Hi.

[Auberon]

Hey.

As you can tell, I signed up here a little bit ago - I've been lurking around since then, and consuming hatred of school has finally trumped my social phobia, so I decided to take a proactive measure against going out of my mind and introduce myself.

So, hello there, I'm a sophomore in high school, almost sixteen. I live in the U.S., in Washington, which I'm only mentioning because the superintendent of my entire state's educational system was recently arrested for driving drunk. Sweet irony, considering all the time our curriculum spends treating teenagers like accident-prone binge alcoholics who shouldn't be allowed to own automobiles.

So, what brings me here, starting from the top:

Hidden stuff:

I ended up at a private middle school for the "academically talented". Most were real geniuses, let me tell you: I have an old email inbox full of chain letters from the classmates I had there.

My seventh grade year was hilarious: the school gave us "skill evaluations" in addition to letters, and they actually invented a grade below the lowest one for me. The sad thing is, all I did to get it was have an anxiety episode in class and refuse to give a presentation. By the middle of the year, the entire staff was "concerned" about me, which took the form of complaining to my parents about every minor thing that they could. For example, the fact that I hadn't "bonded" enough with my classmates to want to go on a two-night camping trip with them, or the time that I drew a cat on my returned essay and the English teacher assumed that I had written a snide comment about her. (It must be nice to be in the education profession, with that ability to spontaneously fabricate information about people and have others take it as fact.)

They treated my fairly mild nervous nature like it was a hardcore drug addiction or an extensive criminal record. I suppose I got what was coming to me for going to a private school; I should have assumed I would encounter some prudish obsessions with control. My history teacher once sent someone to accompany me to the bathroom, which was apparently justified because it was the day of another presentation, and he believed I'd have a panic attack and skip the rest of class. (And the best way to solve this was clearly to send other kids to the bathroom with me like they do in elementary school.)

After seventh grade, I became depressed for two years (not that it stopped after that, just lessened) due to feeling purposeless. People around me alternately denied that I had the mental capacity to think philosophically, or recommended that I go on Prozac in order to keep it from interfering with my education. Yes, thinking about the meaning of your life "interferes" with your "education" - dystopian science fiction novellas practically write themselves nowadays.

(During the time that I was depressed, the teachers who had previously complained about me wrote in my report card comments that they noticed a "significant improvement in my attitude" and "expected me to finish my experience in middle school on a positive note". I lol'd.)

High school has been almost equally awful. I had a teacher last year who threw a fit about my being a freshman in calculus class, insisted that I didn't have enough "background knowledge" to grasp the subject (despite the fact that I had exactly the same mathematics course background as the juniors and seniors would have), and spent most of our few interactions treating me like a five-year-old. Needless to say, she also wasn't very good at teaching calculus, so I ignored her in class and learned it on my own. She hated me, but that was to be expected.

There have, of course, been many more aggravating experiences since then - but the very last straw came a few weeks ago, when the school started calling my house once a week to report "unexcused absences" from classes that I was present for. I've gotten at least six by now, no joke, mostly from the same class period. I like how the school district now not only believes it's my job to act like an obedient vegetable for hours a day, but also to police teachers who consistently demonstrate an inability to check boxes on a computer.

Tl;dr: Nice to meet you, I had/have lots of bad experiences in the educational system, and I like writing long, disconnected rants about them. I enjoy the prospect of meeting people who A. also hate school, and B. can carry on an intelligent conversation.

I tend to be sarcastic and annoyingly long-winded, but I can occasionally get my act together and write something logical and persuasive. Hopefully you'll be willing to put up with me for that long.

Things I hope to do in the coming months/years instead of caring about school are computer programming, philosophy, web/graphic design, psychology, history, drawing and writing. I'm also an obsessive linguaphile, at the moment trying to expand my knowledge of Japanese.

(P.S. Sort of off-topic, but if anybody here perchance speaks Romanian, I would appreciate resources on the subject of learning it. All of my usual language-related websites like to pretend that it doesn't exist, and I'm getting impatient with that.)

[Raikuron]

If you want intelligent conversation, make sure to post in the serious forums. Threads get derailed very often and it is pretty much illegal to rerail them.

[A.B.W.A.G]

Seriously, ive seen some strange threads, some of which started as a serious question or topic...

[Raikuron]

And thank you, thank you very much for typing correctly, OP.

