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I agree. Despite going to one of the best public high schools in the country I don't remember learning much of anything. Looking back on it it was more like a v

by s_m_t 11y ago

I agree. Despite going to one of the best public high schools in the country I don't remember learning much of anything. Looking back on it it was more like a very pleasant teenage internment camp. Parts of it were fun, the drugs and alcohol being a highlight. Going to school high or getting high at school was pretty fun. Sometimes competing with other students on the tests without studying or doing any of the homework was fun. But I imagine I could have had a lot more fun and learned a lot more elsewhere.

YuriNiyazov 11y ago
Stuyvesant grad?
bby 11y ago
crack cocaine in the bathrooms man
dalke 11y ago
I went to one of the better public high schools in my district, so not one of the best schools in the country. I learned quite a bit. Both the US history and European history teachers were very good, the calculus and differential equations courses were an excellent base for college physics and applied math, the computer class marked the start of my transition from an avid hobby programmer to a software developer, and drafting changed the way I understand a building. As it happens, I'm still interested in history, math, science, programming, and building design, so perhaps I remember those best because I found them interesting. You were interested in getting high and competing with your friends, so perhaps that's why you remember that part best?
- calibraxis 11y ago
  That last paragraph would sound unpleasant if it replied to me. :) That poster can take solace that they're in good intellectual company: "In fact, I can remember a lot about elementary school, the work I did, what I studied and so on. I remember virtually nothing about high school. It’s almost an absolute blank in my memory apart from the emotional tone, which was quite negative." — Noam Chomsky (https://chomsky.info/reader01/ https://chomsky.info/reader01/)
  - dalke 11y ago
    I can see that interpretation. Let me try another way. I remember nothing about my government or human health class, very little about my sociology class, I try to forget everything about my senior year English class, and I took Spanish only because there was a state scholarship where part of the requirement was to take three years of a foreign language, instead of the state-mandated two years. I surely learned things in these classes. I've likely forgotten them because the contents didn't interest me enough. If I regard the brain as RAM, there was no refresh so the memories faded. Just like I remember very little now about most of my college classes. I took numerical analysis, thermodynamics, theater, psychology, database organization, and more, but I've forgotten them. Even my analysis course, where I remember I adored doing epsilon-delta proofs, has faded into all but emotional tones. I've also forgotten how to do PDEs, but knowing that technique saved my butt a few years later when I took the qualifying exam for physics. While I vividly remember my theory of automata course, my discrete math course, and a few others which are still so key to what I do every day. It seems I remember best the things I like, and the things which I still use. I can totally understand that someone who liked high school because of friends and getting high might only remember that part. That doesn't have to mean there was no learning, nor even that the learning wasn't useful. Only that it's no longer recallable.
  - theroy__jenkins 11y ago
    I'm going to extrapolate a theory based on the following premise: unused memories fade. - The things you learn in elementary school are very fundamental and you probably use them often. - High school branches off from the fundamentals; I got straight A's in geometry, algebra, and calculus, yet I remember very little of them. I do remember everything I ever learned in my two CS classes (I am a programmer now). - The important thing about high school is not what you learn, but that it becomes possible for you to learn what you want/like to learn and do.
- s_m_t 11y ago
  I did most of my learning outside of school, but I did have a few classes that I liked, all of my history teachers were very good, my chemistry and biology teachers were awesome. I appreciate those classes and I'm glad I took part in them but I don't think it made up for the rest. Perhaps we had similar experiences but we contextualize them differently. Do you think the classes you mentioned were worth everything else? Do you not think you could have had similar experiences to those classes if you had done something other than high school?
  - dalke 11y ago
    It is impossible to answer your questions. I would have had different experiences. I would have also said those different experiences were formative. Nor do I think it's useful to compare the "worth" of one life to another. Whose life is more worthy, yours, or that of one of your grandparents? Would you go to someone and say "my life is more worthy than yours"? Might your alternative self punch you in the nose for saying that? I can, without doubt, say that I would have had a different life if my high school had been organized along the lines of a German Gymnasium school than the liberal arts tradition of the US. So of course I would have had yet a different life if I had "something other than high school". BTW, I do not like your seemingly self-centered view. Public education doesn't exist only for my own "worth", but also for the benefit of society. Street signs, warnings, and public notices are more effective if (nearly) everyone is literate. One thread in pubic education is to develop an informed citizen. Another thread is to train workers at the public expense. A third is to keep cheap child labor from the workforce. A fourth is to indoctrinate children that the common good is a worthy goal. ;) Nor do I think your question is a useful one, for policy or decision making purposes. "Could" is a question of a non-zero probability. Benjamin Franklin had no formal higher level education, and look what he managed. So sure, I "could" have been like Franklin and managed on my own. But the retrospective logic to answer "could" doesn't help answer the relevant policy question "would", or for the decision making at the time "should I take these classes, or CLEP out and enter college early?" For me, it's pretty simple. I wanted to be a math professor. (I changed my mind when I was about 20.) Either I stay in high school, where I can take college-level courses for free, either as dual-enrolled or through AP test credits, and take classes that guarantee me in-state scholarship, or I get a job, ... or I enter the debt hole. Sure, there are more options than that. My parents, close relatives, and neighbors have never been to college. We had no contacts in any of the careers that interested me. I knew no programmers other than hobbyists like myself. I didn't know any other options. Even now, knowing more, I don't know what I would have done if I decided to skip high school. In that context, I can also imagine (without any basis in fact) that you had more options available to you. Perhaps your parents had money, or you had better connections to jobs that interested you, or didn't think that $40,000+ in school debt would be a problem. But now we're far away from your original point, which is that you "don't remember learning much of anything" and therefore agree that "smart kids should skip high school." I disagree - I do remember leaning a lot of things. Since you say you went to a much better school than mine, you must have learned things as well, even if you've since forgotten it. You've now said that you haven't forgotten it, and attended classes. I don't know how you can say that you didn't learn anything from class. You say you didn't study, which means you have to have learned things from being in class and doing homework.

