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View Full Version : One man's personal account of public education.


decaheximal
11-04-2003, 01:00 AM
Let me just start off by saying that after having been pulled from two schools and expelled from a third, experienced every level of education from honorary advanced classes to remedial education, and participated in school environments containing as few as 100 students campus-wide to several thousand total, that I think I've had a diverse enough schooling background to know what I'm talking about. Just so we know where I stand here.

Public education is pure and unexempted evil by any standards, regardless of what god any of you may or may not worship.

It's a filthy barnhouse inhabited by filthy swine greedily devouring whatever long-spoiled rotten slop is marketed to them from the Almighty subjugators above them. It's a rat race where the truly creative can do no right, and the pre-programmed bullshit-sowing propoganda crapmongers can do no wrong. The upper ranks are polluted with an amount of sarcastic sadism, so strong, so vile, the rotting stench would gag a maggot.

Personal intelligence is worthless in this environment. The head honchos naturally consider themselves God's gift to academia. Challenge their egos, and one soon finds oneself in a completely fruitless and unfair argument under false pretenses of inherent student inferiority, which if pursued further, will ultimately result in punishment. In fact, it's all but impossible to challenge any wrong in this system, for at the very moment of victory, there will always be the teacher's trump card of censorship, punishment, and dismissal from further debate. These tactics have long been employed by tyrannous dictators. Silencing public rebellion and punishing offending parties to serve as an example. Forcing "reform" regimen on the guilty to convince potential rebellers that no amount of will for change could ever result in anything but more personal reform.

There's a funny story where my best friend got in an argument with a high school instructor over a stupid mathematical concept. His teacher taught the class that to find the area of a trapezoid, one should divide the offending unquantified shape into two triangles and a square before calculating the sum of the area of the individual shapes. So my friend mentions that he knows of a formula that can accomplish the same thing in a single step. Of course, the teacher insists that his personal method is easier, and cites his high profile college mathematics background as proof of his theory. So, the next day, my friend digs up the formula, brings it to class, and guess who ends up trying to make who look like an idiot? The teacher insists in the face of overwhelming evidence against him that he is in fact still in the right, and ultimately dismisses the argument before he can be proven further to be wrong.

Instructors are within their rights to punish any student for any reason they see fit. I have read this very thing in my school manuals. The plain fact is, a classroom is absolutely _NOT_ a democracy. I have heard, on several occasions, instructors confirm this statement verbatim. I have read this, too, in my school manuals. No one ever claimed a classroom was such a thing, apparently. And yet, every man woman and child is legally bound to submit to such an environment in their childhood. People can, and do, get punished for, well, bullshit, essentially. Minor infractions, crimes they aren't guilty of, and in some cases, innocent acts that aren't even incorrect by a whole class's consent, but only by the instructor's.

Does anyone notice how full of morons society seems to be? It's no surprise. Children are taught at an early age that they can't challenge authority no matter how blatantly wrong it may be. They are taught that freedom of speech is a sunny-day concept reserved only for the conservative; a figurehead right in theory. Certainly not in practice. How many times have you ever been told, and I literally quote, to "Shut up?" I have observed those exact words screamed to a classroom full of students. People's self esteem is ruined early on as well. I could go on to tell you about how the ongoing efforts to oust everyone else's grade point average, become one of the exalted on special academic lists, and attain status of all around straight-A student tends to wreak havoc on the soul, but seriously, after that "shut up" example, do I need to? It's sickening.

I have, and I'm not even kidding, had nightmares about being forced back into schooling. I seriously wake up with a jump, sweating, heart beating through my chest, and full of anxiety. Call me a wimp if you want. I have never, ever, in my entire life, experienced more suppressed inner rage and raw anger about anything. Words can't even begin to express my loathing and inner torment. I hate to drag such a horrible example into the light here, but does anyone remember Columbine? I would certainly never do anything like that, and it was a terrible tradgedy, but all at once, (and these are just my raw emotions here, not my intended actions or feelings) I certainly emphathize with those guys.

