Poll: No Reality In This Classroom!

[la-le-lu-li-lo]

The truth is, yeah, are free education sucks. We aren't learning the things that will help us out in our jobs, and we are not learning things that will help us in our families. I appreciate it, but my school doesn't have a class that will talk about current events. Thats pretty sad. We are not putting the education to a better use. Hell, I would appreciate the hell out of it if they weren' having us take another year of US history which we ae been in three years. We should learning World history, which only requires one year.

...yeah, are our free education sucks.

Yeah, apparently yours did.

Also, I went to two different middle schools and three different high schools, and all of them offered an International Affairs / Foreign Relations type class. And if your school doesn't, petition for one? Start a fundraiser. Or just watch the news / read the newspaper and content yourself with being self-educated.

Who's we? I plan to put my education to fantastic use. Making me lots of money. And many, many people use their educations in great ways. Y'know, science, medicine, ever heard of such fields? Most of those people didn't get where they are by dropping out of school and crying about how their educational system sucks. It is what you make it. They went through with it, just like everyone else has to, and made it to where they wanted to be.

This is called success.

And again, if you don't like the classes you're taking, educate yourself on the matter. If you've taken American History three times [which doesn't even make sense to me and my experience with schools], you should be an expert and it should be a breeze. Spend the time you'd normally be paying attention to the teacher to doodle or I don't know, read?

 

[WaywardHaymaker]

I lucked out. I live in Wisconsin, which is surprisingly a haven for teachers who are actually respectable and make going to school each fucking day bearable. Like my Composition teacher.

Yet, my Algebra II teacher and her b math book that she co-wrote with her mathematician husband is the WORST teacher I've ever had, no bar. Seriously: She will "teach" us a brand new concept, for instance y=mx+b and slope and shit. (I know that inside and out, but it's still all review until second quarter) What she does is give us problems, and if you solve them before class ends, you can start your homework. If not, then you can't and you'll probably be landed with an HOUR of "extra help" time where she gives you different problems and still doesn't help you. And when she "corrects" our homework, she just tells you if what you ended up with is right or wrong. No suggestions or help. It's bullshit. But don't get me wrong, I'm trying to get this stuff down, but there's always a teacher in everyone's life that they can't work with. Just so happens that I'm not the only one with this problem.

And don't even get me started on my History teacher last year. She taught what she thought was U.S. History, and taught it well, but here's the gist:

"Okay, we're watching a History channel video on the Fall of Saigon." That's okay with me, I actually watch the History channel at home. But when you get to the individual soldiers who were telling their fucking life and death tales: *fast forward* "We're going to skip this part. It's not important." O_O

 

[TheSentinel]

I'm genuinely glad to have PoGO (Propaganda of Genocide and Oppression) this year because it is the only class where we really talk about current events.

I always excel at history because, from the moment I have had a history book, always read ahead and read about stuff we weren't learning yet. That way, I already knew what happens later in history and am prepared for it.

What I didn't know, was that we study the same time periods every year. I still do great on things like tests, even though I rarely pay attention, due to me reading other parts of the book. My mind is weird like that. Minute details stick, while things like math, it's like Teflon most of the time. I get it, but not much.

Sorry about the tangents. That's another reason my brain is weird. I hope this is on topic.

 

[Robert632]

what really makes no sense is the whole "tell us if people are bullying other's/you, but don't tattle tale" dilemma.

more recently(as in, today.) i was told to restart my art assignment because i did what she wanted me to do, which was repeat a line in a square till there was almost no white, but you can't shade in, which is what she thought i did. i was almost tempted to shade in another to see if she would notice.

 

[Baby Tea]

In school, you're told to sit down, shut up, and do what you're told. In the real world, people who do that rarely do more than scrape by. Why is it that school is penalizing us for wanting to succeed?

You totally lost me here.
Learning to shut up, sit down, and do the work is a very valuable skill.

Not to generalize, but I find that so many millennials don't have a good work ethic.
They think they deserve everything, and get pissed when 'the man' tells them to shut up and do their freaking job.

School isn't trying to stop you from succeeding. School is trying to show you that a know-it-all attitude, and a smart-ass response won't get you anything in 'real life' except a spot in the unemployment line. If I acted like a smart-ass or know-it-all to my boss, guess what would happen? I'd be fired. No 'suspensions' or 'detentions' here. You're gone.

If I was given an assignment from my boss, and went back to him instead with a big long list of reasons why it's not a good assignment, then I'd be fired. He didn't ask me my opinion on the task. He wanted me to do something. So I do it. Now, my boss is a cool guy, so I could actually offer an opinion. But I do it with respect, and I'll still do it if he wants me to, regardless of my feelings on it. It's called my job. I get paid to do it, so I do it.

If you can't learn to shut up and do what needs to be done, then you shouldn't be out of school yet.

