> No. If you don’t work, you lose your job, and you get no money. But you are never forced to work.
I think the guy who goes to work because otherwise we won't be able to pay his bills, his children's tuition, food, elderly parents rents, medicine etc. is much more "forced" to work than teenagers are forced to go to school.
Social and external obligations to actively participate in a 8 to 10 hour mental and physical activity that requires interaction to other people are much more severe than someone physically dragging you to a place where you can, pardon the simplification, sit down and space out whenever the subject has absolutely no interest to you and essentially "fail forward" until you get out on the other end.
I sympathize with the author and really don't envy them. But school is not supposed to be this victimizing, even at its worst - author might very seriously be just mentally unwell and requiring treatment. The worst case scenario would be for them to leave school and find out that they are just as 'unfit' for participating in most, if not all, of our world's systems.
Again - huge oversimplification but typically the only options are to at least somewhat adapt to them or to die alone in the wilderness.
There are ways of earning money that don't involve holding down a 9-5 job. Running your own business. Freelancing. Working for Uber. And so on.
All of the "responsibilities" you list are things you take upon yourself. You do not have to have kids. You do not have to take care of your parents. If you do not do so, you are not arrested and dragged to a cubicle until you do. You are afforded agency. And you might find that, in fact, the vast majority of our societal systems are optional.
The modality of work is the least important part of my comment. You can replace work with any of 'running your own business. Freelancing. Working for Uber' and the comment is the same. The person that runs a business because it needs to is 'forced' in a similar way (although one might expect most entrepreneurs to derive some pleasure from their work, this is also true for general workers. The point stands)
About the responsibilities - without quotes because they are concrete and not IMO there's not much room for arguing otherwise:
I'm not a researcher in this area but have frequent contact with people who do. It is my impression that what you stated is thoroughly refuted, and with nearly absolute consensus, by research on social norms and its impact on human psychology.
I could be wrong - as this is me interpreting words of experts in a field I can't grasp - but I do talk to them; and every time I bring up a point that resembles in spirit what you said - a sense of 'yeah but people have individuality and can act on it, right?' causes them to promptly and thoroughly state that yes, but not so much for the majority of things we do. Apparently, most things we do are motivated by our relation to other people, sometimes in incoherent ways. This doesn't sound too farfetched to me, to be honest.
Btw - With the risk of sounding too aggressive, which is not my intention, saying that people don't "have" to care for elders because they "can" just let them die is either incredibly naïve or incredibly cynical. People don't "have" to have children - but after they do, does it matter if it by accident or choice? Can we "just let" babies starve too, or just the old and invalid? Also - if you do so, you are absolutely arrested and dragged into a cubicle (and you don't get to go out possibly ever, which is worse than 'until you do').
This is not a fruitful discussion but you chose terrible examples for a point that I found to have little merit, by arguing myself with experts that told me I'm wrong. Who knows? I'll take their word for it until (if ever) I can study it myself.
Your experts are too invested in studying those who live within society to even consider that a person can have a fulfilling life outside of it. These experts are the ones who devise school programs and community enrichment and all the strictures that press the life out of anyone not suited for them. After all, if they're not suited, they have to be "fixed". You as well -- you seem to think that despite having no desire to conform to any social structure, of course a person will seek romantic attention and of course they'll have sex. The idea of these being anti-goals didn't cross your mind, even in the context of opting out of societal engagements.
Look to the stories we tell ourselves. Look to the stories of the genius inventor, the witch in the woods, the anchorite, the man on the mountain. The persistent meme of the outsider, living for their own purpose. These people existed and still exist, and are doing just fine.
Most people want their kids/elders to have better lives than the state could provide, but the option is always there. Nursing homes and foster care are both key parts of the social safety net, and they get activated every day. Giving up your kids is pretty unambiguously seen as a serious personal failure, but having your parents in a nursing home paid by Medicare isn't even that unusual.
"All of the "responsibilities" you list are things you take upon yourself."
Uh, food and medicine were in that list, so... no. If your argument is that people don't need to work because everything that requires money is an optional obligation that they're choosing to take on, you're wrong. And as someone who's running my own business, the idea that someone with no resources who is struggling to pay for food and rent can start one is a stretch to say the least.
> I think the guy who goes to work because otherwise we won't be able to pay his bills, his children's tuition, food, elderly parents rents, medicine etc. is much more "forced" to work than teenagers are forced to go to school.
