4 ms·

Is that the aim of schools? It certainly did not appear to me that way, here in Germany. There was a lot of time spend sitting in a room and "learning", yet I

Is that the aim of schools? It certainly did not appear to me that way, here in Germany. There was a lot of time spend sitting in a room and "learning", yet I basically learned nothing. For the other things you described I do not think they were ever considered. All around school was a giant waste of time.

bnegreve 1y ago
Surely reading/writing are useful skills that most people did not have before school was mandatory.
- constantcrying 1y ago
  I did not take me twelve years to learn to read and write. What an awful excuse. What made me good at reading was reading books outside of school. In a single semester of university I learned more than in 12 years of school.
  - moooo99 1y ago
    > In a single semester of university I learned more than in 12 years of school. I learned more in a single year on the job than I did in 3 years of university. That doesn’t make university useless
  - rad_gruchalski 1y ago
    No, I don’t think that’s true. The 12 years of the pre-uni education set you up for being a member of society. You don’t see it because it became a part of you. You also learned to read, write, all basic math, geography, … The uni taught you more real-world expected skills but I‘m certain you learned more before uni.
    - constantcrying 1y ago
      Why couldn't I have learned university courses and these other skills at the same time?
      - kube-system 1y ago
        > Why couldn't I have learned university courses and these other skills at the same time? Was that not offered at your school? It was at mine. University level courses do presume you have some basic skills. But in many places, schools do offer university level courses for those who are prepared.
        constantcrying 1y ago
        >Was that not offered at your school? I think it would have been theoretically possible, but obviously logistically difficult as I would have had to skip multiple classes in other fields to attend. It's also not like I was particularly interested in mathematics at that point in my life. I essentially chose my field of study based on what I had the best grades in. Only during my studies, when the material actually became difficult, I started to be interested and engaged in the subject.
        kube-system 1y ago
        For the schools that offer students the ability to take university-level courses, students aren't "skipping" other classes. > Only during my studies, when the material actually became difficult, I started to be interested and engaged in the subject. Many schools solve this by having different difficulty-levels of courses. My school, in the US, had three.
        constantcrying 1y ago
        Germany has different levels of schools. I was in the one for highest education, targeting a university degree.
        kube-system 1y ago
        Schools in the US often offer different tracks within the same school but still offer different difficulty levels within them, including university level courses.
  - andrepd 1y ago
    > In a single semester of university I learned more than in 12 years of school. You keep saying this but I have a hard time believing this is true; in fact I'm not even sure what "more" means (objectively) in this context. Let's see, in the 12 years of schooling you've learned at the very least: how to read and write, how to interpret texts, how to read literature, how to compose an essay, how to speak, read, and write a second language, a ton of mathematics from basic arithmetic to I guess something like calculus and trigonometry and algebra and some discrete maths, several topics of physics and chemistry, biology, geology, and other natural sciences (in more or less detail), several years of history, and mandatory physical exercise to top it off. What magical university did you go to that in a single semester you learned more than that :D Unless I'm missing something.
    - constantcrying 1y ago
      In school I spend 8 hours listening to some teacher or playing silly learning games and did some busywork as homework. I never learned for any test or found any of the material particularly interesting. In university I actually had to study, take notes, research the subject, study for many hours, etc. >a ton of mathematics from basic arithmetic to I guess something like calculus and trigonometry and algebra and some discrete maths Hilarious to say this. As it turned out, my first semester of university mathematics was spent on learning everything I did not learn in school. And it made it extremely clear to me how badly school had prepared me. You would think that school would put me in a position where university mathematics were just a continuation. Nothing further could be from the truth, nearly everything taught in school was taught in a way which made it useless for actual mathematics. In school we learned nothing about: Sets, logic, deductions, Axioms or Proofs (which turn out to be really important!), we did however spend years solving integrals, which turned out extremely unhelpful for actual mathematics.
