Is School obsolete?

[BlazeKun]

Well I don't think school is obsolete, per se. But for some kids it definately is! I'm a prime example of this. I'm probobly in the upper 15 percentile of intelligence in this country (no I'm not trying to brag) and I'm a highschool dropout. In fact I must have missed at least 4 months of school in 7th and 8th grade, and I dropped out of high school the end of the first trimester. I got my GED (high school equivilency for those out of the US) when I first turned 16. Two years before I would have gotten my high school diploma. Please remember that I am an exception to the rule though.

I'll give you a couple examples as to why I was able to do this.
1. Internet is vast, and if you use it a lot and know how to find good information, you WILL learn.
2. Thinking of english, what do we do to those with bad grammer/spelling? That's right we ridicule them. Peer pressure at it's finest folks.

All in all, the internet is a great way of learning, for some people. Others would learn next to nothing from the internet unless they are actively researching.

 

[Maskirovka]

Definitely HS, and it's worse off 10x.

You rarely had to worry about guns, or even drug raids (!) taking place. And I feel more so that today's teachers just don't care as much, it's all about how much they put in their pocketbooks rather then how much they commit to thier job. For instance, how often do you hear of teachers striking or walking off the job in the news anymore? Quite often I'd say.

if you worry about guns in your school you're being afraid of nothing. think about how many schools there are and then think about all the news stories you've heard. the ratio of schools with gun violence of schools with no gun problems whatsoever is like 1:10,000

i laughed my ass off at all the schools that bought expensive ID systems and metal detectors after the columbine incident. they sit behind their technology and think they're really safe or something. please. those systems do nothing whatsoever. they're preventing against something that will almost surely never happen AND making kids feel like they're going to jail every day instead of school at the same time! what an accomplishment!

metal detectors can't stop bullets or people from walking through them and shooting whoever's manning them. just take a look at "The Matrix" if you want an example. it's not like what they did to those first security guards was THAT unrealistic...and schools don't have in-house SWAT teams to back up the regular security guards...lol.

stop living in fear. you have nothing to be afraid of. if something happens, it's your time to go. the odds are INCREDIBLY good that nothing bad will ever happen to you. i'm not saying don't be prepared...

just don't worry all the time and live in fear of bad things happening...it's a waste of time and energy...just ask all those people who spazzed and bought duct tape and plastic to cover their windows after 9/11 because they were afraid of osama n' company cropdusting the crap out of their house.

 

[dfc05]

School is an opportunity to show how creative a cheater you are. Or at least that's what my school is like.

School is a game, and those with the highest scores are the best cheaters. That's how it is at my HS anyway. "Mr. 4.0 GPA" is really a dumbass like that rest of the pack, he's just better at kissing ass, lying, and cheating. I for one can't stand these little games, so I don't play them.

I simply devote all my time and energy elsewhere, focusing on only those things which interest me (nothing at school). Still I manage to get by with a 3.6 GPA (no cheating).

mine too!!!...!!!!!
i see so many idiots cheating at my school-- sharing test questions; getting test questions; copying stupid easy work!!! like vocabulary--people copy vocabulary off each other--is it really so hard to look in the book and write down the stupid definition. and what's even worse, is that it's extra credit vocabulary--people cheat on extra credit?? last year they wouldn't let us have water bottles during tests since people were writing info inside the label... and for the world history final they had to change out sections because somebody put up a website with the questions and answers and stuff on it. ugh, it's sickening; and then these people complain if they don't get a high grade.
that's why i'm glad that i have a weird memory--i forget every question on the test about half a minute after i take it so it would be impossible for anyone to get any test info out of me. "what was on the test?"... "umm, i really don't remember". or if people already took it and are just checking answers after the test. "what did you get for #14?"..."umm, what was the question?"...."umm ok, what were the answer choices?"

there's this stupid thing called the "gpa game" at my school. it's so competitive since the top 10% cutoff is like a 4.6 or 4.7 gpa (ap courses measured on a 5 pt. scale) so a bunch of people who shouldn't be clogging up the ap classes go in and cheat for their stupid extra point. so now we've got schedule issues for my class and people are getting pulled out of ap classes because they're forcing us to take 4-pt. classes like health, speech...

i used to be really focused on school. now i just stopped caring--still get the grades and stuff, but not sucked into all the junk. the teachers are pretty good--well, most of them--but some stuff i just won't ever use again.

 

[Letters]

What I disagree with is so many college scholarships hinging on the damn 'class rank'.

