Good lord... and I thought art was useless as a compulsory course...
I agree... I've said it before and I'll say it again. The only thing we learn from history is that we never learn from history. I imagine if the education of it were more engaging students would be more likely to see parallels between the past and present. Try explaining to adults the parallels between "The War on Terror" and the "Final Solution to the Jewish Problem" and suddenly everyone is all "IT'S NOTHING LIKE THAT!" Then try explaining "Well the Final Solution didn't start off by rounding up the Jews into cattle cars" and people start calling you all sorts of thought-terminating-cliches.I think History is not too far but only because of the way it is teached, I mean understanding why there were wars/events is good for people's mind, but majority of exams are based on dates/people name only.
Again, agreed... though in my case that "better thing to do" was load it up with psychotropic drugs. Now that I think about it, though... considering how well I did in school I wonder if I might not be a Harvard alumnus had I... you know... not done that...And I think it's the same in every country, but having advanced lessons on your native language/poem talk/paint analysis etc when you are 18 years old and want to enter scientific schools... you have better to do with your brain at this moment.