Very much depends on your local laws and social caste. For quite a lot of kids, truancy is a pipeline to prison.
School, as it exists, heavily rewards a certain type of learner. Intelligence is far less important than your ability to sit still, regurgitate answers, and conform. If you're smart, but can't learn in that environment, you are out of luck.
I struggled throughout my entire career as a student. Some classes were too easy, some not interesting. I was a voracious reader, and could teach myself almost any subject, but sitting still and listening to lectures is not my forte. Neither is grinding at homework.
I spent a lot of my life thinking I was broken, until I eventually found myself a job where ability to self teach was more important than ability to sit still and conform.
I really hope that Covid would push the school system to adapt and change, introducing forms of asynchronous learning that really work well for people like me, but to push to go back to in-class learning doesn't leave me to believe that that will happen.
I do think the author misses one point though. He's right that if you don't go to work, your boss doesn't come and get you and make you go. If I stop going to work, nobody is going to come get me. But unless you are already rich, you probably have to figure out some way to make money. You may end up having choice in what that looks like, or you may not. Believe me when I tell you that I've had bosses who were way more abusive than any of the teachers described in the article.
There is something to be said for just learning to deal with it, especially given that the author is only like 3 years away from anybody caring what he does anymore.
> Intelligence is far less important than your ability to sit still, regurgitate answers, and conform. If you're smart, but can't learn in that environment, you are out of luck.
It has nothing or very little to do with intelligence. As a person who’s very intelligent and was underserved by school (with both recognized by my teachers and administrators), I saw a lot of people with loads of intelligence thrive. They, yes, had a better capacity to sit still and participate on the terms set for them.
Not being able to do so isn’t a measure of intelligence, but it might be (like it has been for me) a sign of chemical imbalance and/or a conflict of values.
Independent thinking, creativity, and self-directed learning are generally punished in school – until you reach graduate school, when they become superpowers!
So, hang in there! ;-)
[Not just grad school actually - really any creative project that you are in charge of yourself, from a research project to an app you are writing to a startup company to a play that you are directing or a book you are writing.]
School sucks, but there’s not much better alternatives that are cost effective.
It’s cool that unschooling works for some. I, and many kids I knew, had a problem with motivation. If left to our own devices we would play Nintendo forever. School was horrible and probably 75% of it was pointless, but it at least got us out of the home, exposed us to ideas and taught us some basic pieces.
I think it would be better to have tutors teach. It would probably take an hour a day. My family couldn’t afford that and I can’t afford that now.
School is basically daycare, but there’s not really a better solution I’m aware of. For every one super smart 15 year old who would productively better themselves, there’s far more who would be worse off without daycare.
Also, having been a 15 year old wanting to understand the universe and discovering new things every day, I understand that most 15 year olds are now aware of their capabilities and limitations. So for all who think they are smart and mature, it’s rare that reality matches perception.
Dream big is really important and a good motivator, but that doesn’t mean that those dreams should all be fulfilled without protections. I’m trying to not sound paternal and protective as I don’t want to squelch ideas and dreams, but want to divert the frustration I felt of “why won’t they just listen to me and let me stay home and play Nintendo, they just don’t understand.”
“They” understand, but just don’t know a good course of action.
I think your first line nails it - there is no alternative, so we just keep on with the same terrible idea.
The alternative _should_ be that we put you to work doing something you are interested in. I have 3 children and all of them were capable of working in their field of interest at around 13. But they will spend another 5 years in school waiting, and then maybe another 4 in university buying access.
It's just....really, really broken and that's obvious to children. The adults know it too, but it's easier to look away.
There is an alternative and you gave it in the second half of your comment! Let the kids escape the zoo: let them create value in the real world for real people facing real economic constraints. Instead of grinding menial tasks in an artificial bubble where homework, tests, papers get swept into the bin right after they get rubber stamped, have kids create things that actually have value in reality.
When I was a kid, I worked quite a bit. Some of it manual labor, like elementary school hauling stuff around someone else’s farm. My employer was nice, my parents took care of me and I worked maybe 10-15 hours a week, tops.
I think the issue is how to systematically scale this for a nation or world. Not everyone is as lucky as I was and I’ve seen and worked against many situations where kids are exploited. Either by loved ones or by a system that is just really hard and every dollar counts.
I think rich kids would be ok, but poor kids would be worse off. Labor can be exploited when labor are all adults, imagine the power imbalance between a 12 year old and a line manager.
