Least Favorite School Subject

[SpacePinto]

I hated P.E. with passion all my life. It's the reason why to this day I can't stand any form of organized sport. I don't mind casually talking a walk or riding a bike for fun, but all sorts of balls, teams, gyms, stadiums, tournaments and all that stuff leave me with a bad taste in my mouth.

[Ponyfan]

Math and PE for me also.

I have always struggled in math even in elementary school and had to have a math tutor in college to pass. My first year of college I had to take a “basic” math class because my math score on the SAT test was so low. (I passed but my score wasn’t high enough so I had to take the extra class.)

PE was awful too. For someone a lot of other kids didn’t like me so I didn’t have many friends and was often made fun of. I’m not a very athletic person and was always picked last for team games. I still remember one day we had to play basketball and my team wouldn’t even pass me the ball until the PE teacher told them to.

In junior high we had to run a mile by running around the school. I was usually last and would be totally out of breath.


Ponyfan

[Noasar]

Ah guys, go easy on us teachers, we try our best!

I am a secondary school Art teacher and I know that not everyone loves my subject. I think in general all teachers ask from their students is that they try - we are not expecting everyone to love every subject or be amazing at it. It's also important that students take on board feedback and listen to what we are saying. I can assure you that no teacher giving out critique ever intentionally intends to put a student down or make them feel bad about their work. But being able to take on board constructive criticism is a life skill that is so important.

Also my wife is a fantastic Maths teacher whose students adore her! So they're not all grumpy and mean. That said, Maths was my worst subject, so I can totally understand why it's not getting a lot of love on here!

I really feel for students who don't like PE - introverts in general do not enjoy the pressure of it and don't like messing up, myself included! Buuuuut, exercise is important. It's a government stipulation that you continue to do PE right up until Y11 - trust me, the teachers would sooner not have you in their class if you don't like it, but they have to. I hated PE and all the popular girls too - I was a good swimmer and horse rider (not that I did that at school) but that was about as far as my sporting prowess went. PE teachers are a breed apart, even amongst other teachers, but there are some kind and encouraging ones out there too.

Anyway, be kind to us. We do a very difficult job and 99.9% of us have your best interests at heart, even if we do mess up sometimes! We are only human

[banditpony]

I am a secondary school Art teacher and I know not everyone loves my subject. I think in general all teachers ask from their students is that they try - we are not expecting everyone to love every subject or be amazing at it. It's also important that students take on board feedback and listen to what we are saying. I can assure you that no teacher giving out critique ever intentionally intends to put a student down or make them feel bad about their work. But being able to take on board constructive criticism is a life skill that is so important.

I'm sorry but not all teachers are like you.. and not all people can be good teachers.

I can take constructive criticism but in my case art teachers DID put me and my art down. I had one teacher even apologize about picking on me (that was my story).

In the job world same goes for art directors. I've seen very talented people get stressed out because of bad art directors.. and flourish under others.

[Noasar]

While this is not a subject, I still cannot get my head around the new numerical grades that we have here in the UK

Tell me about it...it’s such a silly change. All of the students still refer to A’s and B’s anyway, even the younger ones. Basically 9=A** 8=A* 7=A 6=B 5=C+ 4=C- 3=D 2=E 1=F....easy, right?

It’s a shame that you had a bad experience with your Art teacher banditpony. I definitely agree that not all people make good teachers and sometimes teachers can sound harsh without really meaning to. It didn’t stop you from getting to where you wanted to be so maybe it made you want to prove them wrong?

[StrawberrySundance]

While this is not a subject, I still cannot get my head around the new numerical grades that we have here in the UK

Tell me about it...it’s such a silly change. All of the students still refer to A’s and B’s anyway, even the younger ones. Basically 9=A** 8=A* 7=A 6=B 5=C+ 4=C- 3=D 2=E 1=F....easy, right?

When I got my GCSE results back, most were in the new format except for ICT and Business, it so confusing. I really do prefer the old way Everyone was able to understand the letters but with this change, I've had to try my best to explain to others what letter the number equals

[Kiwi]

P.E.

