Hey everyone, earlier I remember there was a question on askeurope for Europeans who experienced both a European and an American school. They mentioned they didn’t have to take notes in high school, they were given the slides with some missing keywords and they only had to fill those in, and they didn’t have to take notes. Is this really true?
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Well I was supposed to take notes.
Did I? Probably not as much as I should have.
I took notes in high school but that was almost 20 years ago
Every teacher does things differently. Some might use handouts with fill-in-the-blanks like you’re describing, some might require you to take notes.
It’s one of those things that I don’t even remember at this point, so it wasn’t really important either way. I *do* remember many assignments focusing on reading materials from the textbook and answering questions from the textbook, or filling in blanks on a piece of paper that the teacher came up with (I think this was more common in foreign language classes).
I don’t recall any single teacher ever asking to “see my notes” or anything like that from class.
It depends on the class. You were encouraged to take notes obviously, but generally everything you need is also in the book. Taking notes usually helped because they tended to cover what was going to be on tests and exams in the lectures. I’m not much of a note taker though. I have a hard time concentrating and taking notes at the same time and I have a strangely good memory so I was usually better off just paying attention in class and reading the material. I never really learned how to “study”.
I graduate high school next week. Before I actually dive into my experience, it’s worth noting that schools of all stripes get a lot of autonomy, so I am by no means speaking for everyone. Students aren’t required to take notes, but it’s heavily encouraged. Only one of my teachers ever gave us the slides she used, but they were pretty rudimentary and didn’t have a ton of information on them (most of the important stuff she taught she just talked about).
Most teachers would not give out slides, you had to take all the notes you wanted yourself. A few professors offered their slides online for people who wanted them, and one offered them printed out. You could then take any extra notes along with the slides as you saw fit. The benefit of not having the slides is you have to write things down more, which helps you remember better. The benefit of having the slides is you don’t have to frantically write things down and can spend more time listening, you’re less likely to miss something. In college almost all professors would offer slides beforehand so I learned to love writing on top of slides using a tablet. In high school it really depends on the teacher, though. I rarely would see fill in the blank style notes, usually that would just be something to do when we had a substitute teacher, like watch a video and fill in the blanks to make sure you payed attention.
No because I’ve been blessed with a great memory. Never had to study either. Even thru my masters I rarely studied. Obviously my PhD will probably be a bit different
It wasn’t *required* in like 95% of my classes, but I had a first year science teacher once where we were only told taking notes would be a good idea, so naturally a lot of kids didn’t take notes. Then at the end of the year, our teacher asked us to pass our notebooks forward and she would grade them. Justified it by saying she didn’t necessarily tell us they *wouldn’t* be graded. Enough parents complained to the principal and school board that she was forced to take it off the final grade.
I didn’t take a single note in high school.
But I also game theoried every class by looking at the syllabus and working out which assigned materials had the best work:points ratio and ignored everything that I didn’t “have” to do to squeak through my classes with passing grades.
If an assignment was going to take me 2 hours to do, but was only worth 0.2% of my total grade, I didn’t bother. If a test only took 30 minutes of class time but was worth 5%, well then I’d go ahead and pay attention to what I was doing and complete it so I could get those easy points.
20 years ago I did for many classes. It was taught as a skill in our writing class in high school.
I really learned how to take notes in law school though. It wasn’t taught but you really had to do it or be totally screwed.
There’s 26,000 high schools in the US, all or most with dozens of teachers who all put their own spin on how they teach class
Is it true that that particular person was given slides they had to fill in? I’m sure it was. But that doesn’t mean their experience was universal. I do recall a few times where teachers would give a handout of powerpoint slides that way, but it wasn’t all the time and it wasn’t for every class. For the most part, I had to take notes the old fashioned way – by hand, on a blank sheet of paper. I don’t know if this has changed with technology in classrooms.
We have something like 14,000 public K-12 school districts alone, and some of those school districts will have more than one high school.
Every teacher can generally run their class as they wish. If they want you to take notes, you take notes. But some may still choose to do so without it being required. Some say it helps them learn and memorize better having written it down.
I was supposed to.
I never took notes or read the books. The teacher would usually cover what they test for in lectures and most would give out a study guide about what was going to be on the test.
This is what happens when education funds are determined by test scores and “success” is high test scores. They made it easy to pass their tests, but I was bored and I just wanted to learn.
Depends on the class. Most of the time yes but if I already knew the course load, I wouldn’t or would take very few notes.
Depends on the teacher. There’s no nationwide policy, let alone state policy, let alone district policy, let alone school policy, let alone department policy, let alone *course* policy on whether or not taking notes is required.
