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Original Message
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This comes directly from a 17-year old. I graduated from high school this year.
When I speak low of the school system, many "adults" dismiss my claims, saying I "haven't tried hard enough" or "maybe the courses weren't that challenging."
Perhaps, but it goes far deeper than that, and I don't dislike school because I am "afraid" of learning (most of my classmates just hate school to hate school); I like to learn different things, so long as they hold some sort of value later in life.
Do not get me wrong, I'm grateful for SOME things from going to school: I got to meet a handful of awesome teachers, and in a sea of 4,000 kids at my highschool I managed to get to know some real standout people. But that's not the point, is it?
Anyway...
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THE CURRICULUM...
The first offense committed by the school system comes with the whole curriculum itself. Why, in high school, am I still being taught how to use alliteration? Allusions? Imagery? These are all common sense practices that most if not all people have already learned from past schooling!
Next, comes math. I'm sorry if you don't agree, but math classes should stop at basic math, or maybe go as far as Algebra I (which I completed in middle school, in the 8th grade). Since freshman year I have not and do not ever expect to use Trigonometry in the REAL WORLD (the system loves to throw around this phrase, more on that later).
And history. Now, I love history when it's taught by someone who has experience traveling and has collected stories throughout their life, not when it's merely read to you and displayed through lazy Powerpoint presentations. One of my favorite classes was in my senior year: "Ancient American Civilizations," taught by one of my favorite teachers. But please. Spare me the inane mandatory US History courses, with the misinforming textbooks filled with overwhelming American-supremacy. I feel bad for anyone who retained the disinfo from those books.
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THE SYSTEM...
Another thing that really got on my nerves from experiencing the modern high school "system" is just that; it's a system. Or, rather, an assembly line:
Everyone comes out the same, with the same exact lack of real-world skills and "proficiency in useless knowledge."
There's that "Real world" phrase again. The system wants you to think that 1) learning regurgitated disinfo from Powerpoints and 2) taking notes that are barely distinguishable when you refer back to them, will assist you when you're out on your own. These skills set you up for failure. 1) Perceiving something you read undoubtedly as fact only makes you more vulnerable to retain disinfo from the MSM and 2) The same system that discourages plagiarism wants you to write using the same info as everyone else.
The only reason the system expects you to follow this conveyor belt to "real-world success" is because you are seen as a slave to this system, one who will go to college young and dumb, not find a job after graduating and be young, dumb, broke, and knee-deep in debt.
The school system never put ANY emphasis on intelligence. It was always knowledge. In my opinion, intelligence is infinitely more important than being able to retain information. Someone who is intelligent is able to question. Someone who is knowledgable is able to be commanded and repeat back to their master like some damn dog.
Intelligence, then, is something that has to be developed on your own. School knowledge is ignorance. And of course, Ignorance is Strength in the REAL WORLD.
You can see where TPTB have had their influence in the teachings of the school system. I don't know if it was different back in the day, but I can't understand why anyone thinks that school is so great today.
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THE FACULTY...
The faculty, with the exception of the great teachers I had the pleasure of meeting, the ones who defied the rigid coursework and vanilla curriculum, had my utmost disrespect.
Our principal, one of the highest paid workers in the city (with a salary of $150,000/yr), did NOTHING. I hear everyone speak so highly of her. I once asked one of my relatives, "Give me an example of something she did."
"Well, she turned the school system around. Increased test scores," she said.
"How did SHE do that? You think that tests really matter? The people who look at the results judge kids based off of a number. A number doesn't tell you how a person thinks."
All she did was smile; that "aww, look at the 17-year-old acting all mature" smile that someone gives you when they know you're far more advanced than them in your thinking.
"I'll have anotha Mahtini!" she yelled to my mom, with a slight bit of discomfort. I'd imagine the next topic of conversation for her was something along the lines of American Idol or America's Got Talent performances. Sigh.
Our principal was lazy and did not care. She was only interested in accolades from visitors and seniors going to college. After all, college = success, right?
She was extremely fake. And the saddest part about it was that only a small group of kids realized that. She spent more time trying to be "hip" and be respected than working on fixing the beyond-broken school system.