It's not that I didn't like some of the activities, but certainly not all of them. Also most typical gym clothes were too cold for me (particularly outside gym classes).

History and geography are also not favourites. I am so NOT a history buff (I enjoy learning it, but not by memorizing dates and names in a textbook). Geography never really agreed with me - I can navigate a city with ease, but don't ask me to label countries on a globe.

[Harmonie]

Math has always been one subject that made me feel like a failure. I would *think* I understand all of the rules and processes but yet still come up with a wrong answer. Funny, Music Theory is similar in that way, but I've never let it bother me. I suppose the difference is that I do well in Music Theory courses, but not Math courses. Music theory exams allow for plenty of room to show that I know what I'm doing even if I miscalculate some parts somewhere down the line. On the other hand, math is just unforgiving. I'm so glad to be done with math courses forever.

I probably would have hated PE. However, due to being in band, I was exempted from the PE requirement after the 6th grade. So for me it's odd to see so many shows/movies represent high school life with PE (and a lot of them do) when it wasn't a part of my experience at all.

[StrawberrySundance]

I wasn't a big fan of English Literature at school, I quite enjoyed English Language but literature just bored me, we focused too much on Shakespeare and it got to a point where I lost interest. I've got to admit I hate analysing text when it comes to literature, it sucks the life out of the book/play/poem.

[brightberry]

I didn’t mind most of my classes... but I really disliked health class.  The reading and tests were easy.  But the teacher was some coach and really intense for no reason.  She had her favorites (the kids on her team) and made fun of the rest of us constantly.  I dreaded walking into the classroom.

I liked gym for a little while.  I didn’t mind exercise, but mostly it was standing in a line waiting “my” turn.  I’m not sure how exactly throwing a ball once for practice and once for a grade can be considered a good learning experience.

[Leave a Whisper]

I know there are good teachers in the world Noasar. But unfortunately there are many who power trip, who are cruel and petty. Who simply don't give a flying crap about any of their students welfare or teaching them.

[Ragamuffin]

Hmmm...

It's easy to hate math, because I'm bad at it. But once I got the right teachers I found it to be fun. Chemistry was terrible though. My teacher was extremely self-absorbed and only talked about herself. Everyone failed her class except me, who passed because I did extra credit at every opportunity...

P.E. is a valid class to hate. I didn't like dodgeball or any of its variants that we played. Now that I think of it, everything we ever did in intermediate school was dodgeball! Middle school P.E. had more variety but I still didn't like volleyball, softball, basketball, weightlifting or running in 100-degree heat. During dance season the girls' class merged with the boys' class for one day to teach us, drum roll please, how to slow dance correctly. They forced every one of us to pair up with a boy to slow dance with. I didn't like having an arm around my waist at eleven years old, and I'd still hate it at 22!

Photography wasn't fun either. I never leave the house or have anyone to take pictures of, so for every assignment I had to do my best with whatever was in the yard... which wasn't much.

But NOTHING gets my anxiety going like essays. That's not exactly a subject, English otherwise is fine, even easy, but I HATE writing essays. Aside from funds, having to write essays is a big reason why I'm afraid to go to college. Yes, I'm literate! I can form sentences and punctuate, spell, and whatnot correctly, I can research and put what I find in a document, I can type what I know, whatever! I shouldn't have to show it in a 3 million word essay on some irrelevant topic I couldn't care less about! Essays that are about "a time when you" are just as bad, since I have little experience in anything. I couldn't lie if I wanted to. Yes, because I don't like lying and am bad at it, but also because I know nothing about anything! I'd get everything wrong!

Bonus: Recess definitely counts as a subject, right? When I went to elementary school, we were generously given 3 recesses a day, and we could use that time to do ANYTHING. We could go into the library if we wanted, we could play outside, but I chose to do my homework so I didn't have any when I got home. I also liked to read or draw! So when I moved and got to intermediate school, we only had one recess, and we were FORCED to play. It was awful. Because I was new, I had no friends and any chemistry I had with the other kids was nonexistent. The girls at my old school liked to play pretend and play with toys, all the girls here only cared about Disney Channel and shopping at Justice! The playground equipment was nothing like I had seen before, some weird jungle gym stuff I don't even know to this day HOW you're supposed to play on it... and to top it all off it was way too hot to do anything! I just wanted to draw and the teachers said if I kept it up I'd get written up! Unbelievable!