 

[dfc05]

What I disagree with is so many college scholarships hinging on the damn 'class rank'.

yeah really. especially when some people are "lower" just because they took classes like orchestra or art or band that don't have that stupid extra pt. like other people are "higher" because they know how to play games and take all ap classes or hold off on required 4.0 classes til senior year when it doesn't get counted in. so the people that actually broaden their education suddenly became "lower" because they chose to do something like art, instead of something like statistics. at my school gpa doesn't say much about your intelligence level. some people get by with low a's and the people that really know the stuff end up with a lower gpa.

 

[MultiVaC]

I think school would be a good thing for most people if the whole thing wasn't about bullshitting your way through. Most subjects are taught in a way that encourages you to hammer something into your head, take a test, then drop everything and start your next block of busy work. I do remember one history teacher I had, though, who I really learned a lot from. And the thing is, he only gave one homework assignment a week and hardly any tests. Instead we would do mock hearings of important historical cases, class discussions and debates and independent reading so we could be good participants in the discussions. And it worked, too. There were self-proclaimed 'slackers' who were actually making contributions to the class, and would sometimes bring in a paper that they wrote on their own accord because they had a few thoughts at home that they wanted to bring up. Every once in a while things would descend into anarchy, but we would eventually pull out of it and come away with some valuable knowledge and experience.

 

[Maskirovka]

I think school would be a good thing for most people if the whole thing wasn't about bullshitting your way through. Most subjects are taught in a way that encourages you to hammer something into your head, take a test, then drop everything and start your next block of busy work. I do remember one history teacher I had, though, who I really learned a lot from. And the thing is, he only gave one homework assignment a week and hardly any tests. Instead we would do mock hearings of important historical cases, class discussions and debates and independent reading so we could be good participants in the discussions. And it worked, too. There were self-proclaimed 'slackers' who were actually making contributions to the class, and would sometimes bring in a paper that they wrote on their own accord because they had a few thoughts at home that they wanted to bring up. Every once in a while things would descend into anarchy, but we would eventually pull out of it and come away with some valuable knowledge and experience.

100% agree. the classes that are taught like this are the ones people usually end up learning the most in.

unfortunately, it would be kind of hard to teach a math or biology class like this...but history, english, law, etc. should ALWAYS be taught like this. any time you can prevent students from memorizing facts they could easily look up in a book, you're going to be capturing their attention. people hate memorizing forumulas and dates and things like that because they know it's information that is easily obtained elsewhere.

like i said...in no way are schools "obsolete" they just need a bit of reform :\

 

[Prince of China]

School is not useless.
If you go to High School without going to Elementary-you don't have the basic skills.
You can't get a job if you don't have an education.
In School, it's not all about education.
It's also about building friendships and etc...

Edit:
If you're wondering- the place where I live at has it like this:
Elementary School, High School. then Collage or University.

 

[Lucifer Crass]

If I wanted to hear an asshole talk--I would've just farted

Hahahahah Nice
I wish my parnets would just let me get my GED and let me get out of school and get a job so i can play for college.

 

[Lil' Timmy]

he's just better at kissing ass, lying, and cheating.

hey buddy, those are real world skills! personally, i learned everything i need to know from halflife2.net.

anyway, it's obviously a completely individual issue as to whether or not school is a waste of time for someone. that said, there are very few people for whom school should be truely a waste, and a great many people for whom school is a waste, though it shouldn't be. it is what you make of it, at every level. the sheer exposure that one can get to various topics goes beyond what most people are able/willing to do on their own. the root of the problem is not the schools/teachers/system (although those things can certainly be a hinderance), but the students (ultimately the parents/society?). it 's a two-way street, if the kids have some amount of intellectual curiosity, they'll tend to make something out of school. if they've grown up in the mall and watching our fav scape-goat mtv, then it really doesn't matter how cool/engaging the prof is, it's going to be hard to get the kid to care about history, literature, mathematics, what-have-you. if you let tv raise your kids, of course school will be a waste of their time b/c they'll have the attention span of gnat. soundbites and website are the only things that will grab them.

mmm.. nah, that's all crap what i just said.. school sucks my nutz.

 

[Shippi]

.

 

[Neutrino]

"vocabulary"

Cool, is that some kind of new video game!!!!????

