I can't resist bringing in the Monty Python sex lesson here.
I think there is a problem with schools and lessons in general. As Wordsworth has it,
Quote:
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,
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Probably most of us would rather not be at school at all when we're children. I always hated school, even though I was good at academic subjects. It was the lack of freedom and choice that I found objectionable and the dreariness of being taught in classes, where so often the pace was determined by what the majority could cope with.
But we do need to learn how to read and do maths and so on and most schools don't have the resources to give us the individual tuition that most of us could do with.
Now that school is long behind me, I'm grateful that I finally learned
how to read. I could already read when I started school at the age of 5 and was always a voracious reader, but it wasn't until I was in the sixth form (grades 12 and 13) and more or less by chance doing A-level English literature that I learnt to read critically and with great attention to detail. In retrospect, that was one of the greatest gifts of my life.
I do think that most things can be taught so that they're fun (I used to be a maths teacher, so I know that can be hard work for the teacher, but is achievable), and I'm all for it. But one of the reasons for schools is so that we learn how to work, how to complete tasks we don't much like and, if we're lucky, how to make the most of whatever we are made to do. Those are useful lessons for life.
If schools impart to us a wide range of skills, we ought then to be able to build on at least some of them for future enjoyment.