4 ms·

Maybe I'm misinterpreting you, but you seem to think that high-school kids who are reading this are arrogant and stupid. I'd be willing to bet that most aren't,

Maybe I'm misinterpreting you, but you seem to think that high-school kids who are reading this are arrogant and stupid. I'd be willing to bet that most aren't, and most know that the long-term gains of staying in high school will outweigh the short term losses due to boredom. As for learning things you won't "use in real life"? I agree, it's good. But I'm sorry, some classes don't just teach you things you won't use - they just don't teach you. How much good will it do you to analyze dozens of books in essays about their arbitrary qualities, eh? Not that much. Maybe English would be more useful if the high schools didn't have to cater to the lowest common denominator. But public schools have to, and the end result is that many classes are slow-paced, repetitive, and thus, boring. And please. Please, please, please, can you stop considering high school nerds as anti-intellectual, narrow-minded, arrogant idiots? The amount of people who share your view make tolerating being one very difficult at times, especially when your administrators or teachers refuse to comprehend the idea that maybe it is possible for people to learn things on their own and not have to repeat them in class. I'm sorry if this response sounds feels overly acrid or acidic, but honestly, as a "self-professed nerd", I find your comment extremely insulting, probably because I've had to deal with many people who base their entire opinions of me on such ideas.

timr 18y ago
"Maybe I'm misinterpreting you, but you seem to think that high-school kids who are reading this are arrogant and stupid." You are. I'm talking to the people who see stuff like this, and think about dropping out. Clearly, that set doesn't include all high school kids. "As for learning things you won't "use in real life"? I agree, it's good. But I'm sorry, some classes don't just teach you things you won't use - they just don't teach you. How much good will it do you to analyze dozens of books in essays about their arbitrary qualities, eh? Not that much." ...and when I was in high school, I said the same stuff. "Why do I have to learn about Keats?" "Why must I write structured essays about James Polk?" "What will I ever gain from knowing the rules to basketball?" "Why can't I just learn more about programming?" On and on. But you know what? I was an idiot. Back then, I didn't have the perspective to know what was important and what was unimportant (for that matter, I'm still learning what to value). Had people let me study whatever I wanted to study in the 10th grade, I would have missed out on exposure to a lot of stuff that I find very valuable today. I would have turned out to be a very one-dimensional person. Try not to find this advice condescending, and see it for what it is: one nerdy guy who has been there, telling you that you don't know everything, and don't have enough experience to make good judgments about what knowledge is valuable in life. In the meantime, you can learn something from every situation -- just so long as you want to learn.
- PieSquared 18y ago
  Thanks for the response, I appreciate it. I guess you get a wider perspective as you age, and I don't really have much of an idea about what I'll think later. Though I might disagree with you on specifics, I agree that it's important not to restrict yourself to a limited set of things. I guess I was slightly annoyed mainly due to the fact that a few of my school admins sound very similar, except they don't bother to take the time to explain their views in a less condescending sounding way.
  - timr 18y ago
    No problem. For what it's worth, I realize that high school (especially public high school; I went to one, too) can be a brutally authoritarian place sometimes. I pretty much hated most of mine, for the same reason. That said, there are parts of high school that I'd give money to experience just one more time. And of all of the people I know, I don't think anyone has ever said that they wished they'd paid less attention in school. Good luck with it.
    - madpickle 18y ago
      I sure wish I had paid less attention in school. I attended college prep high schools and was a 3.9+ GPA student, took many AP courses, etc. I ate the dog food. But at the end of the 11th grade I decided I was through, and left early for college en route to a PhD in CS. Looking back, I am disappointed at myself for being so focused on the main curriculum -- the only activities that I am proud of now were ones done outside of it. I think the flaw in your argument is that you assume that ignoring school yields narrow mindedness. It does not have to be so. For example, in my spare time I developed a web site of a well-known physicist that was eventually reviewed by the Scientific American. I can understand how someone would consider that narrow, but it required me not only to read physics and hack HTML (this was the mid-90s), but also to write essays, develop design skills, and become comfortable holding my ground in discussions with people far my senior who wanted the site changed in one way or another. These were all invaluable skills that I learned, really internalized, only because I pursued something that I considered important. With the exception of one class, that never happened at school. That being said, I agree that in order to get a PhD one needs a certain level of tolerance of inane work. But that tolerance should be extended only to activities that stand in the way of accomplishing some goal that is important to you. To people reading this board a high school diploma is irrelevant, so I think most schoolwork does not achieve any particular goal for them.

timr 18y ago

"Maybe I'm misinterpreting you, but you seem to think that high-school kids who are reading this are arrogant and stupid." You are. I'm talking to the people who see stuff like this, and think about dropping out. Clearly, that set doesn't include all high school kids. "As for learning things you won't "use in real life"? I agree, it's good. But I'm sorry, some classes don't just teach you things you won't use - they just don't teach you. How much good will it do you to analyze dozens of books in essays about their arbitrary qualities, eh? Not that much." ...and when I was in high school, I said the same stuff. "Why do I have to learn about Keats?" "Why must I write structured essays about James Polk?" "What will I ever gain from knowing the rules to basketball?" "Why can't I just learn more about programming?" On and on. But you know what? I was an idiot. Back then, I didn't have the perspective to know what was important and what was unimportant (for that matter, I'm still learning what to value). Had people let me study whatever I wanted to study in the 10th grade, I would have missed out on exposure to a lot of stuff that I find very valuable today. I would have turned out to be a very one-dimensional person. Try not to find this advice condescending, and see it for what it is: one nerdy guy who has been there, telling you that you don't know everything, and don't have enough experience to make good judgments about what knowledge is valuable in life. In the meantime, you can learn something from every situation -- just so long as you want to learn.

PieSquared 18y ago
Thanks for the response, I appreciate it. I guess you get a wider perspective as you age, and I don't really have much of an idea about what I'll think later. Though I might disagree with you on specifics, I agree that it's important not to restrict yourself to a limited set of things. I guess I was slightly annoyed mainly due to the fact that a few of my school admins sound very similar, except they don't bother to take the time to explain their views in a less condescending sounding way.
- timr 18y ago
  No problem. For what it's worth, I realize that high school (especially public high school; I went to one, too) can be a brutally authoritarian place sometimes. I pretty much hated most of mine, for the same reason. That said, there are parts of high school that I'd give money to experience just one more time. And of all of the people I know, I don't think anyone has ever said that they wished they'd paid less attention in school. Good luck with it.
  - madpickle 18y ago
    I sure wish I had paid less attention in school. I attended college prep high schools and was a 3.9+ GPA student, took many AP courses, etc. I ate the dog food. But at the end of the 11th grade I decided I was through, and left early for college en route to a PhD in CS. Looking back, I am disappointed at myself for being so focused on the main curriculum -- the only activities that I am proud of now were ones done outside of it. I think the flaw in your argument is that you assume that ignoring school yields narrow mindedness. It does not have to be so. For example, in my spare time I developed a web site of a well-known physicist that was eventually reviewed by the Scientific American. I can understand how someone would consider that narrow, but it required me not only to read physics and hack HTML (this was the mid-90s), but also to write essays, develop design skills, and become comfortable holding my ground in discussions with people far my senior who wanted the site changed in one way or another. These were all invaluable skills that I learned, really internalized, only because I pursued something that I considered important. With the exception of one class, that never happened at school. That being said, I agree that in order to get a PhD one needs a certain level of tolerance of inane work. But that tolerance should be extended only to activities that stand in the way of accomplishing some goal that is important to you. To people reading this board a high school diploma is irrelevant, so I think most schoolwork does not achieve any particular goal for them.