The MLP Arena
Pony Talk => Off Topic => Topic started by: Leave a Whisper on January 21, 2019, 07:48:11 AM
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I have always struggled with Math and I hate it. Plus, is it just me or are math teachers predisposed to being petty and mean? At least mostly.
P.E. is a close second. I'm unathletic and clumsy. But I never cared about doing well in p.e since I have never had any intentions of doing sports or the military.
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PE. The lesson where all the kids who didn't get top marks took their chance to pick on the kids who did, even though at no point did I ever bully anyone for not getting into the top set or making the higher grades. Ever. Plus the PE teacher till I was in year 9 was a bully as well. She'd make us play netball in the snow in skirts, no jogging bottoms, no jumpers - while she was allowed to wear both. Then she had to retire through injury. PE was better after that but the damage was done. At primary level I played netball for the school, so I wasn't totally anti-sport before secondary school. But yeah. PE.
We didn't get any kind of grade in it, really, though. Unless you took it as an option for GCSE. It was just a weekly routine, twice a week, of ritual humiliation and torture. Until year 10 when our new teacher told us we could not bother if we didn't want to, and y11, when our awesome teacher arranged for us to do bowling and ice skating and other more bearable things like badminton, rather than hockey *hate*. So it got better. But I still hated it. Did you guys do the bleep test?
After that my worst subject was probably art/graphics. I had to take Graphics for my GCSE. It didn't end so well. But I didn't hate it in the sense of PE nor dread it.
I didn't like Physics but I was good at it. And our teacher was nice. It was just very dull.
@LAW - I had mostly nice maths teachers but only one of them really taught me anything. He was a very crazy guy who taught us all these maths theories based on stories of drunken aardvaarks and so on. Not even kidding. But when he got annoyed, you knew who was in charge. I learned more from him than any other teacher I had. I liked maths, though I had trouble with some number things because of my dyscalculia.
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P.E. by a long shot. We would always run and jog which would trigger my asthma, and I wasn't allowed to do less, just walk for a brief periods of time. (I actually had a teacher tell me he had athletic friends with asthma and that it didn't matter for running, and he wouldn't let me walk at all.) I had an asthma attack while running once too, which could have been avoided. P.E. caused me a lot of pain. We are also suspecting that I have Ehlers Danlos Syndrome (and even if I don't, my joints are still very hypermobile) which could have contributed to the pain.
And while I didn't like some other classes, P.E. actually caused physical pain, so it wins.
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Wow. Your guys' p.e. teachers sound like real jerks. I hope your folks chewed him out good Safflower.
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Wow. Your guys' p.e. teachers sound like real jerks. I hope your folks chewed him out good Safflower.
The bleep test had a similar effect on kids here. One girl in my class got into real difficulties because teacher also didn't allow her to have her inhaler at the side of the netball court where the test was being run. If you didn't have this, it was a stupid thing whereby there's a recording, like a metronome, that bleeps every so often, and you are meant to run from one end of the court to the other before it bleeps, If it bleeps first, you are out. But it gets quicker as it goes on, and as you get tireder, so it really doesn't prove anything. It just makes you really tired, and it gives asthmatics asthma attacks...
And we did it twice a year, once in winter and once in summer, once inside (summer) and outside (winter). Yay. My sister went through the same torture (she is properly asthmatic).
Also, happy birthday Safflower ;)
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Oh, I guess we had the bleep test, we just called them pacers. Not fun whatsoever... We did them once or twice a month.
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P.E my most hated subject in secondary school, I got out of it when it was double because I had to do physio. Plus when I was on my monthly I didn’t do it.
Next was maths, I had the worst maths teacher ever, didn’t learn nothing.
The other subject was languages french was okay when I was in Year seven and eight, but my dad forced me to take it again, let’s just say I hated the teacher, I flanked the exams.
