'There's no point learning this!': Countermoves.
There is a point, it's just not being told enough.
When was the last time you felt like something you were expected to learn or know was completely useless?
If you’re a student, it was probably no more than a couple of days ago.
If you’re a parent, you probably heard your child complain about it no more than a couple of days ago. And remember, a couple of decades ago, you used to say the same. Maybe about the exact same school subjects, actually.
So if we feel like a subject is useless… Is it really?
Usually, no.
So here’s a short list to help children and teenagers see the purpose… and help them find the motivation.
History
We’re learning history mainly for one reason: to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.
History sounds pointless if students have the impression they just need to remember dates related to events none of their relatives have ever lived. It feels far, it feels irrelevant.
But learning history makes a lot more sense once students understand that what matters the most is not the dates themselves, but how much time separates one event from the next, what historical context led to such decisions.
When my students complain about history being pointless, I always give them the same example: Hitler became chancellor through democratic means. People voting eventually put power in his hands. Hopefully, learning history will help you understand that sadly, democracy can also lead to disasters, and will educate you and all other citizens to make the right decisions for our world’s future.
Geography
‘I don’t know where that country is, I don’t care, I’ll never go there anyway’.
Geography is opening the door to another subject which they’ll discover later on: geopolitics. Or in simpler words, how the way our world is geographically organized influences the political decisions and relationships of countries with one another.
Understanding geography is necessary to understand a key factor behind many conflicts, to encourage peace, and to visualize how climate change may affect the organization of the world’s population.
Math
‘Why should I know Pythagoras, I’ll never use that in my entire life!’
Maybe. Or maybe not.
Word problems are my favorites when it comes to math. Not my students’ favorites though, I must admit.
Why are they my favorites? Because it allows them to see math in a context. And while it might not be a context they personally relate to, it still helps them see that it may be useful to society in general, or useful to them indirectly (for instance, while coding may not be of interest to them personally, they are very happy to use social media and the likes. Another example: while they may not enjoy calculating interest rates, these will directly affect their own finances as adults, and understanding how they work is key to make educated decisions about their own money).
But beyond problem-solving, I believe teaching math to all students has many other purposes:
to develop logical reasoning
to develop trial and error: students need to try a certain method before they see if it works or not, see their mistake if the method chosen doesn’t work, and identify another way of working things out, until they find something that actually works
to synthesize: to focus their explanations only on what works eventually, and/or explain clearly and neatly, with few words, what they did and how.
Science
The way science is presented at school helps students:
Follow a protocole rigorously
Make their own observations
Draw clear and relevant conclusions from their observations and those of their peers.
Through science, students also learn:
to make an hypothesis
to identify the variables that could play a role in the proof that their hypothesis is right or wrong
to imagine a rigorous experiment that would allow them to check their hypothesis
to collect, measure and analyze data
and eventually, to admit that they were right… or wrong
This scientific approach is replicable in every aspect of their life… and a powerful tool to help them develop critical thinking, especially in the fake news era.
Foreign languages
Of course, foreign languages are a key to new adventures and smoother communication with more people. However, that argument tends to be weak, notably to English-speakers who know their language is now spoken pretty much everywhere around the globe.
What other argument could be put forward then? Well, learning foreign languages develop our open-mindedness. Why? Our thoughts are structured by how we express them: it has been scientifically proven that we will not think the same way depending on the language in which we think. Learning a foreign language is helping us see how our native language is developing biases in our way of thinking and reasoning, and thus… how we would be thinking things differently if we were living in a different country. Fascinating!
Literature
‘I don’t like reading!’
Literature is not only about the pleasure of reading, which may not be a pleasure to everyone. Literature is about sharing a common culture, common references, that allow us to identify to a community, a country, a region of the world. Foreign literature is also helping us understand how other cultures have been shaped by other visions of arts, and how other artistic pieces are the reflection of other cultures. Yes, open-mindedness, again.
Philosophy & Theory of Knowledge
Those are probably the most obscure subjects for many students… And yet, among the most important!
They help students learn how to structure their thoughts, to question their beliefs and their preconceived ideas, to justify their opinion… and sometimes to change their mind too!