The subject you were bad at in school that you love as an adult, and the reverse

[Andrew4]

A thread about the strange rewiring that happens after the classroom. Tell us the subject you were genuinely bad at or hated in school that you have come to love as an adult, and the reverse, the thing you were good at and have since let wither, because the gap between school you and now you is often a canyon and the reasons are revealing

The rediscovery stories usually share a cause, the subject was fine and the delivery killed it, history taught as dates to memorise becomes fascinating once it is stories about people, a language drilled as grammar tests becomes a joy once it is a doorway to a place, the thing was never the problem, the packaging was

The withering side is quieter and a little sad, the subject you excelled at because it was assessed and rewarded, dropped the moment nobody was grading it, which raises the uncomfortable question of how much of what we called being good at something was just being good at being tested

So both directions please, the school enemy turned adult love and the school strength turned dust, and the reflection underneath, how much of what you learned to like or dislike was about the subject at all versus the teacher, the room, and the fear of the exam

[PlanckLimit81]

Hated history as a march of dates, discovered as an adult it is the best soap opera ever written and I devour it now, the subject was never boring, the way it was served to me was

[Apogee Seb]

The was never boring the packaging was diagnosis fits half the subjects on the curriculum, we failed to like things that were taught to be survived rather than enjoyed

[Rachel93]

Was good at a language purely to pass exams, never spoke a word after, it withered completely, turns out I was good at language TESTS not language, the distinction cost me a skill I now wish I had

[Dave96]

That distinction is brutal and common, so much school success was test success, we mistook being examinable for being able and dropped the real thing the second the grading stopped

[Phil]

Loathed poetry in school, all forced analysis and hidden meanings, found it again in my thirties with nobody grading it and it is now a quiet joy, the exam was the poison not the poems

[SilverSurfer51]

Maths is my rediscovery, feared it as a series of traps with one right answer, met it again as puzzles and patterns with no one marking me and it turned out to be beautiful, the fear was the whole barrier

[Oscar_75]

The teacher factor is doing enormous work in every one of these, I can trace every subject I love or hate to one specific adult, we did not choose our interests we inherited them from whoever stood at the front

[BiancaBelair_WCW]

That is slightly haunting, our entire map of what we are good at was drawn by the luck of which teachers we got, a different timetable and I would be a different person with different loves

[Cyclops46]

Withered strength here, I was the confident writer in school and have not written a creative word in twenty years, the praise stopped and so did I, apparently I was doing it for the gold stars all along