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Ugh, we used to have an annual strength tests where one of the tasks was to do situps keeping up with the bleeps. >_<
Yeah, I hated PE. It was pretty much the only class where they never actually taught you anything - you either knew how to do the stuff, or you didn't. And those who were physically fit got good grades, while those who weren't never got anything for trying. At least that's how it seemed to me at the time, and I know many, many people share my views... I mean, in most sports you can train the technique ad infinitum, and that's what professionals do. But I don't think we (at least in the girls class) were ever even taught how to throw a ball, for instance. If it was team sports, the teacher always selected to "captains" (popular kids and those who were good at sports) who got to choose their teams. Needless to say, I was always among the last to be picked. Way to support your confidence...
Maths would be the close second. There was a period I was actually pretty good at it (junior high / lower secondary school) which prompted me to take advanced maths in high shool - wrong decision. :P My grades decreased steadily through high school and after suffering through all the courses I ended up taking the matriculation exam at the easier level, haha.
Languages and arts (incl. literature and music) were always my favourite subjects. ^.^
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My PE experiences definitely similar to Griffin's. PE was an exercise in making people feel inferior and encouraging bullying through the picking of teams and the blaming of the "not part of the clique" kid in the team for any failure/assigning of worst task etc. Although similar kind of happened with our prefect system because it was also based on cliques, so...yeah.
In the UK, GCSE (school leaving exams) used to (before this year when they went stupid and numerical) go from A* (top) to some letter like G and then U and N which were fails. When I started maths in year 10 I would've easily got an A* on the maths paper. Then the teacher changed syllabus to an 'easier' one. And after that I struggled to get higher than a B (my eventual grade at the end of year 11). Possibly partly because I struggled with the easier stuff (because of dyscalculia and the fact this often involved number sequences) but mostly because on an easier syllabus it is much harder to get higher grades because of national averages. I really should have taken the option to do Maths early but I was already doing Science and English and I wanted to spread my exams out more over 2 years :/
I didn't learn a huge amount through much of school :/ I think it was a case of learning some facts to pass exams, but that isn't exactly learning? But I didn't learn anything in primary school...I could already read and write and add up before I even began that, so all I learned there was that the headteacher didn't know what to do with kids who were 12 maths books ahead and who had already read all the books in the school library by the age of 9. I guess by contrast I did learn some useful things at secondary level...but most of those seemed to come in year 9, like maths and every bit of French grammar I learned in school :/
I loved languages but hated how we were taught German and my French, again, "lets do the easy course" which meant I had to really fight to get accepted to do it for A-Level (university entry exams). I really hated our MFL teacher for that and it put me off studying German forever, I never went back to it (took Spanish instead).
I hated classes that didn't challenge me to think. So I loved things that involved analysing stuff, like history, and literature, and using imagination, like performing arts. Also language because it fascinated me. Anything else was something to be got through.
By the time I left school I also hated Science because we were made it do it twice over. Legal requirement at that point was to take at least double award Science and obtain 2 grades if possible in Science. I left school with 5 GCSE grades in science. That's called overkill, and it killed any interest in me going into science ever.
Hence why I now do premodern Japan.;)
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I don't think I had any issues with classes..
Just certain teachers.
I remember going home crying because of my 3rd? Grade English teacher. I was a well behaved kid who got good grades. It still doesn't make sense to me.
I loved science and my 9th grade physical science teacher was mean too. It made the class so awful.
OH. Also.
I was put down in my art classes which to this day makes me second guess myself. I work in a creative place now and work on art in a technical sense for print... Some of my work is in retail stores ;) Instead of encouragement I got put down in class.
In my first drawing class we did self portaits and I did something abstract and my teacher said I had to add a nose. I didn't because I said it represented name how it was. I got an F on the assignment.
In another class-- Once we turned in artwork without out names and people wrote comments to judge the art. Well the teacher wrote "great job Jessica" (Jessi was my friend). It was the FIRST TIME he didn't tear apart my work and it's because he thought she did it. He ended up apologizing at the end of the semester because he realized he was a jerk all year.
I was a pretty good student (As and Bs).. so I dunno. I'd rather sit in a class subject I don't like then have a terrible teacher. There's always something to learn. Even PE I can appreciate because it kept me moving. Way better then sitting for 8hr a day despite not being athletic *shrug*
I didn't learn a huge amount through much of school :/ I think it was a case of learning some facts to pass exams, but that isn't exactly learning?
