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You only get out of life what you put into it. You seem to have put very little time and effort into your educational career, consequently you got very little out of it. Had you been more enthusiastic about what you were learning, you might have been able to go the extra mile to learn more. As a budding journalist, you should have been writing for the school newspaper to hone your skills, you could have started a blog about something you are passionate about, or you could have started a club to broadcast your school's sports teams' games on the web. Instead you chose to gripe.
The journalists that I have worked with during my life were incredible writers, terrific researchers, insightful interviewers and excellent at explaining important and complicated concepts to the reader. They quickly became experts on the topic of the day. They worked quickly and were always under the gun of a deadline. Few of these skills come naturally to the journalist; the skills were learned in high school, honed in college, and perfected on the job. With your self proclaimed apathetic nature, and aversion to work, I hope you will find a spot where you can be successful.
The current USA public school system is a relic of Industrialization (mass production needing human labor) when elites decided it was necessary to get a massive manual labor workforce trained to work in factories. (I'm condensing this but if you are interested read John Taylor Gatto a former NYC teacher of year in the 1990s.
Basically, the role of public education has morphed into an indoctrination system from admin elitist education types to crank out non threatening conditioned people i.e. sheeple to be $heared and herded into a consumption based economic - financial - business model. The brightest they cull to be lieutenants in corporate industrial fields, but, if you want to see the best 'education systems / processes' look where the elites send their children and where teachers with children send theirs.
I think a vast number of people realize the system as it currently is - is not working to produce thinking, stimulated, lifelong learners with an appreciation for why education is really important , rather it is cloaked in consumerist mantra (make money in a job). Note, they do very little to train HOW the major controlling elements of society work (Mass Media, Legal, Financial, Economic, Business) System works - no sirree that's not a good thing - you are being conditioned to be a consumption based unit and a 'human resource" in a corporate driven environment (essentially a debt slave). The focus is off. IMO
The best indicator that the leaders in education arena do not care is they do practically nothing to 'secure' the learning environment from the disruptive, destroy the ability of teachers to be authority figures, but rather worry more about them as a voting bloc via unions, growing their political power base and seeking additional funds for the latest and greatest 'programs' they can 'administrate' but I digress.
Another commentor had a great point. Their are some areas you may not find of interest or appreciate (math, english) but which ARE vital to most any form of continued learning and basic reasoning / logic. The root of learning and discernment is logic which is fundamentally simple math and being able to read / comprehend and communicate which is where English is vital - these types of things are needed. They may not always be 'entertaining' this is something else you may need to learn - some of the most basic fundamentals of life - while they may be dreary / boring to you - are necessary. It is analogous to blocking and tackling in football too many focus on the one 'great play and neglect the hours of practice and the precision of all those fundamental activities that are needed take place to make something work effectively.
As to your lament about your education and how school disheartened or quelled your interest in things you wanted to learn, I understand that (and felt the same way at times in certain subjects when I was in H.S. but now YOU get to make decisions after secondary school as to what you want to learn and pursue.Carpe Diem the time is yours
Here is a kickstart of 4 hours worth. The following is worth listening to to capture the gist of the problem at its most basic level. It is from comedian George Carlin who told some harsh truths many have difficulty wrapping their minds around - perhaps due to conditioning or just denial.
The following link is a great 4 hour education to help you since, for a young person you seem brighter than most at sensing the disconnect in the public education system.
Kids are consumed by school and therefore must spend minimal time on outside interests, rather than making it the primary focus.
I'm not sure what the schools in Florida (is that where you said you attended school?) are like, but in the four states we've lived in, students have had plenty of time and opportunity to pursue interests outside of school. Especially in Oregon, where we live currently. Our middle schooler spends 6 hours of his day in school. That leaves a good 8 hours of free time that he uses to pursue other interests. He's into music, swimming, building models, woodworking, robotics. None of this stuff is through the school, it's all stuff he does at home. You get out of life what you're willing to put into it. Don't rely on public school, especially, to create some kind of fulfilling, interesting life for you. You have to do that for yourself.