[magikarp]

Btw, your avatar looks like ultrasound images. The text confused me at first.

[Auberon]

Raikuron Wrote:If you want intelligent conversation, make sure to post in the serious forums. Threads get derailed very often and it is pretty much illegal to rerail them.

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind.

magikarp Wrote:Btw, your avatar looks like ultrasound images. The text confused me at first.

Haha, I see what you mean! Thank you for the welcome.

[LOON_ATTIC]

Hi, and welcome!

One question, do or have your parents cared about what you do in school, threatening to punish you if you don't get good grades, and putting everything else, including useful learning, above school?

[Auberon]

Lunatic Wrote:Hi, and welcome!

One question, do or have your parents cared about what you do in school, threatening to punish you if you don't get good grades, and putting everything else, including useful learning, above school?

Thank you kindly!

Self-directed/relevant learning is a foreign concept to both of them. They both believe the school=good career idea, and the learning is secondary. I can get them to admit that high school is generally a waste of time and doesn't teach anyone much, but if told them I actually wanted to leave and study independently, they would oppose it on the grounds that I "wouldn't be able to get a good job".

About grades, sadly enough, yes. They're not too bad compared to others (i.e. they don't scream and take away my belongings if I get less than a 4.0; I know a lot of people's parents do things like that) but they accept about B to A range of grades. If I got anything less than that, they'd be mad, and if I failed anything, they would punish me.

They're mostly concerned with how I would look to a college (again because college=good career to most people), not what I'm actually learning.

They do put school higher than my other interests, yes. If I told them that I studied something else instead of doing my homework, they'd think that was a mistake, regardless of what I learned from it.

How about yours?

[Faby]

Greetings, and welcome to the SS forum.

It's always refreshing to see people who are able to express themselves clearly.

[LOON_ATTIC]

Auberon Wrote:

Lunatic Wrote:Hi, and welcome!

One question, do or have your parents cared about what you do in school, threatening to punish you if you don't get good grades, and putting everything else, including useful learning, above school?

Thank you kindly!

Self-directed/relevant learning is a foreign concept to both of them. They both believe the school=good career idea, and the learning is secondary. I can get them to admit that high school is generally a waste of time and doesn't teach anyone much, but if told them I actually wanted to leave and study independently, they would oppose it on the grounds that I "wouldn't be able to get a good job".

About grades, sadly enough, yes. They're not too bad compared to others (i.e. they don't scream and take away my belongings if I get less than a 4.0; I know a lot of people's parents do things like that) but they accept about B to A range of grades. If I got anything less than that, they'd be mad, and if I failed anything, they would punish me.

They're mostly concerned with how I would look to a college (again because college=good career to most people), not what I'm actually learning.

They do put school higher than my other interests, yes. If I told them that I studied something else instead of doing my homework, they'd think that was a mistake, regardless of what I learned from it.

How about yours?

No problem.

Mine are exactly the same, except for their opinion on high school being a waste of time. Every time I speak to them about how school is being mostly a waste of time and that I could learn much more by myself, and that it's just an obstacle to my learning, they make an argument that I'll begin real learning once I start taking AP classes, and that I have to get good grades to "get there".

[Denied]

It's always refreshing to have someone here who is intelligent. Have fun, and watch out for the postwhores.

[Auberon]

Lunatic Wrote:No problem.

Mine are exactly the same, except for their opinion on high school being a waste of time. Every time I speak to them about how school is being mostly a waste of time and that I could learn much more by myself, and that it's just an obstacle to my learning, they make an argument that I'll begin real learning once I start taking AP classes, and that I have to get good grades to "get there".

Oh man, equating "real learning" with AP classes? For them to say something like that, I really hope the AP classes where you live are a lot different from the ones I've been in, though I doubt it. All AP does is offer you a ridiculous amount of busywork.

If it helps, you can tell your parents that the administration generally doesn't care who takes an AP class as long as they don't fail and have to drop it at any time during the year. The school uses the number of AP tests taken as a status symbol, so they "encourage" anyone who looks even mildly able to make it through the class to the exam to do it. I know a lot of people at my school who can't write a proper paragraph, yet are in AP World History, where the whole curriculum is based on in-class essays.

By the way, your icon is awesome.

[The Desert Fox]

Denied Wrote:It's always refreshing to have someone here who is intelligent. Have fun, and watch out for the postwhores.

ಠ_ಠ

Also, welcome.