XD this is the summary of 90% of classes at school.
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I chose math because my brain simply doesn't have an easy time understanding it and thus the classes were tiring for me. I don't recall any particularly mean math teachers. I avoided it when possible and only took logic in college.
PE again because I was a fat kid however I only recall being embarrassed by my fat kid self in gym a few times. Most activities like soccer, dodgeball volleyball etc I was average enough to not stand out. In highschool I was only required one semester of PE.
Overall I was a terrible student in high school, I skipped a lot. Which is too bad because most subjects are a breeze for me as I have a very good memory. If I had tried even 20% harder I may have been a decent student.
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P.E. mainly due to horrible teachers and the students. I was heavily bullied in school and I dreaded P.E. Our classes were split into 3, boys only, girls only and a mix. I was in the girls only group and I hated it- we all got changed in a room with no separate stalls it was open so everyone could see everyone. I usually attempted to stand in the corner of the room away from everyone because I got so anxious over the other girls' comments about my body at one point I had 2 girls make fun of the size of my chest. By the last year it got to a point where I skipped P.E. and studied in a classroom because I had a group of girls go into my bag and cut out pieces of my uniform and my friend had her uniform covered in water and tossed in the bin. The boys weren't as bad during P.E. but if we had to walk past them to go into the gym or outside one of them would whistle or have a go at me. I also broke my fingers during a game of netball and all the girls stood there and laughed as I panicked.
I wasn't a big fan of maths, I couldn't get my head around it, in one of the years, at least half of the class moved into a different class because they could not stand the teacher we had, she'd spend the lesson complaining or threatening to knock students teeth out, luckily she left after a year and I got a lovely maths teacher in my final year, he was great- he helped me out so much with my anxiety I couldn't thank him enough.
Got to admit, I think I was the only one who genuinely enjoyed biology and chemistry in my school (I couldn't stand physics XD)
Im so glad to be in college now, even though the school I went to was absolutely terrible, I managed to pass with mostly A's and B's and although I have a lecturer I'm not fond of, everyone is lovely plus I'm studying something I'm really interested in and speaking of school, I'm actually studying to become a teacher :P
While this is not a subject, I still cannot get my head around the new numerical grades that we have here in the UK
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I failed Humanities exam only because I got picked on in the classroom and I didn’t understand history (but I got rewarded when we done a subject on Jesus Christ).
Science in my exam I got E
French I got a D
The only subject I passed in was IT, I remember once I was listening to Phantom of the Opera I sang Think of Me, I didn’t see the teacher sitting behind me, but when he sing ended I got applause. Now that was embarrassing.
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Definitely P.E.
I wasn't competitive and don't really like playing sports. Last to be picked, I didn't understand the rules for some...and if I didn't have one of my few friends in the class, it was just dreadful. I always changed completely seperate from everyone.
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Definitely Math! And P.E. ... gosh I hated both soo much. I still dont have a feeling for counting and numbers :/ P.E. was kinda ok sometimes... I loved Basketball for example but mostly it was just a pain to get through...
My favourite subject were languages, history, science and geography. Arts were ok too.
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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.
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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
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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 :D
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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.
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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? XD
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?
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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? XD
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 :P 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 XD
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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. :mad: 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! :yikes:
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!
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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 :biggrin:.
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Oh definitely math for me! My brain just goes into a full blown panic when it sees numbers. :P 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. :rolleyes: 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. :P 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. :P It also helped that our teacher always picked teams for us, so there was never any drama of being left out.
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I was fat. I think you can guess what my least favourite subject was. XD
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In my state there is a requirement that you have to learn to play a recorder in a certain grade. The year we learned to play them we had to perform in front of parents. I tried very hard but when it was time play one of the songs the music teacher looked at me and whispered “Don’t play.” I didn’t comprehend then that she didn’t think I was good enough to play that song in front of an audience.
Ponyfan
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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?
