Thread: Don't Stay in School

I agree with ariamella. I learned a lot of what that guy complained about missing from public school. I went to highschool in Virginia Beach, VA. I learned about laws from my Government class in HS and about them even in middle school's Civics class in fact, I still have in a box somewhere, Bill of Rights Playing Cards, done up ala YugiohPokemon that I drew myself. I remember a project where we calculated cost of living and expenses for pur dream adult lifeI still don't have that animation studio job, fireman husband, and one girl and one boy nuclear family I set up for myself, but according to my 13 year old calculations, it would have all worked. Both in Gov and Civics, we learned about taxes and current events it was the Bush v Al Gore election, my last year of middle school and my teacher got us all excited and pumped about the debates, understanding the issues, and voting. I also learned about laws in American History my junior year, and about the climate they were made in, so I could understand context and howwhy they were even necessary. I also learned about US history in my English class that year, which pissed me off at the time because no cross contamination! I remember having to do a report about the American dream and westward expansion in that class because all the books were US classics authors. I remember learning about diseases and body parts in middle school and highschool health classes. I remember having sex ed and learning about eating disorders and how to eat healthyhow starving yourself is a losing battle of weakening bone structure and the body desperately storing fat for the famine you're putting it through. I remember learning about the environment in Earth Science and Oceanography because I opted for those and Astronomy instead of Chem and Physicsmixing math with my science? How about no?. I remember learning about basic safety of mixing acids and bases in middle school science, about core cellular structure in Biology, so that I'm not a moron and don't just think magic when things happen. I remembef learning how to sew, knit, and crochet in middle school home ec class. We live in rural northern PA now and my brothers learned about metal working and wood working in Shop class and auto class is available where you learn about cars and how to fix them. They offered a shop class in my middle school in Connecticut in which we learned how to make small propulsion vehicles with blocks of wood and rubber bands we learned practical use for constructing something that could move on its own, just enough to whet our desire to follow through with deeper education if we wanted. I learned how to look up colleges and write a college admissions essay, apply for scholarships and financial aid senior year of English. Which I hated. I threw away the hours working on it because I was a dumb kid, which isn't anybody's fault but mine. And I think that is kind of what bothers me about the video, is the immature shirking of responsibility. I still collected those video game figures and played pretend town and doll house with them in my room until 16. I still LARPED until 17 or 18. Being an adult was something I have been fighting for years and it's not really school's job to make me into one. Equal opportunity not outcome you can lead a horse to water and all of that. Adulting is something I've learned by doing because there were so many career choices and paths that my teachers and their classes couldn't predict I'd encounter when giving us all the basic run down. And I know how to research things for myself because of skills taught in school. That being said, I think the dumbest thing about education is the attempt to limit it to practicality or put a fine point on it. Like that expectation 18 year olds face when considering college what do I want to do with my life? Unless you want to be a doctor, a lawyer, or a policeman there aren't a whole lot of jobs that make it impossible to get into the field or change gears later in life. My aunt laurie went to college in the 80s to become a relief worker and missionary school teacher overseas. She became a dress maker, a wedding planner and then a police officer, finally retiring from the force just last year. My grandmother didn't finish high school and she was a wedding cake maker, a caterer, and finally a lunch lady. My grandfather was a Marine in Vietnam, came home worked as a butcher, and security for IBM. The real tragedy is we're tantalized and given basics in high school and then expected to fixate on one thing without a lot of wiggle room if your interests change. Who has the money to send their kids to college for 2-3 years only to change their major? But at that age who is thinking Okay done. All set with that career. Now I just have to do the day to day thing for the rest of my life now. Edit I think one thing that was really hard for me was knowing right off the bat that I wanted to be an artist or that it was a huge thing, undeniable talent, and I didn't know what to do with it or what options were available to me. The idea of doing anything creative but not under my own steamhaving autonomy over my creations and process was extremely unappealing but the opposite jumped headlong into the starving artist trope. But when it came to expectations and everything else I could possibly do with my life, it felt like I wasted this huge thing I could do. See more That being said, you guys made me go looking through my old school stuff to try to find those Bill of Rights collectible cards. Couldn't find them but I found a Harley Quinn car I did for drivers ed and a... an angular pope for Algebra II. I wasn't trying to be offensive, I just was really really ignorant. We had to make a picture out of all of these angles we had learned about and list their equations on a separate page. The loopy one, I forget what it was called, kind of reminded me of a pope hat and when I made his face, I had like a dozen more equations I had to do, so, I made him pissed offcrazy and gave him pointy teeth. Yeah, but didn't bring up math because as a right brainer, that was an extreme waste of my time. I had to take Pre-Pre-Algebra Freshman year of HS because I sucked at math so hard.