      - RandomLensman 1y ago
        Seems experiences vary: For me, the first year of university mathematics was to a large extent a continuation or even what was covered in school (sets, axioms, proofs etc were covered in school). That said, that wasn't the case for everyone as far as I could tell.
  - kube-system 1y ago
    > I did not take me twelve years to learn to read and write. It takes people twelve years to learn to read and write at a 12th grade level. You could study it for another 4 or more years at university if you wanted to develop your skills further. > What made me good at reading was reading books outside of school. This is your personal experience. I learned to read and write quite well at school and was well-prepared for university.
    - DocTomoe 1y ago
      > It takes people twelve years to learn to read and write at a 12th grade level. Nah. You are mixing up the skill 'writing glyphs on a piece of paper and retrieving that information via optical means' with 'being well-grounded in a wide array of subjects so you can express an idea in a way that is mentally stimulating to a potential reader'. Neither takes 12 years to learn. The first, we teach within a year, at most. The second we do not teach at all, and the best 'writers' often are those who were challenged outside of school, by parents who gave them a rich, intellectually interesting environment, not within it.
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
      - const_cast 1y ago
        We most definitely teach number 2. That's what English class is - you read books, plays, maybe documents, and then you write essays on them. You need to be concise, persuasive, have a unique voice. Just because you, and other's, did not pay attention or were not good writers, does not mean we don't teach that. We do, for years.
    - bluGill 1y ago
      There is no such thing as a 12th grade level. 6th grade is all the farther English is taught. There are sometimes things called levels above that, but they are not levels in English they are levels in some specific specialization and have more to do with that specialization than reading. (doctors would not be expected to understand deep computer science writing even though doctors have very advanced reading skills in a medical domain). I understand Spanish only goes up to a 5th grade level while Japanese to 9th. This is a reflection on how complex the writing systems are, and not the kids, intelligence, or school systems. The years after you have your basic reading down are used to learn other skills that are of general use in life for everyone.
  - tremon 1y ago
    You should have taken that semester when you were 4 years old then, you could have skipped fifteen years of education!
- Ekaros 1y ago
  They did. Well at least officially. Being able to read was needed if you wanted to get married.
- bluGill 1y ago
  > Surely reading/writing are useful skills that most people did not have before school was mandatory. Citation needed. I've heard it repeated a lot, but never by someone with actual historical credentials. It varied from society to society (and many societies were sexist so boys and girls would have different results). Likely most is correct, but also misleading as it appears many societies were very literate even among poor people. From what I understand (recognize I'm not a historian!), Jewish boys have long had a right of passage of reading the bible in the local synagogue. Most languages are not that hard to learn the basic phonics of and thus read and write. You wouldn't be good, but you could do it. Historians have told me that most of their references for is literate were from time/places where literate meant Latin. The common person know much Latin (despite going to mass in Latin), and couldn't read/write it. However they would have had more education in their local language which was never counted.
sofixa 1y ago
> There was a lot of time spend sitting in a room and "learning", yet I basically learned nothing Do you think that was because their methods were bad, you didn't bother and they couldn't force you, or that their methods were not adapted to the way you learn? Also, I'd find it surprising if you really learned nothing. From what I know of German schooling from people who went through it, you certainly learned at least a bit about the depths to which humans can go to and how to prevent them (Holocaust and wider Nazi atrocities). Also, you probably learned social skills, basic project management and collaboration, and some knowledge which is probably useless other than maybe as a basis of understanding the world and various things you might encounter. I don't recall much from my biology or chemistry classes, but I recall vague outlines, which is enough.
- constantcrying 1y ago
  >Do you think that was because their methods were bad, you didn't bother and they couldn't force you, or that their methods were not adapted to the way you learn? It was because they had nothing to teach. I still remember trying to learn fractions from a teacher who clearly did not understand fractions either. Just to be clear, I did very well in school. Given their standards I would be considered a "successful student" and I went on to get a university degree. >Also, you probably learned social skills, basic project management and collaboration, and some knowledge which is probably useless other than maybe as a basis of understanding the world None of that I learned while sitting in class. I learned it despite the school activities I had to do.