Well. I felt put down and self conscious about my art-- so I didn't EVER intend to start a career in it. I wanted to go into the medical field but it didn't work out due to personal troubles... so I had to start over and I went to school for design (since I did website design for a hobby). I got hired at my job to push papers because my boss didn't believe in me despite being the top of my class (see bad art director comment), but slowly got thrown a bone here and there. I mostly do editing and production but sometimes get to do art. I really could of used encouragement and teaching from my teachers. :( I have a knack for color and design.. but still suffer from low self esteem about the whole thing. *shrug* it's all a learning experience tho. Everything happens for a reason.
I guess the point is, teachers play a crucial part in helping kids grow. those rotten ones can really hurt kids too, but hopefully they have someone in their life to tell them never give up. That's why for me it wasn't if I liked a topic or not, but if a teacher was good or not.
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PE, 100%. In Germany, you have to take it right through to Year 13. Plus, you get marks for it, and even though you can't fail a year because of PE, it's still embarrassing as anything to get poor marks in it. I only liked PE when we were learning a dance, and even then, the teachers would give the slim girls better marks because they looked more elegant... even if they forgot the steps or were completely out of tune with the music! It was so frustrating.
I didn't love maths, but I liked it okay in some years. It really depended on the teacher. The same went for physics. I always preferred languages to science.
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Math without a doubt. I actually enjoy math when I understand it but I've always had terrible math teachers that don't take the time to help me. I usually have to rely on tutoring in order to pass.
I'm surprised so many people hate P.E.! Then again, I had coaches that would just throw out basketballs and let us be. Very rarely was I recquired to run, and when I did I was just happy that we were actually doing something.
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In my state there is a requirement that you have to learn to play a recorder in a certain grade. The year we learned to play them we had to perform in front of parents. I tried very hard but when it was time play one of the songs the music teacher looked at me and whispered “Don’t play.” I didn’t comprehend then that she didn’t think I was good enough to play that song in front of an audience.
Ponyfan
I'm sorry. My sister got shut down in her first year of band. She pretty much had to quit band, and this was immediately after starting. I had another friend who auditioned for the high school's marching band and was also harshly shot down saying she wasn't cut out for it.
So I just have to say this kind of thing is sadly quite common in school music programs.
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Thanks Hamonie. I ended up not taking band because I never felt like I could play a instrument well enough to join. I could play the keyboard well but that’s not a band instrument.
I took choir all through junior high and high school but although that teacher basically tolerated me he played favorites when it was time to give solos. Our junior year he promised that all the Seniors in Choir would have a solo. When it came time to give out the Senior solos the next year every other Senior got one except me. He changed one of the solo parts to a group chorus instead. If he hadn’t changed it there would have been a solo for me but he made sure his own daughter had a solo and she was also the star of the school drama club.
Ponyfan
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Bad teachers are also a factor. I didn't have any nasty ones at secondary school aside the PE teacher I mentioned, who was generally nasty to anyone who didn't ace sport, not me specifically. I had one who had favourites when I did performing arts. I was one of the students randomly selected to be moderated by the examiners and she was all over how good I was at x or y when the examiner was there because she knew I was going to write the report up to get a good grade standard, but she never paid any attention to my work otherwise and favoured the 'popular' girls who she felt she could 'be cool' by chatting with them. Strange woman...
My bad teacher was in primary. He was the headteacher. My school was small and so he taught classes. I was a bright kid and ahead in all my subjects but I also had serious logistical issues and didn't always understand instructions or know where things were. He thought I was doing that on purpose and thus needed punishing. So the level of punishment he gave me was often disproportionate. One time my friend and I made a mistake in which unit of measurement we used to measure something in a class project. We were punished by being separated in class for the next eighteen months (till she left, she was a year older) and I was made to sit with the class bullies, which continued despite my mother's protestations. There were a lot of things like this. If something happened, I was blamed, even if it wasn't my fault. I was in his class only 2 years but because it was such a small school he'd known everyone from the start and he had therefore targeted me pretty much from the off. It definitely left scars in my self-confidence doing anything, since I was always told I was doing something wrong, and never praised for anything I did right.
