When I was in high school, the guidance counselor used to speak really scornfully about easy electives like "underwater basket weaving" but I have contemplated this for 35 years, and I still think underwater basket weaving sounds really hard.
Comments
Log in with your Bluesky account to leave a comment
My high school teacher used to talk about underwater basket weaving too. Like where did this study come from, and can people really major in it? I want to meet one person who has studied it. Bet they are fascinating.
Once, at a job, when I was in my 20s, I made a joke to my coworkers about how X was easy like basketweaving. A male coworker with a sad countenance, looked at me, and said, “my (beloved) mom weaves baskets.”
Never again did I crack jokes about basket weaving.
That’s ALOT of skillsets. Underwater demolition or whatever the reverse is. Concentration. Building up lung strength. Physics on how you are able to fight the forces of the water against you. That’s Legit navy SEALS training stuff!
Afaik there was one university in Washington state that offered a course in basket weaving as an elective in the Anthropology department, at some point in the 80s or 90s. And the fascist has been whining about it to justify education cuts and vilify the academcy every since then.
Basket weaving and textiles is incredibly important to human development and civilization. It would make sense in an anthropology department. But anti-intellectualism crossed wit sexism ...
Word. It's never been about any kind of tradition. Fascism raises a call to a lost golden age that never existed, built out of foggy childhood memories and really really silly readings of religious and mythological texts. It's all made up to appeal to the libido of miserable people .
They actually don’t care about anything to do with homemaking, they happily sneer at the housework their wives and mothers do yet expect a hot meal to be ready for them.
there's something to be said about implying that studying a particular discipline is just a means towards a comfortable schedule and good grades, and not about learning the material.
I always imagined this happening at like the deep end of a public pool but recently learned you just put your arms into a deep sink or something, you don’t even need a snorkel
Why was this always the go-to example? That’s the exact class my own teachers used to use to warn us to pick a good major lest we leave college with a degree in underwater basket weaving. And this was back in the days before the internet was as big as it is now…
Might be more fun to weave while swimming. I haven’t tried. 🤷🏻♂️😂
I’m also not familiar with the hypothetical course content. So I can’t say the role the water would play. But presumably yes, the idiom for being a waste of time would be a waste of time. Basket weaving isn’t though.
If you can weave a basket that’s a relaxing and productive hobby. You can make something useful. You can make a gift for someone. That’s a beautiful thing. That’s like saying knitting is useless. A bought scarf isn’t the same as a one made for you.
The example was for a high school elective? Which tends to be things like art, music, career and technical classes.
I understand the idiom is used to describe degrees that are considered useless. I’m just saying being able to make a basket is a worthwhile pursuit.
The plant materials baskets are made out of generally need to be soaked in order to be flexible enough to weave with. (It's not saying that the basket *weaver* also has to be underwater.)
"lower in priority" to a system setup to increase the wealth of the immorally rich at the expense of the majority of us whose labor it exploits. Skills are de-prioritized unless somehow construed to feed the economically immoral status quo which is all too often propagandized as "progress"
and all of that is unsustainable even to those teetering at the top in their misguided belief that -- they are winning at anything other than an incredibly immoral & myopic game; or that taking is better than giving.
Did we have the same guidance counselor? He also blew me off when I asked for help in figuring out how to apply for colleges and find/fill out scholarships. Yay for shitty counselors. Thankfully, the librarians were far more helpful.
when I was at university, I took swimming as an elective. Holy crap. It was so hard and the final was treading water for 45 minutes as well as other activities. Yes, we had a final.
I took an acting course as an elective. Oh my God, the amount of work I had to do, papers I had to write.
I've woven several baskets, and I can tell you that while the reeds need to be wet, doing the actual weaving under water would be impossible. I remember my high school guidance counselor saying that exact same thing. As a weaver I find it both validating and insulting to be dismissed like that.
When I was in high school, the only electives for girls were cookery and sewing. For the boys, it was woodworking and metalwork. The girls weren't allowed to do the boy's electives. Underwater basket weaving would have been a sell-out course!