The "floor teachers," known more popularly as rent-a-cops, spent the day partolling the floors, making sure "minorities" got to class on time (there were a few who were so very obviously racist), sitting in chairs making sure you had your ID on or had a hall pass.
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BUDGET CUTS...
When it came down to budget cuts at our school, what was the first thing to go? The arts of course.
Our school was huge into arts. In fact, it was probably the most successful part of the school.
Art was the only part of the school in which self-expression was encouraged and you weren't told how to do things.
But of course, the arts got cut, or at least most of it. Not the useless academic courses that had no room for individual thought.
I had the pleasure of taking one of the courses luckily not cut, Music Theory II, in my senior year. Although the teacher often came off as a sensitive, militarized douche-bag, the course offered me a way to really get into the analysis of music and be able to get some concrete reasoning behind why I really hate today's computerized, garbage music.
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A DIFFERENT GENERATION...
Perhaps the worst part about this system was the way it (in part) conditioned my generation.
I don't think parents can take the blame here. What do kids spend longer doing when they're growing up? Being with their parents or going to school (and is that our parents' fault)? What do most kids do when they're not in school? Phones or social media.
When you're not fully developed, you're bound to be directly influenced by whatever you spend the most time doing.
Of course, school can take the blame for putting knowledge above intelligence, but I've seen what else the system does to people.
No one knows how to think for themselves. Everyone just plays the part of the compulsive compliant slave. The result is a more disconnected generation. During lunch, I see tables full of people all texting for the majority of the time. When someone attempts to strike up a conversation, the person on the receiving end will either stare into space at the person and say "mhm" at times, or take out their phone and do the nod and agree with everything the person says.
Conversations with these people all feel like dissociated instances of you naming a topic, them ignoring you until it's time for them to speak, and them just pulling everything they know about said topic and regurgitating it rather robotically back to you. It's like doing a Google search. This is what knowledge over intelligence is doing.
It's not all just school, evidently. The MSM's ascendancy can clearly be seen in this generation.
The mainstream media has conditioned some to be mindless gossipers and walking celebrity encyclopedias; couriers of inane bullshit, “Real World Americans,” as I had called them.
The students walk around, emotionless and uninterested in everything that doesn't have to do with partying and getting drunk/high. There is no place for emotion within the model of the current day school system.
While I am one to dislike poetry, I can't help bt be reminded of the poem "Scholars" by Walter de la Mare.
Logic does well at school;
And Reason answers every question right;
Poll-parrot Memory unwinds her spool;
And Copy-cat keeps Teacher well in sight;
The Heart's a truant; nothing does by rule;
Safe in its wisdom, is taken for a fool;
Nods through the morning on the dunce's stool;
And wakes to dream all night.
WALTER DE LA MARE
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BE SUCCESSFUL!
Now, if you've gone through high school you'll know that they push you like crazy for you to go off to college.
That was fine years ago, when college was not very costly.
Now, people can hardly find jobs after being awarded an $80,000 piece of paper that the graduate is owned by for (most likely) the rest of their life.
Going through school, teachers would constantly push students to go down the path with more money at the end of it.
Yet another reason my generation is so screwed up is because people are still concerned with material wealth.
My definition of success is when I can get up in the morning and say that I am honestly happy. Not doing something that makes me rich. People need to stop giving money value. It's not worth anything.
Doing what you love doesn't have to mean a "job" either. I want to travel because I love doing it. I love to explore. That's my success.
What I don't need is my relatives or anyone else telling me I'm successful after I graduate from college or get some high-paying job that I can't stand to get up for in the morning. In fact, I've failed as a person if I've done that.
I really do hope that my classmates that are going to college do graduate and get the jobs they love. I hope college is worth it for some. But the truth is that school has changed. For the worse.
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HOW LONG WILL THIS GO ON?
I truly, truly feel for whoever has been afflicted by this parasite. I must admit, I'm ignorant of how long this shit has been going on, but I would assume it's at its worst now and is getting gradually worse with each passing year.
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I know this was a long post. Thank you to anyone who took the time to even just read a section of it.
I'd like to open this thread to some interesting discussion. So please, by all means, I'd like to hear people who agree/disagree with my post and why.
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