Merry ChristmaHanuKwanzaaWinterFestiveenmas! Also: I Hate School!
Man, it's already well into the holiday season, and I haven't written anything for a good while. I just wrote a gigantic rant on a forum (here), and I thought I'd post it here for your reading pleasure. And so:
My thoughts on the American school system as I know it
(written with Asperger's Syndrome in mind, but probably relevant for all):
School in general is a really difficult thing for me. I don't mind going and listening to a lecture and just learning for the sake of learning. I can listen to professors talk for hours and have no problem. I'll retain most of what they've said, and everyone wonders how I know everything. I tell them it's because I was paying attention instead of chattering all the time like they do.
If school were just about learning, I would have no rival.
I'm even really good on tests. They usually don't make me that nervous (unless the subject has been really difficult for me), and I tend to get really good grades as long as the tests are not ludicrously long or difficult. It takes me longer than most of the other students. I presume it's because I carefully read and consider every question before answering. If I don't remember an answer, as is often expected, I have a way of going through the information in my head and reasoning it out. I can meet the challenge and pass all the tests, except when I can't finish them in the given class time (I've always been given special accommodations for extra testing time, but teachers often don't respect them, which is probably illegal - and when they do, I don't need it).
Anyway, if school were about testing your knowledge and measuring your real capabilities, I would do just fine.
But school is not about these things. School is about meeting quotas on standardized tests and pleasing politicians by playing to statistics. If you please them, you get extra funding for that nice new gymnasium that the PE classes really need so badly (because they can't just go outside). Who cares if a few people fall through?
The teaching methods, of course, are catered to the average student who doesn't really get what you're trying to teach, understand why it's important, or care enough to pay attention when you try to explain it. Constant homework forces them to think of it over and over, forcing it into their memory, at least long enough to get them through the test and ensure that those federal dollars come in as planned.
And the average student can apparently handle that. But I can't. Busywork is irritating. If I have to answer that annoying question one more time, I'm going to flip out and start throwing my massive stack of homework at whoever is nearby. And it's truly massive because every teacher thinks you can dedicate every waking second to their class. They pretend they understand your dilemma. They keep saying all week that you won't have homework on Friday because they know all the other teachers will load you up for the weekend. But when Friday comes, there it is: the assignment you were promised you would not have to do this weekend. The only thing that's more annoying than busywork is empty promises.
And these assignments, they're not exactly pleasant. Most of the time you get a list of boring, repetitive stuff that you should know how to do once you've tried a couple. But you won't have a couple. You'll have 50. And if it's not that, then it's some ultimately pointless writing assignment, in which you're expected to pretend you care about something that doesn't really matter.
Personally, I've always had a lot of difficulty with writing. It's not that I don't like writing. I do. And it's not that I'm not a good writer. I am. But for me, the process of a writing assignment is fundamentally backward. Essays are, by their nature, a medium for communication. When an author writes an essay, it's because he has a something to say, but an assignment asks you to come up with something to say because you have to write an essay. My creativity comes from an idea. The idea cannot come from the need for creativity. The very nature of the thing has always made me uneasy and usually gets in the way of productivity.
In the end, I'm not sure if the fault lies with the school system for being such a poor match for me or if it lies with me because I'm simply a terrible student.
My thoughts on the American school system as I know it
(written with Asperger's Syndrome in mind, but probably relevant for all):
School in general is a really difficult thing for me. I don't mind going and listening to a lecture and just learning for the sake of learning. I can listen to professors talk for hours and have no problem. I'll retain most of what they've said, and everyone wonders how I know everything. I tell them it's because I was paying attention instead of chattering all the time like they do.
If school were just about learning, I would have no rival.
I'm even really good on tests. They usually don't make me that nervous (unless the subject has been really difficult for me), and I tend to get really good grades as long as the tests are not ludicrously long or difficult. It takes me longer than most of the other students. I presume it's because I carefully read and consider every question before answering. If I don't remember an answer, as is often expected, I have a way of going through the information in my head and reasoning it out. I can meet the challenge and pass all the tests, except when I can't finish them in the given class time (I've always been given special accommodations for extra testing time, but teachers often don't respect them, which is probably illegal - and when they do, I don't need it).
Anyway, if school were about testing your knowledge and measuring your real capabilities, I would do just fine.
But school is not about these things. School is about meeting quotas on standardized tests and pleasing politicians by playing to statistics. If you please them, you get extra funding for that nice new gymnasium that the PE classes really need so badly (because they can't just go outside). Who cares if a few people fall through?
The teaching methods, of course, are catered to the average student who doesn't really get what you're trying to teach, understand why it's important, or care enough to pay attention when you try to explain it. Constant homework forces them to think of it over and over, forcing it into their memory, at least long enough to get them through the test and ensure that those federal dollars come in as planned.
And the average student can apparently handle that. But I can't. Busywork is irritating. If I have to answer that annoying question one more time, I'm going to flip out and start throwing my massive stack of homework at whoever is nearby. And it's truly massive because every teacher thinks you can dedicate every waking second to their class. They pretend they understand your dilemma. They keep saying all week that you won't have homework on Friday because they know all the other teachers will load you up for the weekend. But when Friday comes, there it is: the assignment you were promised you would not have to do this weekend. The only thing that's more annoying than busywork is empty promises.
And these assignments, they're not exactly pleasant. Most of the time you get a list of boring, repetitive stuff that you should know how to do once you've tried a couple. But you won't have a couple. You'll have 50. And if it's not that, then it's some ultimately pointless writing assignment, in which you're expected to pretend you care about something that doesn't really matter.
Personally, I've always had a lot of difficulty with writing. It's not that I don't like writing. I do. And it's not that I'm not a good writer. I am. But for me, the process of a writing assignment is fundamentally backward. Essays are, by their nature, a medium for communication. When an author writes an essay, it's because he has a something to say, but an assignment asks you to come up with something to say because you have to write an essay. My creativity comes from an idea. The idea cannot come from the need for creativity. The very nature of the thing has always made me uneasy and usually gets in the way of productivity.
In the end, I'm not sure if the fault lies with the school system for being such a poor match for me or if it lies with me because I'm simply a terrible student.