3 ms·

I grew up in the US, we're about the same age, and I went to a public school where I had a similar experience. More than anything else, I remember the crushing

I grew up in the US, we're about the same age, and I went to a public school where I had a similar experience. More than anything else, I remember the crushing boredom and the feeling that time had slowed to a crawl. I wasn't beaten or abused, but I felt trapped in amber, and the school really was prison-like, just as you describe it. I've never hated anything so much in my life as I hated school. So I escaped the prison. I dropped out at age 14 and went to work in a book warehouse at the age of 16. Everybody was screaming about how much I'd regret it, but to this day I consider it among the best decisions I've ever made. Now I have young children of my own, and I'm not sure how I'm going to handle their education, but home schooling -- /w private professional tutoring and organized athletic activities -- looks like the best option. There's no way I'd subject them to public school.

bell-cot 2y ago
> Everybody was screaming about how much I'd regret it, but ... In a really healthy society, with really good schools, dropping out would (99%) be quite regrettable. Some of those screaming people probably cared about you and your future. Most of them just resented you, for highlighting the actual state of their society and schools. And perhaps making them doubt their own choices.
- 9rx 2y ago
  > In a really healthy society, with really good schools, dropping out would (99%) be quite regrettable. That depends. Those who drop out because they can't hack it will find misplaced regret, blaming future woes on dropping out when in reality the problem is a continuation of the deficiencies that lead them to dropping out. Those who drop out because they have bigger and better plans won't think about it again.
  - petsfed 2y ago
    I think there are two assumptions embedded in the parent comment that I think you're ignoring: 1) The people who are on to bigger and better things are in fact vanishingly rare. Like, yes, Bill Gates dropped out of college, but he dropped out of Harvard, not Evergreen Community College. He wouldn't have been there in the first place if he wasn't already capable of some big things. 2) A really healthy society, with really good schools, would provide a path for those who can't hack it. Its almost definitionally not a good school if the process exposes some deficiencies, then just gives up. Like "well, it turns out your dyslexic, here's your cardboard box and begging pan" sounds like a bad school.
    - 9rx 2y ago
      > The people who are on to bigger and better things are in fact vanishingly rare. Dropouts are rare full stop, and those that do drop out overwhelmingly have life issues that causes them to drop out. The well rounded people who do okay in school aren't the ones dropping out, it is those with things like mental disabilities. It is not the act of dropping out that is impactful, it is the problems that lead to dropping out that continue after dropping out. It is a misconception that continuing in school would have cured what ailed them. > A really healthy society, with really good schools, would provide a path for those who can't hack it. You severely underestimate just how challenging life is for some people. If dyslexia was the biggest challenge to overcome, we'd have nothing to speak of. Some of these kids are, to be blunt, effectively vegetables. They are accepted into school for the sake of relieving the parents/primary caregivers, offering what is a babysitting service, but there is no academic value in them being there. They will not continue in school for prolonged periods of their life and there is no reason for them to. I guess in your imagined "really healthy" society, all people are perfectly equal. That's impossible. But if we did somehow live in your made up world then we can say that we already have "really good schools". Nobody in our schools we have drops out without a good reason.
      - bell-cot 2y ago
        > Dropouts are rare full stop, ... From a quick search, the State of Michigan has roughly an 8% dropout rate. Whatever your criteria for the term "rare", that is a huge number of kids. If you are trying to run a really healthy society (vs. a Social Darwinism dystopia), then putting all the kids who don't do well in academic classroom settings on a "things like mental disabilities" - "effectively vegetables" spectrum seems extremely counterproductive.
        9rx 2y ago
        > Whatever your criteria for the term "rare", that is a huge number of kids. It is! When I go to the school to pick up my child, it is shocking how many have overtly visible challenges, never mind those who don't present to someone just casually walking in the door. It is rare, but rare is still a lot of people in large populations. I live next door to Michigan and 3% of the students have their own personal assistant in school for the schools to be able to cope to their severe challenges, and, by accounts of family who work in that industry, that many more should have an assistant but there isn't a sufficient workforce to fill those roles. So that is around 6% of the students, give or take, right there who aren't really a good fit for being in schools. Used to be that they would have been dumped into institutions and never step foot in school, but that's not socially acceptable anymore.
nyarlathotep_ 2y ago
It also says something about the quality of the "education" that you were able to (presumably) manage some sort of technical aspirations and career without the "required education". I know the feeling.
monophonica 2y ago
I learned basically nothing in my k-12 public school but it was fun times. Emotionally? It is really hard to top those times in high school. It was the opposite of a prison for me. Like a garden of adolescent roses that had nothing to do with the real world other than the sweet smell of roses as an adolescent. It is why I am glad to be child free. Anyone posting here is going to have a child that is better off than almost anyone who has ever lived. I would suspect the best strategy in 2025 for anyone here is to not crush the creativity of the child. The only thing bad you can really do is to impose yourself too much on the child. The more hands off the better. The lighter the touch the better. Yours skills are not what your child will need t+50 years.

