Did you ever take a class in which you didn’t learn at all?

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Once I got to graduate school I found myself taking classes a version of I had already taken in undergrad. One such repeat offered no new material and I did not learn anything from it.

I failed every single test I took in algebra 1 which I took in high-skewl. Another kid who was also dyslexic & had some related learning disabilities like me failed everything as well. The only thing I didn't get an F on was a group project & the other two did ALL the work. The boy got upset how I was not helping & said he was gonna tell our teacher but the girl convinced him not to. I guess she knew it was impossible for me to understand what we were supposed to do. For some odd reason I'm not sure of the other kid who was dyslexic & struggled like me had to take summer skewl & I didn't. Maybe our teacher decided to cut me some slack cuz I had other issues & she figured it was just impossible for me to get it whereas the other kid might could of learned IDK. I posted this in another thread in this section today called~ Mathematic as an individual with asperger

I always struggled in math but I have dyslexia, dysgraphia, & dyscalculia. They are actually fairly common comorbids with Aspergers. I can do OK in basic math using a calculator but I failed every test in algebra 1. I did OK in business math but a lot of it was word problems. I didn't always use the exact formula I was supposed to use but it didn't really matter as long as I got the right answers. I think part of my problem with algebra 1 was that I didn't see any real world applications for it. Seeing a variable used multiple times in the same problem or having multiple variables used in the same problem is just random numbers & letters to me. I might as well be translating a foreign language I don't know like Chinese or Klingon into English.

When I took geometry in high school, I got an A just from completion grades. The teacher gave us points if we did all our homework, whether it was right or wrong—tests counted for a lot less than homework. Needless to say, I didn’t do well on the geometry section of the ACT!

Communication in Management. The lecturer and TA never communicated to anyone about anything. The suggested textbook wasn't related to the course in any way whatsoever. People were put into groups, never advised about it, assigned groupwork, and then never advised that all of the other group members had dropped out a month ago. It was done over the internet and no-one was given any way to contact anyone else.

Finally, there was no instruction given about how the final presentation (most of the grade) was supposed to work; all of the existing material referred to the offline version of the course which had everyone working physically in the same room at the same time.

I realize that, in theory, universities are supposed to prepare students for the realities of the workplace, but there are limits.

Back in theatre school, I had some classes that were sometimes a bit abstract or theory classes with teachers that turned the classes into workshops rather than educational.

One of those abstract classes was mask class. In this class, we learnt acting with masks, the first class was just the teacher talking to students wearing masks that "were assigned to them" after they closed their eyes and picked the first mask that they made eye contact with. I have no idea how it worked, but the mask unleashed some intense emotions on the students while it didn't really affect me. The next few classes were scenes of the masks becoming characters while interacting with each other while the teacher directed it. It was a strange experience, but I somehow passed.


The other class was entrepreneurship. But it was more aimed at becoming your own CEO instead of putting yourself on the market, getting signed to agencies etc and it bugged me because the college kept hiring different teachers and all of them basically were teaching you how to become an independent company that sells acts and entertainment rather than becoming an actor for theatre and film. None of the teachers ever taught me how to put myself on the market as an artist or how to network and I had to figure that out all by myself but the college has praised me for my networking skills so it's all good

At some point I might try to track down my school timetables as they might 'jog' the memory in this regard.

Practical classes were off-putting to me, aside from art (at least when it solely involved drawing and painting). Physical education was the worst due to being self-conscious about my weight. ICT was pretty good, and English and Maths weren't too bad. I didn't mind exams, because they meant that everyone would shut up for about two hours.

philosophy 101 - just a bunch of great words going 'round and 'round.

University is a waste of time and money. Outdated education system which doesn't teach you any real world skills. Take a business degree for example (which is what I did), you're learning business from a teacher who's never owned a business! Complete scam, you can learn everything you need online, or through books. University was the worst mistake of my life and it was a lot of stress for a worthless piece of paper that provided no real life skills and no work skills.

Many classes are merely teaching you how to pass the exam at the end of the course. That was my experience as a school pupil, as a university student, and then as a schoolteacher: it's all just jumping through hoops to get certificates to help the capitalist world go round as profitably as possible. It isn't about learning. It isn't about education. It's about polishing cogs to fit in the machine.

If I ever learned anything at school, it tended to be when the teacher had gone off-topic and we were enjoying a tasty Red Herring. If anyone ever learned anything in any class I ever taught, it was almost certainly the same way (my kids knew it was easy to get me off-topic, and I knew the potential value of Red Herrings ... which was why it was easy for them to get me off-topic, or at least partly why).

Once I bumped into a guy of about 20. He was unrecognizable from the 11-year-old boy I'd taught years previously for about 6 months, covering someone's maternity leave. His name was not an uncommon one. Mine is. Hence he recognized me pretty quickly. "You taught me the meaning of the word 'prejudice'!" he exclaimed. "That was the only damned thing I learned in the whole of my first year at that school!" Since my subject was in fact Latin, clearly we must have been off topic at the time...

I took ancient Greek for a year, in a class of five students and learnt nearly nothing. I studied Latin for years and none of it stuck.

Mmmm. So if I suddenly hanker for a discussion about Gerunds and Gerundives, you would probably prefer not to be contacted...?

Or Pluperfect Passive Subjunctives...?

Myself, I use one of those twenty times every day, can't imagine how powerful successful people (like President Trump, to name but one) actually get by without; but I, of course am severely mentally impaired, whereas they are normal and healthy.

Nobody is more normal and healthy than Donald Trump. You only have to take one look at him to see that. Damn, I wish I could be Neurotypical! And fat and orange.

I think I answered this thread before, saying I learned nothing in my Biology class because I refused to go. I failed willingly because it involved killing small creatures (bees, worms) and dissecting them. Just the sensory element alone was too much for me, because of the formaldehyde smell.

I also had a private teacher for playing the organ and I hated it so much I didn't learn a thing. I had meltdowns when the man came to our house and I didn't listen to a word he said.

Physics.
Lesson 1 we had Boyle's Law... and they lost me there and then. I failed the exam.
Since then I've become quite interested in a Physics-lite sort of way... mainly because I read a lot if hard sci- fi.