At this time I also read the Demon Headmaster book. I really identified with that book. Also Matilda. They basically summed up my primary school as regards my relationship with the head teacher - between the Demon Headmaster and the Trunchbull. All right, so there was no Chokey, but there was arbitrary punishment and a sense that I didn't get the same treatment as any of the other kids, who automatically knew where things were, and how to do tasks that I didn't understand.
In secondary I had issues with some kids, but bad classes were more boring ones, rather than bullying teachers - except for PE. And that was just the one teacher. The other PE staff were actually fine and I have some good memories of that class after she left, as I was lucky enough to be in the same PE group as my friends in year 10 and 11, which was fluke but made things easier. My year 7 form was not a great form - it was basically the class in which all the troublemaking kids were put. I am certain I ended up in there because of a bad record from that primary school headmaster...but I can't prove it. In any case, my year 7 and especially year 8 form tutors were amazing, and then we were reorganised into house classes and finally I escaped...
Music - I loved music at primary when we did singing. I loved orchestra too. If I have a regret it is that I didn't apply myself better when I could to both clarinet and violin. Especially clarinet, which I loved and played till I was about eighteen -but never really committed enough to practice. Music at secondary was part of Performing Arts when I did GCSE and that was fine, too - but I feel like the regrets I have over music are my own lack of engagement, maybe confidence, rather than the class being bad. Music prior to GCSE level was basically really easy, designed for people who couldn't read music and didn't know anything about it, and I was already learning two instruments at that point, so I kind of dont remember it being very worthwhile but the teacher was nice and so that made it ok.
I loved playing in the orchestra though. It was the only club thing I did at secondary and kept up with through the whole five years I was there. Albeit I'd probably have stayed in Drama club if the teacher hadn't left and it hadn't been more or less shut down. Ditto dance club - we put on shows in year 7 and 8 but then there was nobody to help us organise it (we had to do most of the organisation in year 8 anyway). And I did do choir for a while, but I think orchestra really was the thing I loved doing most, so music was always fine with me.
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Was homeschooled the majority of my childhood and not allowed much opportunity to be with other kids unless I had to see the pediatrician or something. We rarely went to parks, wasn't allowed to leave the yard, and was forbidden to go outside until my father was home and only then until dark. No playmates really or hardly ever. Had no internet in those days... had a secret friend penpal who was evasive when I tried to find out who she was but then she totally forgot about me. Found out years later she was faked by a parent for a while until they felt like giving up... they'd have known years before then that I was hurt by it, considering they were the person watching me check the mail.
I've had good and bad teachers, was in public school enough to get what it is to be bullied by your peers, as well as some things I'd been through as an adult. I think my favorite part about when you are old enough to college is that it's possible sometimes to pick your teacher but my least favorite part is it costs money so if the instructor signs up to teach a class and turns it into a personal biography fan-club instead there is basically little way to stop them or get your money back. I've had one or two teachers others described as abusive... I've never been able to figure out whether I dislike more the thorough abusers who pick on everyone outrageously, or the vain ones who try to divide the students against one another so they can blame the people who need help for not teaching the course while berating instead of helping the people who need help and natter on unrelated stuff about themselves as role models to college kids. The thorough ones are usually the most drastic, but the vain ones who manipulate everyone are kinda also worse in their own way, you know?
Most teachers I've had were basically average to really good. And I'm still glad of the caring ones who were into both their subjects and teaching them.
I think the internet has helped democratize adult learning to some extent, but it's still hard to make up some gaps while living as an adult because you have more relationships and responsibilities that rarely pause. I know there are a lot of people who teach for free now just because they love to and share their gifts online... I hope that one day that willingness changes the way we think about instruction... most especially as it's also been proven that people follow for no other reason than a love of learning, minus any credit. I'm not sure how much we get from being forced into student/pupil relationships. I'm not sure how much we get out of grades. I don't like it when people call anyone stupid or crazy. I do like it when there is value for each person as unique and no better than anyone else, when that happens learning does.
I'd have to say I am limited in some areas, but my least favorite subject no matter what it is the kind with a timer, especially a noisy timer. There is too much inside my head to filter out.
