Subjects in School
October 21st, 2005 at 12:38 am (Thoughts)
Ok, I don’t usually get mad when I read articles from school papers that really have no hope of accomplishing anything but expressing some random student’s opinion, but this one actually did piss me off. Ok, first of all, Miss Stacey Perk doesn’t get off to a good start by talking about how great high school was with parties and football games. Um… most people don’t remember high school as being great for those things (or if they do, it’s in a “childhood is a perfect time of innocence” kind of way). But that isn’t really the point. She quickly gets beyond that to what she really wants to do – which is whine about having to learn things.
Ok, I agree that college students have to take too many random classes that are totally unrelated to their major at most liberal arts colleges (which is most colleges these days). However, I don’t believe that standard applies to high school so much (sorry, Math should totally be a required subject in high school). And saying that most people will never use those skills again when they are out in the real world is totally clueless! First of all, you are a junior in college! You aren’t in the real world yet! Hell, I’m 24, out of college and barely consider myself to be in the real world! Second of all, your examples are kinda clueless. Math and history, in particular are going to be used a lot by most people, even if they don’t always realize it. Even chemistry is important! I agree that you probably aren’t likely to pull out that periodic table again, but that doesn’t mean that basic chemistry isn’t important.
Ok, math is probably the most obvious one. You use it everywhere. It’s important for cooking, shopping, paying bills, doing laundry, making a phone call, driving a car, even clocking in at work! And not all of that is basic arithmetic. You use algebra every day without even thinking about it! Most people won’t use advenced calculus on an average day, but algebra is really important.
The biggest thing I use chemistry for on an average day is cooking, even just basic stuff. When you decide to put salt on something, you are making a decision based on chemistry, even if you don’t realize it. Makeup and hair products and knowing which ones to choose is all about chemistry!
History is important for everything. It’s important for evaluating news stories, opinions about all manner of topics and making decisions about everything from what store to shop from (do they support unions? why is that important?) to choosing who to vote for!
Miss Perk wants to be a journalist. Well, clearly that’s different. She will never need math… except when making deadlines and thinking about the space an article needs to fit in and… ok, she probably needs somr math. But chemistry will never be important… unless a story she is writing about has any basis in chemistry (a story about food, medicine, scientific discovery, etc.)… ok, but that doesn’t happen often, right? But history will prove totally useless to her, right? I mean, why would she want to know what happened in the past that led up to what she is writing about today? Why would she want to know how to look up what other people have said in the past or how other reporters covered a subject? She’ll certainly never need to do any fact checking.
She spends some time discussing how all those “useless” classes presented a hardship to her by dragging down her GPA because she never went to class or did her homework for them. Well, maybe some math would have shown her in advance how blowing off a class and getting a low grade in it would affect her GPA.
I’m sorry Stacey, but I read magazines like “Glamour” all the time (I work in a bookstore, how else do you kill a fifteen minute break?) and they are full of math and history and chemestry. Statistics are in nearly every article. As a journalist, I think you will find that a wide understanding of other subjects might be useful. Knowing about the inverted pyramid will help you with mechanics, but no one reads an article because of the mechanics, they read it for the content. And if when I read your article I get the impression that you don’t really understand what you are writing about, even though the subject is interesting, I’m going to go find a better article on the subject.
So maybe those subjects are a little more important than you thought.
Sorry for the rant, but poorly written and thought out articles like this one really annoy me, especially when written by someone who isn’t even in a position to make a value judgement that means anything on what they are expressing value judgements about! I wouldn’t want a single man with no kids writing about the hardships of motherhood either. At least not without some damn good sources who do understand it! There is no excuse for articles like this one and even though it’s just a student paper, The Daily Iowan should have higher standards for what they publish.
Kathleen said,
October 21, 2005 at 10:11 am
Why the hell were you reading the Daily Idiot?
Alan De Smet said,
October 21, 2005 at 11:46 am
Perk is an idiot, but they’re a dime a dozen. That said, I’m not sure you’ve reasonably addressed some of her complaints.
The reality is that for most people they never use their chemistry studies once they’re out of school. Yes, there is chemistry when you cook or pick a hair care product, but your school learning isn’t impacting those decisions one bit.
Perhaps more importantly, much of her complaint (though poorly phrased) appears to focus on rote memorization: “algebraic equations, historical dates, or the periodic table”. Now those are real challenges. Knowing the history of the world (and the general order and periods things happened in) is useful for judging modern news. Knowing the specific year in which we bought the Louisiana Purchase is completely useless. That sort of knowledge can be looked up when you really need it.
Unfortunately she’s confused his dislike for rote memorization with the class itself. Clearly math, history, and even a bit of chemistry are useful. She’s throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Eh, Stacey’s a young ignorant kid. And given that her dream is writing for Glamour, she’ll grow up to be an old ignorant adult. Take her idiocy with the same level of seriousness you’d take, well, Glamour itself. Really, is “Glamour’s after-dark issue! We’ve got the best ways to look and feel like the soxiest woman in the room, the newest after-hours clothes to make the best of the body you’ve got and soxy nighttime hair seven different ways.” such a great use for college degree?
Alan De Smet said,
October 21, 2005 at 11:52 am
I think your comment filter is a bit overly aggresive. Quoth the filter:
Comment Submission Error
Your comment submission failed for the following reasons:
Your comment could not be submitted due to questionable content: sox
Please correct the error in the form below, then press Post to post your comment.
(The actual word is s e x, but I can’t enter it for obvious reasons. Amusingly, putting spaces in works around it, showing the filter to be probably too crude to be useful.)
Viv said,
October 21, 2005 at 2:07 pm
Ow. My brain hurts from reading that article. That’s bullshit right there and whining about “I can’t do what I like to do, life sucks and isn’t fair and blah, blah, blah,” doesn’t make me like her.
I’d like to point out something as a fucking adult: LIFE SUCKS. GET A HELMET. We can’t do everything we want to do in life — and learning those basics (while they suck at times) are absolutely essential. In journalism, you still have to deal with math — figuring out budgets, value increases for houses, averages of statistics, percentages, etc.
The key also to doing what you like is showing a willingness to get in there and do shit you don’t like, simply because you’ll learn something new. While I’m not thrilled about the fact that I dealt with math and statistics, I’m glad that I know it to figure out things for my job. It also makes you more valuable in any field. It makes me feel good that I know this stuff and don’t have to turn to anyone else.
But this is an argument that I’ve heard before on the college level — is college about getting a broad base of knowledge or is it supposed to give you tools for your future career? Frankly, I’m glad that I learned some classes that weren’t essential for my job — it made me see things in a new light and I’ve got great random trivia for parties.