I.T and Humanities are not useless. I.T is excellent.
And Humanities, social studies, politics and history are all great subjects. You say they're useless now but once you get hit with the full force of VCE science, you will realise how much you miss humanities because they're excellent subjects and underrated. I was thankful to be privileged enough to study those areas and allowed to complete it as a year 12 subject, I think this whole idea that 'Science and Math is the most important thing ever' appears almost nonsensical to me, yet again that's just my opinion. And sure I may enjoy humanities in a broad context but I wouldn't say that makes it useless even looking at it objectively.
I should have clarified this before but didn't feel it would be right. What I mean is, in that sense no subject is useless. At JMSS, humanities is not humanities and I.T is not I.T. They go by the dreaded names of Issues Studies and Emerging Technology respectively. It's not only the name that's different, the content varies substantially from a standard humanities or I.T curriculum . I loved humanities in my old school because we actually learnt history and our exams were on writing full scale essays. The curriculum for year 9 was developed in accordance with the VCE humanities/history curriculum. This taught me skills that I knew would be of some use if chose to study humanities for VCE. Issues Studies, on the other hand, is a gigantic waste of time, hence why I label it "useless". We spent last term on the topic of "What is a city?". The time of hearing the question itself, was an instant facepalm moment. They give us a multitude of projects that last the whole term and in my opinion "distract" from other subjects. Think about it this way, "If you had heaps of homework on all of your subjects, what would you do first?" Remember your aim is to attain consistent results for all your subjects. A heedful response would be that you would do what you find easiest first or what had the least workload. Issues Studies seems easy enough but when you have a class full of talented and like-minded individuals, things aren't always as easy as they seem. The competition is high and the teachers recognize that. Mistake #1: Their response to this scenario is poor. Instead of introducing a higher level of work or moving towards the VCE curriculum, they are rather stagnant and react by simple raising the standard of work. This means that what gets you marks can even be trivial things such as fancy presentation or behavior in class in comparison to other students. The content of assignments is not assessed as rigorously. I appreciate that some people still enjoy this subject since they have every right to. However, it is definitely not everybody's thing. Some benefit whereas many don't.
Emerging Technology goes a step beyond Issues Studies in ensuring total counterproductivenes. Whether you like computers or not, the work is challenging in some way. For people who aren't proficient in their computer skills, they generally have a tough time for obvious reasons. Even for people who are excellent with programming or I.T, they have the hardest time writing up information on a place (RAFL) to be assessed. For those who don't know what RAFL is: firstly be thankful that you don't. It's basically a cloud based profile that you have to keep updated by sending in your work or recording your "thoughts" and "feelings" of a project. What really pesters me is the voice in my head telling me that "this is going to be assessed." The idea is not as bad as it seems as reflecting on your work is very important. However, pile this factor on top of your other school work and it catalyzes the pressure. Just as Indefatigable Lover said, the assignments last a whole term and can be very dull and boring. Best part is the teachers always say that this is a "self-directed" task and chill out during every lesson, offering after school help, since that way your actually setting aside "your own time" to get help. Mistake #2: not everyone is free on the time they specify. It's also a bother to hear that what we are going to be doing next term (for the whole term) is exactly the same. We aren't taught proper programming skills. No java, no c++, no python, not even html. Although there are co-curricular activities to do this, it would be better done at class time because that way we actually benefit from the skills being taught. Last term we used a program called "Scribble" (unknown,unrecognized) . Next term we are using a program (I can't remember the name) that is functionally the same and sadly even more unknown and unrecognized. Once again, people have every right to like this subject, but it's just not everybody's thing. I think that's what teachers need to realise.
This has been a post which should be better classified as a rant but I feel that now I have not only extenuated my efforts in these subjects but also expressed my thoughts more clearly than previously.
Summary: Humanities and I.T are both great subjects. Everyone has something to benefit from studying them. However at JMSS, the traditional nature of both these subjects varies almost entirely. They do not capture the VCE curriculum nor teach skill which may be of use in later years. I still believe the history/humanities curriculum at JMSS is excellent
I even plan on doing Humanities now after reading the VCE handbook just yesterday. Every student deserves to be given an adequate insight to the VCE curriculum, especially in Year 10, so that they can learn skills required for later years and most importantly make the correct choices with their subject choices. Issues Studies and Emerging Technology neglect this fact and are only serving as targets for students to express their hate towards - similar to what I have outlined above
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