 

[Dedalus]

the only thing i remember at school was being bored. i was light years ahead of everyone else in my year and i was just sitting there half the time waiting for everyone else to catch up. the crime is that there were other students in the same situation, but the school spent so much time trying to help the dumb kids that the talented kids just went to waste. where's the fookin logic in that?

school is like the internet...it's meant to be used towards good and honest reasons but everyone and his dog abuses it and wastes it.

frankly if i had my way i would've left school at 11 having all the knowledge i needed to start at college and then move onto university. 5 freaking years of my life i wasted sitting through boring classes that i aced with my eyes closed, and the dumb shits who threw paper dawdled along and made everyone else suffer. the stupid thing is, we used to have different tier groups for subjects. the dumb people go here, average here, clever here, genius here...but the school had a GENIUS thought...why not merge them all together so there's no prejudice against less intelligent people. brilliant!! now i have to sit through maths while joe fag breath horses around all afternoon. some school's just don't realise that they're shaping a kid to be the way they are for the rest of their lives. and it shows. because i'm a bright success compared to the majority at my school...shit...i'm 20, and some of my classmates are STILL trying to finish the GCSEs.

the mind boggles. let's round up thick people and shoot them, or at least make it so they can't reproduce.

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

coolio yes it is obsolete but you gota learn social skills

a dude that homeschooled stayed with us for awhile i wanted to kill the fu***r he was so DAMN ANNOYING and idiotic socially UGH the thought of this ass disgusts me

I have a crap gpa as I cant stand school :naughty: at least I got friends and will make an effort to pull my f's up as I dont want to be a freshman again lol :smoking: that would suck a**

but ya im guna raise me grades

funny thing is when I score really high in standardised testing and teachers are like wtf!?!?! that kids retarded... hmm??? h4x!!!!111111111

 

[Zeus]

The point of school is that you can get tons of homework to waste countless hours of your life on crap that you already know, and to get very stressed over tests, rip your hair out trying to understand a concept that makes absolutly no sense at all, and that will never be used IRL. Polynomials for example.

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

ewwwwwww polynomials.......... -barfs up liver- i hate my math class

the worst part is im like the smartest on there...

 

[Letters]

Mmmmm... integrating and differentiating functions...
/me drools

 

[Lucifer Crass]

coolio yes it is obsolete but you gota learn social skills

a dude that homeschooled stayed with us for awhile i wanted to kill the fu***r he was so DAMN ANNOYING and idiotic socially UGH the thought of this ass disgusts me

I have a crap gpa as I cant stand school :naughty: at least I got friends and will make an effort to pull my f's up as I dont want to be a freshman again lol :smoking: that would suck a**

but ya im guna raise me grades

funny thing is when I score really high in standardised testing and teachers are like wtf!?!?! that kids retarded... hmm??? h4x!!!!111111111

Lol, frigging wall h4xz0rs

 

[A2597]

I think high school is quite important.

that said, I think the current school system, overall, stinks in America.
HOMESCHOOLING ROCKS!

 

[Lucifer Crass]

Will someone post reasons why Getting a GED r0xs0rs j00 b0x0rz?
I must prove how right I am to my parents so I can just get the GED and go to work.
Maybe get my License, i am 16.

 

[Dedalus]

i'm sorry i'm from the UK, what's a GED?

 

[Lucifer Crass]

Graduate Equal. Degree
All it means is that I am smart enough to be the equal to a normal high school grad. but I didn't go to normal high school

 

[Letters]

i'm sorry i'm from the UK, what's a GED?

Edit: What he said.

 

[Dedalus]

so i'm guessing there are no classes to take for this, you just go to a building and sit an exam. is there any harm in taking the exam? i mean if you fail then at least you're still in school so you've got backup. or doesn't it work like that?

 

[Revisedsoul]

GED is a highschool equivilency(sp) exam for people who dropped out.

 

[Lucifer Crass]

GED is a highschool equivilency(sp) exam for people who dropped out.

Not really, If i was in 7th grade i could have passed high school already

 

[Neutrino]

coolio yes it is obsolete but you gota learn social skills

a dude that homeschooled stayed with us for awhile i wanted to kill the fu***r he was so DAMN ANNOYING and idiotic socially UGH the thought of this ass disgusts me

I have a crap gpa as I cant stand school :naughty: at least I got friends and will make an effort to pull my f's up as I dont want to be a freshman again lol :smoking: that would suck a**

but ya im guna raise me grades

funny thing is when I score really high in standardised testing and teachers are like wtf!?!?! that kids retarded... hmm??? h4x!!!!111111111

Though there are some weird cases, it is perfectly possible to be a normal well adjusted person even if your homeschooled.

