PE. An hour of basically avoiding the ball and being too scared to try and get it off anyone. The only week I ever enjoyed PE was the week they had inspectors and the teacher put us "geeks" into a group together so we immediately felt more confident joining in. Then once the inspectors were gone it was back to watching.
I was hopeless needlework - still am. I made a skirt at school and the first time I wore it the seams started coming undone
As for PE - I once got 'B' for effort an 'D' for ability (at least it was the only D I ever had) ;-)
Strangely, I enjoy reading about history now, especially the Tudor's, and ancient Rome. I read Robert Graves' 'I Claudius', and David Starkey's Six Wives Of Henry VIII. The second one took me ages
I hated Religious Education, what a waste of time that was, and I always hated Biology despite really liking Chemistry and Physics, it never really made sense the way the other two did.
I didn't like German, but that was the teacher I think. I loathed PE, but again that was down to having an inadequate little bully for a teacher.
Overall though, I really liked lessons and learning, looking back the teachers that we had made a huge difference, for better or worse. It's a shame that kids can be put off a whole subject because their particular teacher isn't really very good.
I was hopeless needlework - still am. I made a skirt at school and the first time I wore it the seams started coming undone
As for PE - I once got 'B' for effort an 'D' for ability (at least it was the only D I ever had) ;-)
Strangely, I enjoy reading about history now, especially the Tudor's, and ancient Rome (I even read Robert Graves' 'I Claudius')
Check out Colleen McCullough's First Man of Rome series then, genuinely the best fiction on republican Rome I have read (although I agree that I Claudius is great as well)
Check out Colleen McCullough's First Man of Rome series then, genuinely the best fiction on republican Rome I have read (although I agree that I Claudius is great as well)
I'll investigate those ;-)
I enjoyed the I Claudius TV series, so it would be interesting to read novels based on the same time period - from Augustus to Nero.
EDIT:
from Wiki:
It primarily chronicles the lives and careers of Gaius Marius, Lucius Cornelius Sulla, Pompeius Magnus, Gaius Julius Caesar, and the early career of Caesar Augustus
Can you tell me the name of the last book ;-)
Shame it goes no further, it would have been interesting to read about Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero
I hated geography and it started in primary school. It didn't help that the georgraphy teacher I had had been to Nepal and Sudan and those were the onlly two countries she ever seemed to talk about. When I got to secondary school, we got 'environmental studies' which was even more tedious!:D
I disliked and dropped as soon as possible subjects where you are judged to be good or bad. Things like History, Economics, geography, where you write things and get very low marks if your handwriting is bad. Mine was terrible. So my favourites were things where if you got them right they were forced to give you higher marks.
Things like Maths (both pure and applied), physics, chemistry, biology, English grammar.
But in reality what I hated above all was the one subject that I really looked forward to learning when I got to grammar school. I remember hearing that I had passed the 11 plus, and was full of happy thoughts that I was to learn French. By the end of the first term I realised what a load of total c**p it was. Language teachers in this country get paid a lot of money under false pretences. They don't teach the children how to speak the language, they turn up, talk about tenses, tell you to 'learn verbs' and write vocabularies to learn on the board. Garbage - the reason why Britain is very bad at languages is because of bad teaching.
I enjoyed the I Claudius TV series, so it would be interesting to read novels based on the same time period - from Augustus to Nero.
EDIT:
from Wiki:
Can you tell me the name of the last book ;-)
Shame it goes no further, it would have been interesting to read about Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero
The last one is called Anthony and Cleopatra and includes the early period of Augustus life (when he was Octavian before he was emperor). It's worth starting at the beginning though, there're some excellent characters waiting for you to discover them (every bit as fabulously evil as Livia:D) I started by reading the I Claudius books and then read these and they completely sucked me into the earlier period tbh, I actually ended up more interested in the earlier time. Sadly I think the author has stopped writing due to ill health so we won't be getting books on the Imperial period from her, it's a real shame, she is so good I would have loved that period to be covered by her as well.
For the later period David Wishart's Corvinius books are good for the Tiberius, Caligula years, especially the first three (Ovid, Germanicus & Sejanus) and Lindsey Davis' Falco books for Vespasian. With those ones though they are about characters solving crime in that period rather than about the Emperors themselves (although they do appear from time to time).
