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

[Goldentony]

RELIGION - A GUY WHONTURNED OUT TO NOT HAVE TO QUALIFICATIONS TO BE A TEACHER WHO TAUGHT UJS FOR ABOUT TWO MONTHS TOLD USJ ONCE HOW TO BREAK DOWN CZECHOSLOVAKIA TO SPEL IT RIGHT HE WENT

YER GOOOO SEE ZEE ECHO SLOVAK EYE YAY YER SEE?

THATS IT

[The Culture Bunker]

It's coming up 18 years since I left full time education, and there's not much of what I learned left in the memory these days. My main takeaway is that I've not once been asked to prove I have the assorted GCSEs, A levels and degree that I say I do - perhaps because my grades were so middling, people assume there's no way I'd make it up.

Basically, I could have stayed at home from the age of 11 to 21 and probably still been alright.

[dissolute ocelot]

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

Actually I remember our sex education which was in its entirety a runthrough of every method of contraception (in a surprisingly unjudgmental way). So I knew what a coil was but had no idea about a blowjob.

[idunnosomename]

oh yes I know about all the ridiculous forms of contraception like the female condom (basically a carrier bag in the fanny) from that. we never put a condom on a banana though

[imitationleather]

All I can remember from sex education is that the teacher told us we won't go blind from wanking.

[idunnosomename]

i think our sex ed and also drugs ed was quite balanced all said and done

LSD probably is a bit risky to take if you ever plan on operating heavy machinery in your future

[imitationleather]

I remember we watched a video where the effects of each drug were explained in a car-based metapor.

Speed is like you're driving really fast.

Cannabis is like you're driving slowly.

Ecstasy is like you're drivng but really happy.

LSD is like you're driving and the windscreen is covered in colourful liquid.

I was already taking drugs at the weekend by this point so I could really appreciate what a poor way this was to explain what being on one feels like.

[pigamus]

Voici la port
Voici la gare
Voici l'hotel
Et le syndicat d'initiative

Voici la something
Voici la something
Voici la something
Et le boulevard general de gaulle

[Sonny_Jim]

I was already taking drugs at the weekend by this point so I could really appreciate what a poor way this was to explain what being on one feels like.

This was always the problem with drug information campaigns.  They'd heavily promote the negative effects to absurdity in some cases, meaning that anyone who had actually taken drugs would instantly stop listening as it was obvious they didn't know what the fuck they were talking about.  I remember being impressed with the FRANK adverts, as they always seemed to be a bit more balanced, rather than wall-to-wall TAKING DRUGS MAKES YOU DEAD.

Back on topic, I ended up doing 'Food & Nutrition' as a subject, as I figured it would just be pissing about baking cakes and the like.  Really glad I made that decision, as not only did we piss about making cakes, we also got taught stuff like consumer rights, contract law etc.  I'm actually amazed how much of that stuff I learned I still use today.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

The best drugs information film was this by Rik Mayall:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Id4Gv3kpoos

I honestly think it should have been included as part of the syllabus. Provided a much more balanced viewpoint on the whole drugs ting and encouraged the viewer to make up their own minds after being given the pros and cons.

[Buelligan]

I remember we watched a video where the effects of each drug were explained in a car-based metapor.

Speed is like you're driving really fast.

Cannabis is like you're driving slowly.

Ecstasy is like you're drivng but really happy.

LSD is like you're driving and the windscreen is covered in colourful liquid.

I was already taking drugs at the weekend by this point so I could really appreciate what a poor way this was to explain what being on one feels like.

Oh fuck me, our drugs thing.  We had this big baldy pig come in and strut about the room waving a burning cube of soap and telling us all it would destroy us.  After, I went out the back and got done for smoking a normal fucking fag and was suspended because they thought I must know were all the drugs were.  I imagine the pig soap show had fired them up and apparently, headmistress saw me walking down a road where the druggies lived.  Ever alert, I politely enquired where that road might be.  When they were done, hitched to the village, located the den and tapped on the door with a winning smile.  Never looked back. 

[timebug]

I remember most of what we were taught, although immediately post WW2 the curriculum was pretty much a shambles. And as I was off sick for six weeks once, when I returned all my pals were speaking a new language (to me) called Algebra; which I never did exactly get the hang of. Many tears later I took the trouble to teach  myself Algebra, from a book (pre-internet  days!) and now have a basic grasp of the concept(s) involved. Geography was shite though, as our bloke barely had a grasp of where any country was, let alone trying to pass it on to us!

[dissolute ocelot]

Voici la port
Voici la gare
Voici l'hotel
Et le syndicat d'initiative

Voici la something
Voici la something
Voici la something
Et le boulevard general de gaulle

"Ecce in pictura est puella quae nomine Cornelia. Etiam in pictura est altera puella quae nomine Flavia."

[JesusAndYourBush]

And as I was off sick for six weeks once, when I returned all my pals were speaking a new language (to me) called Algebra; which I never did exactly get the hang of.

Something similar happened to me with logarithms, except I didn't have any time off so I don't know how I missed it.  Suddenly everyone had these little books of "log tables".  They'd not been mentioned before, and I don't know whether they'd been given out or if we'd been expected to buy our own from somewhere because it'd never been mentioned before.  Everyone knew how to use them and what the fuck a logarithm was but nobody had ever mentioned it before it so consequently I was really shit at that aspect of maths.  Still not got a fucking clue what happened there, maybe they put me in the wrong maths set.

[kngen]

Being told that there were two timings in music, 4/4 and 3/4, and thinking 'That doesn't sound right' and then ignoring everything else in music class from then on.