 

[(whitty name here)]

In school, you're told to sit down, shut up, and do what you're told. In the real world, people who do that rarely do more than scrape by. Why is it that school is penalizing us for wanting to succeed?

Sorry if this sounds anti-government, because it is: the school system does this because they dont want you to be educated. They want a dumbed down citizen group that will follow any order given to them without question. An educated person is a danger to the government. "People shouldnt be afraid of their governments, governments should be afraid of their people" - favorite quote of all time.

Vi veri veniversum vivus vici my kind sir.

 

[BarkBark]

All this happened in a public school?

You can always go to higher power if authority is being abused.
(But then again that does not always help)

Fun fact-
I was almost expelled for receiving a death threat.

 

[Lamppenkeyboard]

I'll admit I am still in High School (appropriate age for it) so I don't quite have the right state of mind to present an unbiased opinion. The majority of my teachers are enjoyable people to learn from. The administration is really the part of my High School which never fails to get under my skin, though.

Try to change an elective, leave the cafeteria section of the lunch area to go and study in the library, or try to pay a fine for a missing textbook, and your life means nothing to them.

 

[Sightless Wisdom]

I fully agree. I'm currently in grade ten, my second out of four years of Highschool, and I've had many such conflicts in the past. Sadly I'm terrible with examples... so I'll use a minor one from today.

I was in math class, and our teacher had just assigned our homework. She gave us the last 20 minutes of class to work on it. Me, being the kind of person I am decided I'd rather talk to my friends who were sitting beside me, and do my homework at home. Apperently I'm crazy. My teacher came over to my desk and told me to do my work in class, "but it's homework isn't it" I said to her. She responded with a "No, it's classwork". At this time I looked behind her to see what was written on the board: Homeworkinsert page and questions here). I laughed and pointed it out, I also said that it's my responsibility to get it done and that I would do it tonight. She completely ignored that and asked if I would rather she continue teaching, to go on to the next lesson. I told her nor because it would e counter-productive but that wouldn't be what our homework was about and thus confusing. She said"Exactley". Now the problem here is that she insisted that me sitting here and saving my homework for home was counter-productive aswell. As if it were somehow undoing any progress I'd made. Obviously this is completely absurd. Because of little things like this, I often get detentions, I've been near suspensions may times and likely expulsion.

The teachers don't seem to understand logic, it truelly bothers me.

 

[blackshark121]

I was almost expelled for receiving a death threat.

I call bullshit, my good sir.

Unless you elaborate.

 

[McNinja]

I've never really expected reality in the classrom. If it happens to be there, like last year I had geosystems, government, AFJROTC, and weight training as my main classes (the ones I cared about). I know how all of those will help me in reality (it's amazing how smart you feel after completing a year of geosystems then watching the discovery channel and saying " Oh, I already know that"). If it isn't there, like in most math classes I've taken, then oh well.

It's funny, the more restrictive the school the more creative I was. I would sit in class during 8th grade civics and draw pages upon pages of weapons, vehicles, etc, while in 9th grade I would do the same, then 10th grade I stopped about halfway through, then 11th I barely drew anything (I love drawing stuff, I you can't tell), and my senior year, when I had the most freedom in my school, I didn't draw diddly squat the whole year. I just think that is... odd.

But anyway, my dad has a saying "you gotta do what you have to do before you get to do what you want to do." I never payed much heed to it, since I almost never did my homework and once I got home from school i would plop down and relax until I went to bed. my dad is right, though, some things you simply have to do or put up with. Some of it is bull, some of it isn't. But you gotta do it to get anywhere in this world, so if you don't like it, change it.

 

[Craig FTW]

I once nearly got suspended for arguing with my Vice Principal about the fact that I had skipped 48 study halls in a row. I used that time to go down to the band room to practice, and even had my teacher speak to her about it, because I legitimately was there.

She said study halls are there for you to complete homework so you can practice at home. I nearly threw a stapler at her for that one.

Is your name Dan or Nick by any chance?
one of my friends did that.

 

[joystickjunki3]

Meh. Institutions like our current public schooling create loyalists/sheep and rebels/goats. The rebels become burnouts or billionaires (but at least they weren't clones) and the sheep go to heaven.

@OP: Just take pride in knowing that you can actually think for yourself (or at least you appear to be able to do that). Question everything. Even if your mom says she loves you, confirm that shit.

 

[MicrosoftPaysMe]

I completely agree. I go to school and have a job and i excell much more at my job. School just doesnt make sense. History, Spanish, and Algebra 2 are all mandatory for me right now and have nothing to do with my job or most jobs out there. English and simple math are all you really need for most jobs and computer skills go a long way. The people with good ideas are the people who excell and schools are telling kids to shut up and listen wich doesnt help them at all.

