Art classes were my favorite. What was strange to me tho, was I could duplicate the Mona Lisa, but my teachers thought I sucked cuz i didn't draw "their way"
At the time, I would have definitely said math, but knowing what I know now, I'd have to say history. If I did college over and could do any major, history would be it. It's a major question which kind, though.
I liked history too. But I really enjoyed Geometry. An older sister almost failed the class and I head horror stories how tough it was. But I liked it. It was different. You either "got it" or didn't. Writing proofs came easy to me.
I should've said Spanish but the Spanish teacher was pissed at me when I told her that there isn't any language called Spanish. What we learn in school is Castlian.
Math. A quick story. I was in juniour high when the cubans started coming to the US getting out of castro's hell. I went from an "A" in spanish, sorry SS, Castlian to a "C". Didn't think that was right.
I'll say a tossup betweem drivers ed or phys ed. I'll say the former because the benefits were immediate and tangible. The later because of the break from classroom routine.
@clubber- Interesting footnote to your Cuban anecdote. One of my high school English teachers (DC area) told me that the Cuban immigrant students had better grammar on essay papers because they learned English "by the book". They had not let the informal slang creep into their lexicon the way most native born US students did. This was at a time immigrants ACTUALLY had to assimilate into our society, long before this "press 1 for English" BS that permeates our life today.
"All of my shop classes"
Ugh. I hated shop. I don't think most schools even teach that now. Coming out of junior high, my best friend talked me into taking it with him. I hated it. The first 6 weeks we made isometric projections and the teacher didn't "teach". We sat down at the drawing boards and he the first day he said start drawing.
Worst teacher at my school. Tough old bird though. He was POW in WWII in the PI. Survivor of Bataan.
motor,
"shop" for me was in a workshop. We could build stuff. It was enjoyable. Drawing was in a drafting class. I took that as a prelude to my working in your neck of the woods as an automotive engineer.
Clubber,
My shop class was divided up into six 6-week modules. Each with a different topic. Drawings, design a home, build a model of a home, metal working, wood working, and the last 6 weeks was classroom work about wood.
I kicked ass in the final 6 weeks. Got my first A. I did much better with the book learning vs the hands on stuff.
@PrimO: Sex-ed sucked. They didn't tell me anything about how to please a woman or positions or anything. It was just plumbing, and I already knew about that. I could have used pointers on techniques and pickup lines...not in that order of course.
I took a class called Bachelor Living...no kidding! They taught us how to cook and sew, kind of like Home Ec for guys. We all signed up, of, course, because the the teacher was hot. Ah, good memories.
I took a class called Bachelor Living...no kidding! They taught us how to cook and sew, kind of like Home Ec for guys. We all signed up, of, course, because the the teacher was hot. Ah, good memories.
I recall, in all my school years, a total of one even remotely hot teacher. Just out of college and likely hot only because she wasn't 50 or so. An English teacher my senior year.
@Clubber:
LOL! I guess maybe to the extent that breeding engineers makes horn dogs. Come to think of it, we have adolescent awkwardness around girls plus good disposable income is a good recipe!
My shop classed included auto mechanics, carpentry and millwork, electricity, machine shop, metallurgy and welding, drafting and electronics. It was great preparation for getting an engineering degree. If my Mom had had her way, I would have been taking Latin instead.
My high school had a vocational component that included 2 year, 4 year and 5 year tracks (the last for college bound students).
@SlickSpic-
I had a love-hate relationship with PE. Part of it was the fact that in the middle of my freshman year, I moved from Minnesota to Illinois, and Illinois was, at least back when I was in the school, the one state which required daily PE classes (unless you were in health ed or drivers ed). So PE was forced on me. Part of it was the fact that at my school, all the PE teachers were the coaches of the various sports programs and they were trying to recruit you for a team. My Illinois high school took sports far too seriously, certainly more than my Minnesota high school. Hell, I had the basketball coach one year and he was trying to get me to recruit my brother (who's 6'6") to play basketball, like I needed to do that. My brother was going to play no matter what, and did. After freshman year, it was also an all-male class, which meant a lot of people acting as stupidly as possible. If an actual athlete was out of season in their sport, they would tend to show off how athletic they were and get on you if you weren't up to their standard, which is more fuel for the argument that they took sports too seriously there. I enjoyed the various activities we did, but they seemed to try to make it as unpleasant as possible.
@Clubber-
That's one more hot teacher than I remember having, although in retrospect, there were two teachers I would have enjoyed banging. But both of them were MILF's (back before that term existed), one of whom had her daughter in my grade and the other had her son 2 grades before me. The first was my favorite math teacher, with math my favorite subject, and she could draw perfect circles, complete with the point in the center. After she retired from teaching, I heard she became an artist. The second one was really tall (as it was, her son was the big basketball star of my school, who went on to play in college) and whenever she wore what was on a normal woman a skirt, on her it was a miniskirt, so you would always see lots of leg when she taught. I never really thought of her as sexy, but you'd see her in these skirts and the mind went wild. And she gave me a ride home on 3 different occasions, as I was too lazy to get a car, or a job, for that matter.
SS,
In junior high, we had a PE guy. He was an ex-Marine drill instructor, no joke. He acted like we 13-15 year old kids were getting ready for WWIII. I won't post his name, but his initials were LAP. His favorite thing he said to me, "Take a lap!" God, I despised that man. :(
@Clubber-My freshman PE coach was Mr. Bell. He was cool. If you and another dude at beef, he'd give you one minute to scrap it out and then he made you shake hands.
@Clubber-If Mr. Bell would teach today, they'd hand him his walking papers. I wonder how many future confrontations/escalations that he prevented by allowing us kids to duke it out.
SS,
I would bet he saved lives by today's standards. Where I went to high school, many trucks there had gun rack with the guns in them. Not at all uncommon. Never knew of any gun incident, or knife, for that matter.
Otto22,
My older sister took 4 years of Latin and loved it. She feels just as you do. It's been a valuable asset to have. By the I got to high school, it had by dropped from the curriculum. They call it a dead language. But maybe the schools need to rethink the idea.
In high school I enjoyed history. In college too many to list, but courses related to my major were great.
And in high school over four years I only had three female teachers! All three were English teachers. There were many female teachers at my school but damn if I could manage landing in one of their classes.
I liked art and history. I wasn't very good with the military, economic, cultural, and political aspects of history though, so I went with an art history degree when I went to college.
My fave was art class, because I was great at it. I was always one of the top three all the way through 10th grade--it wasn't until my junior year that I faced any serious competition from other students. After that, composition. I could write well when I wanted to. But these days I'm something of a history buff.
I will say that in 7th grade, I paid very close attention in algebra class even though I hated it. My math teacher was a hot brunette who sometimes went without a bra & wore fairly snug tops.
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