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Contrary to popular opinion, I actually found my English classes incredibly useful— all the way through English Comp for my University Core curriculum. They wer

Contrary to popular opinion, I actually found my English classes incredibly useful— all the way through English Comp for my University Core curriculum. They were less about learning grammar and whatnot (though they did teach to write more eloquently at the higher levels) and more about digesting information and thinking critically. People love to wave English around as the most useless class of them all, but when taught correctly it’s really the most important. It influences how we consume media, how we write, and how we communicate with one another. All of those skills are incredibly important in all other classes and I think having a concentrated environment to learn them is valuable.

em-bee 5y ago
oh, i didn't mean to devalue native language classes in general. apart from the issue that the value of any class depends on how it is taught, i merely wanted to criticize the suggested dependency to other classes. case in point, digesting information and thinking critically are things that should be taught in all classes. i actually find it problematic if a teacher expects that it is some other teachers job to teach any skills that are necessary in their own class. this is just an unnecessary division of learning, when, as i believe, integrated learning should be more effective. this culminates in the concept of project based learning where the whole concept of subject classes disappears and is replaced with interdisciplinary projects that cover all skills necessary to complete a project.
xboxnolifes 5y ago
> ...but when taught correctly it’s really the most important. I think this is the most important point in most discussions about education. I feel that everyone I know has had classes or professors that they either really disliked or really liked, but I also feel that there is a strong chance that many of the cases were not due to them not simply enjoying the subject matter, but instead the content being taught poorly. No matter how well we optimize the selection and ordering of classes, it is of no use if the content is not taught well. For what it's worth, I thought all of my English learning was pretty atrocious.
- jackson1442 5y ago
  I think part of the problem is that we don't tell people why they're in school learning things. I certainly thought my English classes were useless not even two years ago. I'm sure you've heard the classic "when am I ever going to need to know about Hamlet in the real world?" School, at least beyond elementary education, isn't about knowing all the arbitrary points that you learn. It about learning to learn. The problem, however, is that you can't simply teach people how to learn, so the content you cover in classes is simply a proxy for the real "meat" of education. Some might argue that you can apply this by teaching only classes in a student's focus area, but I argue that being exposed to historical information, statistics, math, computer science, biology, etc. has made me a much more well-rounded human and I possess the skills necessary to understand just about any concept presented at a sub-journal level. That's a skill I've noticed not many have, and it has proven incredibly valuable.

em-bee 5y ago

oh, i didn't mean to devalue native language classes in general. apart from the issue that the value of any class depends on how it is taught, i merely wanted to criticize the suggested dependency to other classes. case in point, digesting information and thinking critically are things that should be taught in all classes. i actually find it problematic if a teacher expects that it is some other teachers job to teach any skills that are necessary in their own class. this is just an unnecessary division of learning, when, as i believe, integrated learning should be more effective. this culminates in the concept of project based learning where the whole concept of subject classes disappears and is replaced with interdisciplinary projects that cover all skills necessary to complete a project.

xboxnolifes 5y ago

> ...but when taught correctly it’s really the most important. I think this is the most important point in most discussions about education. I feel that everyone I know has had classes or professors that they either really disliked or really liked, but I also feel that there is a strong chance that many of the cases were not due to them not simply enjoying the subject matter, but instead the content being taught poorly. No matter how well we optimize the selection and ordering of classes, it is of no use if the content is not taught well. For what it's worth, I thought all of my English learning was pretty atrocious.

jackson1442 5y ago
I think part of the problem is that we don't tell people why they're in school learning things. I certainly thought my English classes were useless not even two years ago. I'm sure you've heard the classic "when am I ever going to need to know about Hamlet in the real world?" School, at least beyond elementary education, isn't about knowing all the arbitrary points that you learn. It about learning to learn. The problem, however, is that you can't simply teach people how to learn, so the content you cover in classes is simply a proxy for the real "meat" of education. Some might argue that you can apply this by teaching only classes in a student's focus area, but I argue that being exposed to historical information, statistics, math, computer science, biology, etc. has made me a much more well-rounded human and I possess the skills necessary to understand just about any concept presented at a sub-journal level. That's a skill I've noticed not many have, and it has proven incredibly valuable.