Loathed PE and RE. In fact, I loathed them so much more than other subjects that I was bad at like French and Irish because combined, 5-8 periods a week was dedicated to these totally useless subjects when I could have been improving other more important subjects (even if I did hate them anyway)
As joyless as I might sound, by the end, I really couldn't stand school so much that I just did not want to be there for anything that wasn't essential for me to attend (especially when there was exams going on). Overhaul PE or make it non-compulsory - I actually think it's very important to encourage exercise in schools but if the already sporty types are the only ones that are going to be encouraged then let the academic types do something a bit more stimulating then standing at the side trying to avoid humiliation. RE, get rid of it, just a load of rubbish tbh. Replace with 1 lesson of an SPHE type subject for the younger years per week to satisfy the 'moral' teaching its supposed to do.
I was astonishingly bad at languages so I hated them for that reason I liked English though, and Chemistry and Business were my favourites.
I was hopeless needlework - still am. I made a skirt at school and the first time I wore it the seams started coming undone
As for PE - I once got 'B' for effort an 'D' for ability (at least it was the only D I ever had) ;-)
Strangely, I enjoy reading about history now, especially the Tudor's, and ancient Rome. I read Robert Graves' 'I Claudius', and David Starkey's Six Wives Of Henry VIII. The second one took me ages
Same here re needlework.... It took me 2 years to sew 1 seam on a skirt... I HATED needlework with a passion:(
The last one is called Anthony and Cleopatra and includes the early period of Augustus life (when he was Octavian before he was emperor). It's worth starting at the beginning though, there're some excellent characters waiting for you to discover them (every bit as fabulously evil as Livia:D) I started by reading the I Claudius books and then read these and they completely sucked me into the earlier period tbh, I actually ended up more interested in the earlier time. Sadly I think the author has stopped writing due to ill health so we won't be getting books on the Imperial period from her, it's a real shame, she is so good I would have loved that period to be covered by her as well.
For the later period David Wishart's Corvinius books are good for the Tiberius, Caligula years, especially the first three (Ovid, Germanicus & Sejanus) and Lindsey Davis' Falco books for Vespasian. With those ones though they are about characters solving crime in that period rather than about the Emperors themselves (although they do appear from time to time).
I looked up Antony and Cleopatra on Amazon:
Formats
Amazon Price New from
Hardcover -- £115.16
Paperback -- £115.16
Surely that can't be right
However I might look into sending for 'Germanicus' ;-)
English Literature, specifically the plays of Shamespeare. Complete and utter waste of time.
I loved English, especially Shakespeare but loathed Maths. Crap teacher who only cared about the kids who were good at Maths. Hope these days are long gone.
English Literature, closely followed by English Language.
I don't understand all the hate for maths. There is more beauty in mathematics than there is in the finest painting or the most well written novel, IMO.
Granted, maths was pointless and boring up until GCSE. The A-level stuff; calculus, trigonometry, mechanics, statistics etc is far more elegant than the inane crap we had to put up with at GCSE.
English Literature, closely followed by English Language.
I don't understand all the hate for maths. There is more beauty in mathematics than there is in the finest painting or the most well written novel, IMO.
Granted, maths was pointless and boring up until GCSE. The A-level stuff; calculus, trigonometry, mechanics, statistics etc is far more elegant than the inane crap we had to put up with at GCSE.
I liked maths. I wasn't amazing at it, mind, but I'd always much preferred to sit down working out problems rather than writing a history essay on something I didn't really care about. It was stimulating, really
However I might look into sending for 'Germanicus' ;-)
bloody hell it must be out of print at the moment. How annoying, weird because the others are all still on there. I hate it when publishers dick about like that.
If you are thinking about the Germanicus book bear in mind that it is the second of a trilogy, so you might consider starting with Ovid. There's a fair bit of Livia in that one
Comments
I was hopeless needlework - still am. I made a skirt at school and the first time I wore it the seams started coming undone
As for PE - I once got 'B' for effort an 'D' for ability
Strangely, I enjoy reading about history now, especially the Tudor's, and ancient Rome. I read Robert Graves' 'I Claudius', and David Starkey's Six Wives Of Henry VIII. The second one took me ages
I didn't like German, but that was the teacher I think. I loathed PE, but again that was down to having an inadequate little bully for a teacher.