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

just go through with highschool dont get ged dude.. youl regret it

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

Though there are some weird cases, it is perfectly possible to be a normal well adjusted person even if your homeschooled.

if you have friends... this kid didnt

 

[qckbeam]

[rant]

The one thing that sickens me to no end is having to watch 99% of the student body, the future leaders of our country, waste their time with the blow-off electives, such as basket-weaving, business, and ?Intro to Shakespear?, simply because they are easy courses. Congratulations you ****tard, now you can weave ****ing baskets for the rest of your miserable life, but thanks to your great decision to take buisness at least maybe you'll be able to figure out that a balance of 0 in your bank account means your ****ing broke! Oh well, at least in your suicide note you'll be able to quote some cool lines from Shakespear or something.

[/rant]

 

[chu]

I dropped out of college, mainly because the curriculum was horrible and so were the teachers, complete waste of time and money. Before going to college I thought I would be learning a lot of things I didn't know. I signed up for the Computer Art and Design curriculum.

The curriculum was about 10% computer related art and about 60% studio art. The thing with the studio art classes was that you were suppose to be a really good drawer going into the class. If you weren't then your grades would be horrible. I never took any studio art classes in highschool because we really didn't have any.

The teacher for my studio art classes was a total bitch. She graded off a curve and not by the students actualy work and or potential. I spent about 10+ hours on one piece, it was to my max potential of what I could do with charcoal and pencil. I think I got like a B on it. So if you weren't better than the "art fags" don't expect to get an A.

The photoshop class was horrible. We didn't get to do one single project from scratch. It was all montage bullsh*t. That was because the teacher was some hippy head case. I didn't learn a damn thing I didn't already know.

Though it would be nice to have that degree, would help a lot. I just couldn't take it anymore. I had that feeling that even if I did finish the two years for a degree, would I feel any more advanced in my 2D art? I never did.

Now I have a school loan to pay back for an education I never got. Yay me!

Even though I am not paying for an "education" I am still trying to advance my 2D art skills. I am just trying out new things, seeing what works and what doesn't. Plus I will always have you guys here to critique anything. I'd take your opinions over some ego-centric teacher who picks favorites.

That's my story...

 

[Neutrino]

Hey chu, I know what you mean about crappy teachers and classes. One thing to think about though, is that I've noticed that the first year is usually just crappy. You don't start really learning things until at least your second year. I'm a junior engineering student and a lot of my first year classes were a joke. But now I'm actually learning interesting stuff.

 

[Brian Damage]

Montessori schooling would have been the way to go for me, personally.

Pity they (montessori schools) generally cost so much.

Everyone learns in a different way... I personally learn better from reading things, whereas my sis learns better if someone explains things to her verbally...

Standardisation is the problem at public schools, IMHO. It can pull the advanced kids back and leave the slower kids behind.

 

[Shuzer]

Though there are some weird cases, it is perfectly possible to be a normal well adjusted person even if your homeschooled.

I'm homeschooled and look at me! I'm normal and well adjusted!

 

[SilentKilla]

Im homeschooled. Im in 10th grade, and right now I have 3 subject, Math, History and Biology. Its not to bad, im just glad i get to stick around home. Everyone says I miss out on all the girls and stuff but thats wrong.

 

[Anthraxxx]

Lol, I am accualty in a Cisco networking class Atm

What semester of Cisco are you in right now? I just finished Semester 3 this week.

 

[phantomdesign]

Hehe…you guys had to get me started about school.

Is school obsolete? Yes & no. It mostly needs a huge makeover.

Ok. Let me start off by saying I’m 20 years old and have a Bachelor of Science Degree in math, physics, and computer science. So, I can say the ‘been there done that.’

School for me was an absolute waste. If I could have gone at my own pace, I’d probably have graduated college at age 10 easily. Basically every single class from elementary school to middle school taught you the exact same thing over and over, except you learned an extra 20% each year. It is like “I learned this 3 years ago, I learned this two years ago, I learned it AGAIN last year, and what the F@#$ are the teaching us this year?” You know how every kid joked about forgetting everything they learned over the summer? Well, they usually don’t actually foget that much except nitty-gritty details that will never help them in life, but regardless they are encouraged to forget everything because teachers start from ZERO every single year.