 

[RootbeerJello]

In my elementary school, the teachers literally taught science the way they probably figured shit out in the stone age. That being "Hey this kind of makes sense. You got anything better?". I got in an argument with a teacher over whether or not air has mass. I said "I'll prove air has mass. Take two balloons and blow one up. Now put each on a triple beam balance. See? The inflated one has greater mass." My teacher stood there for a second with her mouth open then turned to me and said in the most condescending voice you'll ever hear, "No! It has more mass because it's bigger. Air has nothing to do with it."

 

[Khedive Rex]

I side with Mark Twain on the issue. "I never let my schooling interfere with my education."

I feel like I taught myself most of what I know. That being said, I got along very well with most of my teachers and tried not to cause trouble. When they were talking about things I generally was unfamiliar with I played very close attention. When they were lecturing on things I already knew about, I was pleasent but mostly ignored them. When authority figures attempted to abuse their powers, I ignored them too. For those in the thread claiming that complaining about being treated like a mindless drone just because you were makes you a cry-baby, I beleive I am a passable counter example. I'm not an angsty teen complaining about the man keeping him down, I'm a studious man complaining about an obviously broken schooling system that desperatly needs re-tooling.

Whats so wrong with that?

Point in case, I was on my debate team. My coach decided one day that she was going to send a couple of teams to a tournament in Public Forum Debate. She had never seen a public forum debate before. She didn't even know the speech times. I had come from a different school and had done Public Forum for two and a half years. It was my favorite form of debate, I was my school best Public forum debator. I offered a dozen times to assist her in coaching the public forum teams. I offered twice a dozen times to teach her the basics of public forum debate so she could teach it to us. In exchange for this, she yelled at me, threatened to put me in detention, and ultimately taught our teams the wrong format with three seperate superfluous restrictions.

I and my teammate ignored her. We won the tournament. Every other team except one was out in the first round. She yelled at me after the tournamnet for not following her format.

Another time I was actually technically expelled from school for like twenty seconds. I didn't run in my gym class one day because I was tired (I hadn't slept the day before) and I didn't have a change of clothes so I didn't want to get mine sweaty. My gym teacher told me to start running, I explained my circumstances and told her that I would not be running today. She ordered me to run and I re-iterated that I would not be running today. She called the vice-president, who came down and ordered me to run. I explained to him my circumstances and told him that I would not be running. He concluded that I had a problem with authority and instructed me that I had ten seconds to begin running.

I stared at him for ten seconds. After it passed, he brought me to his office and filled out the paperwork to have me expelled. When he was finished I asked him on what grounds he was expelling me. He said it was for insubordination. I said that I wasn't convinced a single case of insubordination was grounds for expulsion and that I would sue our school district and him personally if it turned out not to be. I got a detention for talking back. I note though with some amusement that I ultimately stayed in shcool.

Those are the two most serious cases of psychotic schooling I've personally experienced. I don't feel that school mirrors life in any significant way other than that arrogant people with too much power don't like being questioned. People are also unreasonable both in school and in the world. In short, the nice things about humanity aren't really present in high school. Thats the main difference.

 

[BarkBark]

I was almost expelled for receiving a death threat.

I call bullshit, my good sir.

Unless you elaborate.

It was in art class middle school, and some special ed. Mexican called Ricky was
talking about how he and his cousin (I think it was cousin) killed some guy for
talking 'smack' about his family/gang/cat/whatever. I was getting aggravated by
the serial killer of the class (He told many stories before) and called him out
in sarcasm. He and his bffs got mad, and Ricky being motivated by his friends said
he was going to follow me home, slit my throat, and so forth. Well the teacher
walked in the room when he said that so she yelled "Gotcha!" (She really hated him,
and was looking for a reason to kick him out) She called up that AP and sent him
down along with me (As a 'witness'). We got down there and the first thing the
AP said "Why did you get him mad?". He was saying this to me to my surprise. Since
I was only in 6th grade I was seriously about to fall apart in fear. He was getting
on me that my unsocialable and disrespectful behavior was not good for the learning
environment, while not at all getting on Ricky. (Let me just say I never got in trouble
before and was on the honor roll, While Ricky was there every day) But luckly even then
I was smart enough to smooth talk my way out of situations. I said something
along the lines of 'Being disrespectful isn't against the law, death threats are'
(I was saying this while quivering, I hated myself back then) Well story goes
on Ricky does not get in trouble, and no punishment or slit throat happened to
me. And we all lived happily ever after.


I can imagine a few hundred grammar errors in this post, but I made this in a hurry.

 

[WayOutThere]

Hence why I homeschooled. I made my own reality.

After looking at your avatar I must say I believe it.

 

[HT_Black]

Yeah...School's pretty out of touch. Luckily I had a down-to-EArth Ex-marine for a teacher, and he didn't put up with this light-and-sunny s**t.

One time when I did have a 'school' schoolteacher (oh-ho!), I turned her lesson over by overturning and disproving Mazlo's hierarchy of needs.

This coming from the kid who's mum wrote: Fredrick Nietzche: Philosopher of hope.