by s_m_t 11y ago

YuriNiyazov 11y ago

Stuyvesant grad?

bby 11y ago

crack cocaine in the bathrooms man

dalke 11y ago

I went to one of the better public high schools in my district, so not one of the best schools in the country. I learned quite a bit. Both the US history and European history teachers were very good, the calculus and differential equations courses were an excellent base for college physics and applied math, the computer class marked the start of my transition from an avid hobby programmer to a software developer, and drafting changed the way I understand a building. As it happens, I'm still interested in history, math, science, programming, and building design, so perhaps I remember those best because I found them interesting. You were interested in getting high and competing with your friends, so perhaps that's why you remember that part best?

calibraxis 11y ago
That last paragraph would sound unpleasant if it replied to me. :) That poster can take solace that they're in good intellectual company: "In fact, I can remember a lot about elementary school, the work I did, what I studied and so on. I remember virtually nothing about high school. It’s almost an absolute blank in my memory apart from the emotional tone, which was quite negative." — Noam Chomsky (https://chomsky.info/reader01/ https://chomsky.info/reader01/)
- dalke 11y ago
  I can see that interpretation. Let me try another way. I remember nothing about my government or human health class, very little about my sociology class, I try to forget everything about my senior year English class, and I took Spanish only because there was a state scholarship where part of the requirement was to take three years of a foreign language, instead of the state-mandated two years. I surely learned things in these classes. I've likely forgotten them because the contents didn't interest me enough. If I regard the brain as RAM, there was no refresh so the memories faded. Just like I remember very little now about most of my college classes. I took numerical analysis, thermodynamics, theater, psychology, database organization, and more, but I've forgotten them. Even my analysis course, where I remember I adored doing epsilon-delta proofs, has faded into all but emotional tones. I've also forgotten how to do PDEs, but knowing that technique saved my butt a few years later when I took the qualifying exam for physics. While I vividly remember my theory of automata course, my discrete math course, and a few others which are still so key to what I do every day. It seems I remember best the things I like, and the things which I still use. I can totally understand that someone who liked high school because of friends and getting high might only remember that part. That doesn't have to mean there was no learning, nor even that the learning wasn't useful. Only that it's no longer recallable.
- theroy__jenkins 11y ago
  I'm going to extrapolate a theory based on the following premise: unused memories fade. - The things you learn in elementary school are very fundamental and you probably use them often. - High school branches off from the fundamentals; I got straight A's in geometry, algebra, and calculus, yet I remember very little of them. I do remember everything I ever learned in my two CS classes (I am a programmer now). - The important thing about high school is not what you learn, but that it becomes possible for you to learn what you want/like to learn and do.
s_m_t 11y ago
I did most of my learning outside of school, but I did have a few classes that I liked, all of my history teachers were very good, my chemistry and biology teachers were awesome. I appreciate those classes and I'm glad I took part in them but I don't think it made up for the rest. Perhaps we had similar experiences but we contextualize them differently. Do you think the classes you mentioned were worth everything else? Do you not think you could have had similar experiences to those classes if you had done something other than high school?
- dalke 11y ago
  It is impossible to answer your questions. I would have had different experiences. I would have also said those different experiences were formative. Nor do I think it's useful to compare the "worth" of one life to another. Whose life is more worthy, yours, or that of one of your grandparents? Would you go to someone and say "my life is more worthy than yours"? Might your alternative self punch you in the nose for saying that? I can, without doubt, say that I would have had a different life if my high school had been organized along the lines of a German Gymnasium school than the liberal arts tradition of the US. So of course I would have had yet a different life if I had "something other than high school". BTW, I do not like your seemingly self-centered view. Public education doesn't exist only for my own "worth", but also for the benefit of society. Street signs, warnings, and public notices are more effective if (nearly) everyone is literate. One thread in pubic education is to develop an informed citizen. Another thread is to train workers at the public expense. A third is to keep cheap child labor from the workforce. A fourth is to indoctrinate children that the common good is a worthy goal. ;) Nor do I think your question is a useful one, for policy or decision making purposes. "Could" is a question of a non-zero probability. Benjamin Franklin had no formal higher level education, and look what he managed. So sure, I "could" have been like Franklin and managed on my own. But the retrospective logic to answer "could" doesn't help answer the relevant policy question "would", or for the decision making at the time "should I take these classes, or CLEP out and enter college early?" For me, it's pretty simple. I wanted to be a math professor. (I changed my mind when I was about 20.) Either I stay in high school, where I can take college-level courses for free, either as dual-enrolled or through AP test credits, and take classes that guarantee me in-state scholarship, or I get a job, ... or I enter the debt hole. Sure, there are more options than that. My parents, close relatives, and neighbors have never been to college. We had no contacts in any of the careers that interested me. I knew no programmers other than hobbyists like myself. I didn't know any other options. Even now, knowing more, I don't know what I would have done if I decided to skip high school. In that context, I can also imagine (without any basis in fact) that you had more options available to you. Perhaps your parents had money, or you had better connections to jobs that interested you, or didn't think that $40,000+ in school debt would be a problem. But now we're far away from your original point, which is that you "don't remember learning much of anything" and therefore agree that "smart kids should skip high school." I disagree - I do remember leaning a lot of things. Since you say you went to a much better school than mine, you must have learned things as well, even if you've since forgotten it. You've now said that you haven't forgotten it, and attended classes. I don't know how you can say that you didn't learn anything from class. You say you didn't study, which means you have to have learned things from being in class and doing homework.