*** For the first time in a few weeks, I am posting a Ten on Tuesday list I came up with myself. As I’ve mentioned a couple of times lately, my favorite guest blogger has been gearing up to go out on his own, and he’s got his Ten on Tuesday list posted at his brand-new online home. Please check out Tall Paul’s list at Blogenstein! (How did he come up with that title? Find out here.) Bookmark the site or subscribe to his feed, leave him a comment, and tell him you’re a friend of his wife’s. ***
For the most part, I liked school. I was pretty good at the academic part, and I’m sure that’s the main reason I liked it – it certainly wasn’t because of my high social standing. However, this week’s Ten on Tuesday asked for “10 Things You Didn’t Like About School,” and I was a little surprised by how quickly I put a list together. They’re in no particular order, but the first item is definitely my least favorite.
- Gym class. I have no athletic ability at all. I was always picked last for teams, and I was always afraid of breaking my glasses. My high school only required two years of P.E.; the last day of tenth-grade classes, which was my last day of gym ever, was one of the happiest days of my life.
- Picture day. They took one shot, and you had to order before you even saw the pictures. When they finally came in, weeks later, they were an inevitable disappointment.
- Cafeteria food – probably the reason I still pack my own lunch.
- Selling stuff for school fund-raisers – although, to be honest, I hate this even more as a parent than I did as a student.
- Not having enough time to get to my locker. Why did it always seem that your locker, no matter where it was, wasn’t conveniently located relative to any of your classes?
- No arts classes. This only applied to high school, where the only for-credit class that was arts-related at all was band (which was also extracurricular), unless you count Humanities, which was an elective. Choral group and drama were after-school only, and we had no fine-arts classes at all. However, since it was a Catholic school, we did have religion classes.
- Cliques. I think this is a “didn’t like about school” item you may only find on the lists of people who weren’t part of the cliques. Unfortunately, they exist in almost every organization, but they’re rarely more obvious or more insidious than they are in middle and high school.
- Classes disrupted by kids’ bad behavior. It wasted everyone’s time, especially when no one would confess to being the perpetrator and the teacher took it out on the whole class.
- Having to cross teacher picket lines. This happened almost every year when I was in grade school in Connecticut; it seemed like the teachers regularly went out on strike, and my parents sent us to school anyway. After we moved to Florida (and no longer went to public school), I don’t think I remember any more teachers’ strikes.
- Classes that were a waste of time (you could have just read the book and stayed home). Sadly, this seemed to be the case most often in university. Then again, if your professor didn’t count attendance, you could stay home and just show up for tests. But when you’re paying for your education, it’s nice if the classroom experience actually adds some value for your money.
So, what were some of your least favorite things about school? “Everything” is a cop-out, and don’t try to tell me you loved it all, either :-).
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Picture Day! Good one!
We have some similarities on our lists. 😉
(especially the cliques)
I also went to Catholic school.
The one thing I can say about our religion classes was that we did a lot of Church History-so it was actually parallel to what a lot of my friends were learning in their history classes.
great list! Have a good one.
I hated gym and dropped it in grade 9.
I loved school so did 10 things I liked about school. Ha!
I played 🙂
Gym was my favorite, except for being sweaty all day after since there was no time to shower.
Crossing picket lines would be weird. I never had to deal with that, luckily.
I’m the total opposite on arts. I have no artistic ability, of any sort, so I avoided all of them. 🙂
I’m glad to see I’m not the only one who hated gym class. Great list!!
Sharon – We did a fair amount of Church History too, which can be both enlightening and frustrating (learning about the hypocrisy and such). Thanks for stopping by!
Teena – If I could have dropped gym that soon, I would have, but I had to take it till the end of grade 10.
But for the most part, I liked school too. Maybe I should follow your lead and do a list about that :-).
Mike – I really hope you didn’t have gym as your first-period class (shudder).
My husband – the art major – was shocked to know we didn’t have art classes at my high school. I draw pretty well – or used to, when I was younger – so I did miss them.
Crossing the picket lines was weird. Not many kids had to do it. There were never many kids at school, and we just sat around with substitutes for most of the day. It was pointless, but my parents sent us anyway.
Ti’mo – No, it’s safe to say you’re not the only one. Thanks for stopping by!
Gym class would be at the top of my list too, I think. I did enjoy my college badminton class, but that’s about it. 🙂
My mother is a school teacher and I remember her going on strike. When I was in high school there was a huge teacher’s strike and going to class was such a waste of time. I’m not sure where the school administrators found the substitute teacers, but many hadn’t a clue what they were doing. I remember one bringing his guitar and a statue of a falcon to class every day. He’d let us do whatever we wanted as he played his guitar.
I complained enough to my mom that she and my dad let me skip school one afternoon during a student show of support to the teachers. It’s the only time I ever ditched school.
Literary Feline – I had a swimming class for a PE credit in college that I didn’t totally hate.
I think we had some of the same substitutes during teachers’ strikes – for the most part, they were babysitters. Being at school was indeed a waste of time, although I still don’t know whether NOT being there was an unexcused absence. I think my sister and I may have managed to convince our parents to let us stay home on a few strike days, though, since we weren’t missing anything important.
They had picture day with the orientation. It took forever, but at least when it was Sylvia’s turn, she did 3 shots before she got the right one 🙂
April – They did that at Tall Girl’s orientation too; she just started high school, so they needed the pictures for the ID cards. When they shoot on digital as opposed to film, I guess it’s easier for them to take more than one shot – and let you see what you’re getting.