Of course, we could try to have checks and balances, but I don’t expect that’s possible.
> If left to our own devices we would play Nintendo forever
Video games can be pretty educational. I'm pretty sure I learned as much from video games as from multiple years of K-12 education. Games can also inspire and reinforce interest in computing (they certainly did for me.)
That being said, it does seem like there are some basic subjects (civics, writing, math, basic science, health/nutrition/fitness) whose universal mastery among citizens could provide major societal benefits, and which not all students would easily learn on their own if left to their own (Nintendo etc.) devices.
While I understand how horrible school is, you may be forced by law / your caretakers to attend.
I went to a particularly hard high school and I hated how much time I was wasting learning to pass exams and forgetting their content right after.
My response to that was to start working as a software developer online, learning a trade and making money as a teenager. I highly recommend it. Despite working, I never managed to escape school as homeschooling wasn't an option and I ruined my sleep for years between school, homeworks and work. Still, that gave me a significant edge on the market and it was probably the smartest thing I did in my life.
When I was done with mandatory schooling I ended up pursuing a voluntary bachelor's degree (in Europe, random university, kind of free, total cost ~10k EUR, no debt) because I thought it could be useful one day. It never proved itself useful but I was also able to work a real job during it so I didn't waste much time. I attended only the lessons I considered interesting and valuable and attempted to pass exams as best as I could. Somehow it worked out.
If you can fight for a better life, do it.
If you can't, don't ruin your life over it, use it as a challenge, as an opportunity to build an opinion of the world and find like minded people.
You may want to look into voluntarism as a political / social philosophy.
Best of luck
This kind of hurt my brain to read. Fret not, your perspective will change over time, with your narrow world view being replaced as your experience adds up and as your hormones stabilize. First, you don’t have it half as bad as you think, and second, if you think it’s bad now just wait until 15 years from now lol. Things will will get much worse, your responsibilities will grow, but hopefully then you’ll all the tougher and wiser. My recommendation is that you take responsibility for yourself, do what needs to be done and stop your lamenting. It’s an unappealing and detrimental trait that you are hard-wiring into your brain from an early age and thinking like that will not benefit you in the long run. Giddy up.
"It's just how it is. You are powerless. Just give up now."
A degenerate attitude! Are you surprised that someone is brave enough to want for a better system? Why are you so willing to crumble and accept the broken status quo?
An alternative to high school often available is community college. The teachers are better, the other students are there because they chose to be, and they treat you like an adult who could choose to leave. The material is faster, so you aren't wasting so much time.
My experience in school was similarly miserable, for similar reasons (though I don't think I had as much self-awareness about it; at the time I just thought that was how things were, that most people felt similarly)
The problem with the anti-school rhetoric ([cough] Peter Thiel) is that learning is still very important. And not just learning the skills you need to make money: even the people who drop out (or skip college) to start a successful company miss out on a huge amount of important, formative learning. We've got a growing number of powerful people who lack crucial life experience, which affects the decisions they make about what they do with that power. That's an issue.
The core problem is the way school currently works in our society; what I don't know is where to find the will and the funding to change it. The school system is already on life-support; it hobbles along with barely enough funding to continue the status quo. And the main things that need changing, IMO, are a) higher teacher-student ratios (so that the only way to manage the students isn't treating them like prisoners), and b) more multifaceted curriculums (that allow different students with different learning styles to learn in different ways). Those are expensive changes to make, no matter how you slice it.
Just spitballing here: maybe what we need is an increase in online courses/self-teaching materials for non-STEM subjects? Humanities, etc. Maybe book clubs or experts/mentors that you can ask questions of on a case-by-case basis instead of having them read off a whole lecture several times a week. Force-multipliers for teaching, enabling a person can get a real education, and not just technical skills, without the help of a failing institution?
I hated school from the first day of preschool all the way through to graduation from college. There was not a single day that I actually enjoyed being there in the nearly 2 decades of its presence in my life.
Jay, GingerJumble, I feel your pain. I cannot offer advice, other than to tell you there are those of us out here in the real world who endured anyway and succeeded despite hating it. School instilled in me a deep distrust of authority and institutions, but fortunately I had a few great, smart teachers. I liked Latin. The subject was fun, but the teacher was amazing. Same with 11th grade English. AP English was phenomenal, and introduced me to Jorge Luis Borges, among others. I skated by, doing the minimum necessary to graduate and get into a decent, but not top, college.