[Beldarna]

I hated math. It wasn't that I was bad at it in the beginning, I was just slow at learning and it took a good while before I "got it" and when I did the rest of the class were several pages ahead of me. When I finally understood something I excelled, but I rarely got the chance. In Sweden, you have the same classes with the same people all the time. We have a homeroom which the teachers come to and I had the same classes with the same people from first to ninth grade. In seventh grade I got an easier mathbook and me and a couple of people from class got to have our lessons in another room with another teacher. I thrived. In all the tests I got the equivalent of a B.. then came the grading for the year and the teachers have a one on one with each of us where they tell the grade we're gonna get, what need to be done within a certain time to get a better one etc. My math teacher told me I was gonna get an E because he was afraid that even tho I had done so well in all the tests, I might do worse the following year and the grade would fall anyway. That totally killed math for me and instead of proving him wrong I gave him right which I kind of feel bad for. But being 15 years old and being told that I don't deserve somehing I fought for because I "might" fail in the future really took the wind out of me.

The last three years of school, upper secondary school (kind of grade 10-11 but we call them 1-3 to make things difficult as it'a always a completley new school with new classmates) I first had a math teacher that was weird and drunk. The second didn't understand my struggles and in my last year we got an engineer as a teacher who had no concept of what teaching was about.. He scribbled some numbers on the black board and if I asked for help he just came over and solved the problems for me without telling how and went back to the sportsgirls to talk soccer. He was eventually replaced by a guy who was really good and emediatly understood my struggles and tried to help me. But that was in May, school ended in june..

I really liked PE. I was about average in everything but we had a great teacher who didn't take any bull, he was always fair and encouraging, he always choosed the teams and made sure everyone got a chance. He wasn't afraid to raise his voice and call stupid people stupid. He was the teacher people went to whenever they had a problem with someone else and it was not unheard of of him storming in on another teachers class, drag some kid out and give them stern talking to if they had done something wrong. He was my favorite teacher .

[Minty_Magic]

Oh definitely math for me! My brain just goes into a full blown panic when it sees numbers. I really started to struggle with it when I started having to do algebra and letters and more abstract concepts got thrown in. I had an awful teacher my first 2 years of high school who I'm pretty sure didn't understand the math either. She would do the equations wrong on the white board when she was teaching it and when a student would call her out on it she would say she was just testing us. Any time I would ask for help on homework she would just say I had to "follow the pattern". When I told her I wasn't seeing a pattern and really just wanted to know how to solve the equation she would never elaborate and just walk away! Half of her students were failing the class and she really couldn't figure it out. That was a pattern I could follow! Good teachers really do make all the difference though, my last two years I had an excellent math teacher who I'd dare say made the class fun. I actually started to understand math a little! Thanks to him I was able to excel my entrance exams for college and avoid having to take any more basic level math classes.  Then I broke down again when I tried to take a trigonometry class in college. I was working overnights and the class was right after my shift ended, which probably didn't help, but I was really struggling and falling behind. Since I wasn't getting anywhere with the professor I tried going to tutoring and didn't get any help there either. The tutor even told me the problem I was trying to solve "wasn't that hard"! I was furious and honestly gave up after that. It was pretty late in the semester and there was no saving my grade at that point. I failed that class and it frankly threw me into a pretty bad downward spiral, because I had to rethink my whole career path since that course was a requirement for the degree I was interested in pursuing at the time.

P.E. honestly wasn't terrible for me, although I never loved it. I only had to take it one year in high school and I got lucky and had some friends in there with me. The only thing that really stood out as being awful was we had to run a lap around our campus and someone tripped me. I'm not sure if it was intentional or not but no one stopped to help and I remember a group of boys running by and laughing at me. The rage from that helped me finish the lap with a pretty good time though. It also helped that our teacher always picked teams for us, so there was never any drama of being left out.

[Broken Irishwoman]

I was fat. I think you can guess what my least favourite subject was.