  - sofixa 1y ago
    > None of that I learned while sitting in class School is about more than the part where you sit in class. The social skills, time and project management navigation etc. is all stuff you learn and do because of school but outside of class.
    - constantcrying 1y ago
      But if that is the goal of schools then we would drastically reduce the time students sit in class.
roenxi 1y ago
You have put your finger on something - the actual purpose of school is to socialise children (it isn't very efficient as a teaching system - tutoring is better and what the people who really care about educational attainment use). But a side effect is teaching them a lot of useful things. And telling if time spent learning is wasted is actually quite hard - if you know something and everyone else knows something it often fades into the background and nobody notices. But it still makes a difference.
- constantcrying 1y ago
  >the actual purpose of school is to socialise children I agree that this is probably the most important thing for children to learn. My point is that sitting in a room for 8 hours does very little to accomplish that. >And telling if time spent learning is wasted is actually quite hard - if you know something and everyone else knows something it often fades into the background and nobody notices. But it still makes a difference. I had the direct comparison when I went to university. It became very clear that I was learning much more and faster. To talk about schooling we first have to make clear what the goal is. Sure everybody needs to learn how to read, write and do basic arithmetic, but that is not a 12 year endeavor. Even including basic general knowledge is not a 12 year endeavor. And we should not be wasting children's time on things, just because we can't be bothered to have them do something actually meaningful.
  - myrmidon 1y ago
    > I had the direct comparison when I went to university. It became very clear that I was learning much more and faster. Sure, but this should be expected. If you filtered out all children with low interest/performance/support in preschool and just threw them onto a playground, learning rate could also be much faster in school for the rest. But if you want a solid baseline of reading/writing/math/general education for everyone in society, those twelve years are already barely enough. I'm very confident that early discrimination/segregation ("gifted" and "idiot" tracks in school) is a net negative for society and encourages unethical outcomes on top. Optional programs for faster/more targetted learning are much better and can be very positive IMO, but even there you need to be careful with how you set things up to avoid problems.
2muchcoffeeman 1y ago
I know several teachers. So these sorts of comments are always funny. I know math teachers who lack support but continuously attempt to present topics from different POV because some students don’t get it. So some self proclaimed smart person “learned nothing”, and therefore school is a waste of time. At the same time, ignoring that maybe a school or system is indeed not prepared to handle some individuals (which is not good), or that maybe some teachers are bad, or maybe the system does not support their staff enough. But that can’t be the case because they learned nothing. Whole school system must be a scam.
- constantcrying 1y ago
  As I wrote below. My most memorable math class was a teacher failing to explain fractions to me, what later became obvious to me was that the teacher did not understand fractions either. I am sure you want to blame me for this, but somehow I went to university and got a degree in (applied) mathematics. So I doubt it was some fundamental problem with me. Everybody is upset when someone tells them they fail at their jobs and teachers are an entire industry of total failure. In a single semester of university I learned so much more than in 12 years of school. If teachers aren't at fault, who is? By any metric I was a successful student.
  - 2muchcoffeeman 1y ago
    I’m not blaming you. But as intelligent as you may be, you have discounted all the possibilities for the failure of you school or your particular teachers. Because you had a bad time, then the whole system is malicious right? I know a high school teacher with a PhD and has tutored and lectured at the university level. But they are a teacher now. Guess I’ll paint them with the same brush as all teachers.
    - constantcrying 1y ago
      >then the whole system is malicious right? Where did I say that the intentions were bad? >Because you had a bad time, then the whole system is malicious right? No. In university the expectations were drastically higher. If the goal of the school was to prepare me for university, then it failed at that for everyone. The mismatch can not be attributed to me. >But they are a teacher now. Guess I’ll paint them with the same brush as all teachers. We had one of these as well. Average teacher, learned basically nothing in her class.
closewith 1y ago
And yet consistently the happiest, healthiest, and most developed societies are those with the highest levels of primary and secondary education attainment. Not necessarily causative, but we'd want to be very sure the educational fence isn't contributory before we tear it down.
watwut 1y ago
Quite a lot of Germans learn quite a lot. German schools expect quite a lot from students that do actually want to go to better schools. But yes, it is possible to slack through it all if you want to slack.