Although now I’m in college and kicking myself for having not developed a habit of taking notes when I was younger.
I took notes in all of my science, history and civics classes. I didn’t do most of the assigned reading–studying the notes was often enough to score high on the tests. Doing the assigned reading in my English/literature classes was imperative–unless you didn’t mind flunking or at best, merely squeaking by.
Yes lol. Even in middle school too
My school was nothing like that. You had to take notes, read, write papers and answer questions
I gues notes weren’t required but it made everything else easier
Definitely, but that was in the early ‘90s, so none of the lessons were digital and only some material was available in paper handouts. Taking notes was how you kept track of things that weren’t in the textbook and also helped you remember things later.
I have stacks of notes from college classes in boxes on the garage. I could probably teach the courses with them if asked to.
Didn’t have to but it was highly recommended unless you wanted to fall behind
Yes, although we might’ve had noteshells for some classes like history or Spanish. When I was in 11th and 12th grade, my school issued out used-laptops for us and from then on everyone typed their own notes for most classes to “prepare us for college notetaking.”
When I was in high school peak technology was overhead projectors…we typically didn’t get copies of the transparencies.
If I wanted notes to study then I had to take them myself. I usually took notes, but I rarely studied.
I did back in the day because it was a requirement and I didn’t want to be a complete idiot
Most of my teachers made us not only take notes but wanted to see them as proof they were taken. I was always in trouble for not taking notes and always argued over them. Even had a teacher send me to the office and accuse me of cheating after getting 100% on a test without ever taking or using notes.
Taking notes is absolutely the norm in the US, I question the veracity of their claim.
I had a teacher who did this. Just one though. A few who required Cornell style.
This was not true for me, no. Schools are not the same across the nation. Often they are controlled at state, county, or even local level.
Of course. I take notes on things now.
Have to? No. Back then I retained info pretty well so long as I had a modicum of interest.
These days I’d need notes to remember incidental stuff. I blame being blown up a few times in Afghanistan for my mild memory problems. They probably caused concussions that werent caught. Plus that time the mortar went off and blew my ear drum out. I got denied disability for it even though i lost like 10-20% if my hearing in that ear.
But required notes in American schools varies teacher to teacher
I took notes. It was standard.
It depends. I took a mix of AP and standard classes. In the AP classes, you absolutely were expected to take notes. In standard classes, you were usually given the notes. Math classes you followed the problems and were expected to copy it down.
By my senior year I pretty much took notes in every class besides health class.
I didn’t HAVE to, but it was certainly a good idea in some classes.
This is an intensely variable thing, when you get down to the minutia of classroom procedure/teaching methodology like that individual teachers have wide discretion so every class is a little different.
Teachers may do things different. We had to take notes. I think there was maybe 1 or 2 classes where the slides were provided. Hell, in my history class we had to outline entire chapters in like 15-20 pages and got graded on that shit
What you’re referring to are called “guided notes.” I remember getting them around fourth or fifth grade (9-10 years old) to help us learn how to take notes as we advanced into classes where note-taking was needed. I never saw them again after that. My mom teaches this age group and sometimes gives her students guided notes for this reason. Through middle and high school, we weren’t *required* to take notes in that we didn’t have to show them to the teacher for credit or anything, but if a student wasn’t writing as the teacher lectured, they’d often get called out for not being on task. It’s worth noting I went to public high school in the state of Georgia.
Yes, I had to take notes in high school.
No you just get the staples booklet where I have to write in some words or phrases off a projector Google doc.
A little bit, but not really. I pretty much just showed up to class and did whatever assignment got handed to me. It actually caused me some problems when I got to college because I hadn’t developed any good note-taking or study habits and I suddenly couldn’t pass a class without them.
I had a high school teacher who would collect notes as a participation grade. As long as you actually did them, you got full credit. And if you didn’t turn them in, he would absolutely ride your ass every. single. day. until you did turn them in. I was super lazy in high school and he would come down on me like the fist of an angry god. Consequently this forced me to learn how to take notes and is like 80% of the reason I did well in undergrad. Thanks Mr. Brown.
I was always supposed to. Often did, too. I didn’t have many “fill in the blank” tests. Mine were mostly multiple answer, essays, or math where I had to show the work.
have to? like forced to? no lol
was it a good idea to in some classes? yes
I only had that happen in my foreign language classes. Anything else, taking notes was pretty much optional and NOT checked by the teacher. Most of the time you wanted to take at least some notes, because otherwise you’d have nothing to study for the many assessments I had in my classes.