Now, for the sake of completeness, I'm sure plenty of people can attest to highly enjoyable schooling experiences that sound nothing like my account. But frankly, that opinion does not matter. I mean, go ahead, anyone who wants to is certainly welcome to attest against me, but I am willing to wage my own two testicles on the fact that time and time again, exponentially more people feel the way I do than you do. There's always an exception to the most proven concepts. I even have a few (well, two...) memorable teachers that were godsends to me. But this is out of how many total?

The day I dropped out of school was the single happiest day of my life. And if I ever looked back from that decision, it was solely to spit in school's face.

Finally, in closing, I would like to say that although everyone knows me here as decaheximal, that my real name is in fact George E. Whiteside. And if, as I hope, there is anyone from my educational past reading this, that I have something I would like to stand up loud and proud to say.

Fuck school.

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shawn
11-04-2003, 01:09 AM
<img src=smilies/werd.gif>


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JadussD
11-04-2003, 01:37 AM
> Fuck school.
>

<img src=smilies/eek5.gif><img src=smilies/eek5.gif><img src=smilies/eek5.gif><img src=smilies/eek5.gif><img src=smilies/eek5.gif><img src=smilies/eek5.gif>

Dude man, I absolutely agree with everything you just said in such a degree that it just bounces around the insides of my skull, affirming every ounce of loathing I had while sitting behind a desk listening to some pedant deadening the minds of all who are scribbliing his or her thoughts down on paper, and becoming another dead-minded sack of post-industrial flesh...

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puzzl
11-04-2003, 02:48 AM
i like school, i totally disagree with everything you say. why? cause the ones who feel this way are the ones that crapped out in school. kaythxbye.<img src=smilies/thumb.gif>

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decaheximal
11-04-2003, 02:58 AM
> i like school, i totally disagree with everything you say.
> why? cause the ones who feel this way are the ones that
> crapped out in school. kaythxbye.
>

Sheep will always go "bah-h-h-h."

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JadussD
11-04-2003, 03:09 AM
> i like school, i totally disagree with everything you say.
> why? cause the ones who feel this way are the ones that
> crapped out in school. kaythxbye.
>

Congratulations. You just managed to attack a person's argument based on who they are, without paying any attention to the validity or invalidity of their argument. Aren't logical fallacies fun?

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Lobster Cowboy
11-04-2003, 03:13 AM
i did fine in school, yet i knew it was a load of shit.

argument.

destroyed.

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puzzl
11-04-2003, 03:14 AM
> Congratulations. You just managed to attack a person's
> argument based on who they are, without paying any attention
> to the validity or invalidity of their argument. Aren't
> logical fallacies fun?

um, you say invalidity, i say the whole argument is invalid (here is the key part) in my point of view. we can all scream till our heads blow off, but we will still think our own way. My original post was not to be taken seriously, hence the smiley thumbs up dude. sheesh.

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JadussD
11-04-2003, 03:21 AM
> i did fine in school, yet i knew it was a load of shit.
>
> argument.
>
> destroyed.

I think the point wasn't how one personally reacted to school, but to point out the extent that school is full of shit.

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Lobster Cowboy
11-04-2003, 03:21 AM
> I think the point wasn't how one personally reacted to
> school, but to point out the extent that school is full of
> shit.

i just wanted to jump into the attack on schools <img src=smilies/thumb.gif>

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JadussD
11-04-2003, 03:25 AM
> i just wanted to jump into the attack on schools
>

Ah. I misinterpreted the context of your statement.

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Octocrook
11-04-2003, 03:28 AM
nun tits

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pipes
11-04-2003, 04:12 AM
Yeah school wasn't all that great. Even though I made good grades I still failed some classes because I slept all the time.

Oh! If a teacher ever has to say shut up that means he/she has lost control of the class.