- constantcrying 1y ago
  >German schools expect quite a lot from students that do actually want to go to better schools. Not my experience. >But yes, it is possible to slack through it all if you want to slack. I was a good student though and did really well. I never learned for anything though and was bored in basically every subject. There never were any expectations on me which I didn't trivially meet.
  - watwut 1y ago
    Hey, you are the genius who knew it all before learning and got highest possible grades with no effort. Congrats. Overwhelming majority of people is not like that, they do not get highest grades, they do not get into gymnasium without effort, don't pass tests without effort.
    - constantcrying 1y ago
      Haha, are you serious?
      - bmn__ 1y ago
        He is. Today is the day you realise that thanks to your innate intelligence you had a time of privilege in school.
        constantcrying 1y ago
        I felt much more privileged when I was at university and there were students far more intelligent than me, who helped me with the material.
      - 1y ago
barbazoo 1y ago
“I basically learned nothing at school” is such a silly obviously wrong thing to say. Really doesn’t help you make a point.
- constantcrying 1y ago
  I spent 12 years there. Give the time investment the education results were extremely underwhelming.
  - barbazoo 1y ago
    Same here, full 12 years in the German school system and I can't say I would complain given where I'm at right now.

bnegreve 1y ago

Surely reading/writing are useful skills that most people did not have before school was mandatory.

constantcrying 1y ago
I did not take me twelve years to learn to read and write. What an awful excuse. What made me good at reading was reading books outside of school. In a single semester of university I learned more than in 12 years of school.
- moooo99 1y ago
  > In a single semester of university I learned more than in 12 years of school. I learned more in a single year on the job than I did in 3 years of university. That doesn’t make university useless
- rad_gruchalski 1y ago
  No, I don’t think that’s true. The 12 years of the pre-uni education set you up for being a member of society. You don’t see it because it became a part of you. You also learned to read, write, all basic math, geography, … The uni taught you more real-world expected skills but I‘m certain you learned more before uni.
  - constantcrying 1y ago
    Why couldn't I have learned university courses and these other skills at the same time?
    - kube-system 1y ago
      > Why couldn't I have learned university courses and these other skills at the same time? Was that not offered at your school? It was at mine. University level courses do presume you have some basic skills. But in many places, schools do offer university level courses for those who are prepared.
      - constantcrying 1y ago
        >Was that not offered at your school? I think it would have been theoretically possible, but obviously logistically difficult as I would have had to skip multiple classes in other fields to attend. It's also not like I was particularly interested in mathematics at that point in my life. I essentially chose my field of study based on what I had the best grades in. Only during my studies, when the material actually became difficult, I started to be interested and engaged in the subject.
        kube-system 1y ago
        For the schools that offer students the ability to take university-level courses, students aren't "skipping" other classes. > Only during my studies, when the material actually became difficult, I started to be interested and engaged in the subject. Many schools solve this by having different difficulty-levels of courses. My school, in the US, had three.
        constantcrying 1y ago
        Germany has different levels of schools. I was in the one for highest education, targeting a university degree.
        kube-system 1y ago
        Schools in the US often offer different tracks within the same school but still offer different difficulty levels within them, including university level courses.
- andrepd 1y ago
  > In a single semester of university I learned more than in 12 years of school. You keep saying this but I have a hard time believing this is true; in fact I'm not even sure what "more" means (objectively) in this context. Let's see, in the 12 years of schooling you've learned at the very least: how to read and write, how to interpret texts, how to read literature, how to compose an essay, how to speak, read, and write a second language, a ton of mathematics from basic arithmetic to I guess something like calculus and trigonometry and algebra and some discrete maths, several topics of physics and chemistry, biology, geology, and other natural sciences (in more or less detail), several years of history, and mandatory physical exercise to top it off. What magical university did you go to that in a single semester you learned more than that :D Unless I'm missing something.
