Best Subjects in School

[vdeane]

You had PE multiple years?  In my school district it was a requirement for only one semester.

In New York, you need it throughout high school in order to graduate, though seniors in my high school could opt out of one quarter (except third quarter, which had the mandatory square dancing unit for juniors/seniors) if they were in a sport during that quarter.

My school was interesting and did grades by quarter but class schedules (for half-year long classes like most electives; PE was also broken up this way to provide additional flexibility) by semester.

[Pete from Boston]

You had PE multiple years?  In my school district it was a requirement for only one semester.

In New York, you need it throughout high school in order to graduate, though seniors in my high school could opt out of one quarter (except third quarter, which had the mandatory square dancing unit for juniors/seniors) if they were in a sport during that quarter.

My school was interesting and did grades by quarter but class schedules (for half-year long classes like most electives; PE was also broken up this way to provide additional flexibility) by semester.

I can't imagine a one-year PE requirement.  Mandatory four years for us, too. 

It's hard to read all the reasons people bombed gym class, because it really should have been taught from a "staying active is a critical part of minimum good health" standpoint, rather than from a "learn to be a good second baseman" angle.  Of course, kids don't really care about the long term, so they try to trick you into learning to be active by making you play dodgeball.  Of course, if dodgeball comes with a stack of social stigmas and whatnot, kids don't learn that physical activity can and should be beneficial rewarding.

Got to get to kids early, because fast food, computer/tv/video screens, and diabetes are unrelenting. 

[J N Winkler]

I can't imagine a one-year PE requirement.  Mandatory four years for us, too.

It wasn't even a full year here--just one semester.  Perhaps Kansas might have an obesity rate similar to that of New York and Massachusetts (right now it is about 29% versus 23%-ish depending on what table you look at) if PE were required in all four years of high school, but personally I am skeptical given all the other factors that correlate to obesity, such as educational attainment.  In the latter two states the proportion of the population that has bachelor's and graduate degrees is between 4%-10% higher than in Kansas.

When I was in my last two years of high school and carrying a full load of AP courses, I would have heavily resented having to carve out an hour each day for PE.

It's hard to read all the reasons people bombed gym class, because it really should have been taught from a "staying active is a critical part of minimum good health" standpoint, rather than from a "learn to be a good second baseman" angle.  Of course, kids don't really care about the long term, so they try to trick you into learning to be active by making you play dodgeball.  Of course, if dodgeball comes with a stack of social stigmas and whatnot, kids don't learn that physical activity can and should be beneficial and rewarding.

This is an important message, but I am not sure PE classes that focus heavily on cardio are the best way to communicate it.  When I was in PE, the most interesting and memorable class period of 90 was the one we spent partly in the weight room, but we were not allowed to stay long and we were not given detailed instruction on how to use the weights.  I wonder if that may have been for liability reasons.

Muscle mass is an important factor in weight regulation.  There has been a stream of media articles recently on the general theme of "If you are a woman and you wish to lose weight, eat and exercise like a man," and these pieces often play up a tendency for women to overdo cardio and avoid weights, because weight areas in gyms tend to be male-dominated and bulking up (which, for hormonal reasons, few women can do anyway) is considered unattractive for women.  There is a real need for good instruction in resistance training for both sexes, not just for physical fitness but also for safety since bad form and imbalance in a training program can cause all kinds of musculoskeletal problems.  I have no personal experience of a PE class that includes this in its curriculum.

[Pete from Boston]

Those are all good points, but it's the last time these kids are a captive audience, so it represents an important opportunity to teach them to integrate physical activity into the culture, for lack of a better way to put it, of their lives.

The best things I learned about exercise were not in school, but after school when I would run and bike on my own: that it improves energy, focus, mood, sleep, self-confidence, and overall long-and short-term health. 

I think it's great to give kids a foundation of good specific techniques/principles of exercise, but as has been repeated about other subjects here, teaching them why might make it easier to make them want to know how. 

But sadly, there's not a government metric for being a well-rounded individual with self esteem and good life skills, so that's not what schools generally aim for.

[english si]

Science and English, ehh...not so good. Being a very religious person (as some of you have definitely found out recently), I tend to be very "eye-rolling" in Science. And to prevent conflict I won't go any farther than to say I don't do too good in there...