These things are all true in my experience:
1) Degrees are widely considered tantamount to intellect and accomplishment, and they are not. Sometimes otherwise cool and empathetic people are unable to distinguish between degrees and intellect, especially if they have lots of degrees.
2) Better schools are generally more endurable. Bad schools should be shut down, or at least, students such as yourself should be able to attend an alternative. Or better: one should be able to be awarded a degree purely by demonstrating competency via exam.
3) Success in school is not the only thing, but it does measure something important. If you decide to leave school (even just mentally check out), create and implement a detailed plan to demonstrate or create value for society. If you think you're miserable in a bad school now, wait until you drop out and must - oh - wipe asses or slaughter pigs for subsistence wages in order to live. Nothing wrong with those jobs, but you obviously have a creative, active mind, and those jobs will not enable you to exercise it.
Yep, school drop-out here. Spent a few years washing dishes in fancy restaurants, filling the shelves at night in a large bargain store, unloading fishing boats, working the rubbish trucks and always being coated in rubbish dust and rubbish juice, carrying plasterboard around building sites until my fingers went nerveless, etc. etc.
Taught me that I should aspire for better. Dropping out of high school made such aspirations far harder to achieve.
College absolutely is better, though. Miles and miles better.
Do pay close attention to costs, though. Only pay gobs of money for college if: you get into a top-tier school OR it's a medium-tier school and you're studying STEM.
Attending a community- or state-college and not paying gobs of money is absolutely acceptable too.
Do not take out more loans than you need, and never for any school other than described above. That is a scam, and you will be paying them off for the rest of your life. Or not paying them off and ruining your credit.
Do not drop out of high-school unless you can get a GED. If you can get a GED early and get into college early, or get a decent job early, do it.
One way to view a bad school or workplace (and many unpleasant things one goes through) is that it is a challenge one must overcome, much like monks or soldiers enduring extreme heat, cold, or hunger, or castaways trying to survive alone on a desert island, or astronauts in deep space. It is an exercise in learning how to overcome adverse circumstances and thrive in an unforgiving and often hostile environment.
I'm not sure why we decided education (or work) should be that way, but that's often the way it is.
I think one struggle I’ve had with this is how far do you go with trying to overcome it? If you overcome boredom with apathy and you go too far it’s hard to reverse and it dulls you. Creativity and similar don’t grow with this kind of adversity
I'm like 'yes, and?'. Me, I just dropped out. Before that, I perfected ways of sneaking away from classes and wandering the halls, like I was behind enemy lines and would be killed if I was spotted: dropping out was arguably more sensible than carrying on like that. Nobody knew about being autistic back then (I'm 53).
I spent some time homeless, lived on the edge of existence for a lot of years. These days they try to make somewhat more accommodations for people like me, but there's only so far that goes and I doubt you can count on it.
I ended up being the person I wanted to be. That's gotta count for something. You might have to be patient (with yourself AND with others: I don't see much of the latter in you). It took a hell of a long time and was a lot of work, which often didn't feel worth it.
The one thing I can feel very confident in saying is: it gets better. Some people molder away, forever wishing they were back in their glory days in school or whatever. You're not them (nor am I). I figure folks like us take forever to get stuff sorted out, and then after everything is awesome you die. Soooo… switch to the 'stuff sorted out' part as soon as possible, and once you're there, try not to forget you're there :)
Was more an amused remembrance of the hyperbole and drama due to (an entirely understandable) lack of perspective - their friends having their lives crushed out of them, only they survived with their spirit intact etc. etc.
I distinctly remember writing similar rants with similar hyperbole at a similar age.
But, you obviously have an ideological axe to grind on this topic. Go nuts.
Meanwhile, I'm off to engulf a passing food particle.
I think your comment came off poorly because just imagine what the author would feel reading it?
(I’m not the author)
All his problems are because he is 15 and he should wait and it’ll be fine eventually, just ignore everything? Everyone already tells him that and it clearly distresses him and you say the same. I don’t think it’s all that kind
The school system is an efficient capitalistic means of educating our youth at scale. The author doesn't offer a valid alternative to this means. What does he plan to do with his time outside of school? Take up a trade? Start independent study? In most cases, the path to a career will involve some form of classroom or boring on-the-job training.
We certainly, as public policy, can't allow all 15 year olds to just do whatever they want with no structure. Unless we want rampant alcoholism, crime, and teen pregnancy. Our current school system provides a social net for children in a society where most of them wouldn't have parents at home during the day to guide them.
