80's education and I spent many fucking pointless hours making crap out of cardboard, wood, fabric, clay and paper as I couldn't escape art classes until I was 16 and whilst I appreciate art just fine, I'm not inclined that way myself. I spent many wonderful hours on year in Fabrics literally stapling material together... I also spent a week at 13 learning how to get a mortgage, I did my own report into the use of canals (twice in two years), I learnt how to food cakes, rather than actual real food. Many *many* hours of my education were just filled with utterly boring pointless nothingness which served me no good what so ever in the long run. I'm now left in my 30s with hardly any detailed knowledge of the history of my own country but boy can I staple my trousers back together when they split at the seams... I learnt how to read by rote. I learnt my multiplication tables by rote, I learnt basic French by rote. I still have no in depth knowledge of grammar as I was never taught it. We spent 2 years at GCSE maths doing terrible bog standard projects only to have to learn all our trig for the exam in the fortnight beforehand. Rote learning can underpin a very good education, it provides a cupboard of essential facts which then, later on you can use to piece together other things. It should never be everything, but there's a great