Honestly, school - like anything in life - is what you make of it. If you want to remain a victim you will remain a victim. Victim's blame everything or everyone else for their problems. Now that you are out of high school, if you keep this victim mentality up you'll most likely find something or someone else to blame for your perceived life problems. It's a script you should try to rewrite for yourself, because until you do, it will eat away at your motivation and hinder your chance at success and happiness in life. You don't want to end up a bitter victim.
Paraphrasing Reinhold Niebuhr:
Accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed ... change the things which should be changed, and have the Wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.
I like this one, too, though I don't really know who said it or where it comes from:
"For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin -- real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way. Something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life."
I like this one, too, though I don't really know who said it or where it comes from:
"For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin -- real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way. Something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life."
It's a quote by Alfred D Souza, who was an Australian inspirational writer. He also coined the pharade "Dance like there's nobody watching."
You're wrong. I would love to hear about your school and know many others as well but you know darn well that education in America gets set in stone more every year and I swear I blame the standardized test companies the most b/c they lobby the politicians.
Wrong about what? How good many of the schools are in my state? Especially the ones in my district?
Uhm no. We have 100% of our students pass the state exams EVERY year. Even our kids with IEPs and 504s.
Wrong about the power of GOOD tracking and intense differentiation? Nope, the proof is in the pudding again.
About our inability to enact that system on a larger scale? Well it hasn't been done yet.
Wrong about what? How good many of the schools are in my state? Especially the ones in my district?
Uhm no. We have 100% of our students pass the state exams EVERY year. Even our kids with IEPs and 504s.
Wrong about the power of GOOD tracking and intense differentiation? Nope, the proof is in the pudding again.
About our inability to enact that system on a larger scale? Well it hasn't been done yet.
What exactly was "wrong" in the post you quoted?
What good is it to brag about passing standardized multiple choice tests when reality shows American education is producing adults that are actually less educated than the generation before them ?
Life doesn't consist of scantron sheets and multiple choice questions.
Instructions are not read to you and repeated and your forms checked over for completeness.
College statistics should be a wakeup call to K-12 but it's not.
All we hear is about how many apply to college each year.
But the eye opening statistics is how many don't make it to the end.
The school system clearly works well for a lot of kids but many simply don't do well in the educational model we use. Shouldn't we try to find out what we can do to meet the needs of those kids? I don't believe it's fair to pander only to one group of children as many could be successful under different circumstances. People in general, including kids, are very diverse and it's time for the educational system to recognize and adapt to those differences. One size doesn't fit all. The current system is as old as public school itself and we've learned a lot since it started and we should apply that.
A school's job isn't only to teach but to motivate to want to learn and although some individual teachers do this well the system as a whole doesn't emphasize it as much as it should. Adjusting the education to meet the needs of different students would go a long way to keep the children motivated. The system lose a lot of kids due to lack of motivation. The education system has an obligation to do what it can to help all children reach their potential, not only those who fit neatly into the mold and have parents to help them navigate the system.
I read about a charter school once that tried to meet the diverse needs of the students. For one, they had flex time because, they believed, some kids don't learn well early in the morning and others simply need more sleep than most which makes getting up at 7am very difficult. This turned out to be a great system for kids who had previously had an issue with tardiness and truancy. They also allowed some kids more freedom in how they learned. Not all kids have to sit in school all day to learn but may do better sitting in the park with a book and completing independent assignments. Basically, the school recognized that flexibility helped them meet the needs of more kids.
I know some will argue that kids have to learn to fit into a mold because they will have to do it in the work force but they'll have plenty of time to learn that when they get there.
As to the OP's point that High School is useless because it teaches you a bunch of stuff you don't care about I think the opinion has a lot to do with the OP's age and level of maturity. Once he get's older he will understand why being well rounded is important. I can agree that students ought to have a bit more control over the areas they study at some point but it's still necessary to learn about things you don't care about.
