Personally I can’t say I learned anything professionally useful in english or civics. An actually decent math class in just one of my years of k-12 would have been much more useful.
Some of what's taught in English classes is about clear communication, and some of it isn't.
I think learning the 5 paragraph essay structure was very useful. But that's maybe 3 months worth of learning. The rest was English major stuff. Which is fine, but please don't pretend that it has a lot to do with "good communication".
> Even if all English does is force you to read more, it's probably a win in this regard.
It's not enough to say people had to read for English classes. You have to compare it to the counterfactual. In that regard, I don't think it stood up well.
1. I was already reading a lot. I just read different things.
2. I came to hate pretty much everything I read in class. It's only decades later that I've been able to appreciate some of the classics that we read.
On this point, I think English class was a net harm, at least for me. Of course, everyone has different circumstances; I'm sure there are people for whom a similar program as what I went through would have been a benefit.
Of course you can BELIEVE that English classes didn't help you learn how to read and write more effectively or how to better understand what was left unsaid or unwritten, but believing something doesn't make it so.
And yes, as a student reading the classics often sucks. After all, you're not reading them for pleasure - you're reading them to learn how to identify and discuss their themes. But more than that, you see how themes are repeated throughout history, and how the author's experiences changed how they illustrated those themes. English classes taught you plenty of history - not so much in rote facts, but rather by illustrating parts of the cultural zeitgeist of different eras and how authors reinforced, protested, or recorded what was happening at the time.
I doubt many children appreciate education while they're learning, but adults certainly can be thankful that they weren't left in the dark.
At 45 years old I can confidently say that anything I've "learned" on my native language classes through 12 years of having them was totally useless garbage and I'm using none of it in my writing, reading and culturural appreciation or understanding of the world. Everything I use was self-acquired in the time I had that was not spent in native language classes. Ideas of education are great, but the implementation is terrible to the point of being useless.
On the other hand math, physics and chemistry I learned at school has been immensely practically and culturally useful and I wouldn't know a fraction of it if I wasn't taught it in school.
Even if the goal is a cultural appreciation, Shakespeare's plays will tell you as much about England in 1585-1613 as Terry Gilliam's filmography does about the Anglosphere in 1971-present.
It's more than zero, but it's also missing the overwhelming majority of the context and the world in which it exists.
Modern readings treat Shakespeare with excessive reverence: not just "a playwright" but "The Bard".
Those plays were made to be performed with very short rehearsal time before performing, outside, with no lights (at most fire, but it was wood and thatched and burned down from a theatrical cannon), in a crowded venue where audiences would be expected to jeer and cheer, whereas today it's a finely rehearsed performance by people who take it seriously performed for an audience who consider it high culture.
Monty Python's Gumbies aren't well understood by new viewer today, as modern news treats "the man on the street" somewhat differently than in the 70s. How wrong do modern viewers comprehend Shakespeare's characters, considering that "The Taming of the Shrew" is classified as a comedy?
That said, I was also busy teaching myself a lot of maths and science ahead of the classes; what I learned from school but would not have taught myself was the basics of German and French (though only the former stuck with me), the absolute basics of music notation, some metalworking and woodworking, and PE.
Oh, and the practical experiences in the chemistry lab, though I'd have still done the theory myself without that.
Why, given the vast ocean of possible knowledge, would you assume I or most people would have any interest or benefit in that? Over something like geometric algebra, soldering or solving quadratic equations?
Human creations can be roughly divided in two categories, tools and content. Teaching content is pointless. Its selection is arbitrary and its value is roughly same and miniscule. Millions will choose Frotnite streamer over Shakespeare any day of the week. Math, physics, chemistry, foreign language are tools. Tools that the knowledge of can help you create whatever you desire, both content and whats more important and rare new tools. Native language classes, history, geography, even biology are very content heavy and very poor on tools. Thus they are mostly useless.
I was also saying that even though the lens of culture, the generally mandatory Shakespeare is overrated.
I have a similar problem with a few words in German, despite being in Berlin for 6 years now — "Es war krass" sounds like it should be a bad thing.
Even as someone who went full 'STEM' for both my education and career, English is probably among the most professionally useful courses I did in high school. A surprisingly large part of my job involves reading things, understanding them, and then writing a clear and reasoned response to them, all skills I first learned and really got to practice in English class.
How to do things you don't want to do is a fundamental requirement for adulthood, and probably the most important skill anyone learns in school
If your answer is no, you're currently doing things you'd rather not.
Freedom? That has not been my experience of adulthood. To me adulthood is about making responsible choices based on their consequences for you and the people around you ... which means that the majority of my time is spent doing things that other people need rather than because I want to do them
What is freedom, if not the ability to make those choices?