not only that, he insisted on writing 'aye' as I. Also, he would write the actual word I as 'a', so, for example, if he was asked to write a few lines for homework about what he'd done at the weekend, he'd come up with something like:

Mum said Ross do you want to go out and play football and a said I
Mum said do you want potato waffles with your diner Ross and a said I
Mum asked me Ross do you want to watch Rocky and a said I
Mum said do you want a new bike for Christmas Ross and a said I

The teachers would correct all his work to read 'I said yes' and he might stick to that for a day or two.  But then he'd draw a picture of something like Skeletor saying 'Do you think you can take me He-Man?' And He-Man saying 'I' in a speech bubble, and the teacher would reach into the drawer for her secret bottle of vodka (again).

[Clatty McCutcheon]

So, Oxbow Lakes, and igneous and sedimentary rock aside (both of which have come in dead handy in later life), can anyone remember anything from Geography? Not how you mucked about, I can remember all that, but the stuff they were paid to teach you?

To be fair, I did learn some basic meteorology in school geography.

Also, I learned that compasses work on the basis of polarities in the earth's magnetic field, not true north, so you need to add whatever the current variation is to get a true reading. I suppose if I had any idea of the current variation, it might prevent me from walking off a cliff or becoming benighted in a gully.

From other subjects, sometimes a formula from my S Grade/Higher Physics 'studies'of c.1996/97 will pop into my head entirely context-free, but since I have no call to calculate the acceleration or velocity of a ball falling off a cliff or a rocket being launched, it's of fuck-all use.

[idunnosomename]

does Rule 34 apply to oxbow lakes

[Goldentony]

english - the crucibile? had witches in didnt it, to kill a mockingbird - dont be racist, didnt have my copy of wuthering heights with me in sixth form so the teacher who e called smithers because he looked exactly like smithers told me to go home, and instead of noticing a pattern or whatever he did that twice, some guy who looked like a cross between Alan Partridge and David Dickinson and a vampire who was a cunt but could unfortunately be alright enough for you to forget, dont remember him teaching me anything, the class we did the crucible in was famous for our teacher not turning up until about 20 minutes into a class for every year I was in it, I remember first year I was in bottom set then did better than they thought and they boosted me up without warning so I went from writing a magazine as a project with a mate that we called THE SHIZNITAY with a car crash on the front and an agony aunt page with Vinnie Jones

[JesusAndYourBush]

So, Oxbow Lakes, and igneous and sedimentary rock aside (both of which have come in dead handy in later life), can anyone remember anything from Geography? Not how you mucked about, I can remember all that, but the stuff they were paid to teach you?

I'm not even joking, but I remember my geography teacher Mr Dean pointing at a big map on the wall and saying "This is Rockall, and it's worth sod-all", which is wrong because it extends the fishing rights.  I think he just liked the sound of the feeble rhyme.

Oh yes, the concept of actually teaching you a skill was utterly alien. My weak spot was art/drawing, which basically consisted of being told to draw something and being given no clue as to how to do it.

Oh yes, we were never taught any technique at all.  My artistic ability is probably that of an 8-year-old.

Standard Grade English taught me that everything written in dialect basically resolves to sectarianism and/or desolate urban family life

At around age 10 I once did an essay with the dialogue of one of the people written in dialect and got told it was wrong to do this, because "everything muct be written correctly"!


And talking of phrases that are drummed into you, this literally just popped into my head : "the angle of incidence is equal to the angle of reflection".  Physics I think, something to do with light reflected in a mirror maybe?

[dissolute ocelot]

1. Chemistry random facts have proven endlessly useful in pub quizzes. Methanol, ethanol, propanol, chemical formulas, you name it.
2. The rules of cricket, which are invaluable everywhere from the Guardian crossword to pub quizzes.
3. We did learn how to wire a plug in physics, which was useful for about a year before they changed the law on plugs. Fucking EU, can we go back to dangling wires now? I'm pretty sure I could still do it.
4. The Highland Clearances were bad but didn't have any connection with capitalism, modernity, or Britain's shitty political system. A lot of people on boats in funny hats though. All we did in History was World War One and the Highland Clearances, in both cases completely missing the point.
5. Something about Mount Fuji. At least to the extent that it's in Japan and pointy.
6. It's much easier to walk than run, but slower and possibly colder.
7. Art teachers are much nicer than maths teachers, but less able to control a class. I've literally just learnt how to silk screen, which is all I can remember doing in art but till last November could no more do than I could sculpt marble.

I did learn how to play bridge, but I fear that knowledge may now be lost along with the Shakespeare quotes and integrals.

[The Dog]

Wish they'd taught me which things go in the recycling bin because I don't have a clue. Been piling stuff behind the sofa but people are gonna notice and then I'll have to move again.

[greenman]

Geography is the weirdest subject. Utterly unfocused, because while it is mainly about lakes and rocks and weathering. It's not important enough to hang out with the main sciences, so in an attempt to be different, it get's ideas about it's station and can stray into more sociological territory in looking differences in societies in different countries. It's an interesting area to study, but has no business sharing the same category as weathering.

Was spilt between physical and human geography in terms of classes at my school, the latter being boring as hell. Really Geography like History seems to be a subject were significant effort had gone into making sure it was taught in a dull fashion, mountains, volcanos and glaciers should be rather more fun.

[Jittlebags]

I remember that boiled ladybirds have no taste. Well, I deduce that from those we used to put in the science master's kettle. Also, burning phosphorus smoke smells like smoky bacon crisps. Did everyone's chemistry labs have those brown stains on the roof? Suprised by the number of stains that no one had actually been blinded by looking down a test tube whilst holding it over a bunsen.

[petril]

Daz Sampson considers rewrite

[ProvanFan]

Vikings

[badaids]

I remember that Stephen Robertson was nicknamed Honeyrub because he walked around his house rubbing honey on his bollocks and that Sarah Back was nicknamed The Toad because she had sex in a tree.

[idunnosomename]

still don't know if "getting off" means snogging or intercourse