bell-cot 2y ago

> Everybody was screaming about how much I'd regret it, but ... In a really healthy society, with really good schools, dropping out would (99%) be quite regrettable. Some of those screaming people probably cared about you and your future. Most of them just resented you, for highlighting the actual state of their society and schools. And perhaps making them doubt their own choices.

9rx 2y ago
> In a really healthy society, with really good schools, dropping out would (99%) be quite regrettable. That depends. Those who drop out because they can't hack it will find misplaced regret, blaming future woes on dropping out when in reality the problem is a continuation of the deficiencies that lead them to dropping out. Those who drop out because they have bigger and better plans won't think about it again.
- petsfed 2y ago
  I think there are two assumptions embedded in the parent comment that I think you're ignoring: 1) The people who are on to bigger and better things are in fact vanishingly rare. Like, yes, Bill Gates dropped out of college, but he dropped out of Harvard, not Evergreen Community College. He wouldn't have been there in the first place if he wasn't already capable of some big things. 2) A really healthy society, with really good schools, would provide a path for those who can't hack it. Its almost definitionally not a good school if the process exposes some deficiencies, then just gives up. Like "well, it turns out your dyslexic, here's your cardboard box and begging pan" sounds like a bad school.
  - 9rx 2y ago
    > The people who are on to bigger and better things are in fact vanishingly rare. Dropouts are rare full stop, and those that do drop out overwhelmingly have life issues that causes them to drop out. The well rounded people who do okay in school aren't the ones dropping out, it is those with things like mental disabilities. It is not the act of dropping out that is impactful, it is the problems that lead to dropping out that continue after dropping out. It is a misconception that continuing in school would have cured what ailed them. > A really healthy society, with really good schools, would provide a path for those who can't hack it. You severely underestimate just how challenging life is for some people. If dyslexia was the biggest challenge to overcome, we'd have nothing to speak of. Some of these kids are, to be blunt, effectively vegetables. They are accepted into school for the sake of relieving the parents/primary caregivers, offering what is a babysitting service, but there is no academic value in them being there. They will not continue in school for prolonged periods of their life and there is no reason for them to. I guess in your imagined "really healthy" society, all people are perfectly equal. That's impossible. But if we did somehow live in your made up world then we can say that we already have "really good schools". Nobody in our schools we have drops out without a good reason.
    - bell-cot 2y ago
      > Dropouts are rare full stop, ... From a quick search, the State of Michigan has roughly an 8% dropout rate. Whatever your criteria for the term "rare", that is a huge number of kids. If you are trying to run a really healthy society (vs. a Social Darwinism dystopia), then putting all the kids who don't do well in academic classroom settings on a "things like mental disabilities" - "effectively vegetables" spectrum seems extremely counterproductive.
      - 9rx 2y ago
        > Whatever your criteria for the term "rare", that is a huge number of kids. It is! When I go to the school to pick up my child, it is shocking how many have overtly visible challenges, never mind those who don't present to someone just casually walking in the door. It is rare, but rare is still a lot of people in large populations. I live next door to Michigan and 3% of the students have their own personal assistant in school for the schools to be able to cope to their severe challenges, and, by accounts of family who work in that industry, that many more should have an assistant but there isn't a sufficient workforce to fill those roles. So that is around 6% of the students, give or take, right there who aren't really a good fit for being in schools. Used to be that they would have been dumped into institutions and never step foot in school, but that's not socially acceptable anymore.

nyarlathotep_ 2y ago

It also says something about the quality of the "education" that you were able to (presumably) manage some sort of technical aspirations and career without the "required education". I know the feeling.

monophonica 2y ago

I learned basically nothing in my k-12 public school but it was fun times. Emotionally? It is really hard to top those times in high school. It was the opposite of a prison for me. Like a garden of adolescent roses that had nothing to do with the real world other than the sweet smell of roses as an adolescent. It is why I am glad to be child free. Anyone posting here is going to have a child that is better off than almost anyone who has ever lived. I would suspect the best strategy in 2025 for anyone here is to not crush the creativity of the child. The only thing bad you can really do is to impose yourself too much on the child. The more hands off the better. The lighter the touch the better. Yours skills are not what your child will need t+50 years.