Subjects you wish you did/didn't do

JBoyle4eva

Sub I'd like to have done:

• Art
• italian(My school dosen't do this )

Subs I don't want to do:

• Business :mad:
• Irish
• Metalwork(Yup, my school's one of the few that does it!)

PurpleFistMixer

I'm fairly happy with my subject choices although I'd love to do Spanish instead of French. Of course my school doesn't do it.
And maybe music instead of business because I already do music theory and some of it would therefore be easy.

Otherwise, it's all good! (surprisingly)

coconutmonkey

How can you be saying its all good when we have to do Irish????????? The most irritating thing about it is that its completely useless and we will never use it!!!!!!! Bah!!!! :mad:

PurpleFistMixer

Eh true but I can't change Irish (unless I become dyslexic or something) so I might as well not give out about it... too much.

Irish is SATAN...

It IS a shame that we will never use it.

coconutmonkey

I think it's a shame that they made us hate it so much by forcing it on us in such a crappy way! Im not up to your standards of not complainig about something you can't change-I will complain and complain bitterly!

PurpleFistMixer

Yes, it's a problem with the entire system in that the exams are purely about the regurgitation of memorised information... they don't teach us Irish so we know it, they teach it to us so we can do well on a test. That's all it is really, which is why it seems so pointless.
But I was asked the other day - if I could change the way it's taught to make it more interesting, what would I do?
Honestly, I don't really know... I think all I'd do really is just make it more speaking oriented and less writing, but other than that... *shrugs*

coconutmonkey

I would just try to make it more fun, and less about exams. But really, if i could, I would take it out into the back yard and shoot it! Many times!

PurpleFistMixer

I think that's what TY is for. =P

As much as I give out about Irish and its evilness.. it's not actually THAT bad. It's just the way they teach it that kills any interest it may have. Conjugating the modh coinníolach 20 times DOES NOT make it any more interesting. I think talking about what we'd do if we won the lotto would be slightly more interesting and certainly more practical...

coconutmonkey

Yeah! It would prepare us for what WILL happen in later life! Its also just that Irish is so hard! I way prefer French!

PurpleFistMixer

Yeah.. Irish can be hard.
I find - for me - the hardest part is when we're writing leters/stories/those evil long essay things, you know the ones, I have a tendency to write kind of like I do in english - eg not simple sentences (although my posts may speak otherwise) - so I make loads of mistakes. Now, I reckon if we were actually SPEAKING the language whoever I was talking to would get the idea and whatever, and it'd be fine, but it seems that everything has to be PERFECT which is why it's so god damned hard!

I like French because they don't expect you to be so fluent in it.

grimloch

irish is a waste TBH, that tape work is the worst thing ever, it wouldnt feel so bad if you didn't know that you are wasting precious hours of you life at the subject. At least french has some practicality ie. you may actually need it someday

Hello Kitty

I really regreted doing business studies, it was the biggest load of crap and sooo boring, but on the day of the exam i changed to ordinary level(very easy).
And i really really hated history, religon and cspe load of rubbish.:mad:
The j.c is really easy, thats what i thought!!

coconutmonkey

I'm glad I did Home Ec, but it's so hard!!!!!! And i hate the way everyone thinks its easy and that it's just cooking, because its not! And besides, the cooking is really hard. There's so much to learn in it! I think it's probably the hardest subject I do, apart from Irish.

angeldelight

I'm finished my J/C now but I wish I hadn't done German! For three years I had horrivble time. Loved French but German is bleh. Not surprisingly I didn't do it for the L/C lol.

coconutmonkey

German is just such an ugly language! French is much nicer to speak, and it's not hated as much.

PurpleFistMixer

coconutmonkey wrote:

German is just such an ugly language! French is much nicer to speak, and it's not hated as much.

Heh I think German is great fun to speak!
I think if I'd had an option between doing French or German I might have picked German. Otherwise.. I mean, doing 4 languages (irish english french and german, because french is compulsory in my school) is too much.

luckat

The problem isn't whether you learn Irish or Italian or metalwork or geography - and *please* don't try to convince me that Irish is useless and Italian is going to be hugely useful in your future life - the problem is that the whole system of testing stinks.

For a start, if you're going to have exams, you should have them spread throughout the school year, two a month, three a month, whatever. Otherwise you have some poor kid who's dying with allergy and has a bad period for a week of the Leaving Cert exams, and ploughs the exam as a consequence.

But the main problem is that what you learn in school is not taught as a joy; you're not taught to learn for fun; you're not taught to *think*; you're not taught to create.

And if you want to talk about useful, every kid in Ireland leaves school unable to design a house, build a house, rewire it, plumb it, grow food for the family, store the food, cook it, do basic - or advanced - first aid and basic paramedics, raise a child, find a job, start a company, invest in shares, sail a boat, swim a mile... oh, where do I stop? We just don't teach our kids the kind of stuff that you actually need to survive.