Overall though, I really liked lessons and learning, looking back the teachers that we had made a huge difference, for better or worse. It's a shame that kids can be put off a whole subject because their particular teacher isn't really very good.
Check out Colleen McCullough's First Man of Rome series then, genuinely the best fiction on republican Rome I have read (although I agree that I Claudius is great as well)
But that was many years ago.
Boys did DT, girls did sewing. I was shit at sewing!:D
I loved PE but I wasn't any good and the teachers didn't like rubbish PE children
I'll investigate those ;-)
I enjoyed the I Claudius TV series, so it would be interesting to read novels based on the same time period - from Augustus to Nero.
EDIT:
from Wiki:
Can you tell me the name of the last book ;-)
Shame it goes no further, it would have been interesting to read about Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero
Things like Maths (both pure and applied), physics, chemistry, biology, English grammar.
But in reality what I hated above all was the one subject that I really looked forward to learning when I got to grammar school. I remember hearing that I had passed the 11 plus, and was full of happy thoughts that I was to learn French. By the end of the first term I realised what a load of total c**p it was. Language teachers in this country get paid a lot of money under false pretences. They don't teach the children how to speak the language, they turn up, talk about tenses, tell you to 'learn verbs' and write vocabularies to learn on the board. Garbage - the reason why Britain is very bad at languages is because of bad teaching.
The last one is called Anthony and Cleopatra and includes the early period of Augustus life (when he was Octavian before he was emperor). It's worth starting at the beginning though, there're some excellent characters waiting for you to discover them (every bit as fabulously evil as Livia:D) I started by reading the I Claudius books and then read these and they completely sucked me into the earlier period tbh, I actually ended up more interested in the earlier time. Sadly I think the author has stopped writing due to ill health so we won't be getting books on the Imperial period from her, it's a real shame, she is so good I would have loved that period to be covered by her as well.
For the later period David Wishart's Corvinius books are good for the Tiberius, Caligula years, especially the first three (Ovid, Germanicus & Sejanus) and Lindsey Davis' Falco books for Vespasian. With those ones though they are about characters solving crime in that period rather than about the Emperors themselves (although they do appear from time to time).
As joyless as I might sound, by the end, I really couldn't stand school so much that I just did not want to be there for anything that wasn't essential for me to attend (especially when there was exams going on). Overhaul PE or make it non-compulsory - I actually think it's very important to encourage exercise in schools but if the already sporty types are the only ones that are going to be encouraged then let the academic types do something a bit more stimulating then standing at the side trying to avoid humiliation. RE, get rid of it, just a load of rubbish tbh. Replace with 1 lesson of an SPHE type subject for the younger years per week to satisfy the 'moral' teaching its supposed to do.
I was astonishingly bad at languages so I hated them for that reason
Same here re needlework.... It took me 2 years to sew 1 seam on a skirt... I HATED needlework with a passion:(
I looked up Antony and Cleopatra on Amazon:
Surely that can't be right
However I might look into sending for 'Germanicus' ;-)
I loved English, especially Shakespeare but loathed Maths. Crap teacher who only cared about the kids who were good at Maths. Hope these days are long gone.
sounds just like my teachers, the other kids took the right **** out of me, did the teacher do anything , the hell they did
I don't understand all the hate for maths. There is more beauty in mathematics than there is in the finest painting or the most well written novel, IMO.
Granted, maths was pointless and boring up until GCSE. The A-level stuff; calculus, trigonometry, mechanics, statistics etc is far more elegant than the inane crap we had to put up with at GCSE.
There was a DS project some years ago, a bit like an online Big Brother.
I liked maths. I wasn't amazing at it, mind, but I'd always much preferred to sit down working out problems rather than writing a history essay on something I didn't really care about. It was stimulating, really
If you are thinking about the Germanicus book bear in mind that it is the second of a trilogy, so you might consider starting with Ovid. There's a fair bit of Livia in that one