Learning is Fun!
This isn't going to be about advertising; it's just something to rant about. It is still, however, about something that's equally as stupid and worthy of complaint, and that does not accomplish what it intends to.
In elementary school, most of the things that you do during the day and the homework that you get are wastes of time. And this isn't necessarily a bad thing, nor is it really preventable, because children don't have the attention span or intellectual capacities to do much more. Teachers try to make activities that are fun and interesting, with learning snuck behind the lines, and it usually works. Kids learn the basics that they need to, most of which they won’t remember anyway, and enjoyably make it through the day.
In middle school there’s a lot more focused learning time, but still a lot of facilitated learning and attempted “fun” interludes, as it should be. Kids still aren’t going to retain all that much of what they learn in middle school, which is why this still works. They get the basic foundations in the various subjects that they need for high school.
In high school, there is far less wasted time on frivolous projects/activities, because students are actually learning legitimate information that will help them in the future. Of course, this depends on the classes taken; there is a wide range of level/type of classes. And once again, this works. High school students are (somewhat) responsible and can handle the work without teachers trying to make it into a fun activity, and they are able to learn.
Now, following this logical progression, you can guess how much time should be wasted in the average college classroom: none. But is this what I experience? No. I just took a quiz in a class that is worth ten percent of my grade, based on identifying thirty pictures of people. The class is based on language disorders, and every person either has/had a language disorder, did scientific research on something related to the field, or played someone with one in a film. I could maybe understand the purpose of this if we were given the names of people and had to look them up to find the disorder, but no, we had to figure out who the people were first. With no in class discussion or clues. Just pictures of faces. And not all too obvious ones either. For example, a grainy black and white photo of a middle-aged bald man. A old photo snapshot of what looks like every single person’s grandfather standing in front of a house. Really? Is this really teaching me information on this subject? Even after I do figure out who these people are (which I don’t succeed at), all I’m required to do is supply the name of their issue. From which I am taught absolutely nothing. TEN percent of my grade is based on this.
Oh, and did I mention how much I’m paying for this brilliant instruction?