Stark

I wish I did German in school.

PurpleFistMixer

I agree with you mostly there luckat, but I think if the exams were spread in a manner such as that people would be arguing "we don't get enough time on such and such an exam and this and that" and it would essentially not be as measurable as the JC or LC. I mean, that's the entire way the exams are designed. To be measurable, really. I mean, they don't care if we ever use this stuff in life, it's not taught for that reason, they teach us simply and solely so we will do well on that one exam and that we have memorised the course. In the eyes of the State Exam we know everything in the syllabus (or not all depending on how we score) and whether or not we forget it the day after is completely irrelevant.

They should teach us for life. It doesn't everything we learn should have practical applications. I mean, sure we don't use quadractic equations or algebra or whatever in day to day life but we still need to learn it, in my opinion.

luckat wrote:

And if you want to talk about useful, every kid in Ireland leaves school unable to design a house, build a house, rewire it, plumb it, grow food for the family, store the food, cook it, do basic - or advanced - first aid and basic paramedics, raise a child, find a job, start a company, invest in shares, sail a boat, swim a mile... oh, where do I stop? We just don't teach our kids the kind of stuff that you actually need to survive.

I have to disagree with you on some of these things... Now, university will teach us some of this stuff... I mean, not everyone wants to build houses for a living. One of the aspects of our society which is rather nice, I think, is that nobody has to be able to do everything. Not all of us will be electricians, plumbers, engineers, we don't need such specialised information.
But we already do learn some of these things, I mean - Home Ec teaches about domestic things - cooking, cleaning, raising children as far as I know (I don't do Home Ec), and Business Studies teaches us about companies and the like...
I do see what you're saying though, you could be amazed at people who score highly in everything and yet they don't know simple basic things.. things which you might think are common sense, but then again... they don't teach common sense in school.

Wow this is a long post.

coconutmonkey

I do agree with you, purplefistmixer, but i just have to comment about what you said about home ec. You made it sound basically like it was just learning to be a good housewife, when it's not. Its one of the most useful subjects i do. You learn practical, necessary skills for life.

PurpleFistMixer

Oh, you're right. Oops, I didn't mean it like that.
But a lot of the stuff you learn in home ec you can learn at home... (which is why I didn't pick it)

andyman

I absolutly hate Irish and German.Yet I like Woodwork and Geography

coconutmonkey

I hate geography. That's probably because of my 2 horrendous teachers though. I shudder to think of the one i had in first year.......i won't talk about her as i wouldn't be able to explain the utter hatred i hold for her, or her ridiculous oldness and stupidity etc. You had to have her.

Corruptedmorals

Im furious with myself for picking Biz (business) I got the worst teacher ever and he hated me and made every single biz class for 3 years HELL. And not just for me, for everyone. I wish I did woodwork instead. I wanted to do french because I go to france every year, spanish wouldn't have been much good, not that my school does it.

I don't understand how you lot can call yourselves citizens of Ireland if you're not even willing to learn the national language. Though I might just be saying that because Irish is my best subject. (bar CSPE, which is a total joke)

Art was cool until 3 rd year. For some reason our teacher wouldn't let us start the project until mid January. Cue frantic rushing to get it done on time. I spent 6 weeks on the embroidery alone and had to drop down to pass because there was too much to be done in time.

*sigh*

I should get an A/almost an A though, my embroidery is a masterpiece.

PurpleFistMixer

My art teacher is a bit.. odd. Or rather, wildly off track. In the last 2 years we've done object drawing a total of twice, and life drawing never. He's spent more time "giving out the work" than doing anything, and whenever we do do anything, it's LETTERING.
He expects everyone to do a poster, and all in a specific style, which is the way EVERYONE does it every year, and to be honest, they all look completely unimaginative.
He's going to make us pick lino printing as our "other" category or whatever it is. Lino is nearly impossible to make look good, and if you do want it to be good, it takes forever.

To sum it up, he's trying his hardest to fail every last one of us.

Corruptedmorals

Ah, that sucks. I did embroidery for my option. It looks cool...

Life drawing sucks, I always get the most fidgety person from the year below, and theres not enough time.

Shoolaboola

hmmmm fidgety person....Amy Dennehy or Jenny Mayock?

Corruptedmorals

I can't remember. Thats how bad my portrait is. I still got an A though.

*smiles*

Shoolaboola

*smiles for you also* now give me good rep points!

andyman

A word of advice, never ask anyone for good rep points because they will think that you are being nice to them not just for good rep points but for you to be friendly with them and your only being friendy for goo rep points,stupid if you ask me.

PurpleFistMixer

Eh the reputation thing doesn't always work so well. I was being helpful and nice and whatnot and people were giving me negative rep points. Phh.