good grades, adult values, etc

[stevehein]

here is an editorial i wrote a long time ago. i just came across it today when talking to a 17 year old in the uk who is stressed about school exams...

Here is how it begins...

Yesterday a teen friend told me she made the honor roll in her school. I told her this worried me. I told her I was afraid she was losing herself and adapting to the school's system of punishment and rewards..


http://eqi.org/ei_ed13.htm

[James Comey]

That article was written in 2003. This was the time when the "instant information" lifestyle we have right now was becoming more realized. Yet, as the saying goes, "the more things change, the more things stay the same"....

I've seen how these values have gripped my own peers in school. They are force-fed all this "advice" about what is "proper, mature behavior" and they are expected to be conformists rather than idealists. What may seem like a positive message is really tainted with poison, no matter what is behind it. Indeed, a school is where a soul goes to die, not be nurtured.

Interesting article, stevenhein.

[brainiac3397]

I got through school with good grades and awards not because of how I was shaped by them, but simply because I was naturally shaped in a way that I roughly fit through the system. Despite the occasional scrapes and hiccups, I still appeared to be like a "faithful obedient student" when in fact I hated school.

[Rule_BreakerXVIII]

As long as you sit in class, stay quiet, and appear to be interested in whatever crap the teacher is saying you'll pass for a 'good' student. It doesn't mean that your spirit is crushed completely; it doesn't mean that you lost yourself to them.

Quote:At the same time she has become more sarcastic, more cynical, more defensive, more invalidating and more hurtful. She has become less empathetic, less compassionate, less caring. She has become a worse listener. She has become less tolerant and more judgmental. She is less in touch with her feelings, less able to say how she feels and more likely to say "I don't know" when asked about them.

I'd advise her to use this side as a weapon..hm. As for how to regain that spirit...a person has to want to change for the change to be successful.