I could probably solve a simultaneous equation at a push.

And learning that in Russian the verb 'to go' is so multi-faceted, with seemingly infinite conjugations, that you'll still be learning them well into your second year, while all the other language classes are having lovely chats with imaginary bank tellers and hoteliers. I put the high rate of alcoholism in that country down to this.

[Fambo Number Mive]

Something I learnt was if you are good at sport at school people will be more likely to like you, and if you are really bad, even if you can't see without your glasses, they will really dislike you. Not helped by the bread and circuses bullshit that is House Sport.

Also, I still remember being taught the following:

Your foot being run over by a Mini tyre will hurt more than your foot being run over by a tractor tyre.

The Speed/Distance/Time triangle, which very occasionally comes in handy.

[Jockice]

The first verse of How They Brought The Good New From Ghent To Aix. By Robert Browning.

[Dr Rock]

In maths, I remember us being taught about negative numbers. I already knew about them though, so that doesn't count. I did learn that we count in Base 10, probably because we have ten digits, but you could equally count in Base 8, or even binary. That was interesting Mr Maths teacher who turned out to be a nonce.

[Fambo Number Mive]

Must have been a bit weird teaching with that surname.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

Oh yes, the songs. I went to a C of E primary school, so a lot of the religious hymns and songs we sung every day are permanently lodged in my brain.

Shine, Jesus shine
Fill this land with the Father's glory
Blaze, spirit blaze
Set our hearts on fire

Quite an upbeat number, that one.

[pigamus]

It's just like a magic penny
Hold it tight and you won't have any
Lend it spend it and you'll have so many
They'll roll all over the floor

For

[idunnosomename]

Must have been a bit weird teaching with that surname.

his full name was Gary Maths teacher who turned out to be a nonce

[JesusAndYourBush]

Did anyone else do the thing where when you sang "O Come All Ye Faithful" when it got to the "Oh come let us adore him"(x3) part you sang each line louder than the previous, and on the 3rd time everyone literally screamed it as loud as was humanly possible?

[Jockice]

Our school song. All of it. Ingrained in the head of every ex-pupil of that place. It's so familiar I always thought it must be a reworded hymn or used in other similarly-named schools* but both the tune and words seem to be unique to the place I went to.

(*The secondary school my sister went to had the same name as the one I went to, even though they were not only in a different town/city, but in a different country. It certainly wasn't her school song.)

[non capisco]

All I remember about our anti-drugs 'special classes' was that in 1990, during the second summer of love when we were all running round the playground shouting "acieeeeeeeeeed", we were shown a film about glue sniffing. And the only thing I can remember about that was the entire class collapsing into hysterics after the line "Do I look like a glue sniffer to you?!!", delivered especially poorly by some unfortunate rat-faced child whose agency bio probably kicked off with "Ideal for portraying a glue sniffer."

[Mr Farenheit]

Also remember the thing about counting in base 10. I think we were taught it in primary school, the lesson was that dogs had taken over the world and we all had to learn to count in base 4 like our canine overlords. Great stuff.

Maths never reached those heights again but I remember it suddenly got way more complicated and interesting, and the maths teachers much more animated, when we learned calculus. Can not remember any of it now though.

From art: sky is lighter at the bottom, hills miles away are blue (which tied into English and  tennessee williams), "theres no such colour as black". "To avoid ___ like the plague" is a well known saying and you shouldn't laugh out loud as though its a brilliant original joke when your art teacher says it if you don't want detention.

[The Dog]

Goblyns scare with stones and stickes,
Devyls must be fooled with tryckes.
Whene ye lyttle men abound,
Burn ye foreste to the ground.
Ev'ry crooked man you see,
Hang him from ye Hawthorne tree,
And should you spy a pedo's sign
You must call the Childlyne. 

[The Dog]

Had to learn that in PSE lessons and it stayed with me even though I can't remember what PSE was now.

[JesusAndYourBush]

but both the tune and words seem to be unique to the place I went to.

At my school we sang songs with the words displayed with an overhead projector - the words written on transparent sheets of plastic.  Usually the first verse would be written big, the next verse smaller. and the 3rd verse written even smaller because whoever wrote it hadn't left enough space.  Combine this with the way the projector was positioned meant the bottom of the image was smaller anyway.  It'd have been better if they'd started writing from thr bottom upwards!

So I've tried Googling one of these songs we sang and have come to the conclusion it's a unique song written by one of the teachers.

The song was titled "Flat Spin", the title doesn't appear in the lyrics and doesn't make much sense as a title.

The song has 3 verses (or 3 choruses), and the little I remember went something like this.

Up above the (something) dashing
(something something something) flashing
(something something something) (another word ending in -ing)
Now we're going sledging.

The 2nd and third verses were the same structure, with the same last line, and with a key change for the middle verse.

As songs go it's pretty crap, but I can't find it anywhere so I assume a teacher wrote it.

[The Culture Bunker]

Something I learnt was if you are good at sport at school people will be more likely to like you, and if you are really bad, even if you can't see without your glasses, they will really dislike you. Not helped by the bread and circuses bullshit that is House Sport.

At my school, if you were very good at rugby, you could get away with being a bullying prick and most teachers would turn a blind eye to your behaviour.

I had a physics teacher whose response to my saying I didn't like rugby after he proposed I'd be good for the team (as I was so much taller than nearly everyone my age) was "are you a poofter, then?"

So I suppose casual homophobia is something I do remember from school.