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Thanks Hamonie. I ended up not taking band because I never felt like I could play a instrument well enough to join. I could play the keyboard well but that’s not a band instrument.
We actually had a piano player in the wind ensemble at the university I just graduated from. I think it is more commonplace than one might assume, but I know where you're coming from. Either way, being able to play the piano well is actually quite an accomplishment and you should feel good about that!
I could only play piano well enough to get through my Class Piano classes, and I feel like I can only say I was barely good enough for that. Speaking of least favorite classes, class piano probably gave me a grey hair or two. Last Spring there was a point where I was concerned I might somehow fall below C (I made 70% on the dot on an exam I practiced extremely hard for) and not be able to graduate just because of that class.
I took choir all through junior high and high school but although that teacher basically tolerated me he played favorites when it was time to give solos. Our junior year he promised that all the Seniors in Choir would have a solo. When it came time to give out the Senior solos the next year every other Senior got one except me. He changed one of the solo parts to a group chorus instead. If he hadn’t changed it there would have been a solo for me but he made sure his own daughter had a solo and she was also the star of the school drama club.
Ponyfan
I'm so sorry. Just rotten experiences with music classes all around! :hug:
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goverment by far my teacher could not go a week without missing and when she was there she never actualy teached she just gave us big assignments and we were given quized for what we were never taught
im bad at math but my teachers were always nice
my piano teacher yelled at the mentally disabled
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I guess the point is, teachers play a crucial part in helping kids grow. those rotten ones can really hurt kids too, but hopefully they have someone in their life to tell them never give up. That's why for me it wasn't if I liked a topic or not, but if a teacher was good or not.
This is so true.
Both my parents were teachers, my Dad till he retired, and then after as a cover teacher. He was really popular because he talked to the kids as people, listened to them, and made his own judgements about them rather than listening to other teachers complain. My mother stopped school teaching when I was born, but later worked as an English teacher for adults and we have lots of Japanese friends thanks to that ;) however that's a bit different.
I think kids are vulnerable to harm from bad teachers which makes the job a heavy one. By harm I mean collateral damage to confidence, or a loss of interest in a subject they may be good at, because they had a bad teacher at some point.
Teachers these days are overworked and the curriculum, at least here, is insane in its setup.
But I worked with a lot of kids at the vocational college, not just in their vocational courses but also in English and Maths. And all of them, no matter what school they came from, said that they had been basically ignored by the school if they didn't understand something, because the teachers only cared about helping the bright kids who would help the league table scores, and if they couldn't do something they were just ignored. People like to pretend this doesn't happen. But it does. And I ended up teaching seventeen year olds how to punctuate a sentence and how to do basic multiplication and division.
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Math. I hate math. I'm good at it it's just that I do not enjoy it AT ALL. I just hate it.
Time for an unpopular opinion: PE isn't that bad. I just see it as an easy A since it's mostly (mostly) participation. Well at least for me. And some of the games are pretty fun. even dodgeball. :lookround:
Science isn't bad it's just that teachers can make it reaaaaaaaaaaaaally boring
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Maths for me. I really struggled with it until I had a new teacher who singled me out for extra work after class. I didn't thank her for it at the time but she took me from a D in the first term to a B in the second. Sadly she didn't stay at the school for very long and moved on. I would like to thank her now if I ever ran into her. Teachers like that don't come along often :)
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Math. I hate math. I'm good at it it's just that I do not enjoy it AT ALL. I just hate it.
Time for an unpopular opinion: PE isn't that bad. I just see it as an easy A since it's mostly (mostly) participation. Well at least for me. And some of the games are pretty fun. even dodgeball. :lookround:
Science isn't bad it's just that teachers can make it reaaaaaaaaaaaaally boring
Interesting point, I wonder how different countries deal with things like this.