Given that it's the basket that is underwater, and not you, means the reeds/fibers they're using are really really stiff, so it probably is hard. Plus you're probably visually impaired from the water and your own movements.
Seriously, though. If you take electives that teach a skill or a trade, that can be your gateway to not starving through a bad job market. Make baskets, do joinery, engage in metal work, weld... Those are the essential workers AI can't replace. I am an unemployed writer in his 40s with no skills....
I took classes over the summer to learn how to make Nantucket-style baskets (not underwater, but still...) and it was indeed HARD. Getting everything perfect takes patience and precision. (My baskets are not perfect 🤣.) No "easy elective," that's for sure!
My wife graduated from art school with a major in fibre arts. Basket weaving was the hardest course she took. She was weaving from morning to midnight for weeks.
Was that a boilerplate script for guidance counselors? Did we all get that chat between 1985 and 1999? I mean? Stamina, dexterity, knowledge of reed properties?
The one I had suggested the kids who were struggling do "Jam making" in the middle of nowhere in Ireland. I checked and there is no such course. I would have loved to have done that.
A basket weaver talked about this recently on @ologies.bsky.social! In essence, weaving like that is a Native skill passed down through generations and by no means easy, much less underwater. So we really need to retire that phrase.
The oldest known baskets carbon dated to between 10,000 and 12,000 years old. The oldest known examples of Native American basket weaving are found in caves and shelters in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, Oregon, Nevada, and Utah. These artifacts are believed to be around 8,000 years old.
I bet you they are pretty expensive to buy too. Sounds kind of like a relaxing arts and crafts project though. I wonder if they have something like that on Etsy...
Guidance counselor suggested at 15 I join the army as she felt I had no prospects in the professional world. 55 years later still going hard at it in professional advisory world and never been happier. Mostly they are idiots who cant get a real job themselves IMHO
Seems it’s always classes requiring creativity and skill, such as music composition or watercolor. When my kid’s grade school began issuing actual earned grades in art and music, suddenly parents claimed the hit to their future MD and CPA’s gpa’s “wasn’t fair”.
I have always understood this to be derisive of those who write about 'underwriting basket weaving', and not those who can actually perform whatever cultural niche thing.
Like when I was an English major and people said "Oh, you're majoring at cocktail party conversation," but I still find cocktail party conversation really hard.
Been hearing about underwater basket weaving since childhood and never was offered the opportunity. Started to think it didn’t exist. Then saw a museum exhibit on Native American underwater basket weaving so apparently it’s real
Ive actually done it. Maybe 4th or 5th grade some tractor trailer “mobile classroom” from the university archeology or history dept rolled up and we all took turns going in it and weaving a wee basket underwater.
If I remember correctly (it’s been like 20 years ago) you like dunk it in the water so its pliable? Maybe put it under water to tuck the end in easier?
Love the insight! Two of my favorite classes were: Waves and Beaches, and Dinosaurs and other Failures. Great 1 credit classes. Learned a lot in both. Perhaps the counselor should have been a teacher. Seems they needed to gain some appreciation.
That’s so interesting that UBW was treated as an easy elective because when I was a child it meant deep esoterica like first you had to learn weaving, then basket weaving THEN take it underwater
I made 160 baskets last year. I thought that was a real accomplishment until my friend said yeah, but did you make them underwater? Now I have to start all over again.
We were never told it was easy or hard; just that it was a useless skill to have. But I agree, weaving baskets underwater sounds like an overly difficult job to attempt.
A guy sang Randall Munroe's "Every Major's Terrible" and when he got to the line about "you'll achieve / slightly less than if you learned to Underwater Basket Weave" he ad-libbed "at least then I'd have a basket."
My guidance counselor in high school insisted I take the so-called easy electives not just for myself but also my mister and she took A sewing class and I had to do all her projects for her because she couldn't sew.
I completed my required classes early, so my last semester was almost all electives. College level Driver’s Ed and college level First Aid were probably 2 of the most practical courses I ever took.