Depends what they are teaching you. If they, in bio, are merely teaching you that short giraffes die out when the leaves are tall, leaving just tall ones then that's both legit science and something that even 6-day creationists can accept. If they are teaching you that Creationism is wrong and putting in a scientific-sounding creation story in its place then you have every right to object.

Darwen's theory of Natural Selection is science known for thousands of years written formally. The key reason we credit Darwen with it is that (while agnostic) he came up with a Creation Story that made atheism credible (there's another one - Aristotle's eternal universe - hence why the Big Bang got objects ) and Huxley and other anti-religion zealots jumped on it. Huxley, or his acolytes rewrote the history of Science as a battle against the Church, which has been shown to be totally and utterly bunkum, but the sentiment has infected the culture, both religious and irreligious.

but, dude, pay attention in science.  I've read the bible and can speak intelligently on it; it behooves you to have some basic idea of how God put the dinosaur bones into the ground 60 years ago when he created the heavens and the earth.

A bit of a straw man there!

But the sentiment is right - the church founded masses of schools, universities, etc. The anti-intellectual movement in the Church is a recent (last 100 years) thing.

* Science (As an atheist... this should be expected, however, I did not take physics or chemistry outright thanks to my shitty math grades)

There are other (more logically consistent) ways to get to atheism that aren't sciency-sounding*, but philosophical. Arguably you are more likely to find a religious person in a list of science majors than in a list of English majors at British universities - certainly among professors, English departments have a lot fewer religious people.

*most of the hops, skips and jumps are philosophical, rather than scientific. People like Ken Ham (a creation scientist), will happily admit that the science stops way before you arrive at the story, but due to the complete lack of interest in philosophy of science in scientistic circles, people like Bill Nye don't have a clue where the bounds of science as an academic discipline are and so assume that the co-option of Hegel by Darwen is science...

[on_wisconsin]

Anything but math or creative writing.

[Laura]

Science and English, ehh...not so good. Being a very religious person (as some of you have definitely found out recently), I tend to be very "eye-rolling" in Science. And to prevent conflict I won't go any farther than to say I don't do too good in there...

Science is so much more than evolution! Evolution is covered in, what, one week of biology class per year? There are so many fields of science, and while not the majority, there are religious scientists in said fields.

I'm not really interested in making this a discussion about Christian apologetics (and it's probably not allowed by forum rules), but in brief, there are Christians who do not believe that creationism and evolution are mutually exclusive. Or, they come at it with the approach of "He's God and can create the universe however he wants, and how he does it doesn't affect my belief in the rest of my faith."

Also, there's tremendous value in learning about what others believe. Even if you don't believe in evolution, it's important to learn about it so that you can have an intelligent conversation with family, friends, etc. about it if the opportunity arises.

----

Anyway, best subjects in school. My best subjects have always been English and History. I'm currently also doing well in my urban planning courses. I was decent in science and math but usually had to work harder in these courses for A grades. I enjoyed phys ed more once I had the option in high school and college to pick courses that were not focused on team sports (like wellness walking, dance, and yoga).

[Zeffy]

Oh, I forgot all about history, which is my third favorite subject, right after Science. I love US History in particular, but mostly any history is good history to me. Renaissance and Middle Ages are two of my more favorable non-US ones in particular.

There are other (more logically consistent) ways to get to atheism that aren't sciency-sounding*, but philosophical. Arguably you are more likely to find a religious person in a list of science majors than in a list of English majors at British universities - certainly among professors, English departments have a lot fewer religious people.

I don't want to dwell on this, but for some reason I've had "obligations" to science as an atheist amongst some of my more religious peers. Don't ask me how or why, because I don't know. However, I do love science, and astrology and meteorology are probably my favorite scientific topics, and then biology.

[JMoses24]

English, science (except chemistry) and geography were my strong suits.

Geometry and the aforementioned chemistry, however, can still die in the nearest 5 alarm conflagration. I was not good at all when it came to geometry, and chemistry kicked my ass.

[english si]

However, I do love science, and astrology and meteorology are probably my favorite scientific topics, and then biology.

Astrology? I'll presume you meant Astronomy, rather than proving the adage (wrongly, but not too wrongly, ascribed to Chesterton) "When a man stops believing in God he doesn't then believe in nothing, he believes anything" right and thus merely mock your spelling!