Perhaps something like Montessori would work better for this student. Or something like https://www,k12.com which I know some parents swear by. One size fits all is efficient, but not everyone is the same size.
Montessori may be a limbo, but is not the solution. Plus only covers the younger children. The solution is self-directed learning.
>>>One size fits all is efficient, but not everyone is the same size.
Exactly, from you briefness I am not sure I can understand the way you intended. That is the reason only seff-directed learning fits everyone, as everyone is different, having different passions, talents etc.
The author also kind of channels my existential dread though it's worse in a way: every day I think "well I'll be a different person tomorrow so why should I do anything for that person?"
Then when I wake up the next day I am like "who messed up all of my stuff yesterday? Glad that wasn't me."
It’s sort of like prisoners dilemma with yourself except current you never has immediate reason to cooperate with future you
Only decent fixes I’ve found so far that worked:
-working alongside other people (much easier to maintain consistent routines that way)
-enjoying what I’m doing
The latter was main thing I did; I found things I enjoyed learning and that gave me things to do that were fulfilling to work on long term such that I could trust future me to continue
Age depends on country. There are countries that compulsory schooling is up to 18 or even 19. The point is not bypassing high school into getting to college, but to never attend the school system. Free (as in freedom) learning. Call it unschooling.
Smart kid. Terrible attitude, they are correct they're stuck. But it's not that long and learning to get through this and make the most of it could be an amazing life lesson. I suspect being able to write like that at 15, means they'll be able to pick up the technical skills to do any vocation they choose. But they have some growing up to do to be able to handle real life.
Truly terrible that someone should stick their neck out and criticize the broken system. You're right, what we need is to crush his creative talents and make him good and compliant.
As a person who was homeschooled much of my life , my background differs from the author of this article. I had only undergone public school from kindergarten to second grade and within that timespan had attend several different schools in two states: Georgia and Washington. Besides two years of education at a technical school and two quarters of college I had little in the way of a public education.
The author glorifies homeschooling in a way that I’ve seen again and again. Similar to the idiom “the grass is always greener on the other side” they neglect to realize that homeschooling has it’s own set of problems, of which I hope to explain, and overlook the downsides and trade offs that it comes with.
1. You do not have an infinite amount of time to learn and still face deadlines to turn in school work (yes, we do refer to it as “homework”).
2. Unless you start off as homeschooled, transitioning from public education to what is a primarily self based learning system has a steep learning curve.
3. In conjuncture with example two, the work books are usually outdated and behind public education standards. You are REQUIRED to take the same state testing, be it the GED or the highschools, at the end of every year. This makes it difficult to pass the test.
4. What you grow and “hone” to practice self learning does not translate well to the public. You may be able to do something extremely well but businesses and companies want you to follow their standards. You need to be able to work with others and adapt.
The transition to learning from home is showing to be tough on the mass majority of those who are unfamiliar with self learning. My first college quarter was entirely online and it felt almost like homeschooling. If you would not be able to succeed in this environment, you will not in homeschooling either.
I wish I could talk to the Author face to face and comfort them. I understand what it’s like to go between vastly different learning environments, the annoying teachers, the wish for everything to be less convoluted, and the inability to express myself or any personal freedoms I had at that age. However, as horrible as the public education system is, you can’t run away from it hoping to never experience anything like it again. I’m sorry. I really am.
As a side note, I imagine the narcissism the author displays for his peers “falling into line” will be one they change in the future. I’m speaking from personal experience.
>(...)
> No. If you don’t work, you lose your job, and you get no money. But you are never forced to work.
I think the guy who goes to work because otherwise we won't be able to pay his bills, his children's tuition, food, elderly parents rents, medicine etc. is much more "forced" to work than teenagers are forced to go to school.
Social and external obligations to actively participate in a 8 to 10 hour mental and physical activity that requires interaction to other people are much more severe than someone physically dragging you to a place where you can, pardon the simplification, sit down and space out whenever the subject has absolutely no interest to you and essentially "fail forward" until you get out on the other end.
I sympathize with the author and really don't envy them. But school is not supposed to be this victimizing, even at its worst - author might very seriously be just mentally unwell and requiring treatment. The worst case scenario would be for them to leave school and find out that they are just as 'unfit' for participating in most, if not all, of our world's systems.
Again - huge oversimplification but typically the only options are to at least somewhat adapt to them or to die alone in the wilderness.