You know… I never could understand this process description when I heard it. I need clarifiers - was the basket underwater when woven? Was the person? Both? Is oxygen provided or do you have to hold your breath? Is chlorine involved or ocean water? Who certifies this? It sounds unsafe. 😹
My parents thought I wasted my time studying history, with an emphasis on nations, nationalism, and Eastern European revolutions in college 20 years ago and this has only become more relevant daily
It would definitely be hard! (Or I'm outing myself as a bad scuba diver and basket weaver...)
I've always heard the term in reference to things that are useless - easy or hard. As in, basket weaving isn't a very profitable endeavor, and doing it underwater doesn't make it any better.
A friend of mine actually took underwater basket weaving at Washington U (St Louis) in the early 1980s. It was a student-led class for P.E. credit. Started with Scuba certification, then got to weaving.
The actual piece of art was purchased for $120k. The $6.2mil is for the right to reproduce the piece. This is a private investor spending his own money. Why are we allowing the right to foster their personal outrage. I cannot stress this enough: Who cares?
When I was in high school it was just plain old basket weaving, which to this day still sounds really fun, and I’m disappointed it was not an actual elective.
My mom used it as "even if you have a degree in underwater basket weaving, it opens doors". Although tbh, I think if I got a degree in something she thought was silly she'd still scorn. Smdh
I took a basketweaving class as an adult with my then-teen daughter. I was SO BAD at it that the very nice seniors in class consoled me with "at least your daughter can do it! She will make you baskets." It was so so hard, and my hands bled from 1200 "paper cuts" from the reeds.
Glad you shared how awful it was. I have kicked myself recently for never learning how to weave baskets. I'll stop right now. So, did you daughter weave you baskets?
Oh that’s me in Yoga. I’m happy to contort my body and stretch, but that whole breath & be part always has me squirmier than a toddler after a sugar cookie. I relax by doing not staying.
FWIW, it was also fun to try, and I giggled a lot.
My basket was really crooked though—like 6in shorter on one side. Idk how is was THAT imbalanced. I tried several more, and my best one was a sorta bowl shape that was too round & tipped over. No regrets. Just also no skills :)
Comments
“Actually took underwater basket weaving”
Never again did I crack jokes about basket weaving.
*enthusiastic applause*
https://www.alieward.com/ologies/canistrumology
I’m also not familiar with the hypothetical course content. So I can’t say the role the water would play. But presumably yes, the idiom for being a waste of time would be a waste of time. Basket weaving isn’t though.
It’s not outright useful, but compared to other skills it is lower in priority.
In the same way someone who can recite digits of pie has a skill that is not necessarily useful
I understand the idiom is used to describe degrees that are considered useless. I’m just saying being able to make a basket is a worthwhile pursuit.
I took an acting course as an elective. Oh my God, the amount of work I had to do, papers I had to write.
My grade school guidance counselor apparently killed himself. Long after I was gone so it wasn’t because of me. That time.
As important as guidance counselors SHOULD be, in the modern US they are, in all likelihood, the least productive people in that building.
And I'm counting all of the potential stoner burnouts in that list.
Guidance counselors are kind of worthless in the US education system.
https://youtu.be/yr1E3NUhDio?feature=shared
I absolutely would’ve taken Underwater Basket Weaving - bet it’d be a crossover PE/Fine Arts credit.
Mad respect to weavers, but boo to the critic.
Just talk without pause about cheese. Share random cheese facts until people walk away. It's foolproof.
Then I reread the post again and I'm unable to explain to my colleagues why I'm laughing myself silly.
I failed the underwater portion.
Why do we feel compelled to demean someone else's craft or hard work?
under water basket weaving...
I've always heard the term in reference to things that are useless - easy or hard. As in, basket weaving isn't a very profitable endeavor, and doing it underwater doesn't make it any better.
Those that know, know
Yeah, I know, that's dumb, but true is true
My basket was really crooked though—like 6in shorter on one side. Idk how is was THAT imbalanced. I tried several more, and my best one was a sorta bowl shape that was too round & tipped over. No regrets. Just also no skills :)