The only class that may have strayed from that was math, but seriously, If any teacher had any clue how to teach math, we could start calculus in middle school. Math is super easy before calculus, just teachers are too dumb to teach it right. If you don’t believe me, I use to tutor people in college with math stuff, usually they were frantic because they were lost the entire year, and finals are coming up. In about 4-5 hours, they I can tutor someone from practically nothing to they can do anything that relates to class material. Math teachers teach you the method, but they never tell you what anything is or how it actually works. I mean how did you learn multiplication? A #@$%# multiplication table. How did you learn addition? The same @#$%@ way. How many times do you have to add 12334+34534 to know how addition works? Ahhhh…got off on a tangent….back on subject….

Highschool, there’s less repetition, but still, you learn practically nothing at an incredibly slow pace. Even if you take “honors” or “accelerated” or “advanced placement” courses, they don’t teach you any more or teach you any faster, they only force you to do twice the homework.

College…for me it was a complete waste. I’d stay up all night because I knew my time would be best spent sleeping IN my classes. And I slept in every single one of my classes practically every day of the week. I’m not joking about that. Math courses, science courses, computer courses, English courses, history courses. It doesn’t really matter. Anyway, I got good grades, put in no effort, and learned practically nothing,


Now, one thing that always irritated me, and still does is literature courses. They are a waste of time. I’ll pause for a second to differentiate literature courses from composition courses. A literature course mostly involves reading and trying to predict what your teacher things that the author was thinking, even though she lacks access to any sort of interviews. A composition course teaches you the structure of writing, techniques of writing, and proper English language. I learned 4x more about English in my French classes (which were a joke) than I did in 3 years of literature classes.

Well, basically, what does a literature class teach you that helps you in any part of life? Anyone? Anyone? Didn’t think so. Basically, if you want to enjoy reading a book, I’m going to guess most of you will grab a Tom Clancy book (considering you’re on this forum, you’d probably like those types of books). Now, literature classes tend to have you read classics, and most of those classics are way out of the league of the person reading the book, or lack any entertainment value or educational value. A tale of two cities. It may be a good book for a 45 year old mom, but who here enjoyed that book in highschool? Lord of The Flies and books by Edgar Allen Poe. Those are sick and demented books. I suppose what is the worst is I was having massive headaches (I had them for years, but they started about 1-2 years before hand) at the time I was forced to read Edgar Allen Poe books. Ok…so in basic overview, literature classes teach you nothing, and do not entertain you. You can get enough reading from other courses to teach you how to read, so the reading level argument is total bull @#$% (especially since 60% of the books are in old English).

And the concept of ‘busy work’ is the absolute worst part about schooling. Thankfully that drops off a lot...especially for college math classes. Basically the concept behind busy work is if you force a person to do something over and over, eventually they’ll just plain be able to do it and it will be incinerated in their brain cells. What it really does is piss off students, and makes them slower learners in the long run because they just decide they might as well adapt to the system, and learn it slowly anyway. People tend to not really learn the concepts as much as they are force fed concepts (especially dangerous in math classes to use this approach).

I could start bashing art classes….but I’ve said too much already. Overall, my schooling isn’t helping me get a job, and I’ve learned over 5x as much on my own initiative than school has taught me.

 

[Brian Damage]

My old science classes were cool... my teacher nearly always found an excuse to let us watch "The Simspons" on hot/cold/boring days...

 

[Pressure]

I actually find it quite useful. I take a lot of AP classes, which are college level courses, so I take in a lot more than lets say a person just taking normal classes. Infact I've taken a normal class in High School before and I could have passed it if I hadn't even showed up it was so easy. If you're just taking normal classes in High School then the only thing you're doing is hurting yourself. But thats only to say if you don't have a hard time just taking normal classes. The reason schools offer different level courses is because you should know what level you need to take to challenge yourself. The AP courses should challenge you a little. I don't find them to be that hard but they're hard enough that I have to pay attention in class. But then there are some that are pretty difficult such as Spanish and Calculus. Infact I'm about to leave to school in about 5 minutes to go take my AP Spanish exam. Hope I do good . Wish me luck. Oh yeah, and I find High School to be an important step for my future no matter what it may be. Its probably the people with a poor school and poor teachers that feel school is useless and for them it probably is.

 

[Kschreck]

School is EXTREMELY important. We all may hate school, but the fact is if you didn't go to school you would end of atlease slow. I don't care what you guys say, the fact is you need school. Schools in the United States have been getting kidish. The teachers don't teach to their full extent and they are not aloud to punish students using (The Paddle or whatever) to keep the kids motivated. So I don't want to hear you say we don't need school because that is simply a lie. I hate school just like everyone else does, but the fact is you NEED it.