I mean, thinking back, I had a grade on my report for PE, which my parents ignored and I ignored...my mother hated PE as much as I did when she was at school so I was lucky there and it wasn't like we had to pass a year to get to the next one, so it was completely meaningless. In the UK you just progress automatically from one year to another, it's really rare for that not to happen. Even if you fail end of year tests you don't get held back - but the exams that matter are the end of school ones, and the groups you are in to take those exams are decided by the other tests along the way. Unless you specifically chose to take PE for GCSE, you didn't take an exam in PE, ever, therefore it was really a waste of time. I used to walk to and from school as well, so the idea it was to 'give us exercise' was also wasted. I dunno whether it's different in other places, whether you have to pass PE to pass a year or what..?
I'll say it, though. Girls are nasty in PE lessons. I don't know what guys are like, but the guys in my year seemed to be able to connect over sports. The girls in my year used it as a way to torment and clique up. I raise this because when we were in the higher years, 10 and 11, some of our sports was mixed (like badminton). And it was much less horrible when it wasn't segregated. I hated PE, but in year 11 it was mostly ok because we did bowling, skating, badminton and volleyball was ok and bearable too. No hockey. And the only PE obsessed girl in my class was my friend who didn't have a malicious bone in her body xD.
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I've put 'other' - Latin and Music,could not get on with these at all. Maybe it was the expectations behind the subjects rather than the actual subjects as I love language and have a good sense of rhythm. I'm from a very musical family so a bit of pressure there though I have always been keener on visual art. At our school we were streamed from the start and those 'expected' to try for top academic universities (Oxford/Cambridge in UK) had to take Latin. I still am a bit bitter that I had to give up subjects I really liked to take these two.
Didn't mind PE but seemed to get away with avoiding it a lot, can only really remember swimming, but I was good at that :),. Maybe the teachers just gave up as I was a bit of a rebel, and because I was getting a lot of exercise outside school with horse-riding and cycling everywhere my parents didn't care much either.
Most of the teachers were great, especially a lovely inspiring English language teacher and a super pair of biology teachers. I liked the chemistry teacher too, she had a sense of humour about detentions. If pupils were caught wearing nail varnish they would be sent to the chemistry lab to be handed acetone to wipe it off with - I was one of the worst offenders, and it got to become a bit of a game between how long I could keep the day's polish on before being spotted by a teacher :)
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Hands Down----> MATH. I hated it, I sucked at it. Hence the reason I have a BA in History...
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Math and gym for the tie. At least in high school we didn't have to take gym for more than two full years worth... I struggle with numbers so much it's not even funny.
P.S. My high school gym teacher's name was Jim Kloes. Ya ya ya ya ya.
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Maths for me. I really struggled with it until I had a new teacher who singled me out for extra work after class. I didn't thank her for it at the time but she took me from a D in the first term to a B in the second. Sadly she didn't stay at the school for very long and moved on. I would like to thank her now if I ever ran into her. Teachers like that don't come along often :)
Oh, me too, kiwimlp!! I hated Math - super bad. Combo of me just plain not getting it and a couple of lousy teachers who did nothing to spark any joy in the subject. However, I did have a driven math teacher who scraped me through the last compulsory year of it at high school (so funny - I now work with her, lol). So I got the pass I needed, but I dropped it as soon as I could :lol: :lol:
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Math, always about the math. It didn't help that my dad helped me with my homework and the guy was super smart (trig questions done in his head). So he'd get pissed at me, which stressed me out. I take soo long to get what's being taught that the class has already moved on.
P.E. wasn't bad as long as it was a sport I liked, the thing is at my high school it was required more than any other class. Even the core classes (math, English Lit). I didn't escape it till my senior year.
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Math, always about the math. It didn't help that my dad helped me with my homework and the guy was super smart (trig questions done in his head). So he'd get pissed at me, which stressed me out. I take soo long to get what's being taught that the class has already moved on.
^^^ This.... I can only understand math when it is taught at 'my level.' I struggled with it and also had / have test anxiety so math class combined with the anxiety did not help one bit.
I flunked college algebra my first go around, when I took it again, my prof was AAAMAZING.. He was super smart obviously, but he didn't teach over the 'not so smart at math' kids' heads, ....just what I needed. I ended up with a B in the class. I love English, enjoy writing and have always appreciated the arts.