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Isildur
11-04-2003, 05:50 AM
> Now, for the sake of completeness, I'm sure plenty of people
> can attest to highly enjoyable schooling experiences that
> sound nothing like my account. But frankly, that opinion
> does not matter.

Weren't you complaining a minute ago about people who aren't interested in hearing what other people have to contribute? =P

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Fla Flash
11-04-2003, 07:15 AM
So I take it you don't like public education. (which btw, like driving, is a privilege, not a right)
It sounds like you need to settle some issues with it. I went through it. Although I've always questioned authority, so trash that part of your speech.

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decaheximal
11-04-2003, 10:21 AM
> Weren't you complaining a minute ago about people who aren't
> interested in hearing what other people have to contribute?
> =P
>

No. A person is completely within his or her rights to have no interest in someone else's opinion. And that's not even what I said. I was just willing to say that it was of my opinion that opinions contrary to mine on the subject are in the overwhelming minority, and even cited a few positive examples from my own past to support my point. I was complaining about people who won't hear, or worse yet, won't allow someone else to express to others, their own opinions.

Furthermore, by posting my article on this open message board medium, I basically invite other people to challenge my viewpoint.

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decaheximal
11-04-2003, 11:16 AM
> So I take it you don't like public education.

Very astute.

> (which btw, like driving, is a privilege, not a right)

A quick glance at some state of Illinois legislation [105 ILCS 5/26-1] (which, by the way, like all laws, is something that is neither a privilege nor a right, but a requirement) seemed to point out that it is, in fact, definately not a privilege or a right. Granted not everyone lives in Illinois as I do, but to the best of my knowledge the other fourty-nine states and plenty of other countries have similar laws. Just try not enrolling your children in public school. See what happens. I dare you.

And I sincerely hope you're not going to try to suggest that shelling out a couple extra grand a year to attend a private school, or that the modern working class has several hours a day to educate their children, is really an equivalent option.

> It sounds like you need to settle some issues with
> it. I went through it.

So what do you propose? That I grab the nearest peer mediator and insist that the board of education sits down with me and settles outside of court for emotional trauma? Not likely. I need to settle nothing. The problem ceased the day I left school. What really needs to happen is some _serious_ educational reform. After all, I went (95% of the way) through it. I think I would know.

> Although I've always questioned authority, so trash
> that part of your speech.
>

And just what part of authority did you question at seven years of age? How many Gummy Worms you could eat before dinner? How late you could stay up watching televised trash? My point was that the school environment indirectly encourages children, from an early age, to question authority. I believe it would be far more fruitful to directly teach children that questioning authority is an important aspect of life, rather than allowing such sentiments to silently brew in the back of their minds, and eventually grow into an arrogant monster with no respect whatsoever for any form of government.

I will trash no part of my speech, thank you.

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Fla Flash
11-04-2003, 11:21 AM
> I will trash no part of my speech, thank you.
>


Looks like you got something out of it after all. Down here in Florida, a lot of parents are home schooling their children (which can lead to social interaction problems) which I don't agree with either. You have some very good points and should focus your energy on trying to rehab your local education system, if you sincerely feel that way.

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decaheximal
11-04-2003, 11:30 AM
Thank you. You have a very good point as well. Despite having contempt for modern education for most of my life, I have yet to make any serious reform moves. In fact, my speech I just gave is the only time I've ever voiced my opinion on the subject to more than a handful of listeners at one time.

I'm going to have a discusison with my grandmother who has worked with the board of education in the past, and ideally get a better standing on why things are the way they are. Hopefully that can better prepare me to gain support and more directly deal with the problem.

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blackize
11-04-2003, 09:51 PM
I survived public schools and I turned out fine...yeah, right. I can say that a select few instructors are not as evil as they are made out to be. My sister's a teacher and she isn't too bad of a person. Then I'm not one of her students so I really wouldn't know if Teacher Melissa was different than Sister Melissa.

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