I went to big public schools. I was valedictorian, a big geek, complete social misfit, bullied mocked and occasionally beaten, and I'm still a fan of public sch

I went to big public schools. I was valedictorian, a big geek, complete social misfit, bullied mocked and occasionally beaten, and I'm still a fan of public schools. Those social challenges were the most important lessons. Sometimes I have to make nice, sometimes the group of bullies aren't all jerks, sometimes I need to treat them as individuals, always I need to look for their motivations, sometimes they are even somewhat right and I'm in the wrong even if I don't agree with their method of resolving the dispute. The public school environment exposed me to the most different groups of folks available and made us all interact. Even in technical jobs and working for programming firms, my bosses and coworkers have included a lot more of the folks I never got along with than the folks I identified with, there are just more of them out there in the world, and I am glad I have a clue why they don't like some things and what I can do to minimize or handle the conflicts. It's probably not for everyone - it takes a fair bit of personal motivation to still learn when it clearly isn't strictly required of you - but it isn't automatically bad. At the age when it would have mattered, I would not have had the wisdom to make the right choice. If my parents had offered me the chance to not deal with my problems, I would have jumped at it, and been worse for that choice.