re: High School Physics class
Physics was a joke back in my HS days too. Partly because we had no calculus (has that changed?). Partly because the book and class materials were horrible. Getting 50% on a test (canned and came with the books) was a guaranteed A.
The good things about the class were the experiments (wave table rocked!), some of the films, and the teacher (who used to be an architect).
But I realized when I took physics in college, that I really didn't learn much in HS.