I have to respectfully disagree with you on that last section. I am very well aware that everything in life is not meant to be pleasant, and certain arduous tasks must be completed regardless. However, I do not think its fair to assess my maturity due to aversion to being spoon fed knowledge that is not pertinent to anything I plan to do in life. I asked an English teacher a while back how many of his friends enjoyed their careers. He said that many of those who did did not enjoy the particular setting/circumstance where they had to practice their craft. I would have significantly less trouble adopting to unpleasant tasks when its directly important to what I am doing. I don't think this is an invalid perspective.
You only get out of life what you put into it. You seem to have put very little time and effort into your educational career, consequently you got very little out of it. Had you been more enthusiastic about what you were learning, you might have been able to go the extra mile to learn more. As a budding journalist, you should have been writing for the school newspaper to hone your skills, you could have started a blog about something you are passionate about, or you could have started a club to broadcast your school's sports teams' games on the web. Instead you chose to gripe.
The journalists that I have worked with during my life were incredible writers, terrific researchers, insightful interviewers and excellent at explaining important and complicated concepts to the reader. They quickly became experts on the topic of the day. They worked quickly and were always under the gun of a deadline. Few of these skills come naturally to the journalist; the skills were learned in high school, honed in college, and perfected on the job. With your self proclaimed apathetic nature, and aversion to work, I hope you will find a spot where you can be successful.
I may have had an apathetic nature while in high school, but at least I am optimistic about college and my future. I know plenty of people who are not.
I would like to know what specific claims I made caused you to cringe. Although I clearly expressed a negative view on the education system, I thought that I made a fair effort to give my reasoning.
I imagine that one of the reasons you're frustrated with this post is because you think I am narrow minded and only locked into to my specific hyper focus (journalism). I just don't like to be spoon fed information and process it, regardless if its useful or not. I care to explore anything of interest on my own.
I read the week magazine, the ny times, try to stay up on current politics and affairs in general. I am not trying to shed light on myself here, I'm just saying I may not have a narrow focus as you think. I just prefer to go about my learning in my own way.
Oh where to begin... First, you start this thread with a very negative title. Then you proceed to make your argument by basically saying you dislike the fact that the schools made you learn things you did not want to learn. The first example is how you wanted to read about space, but the elementary school made you read other things you thought were boring. Then there is the dig about geometry, and the negative comments about extra curricular activities. The whole post reminded me of an incident I had years ago with college interns.
My news department had some new college interns. I met two of them one day when I was filling in for my boss, and there was a freelancer doing my job. It was a bit hectic, and we were under a tight deadline. I asked these interns to do some photocopying for me. I was floored by their answer. They told me that they were there to learn journalism and not to do secretarial work. This response was stunning on so many levels. For one, at the very large news organization where I worked even a senior news executive would not consider it beneath his/her level to do some photocopying if that is what needed to be done. We all worked in collaboration.
I ended up rushing to do the photocopying myself. Later, I discovered our department also had a third new intern. This intern was entirely different than the other two. She did whatever needed to be done. She did not ignore tasks because she thought they would not benefit her or because she disliked them. In turn, we embraced her. When the news was slow, we helped her with her ideas and writing. We never helped the other two interns or even really talked much to them. They frankly had the most boring internship ever because their sense of entitlement was terrible.
After the internships were over, you can guess who was hired--intern #3. I never saw the other two interns again.
You may prefer learning in your "own way," but journalism is a group effort. Students are not going to do very well in journalism if they have a sense that so many things are beneath them and that so many things are not worth learning or doing.
Unfortunately, the media is embracing too many negative news people these days, which is plunging us into another era of yellow journalism. I am hoping some young new journalists will help bring us out of this phase since it is not good for the country. Someone who hates EVERYTHING about high school is not someone who can be a leader in this way. I am all for constructive criticism, but this is not an example of it. This is why I cringe.
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