  - constantcrying 1y ago
    In school I spend 8 hours listening to some teacher or playing silly learning games and did some busywork as homework. I never learned for any test or found any of the material particularly interesting. In university I actually had to study, take notes, research the subject, study for many hours, etc. >a ton of mathematics from basic arithmetic to I guess something like calculus and trigonometry and algebra and some discrete maths Hilarious to say this. As it turned out, my first semester of university mathematics was spent on learning everything I did not learn in school. And it made it extremely clear to me how badly school had prepared me. You would think that school would put me in a position where university mathematics were just a continuation. Nothing further could be from the truth, nearly everything taught in school was taught in a way which made it useless for actual mathematics. In school we learned nothing about: Sets, logic, deductions, Axioms or Proofs (which turn out to be really important!), we did however spend years solving integrals, which turned out extremely unhelpful for actual mathematics.
    - RandomLensman 1y ago
      Seems experiences vary: For me, the first year of university mathematics was to a large extent a continuation or even what was covered in school (sets, axioms, proofs etc were covered in school). That said, that wasn't the case for everyone as far as I could tell.
- kube-system 1y ago
  > I did not take me twelve years to learn to read and write. It takes people twelve years to learn to read and write at a 12th grade level. You could study it for another 4 or more years at university if you wanted to develop your skills further. > What made me good at reading was reading books outside of school. This is your personal experience. I learned to read and write quite well at school and was well-prepared for university.
  - DocTomoe 1y ago
    > It takes people twelve years to learn to read and write at a 12th grade level. Nah. You are mixing up the skill 'writing glyphs on a piece of paper and retrieving that information via optical means' with 'being well-grounded in a wide array of subjects so you can express an idea in a way that is mentally stimulating to a potential reader'. Neither takes 12 years to learn. The first, we teach within a year, at most. The second we do not teach at all, and the best 'writers' often are those who were challenged outside of school, by parents who gave them a rich, intellectually interesting environment, not within it.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - const_cast 1y ago
      We most definitely teach number 2. That's what English class is - you read books, plays, maybe documents, and then you write essays on them. You need to be concise, persuasive, have a unique voice. Just because you, and other's, did not pay attention or were not good writers, does not mean we don't teach that. We do, for years.
  - bluGill 1y ago
    There is no such thing as a 12th grade level. 6th grade is all the farther English is taught. There are sometimes things called levels above that, but they are not levels in English they are levels in some specific specialization and have more to do with that specialization than reading. (doctors would not be expected to understand deep computer science writing even though doctors have very advanced reading skills in a medical domain). I understand Spanish only goes up to a 5th grade level while Japanese to 9th. This is a reflection on how complex the writing systems are, and not the kids, intelligence, or school systems. The years after you have your basic reading down are used to learn other skills that are of general use in life for everyone.
- tremon 1y ago
  You should have taken that semester when you were 4 years old then, you could have skipped fifteen years of education!
Ekaros 1y ago
They did. Well at least officially. Being able to read was needed if you wanted to get married.
bluGill 1y ago
> Surely reading/writing are useful skills that most people did not have before school was mandatory. Citation needed. I've heard it repeated a lot, but never by someone with actual historical credentials. It varied from society to society (and many societies were sexist so boys and girls would have different results). Likely most is correct, but also misleading as it appears many societies were very literate even among poor people. From what I understand (recognize I'm not a historian!), Jewish boys have long had a right of passage of reading the bible in the local synagogue. Most languages are not that hard to learn the basic phonics of and thus read and write. You wouldn't be good, but you could do it. Historians have told me that most of their references for is literate were from time/places where literate meant Latin. The common person know much Latin (despite going to mass in Latin), and couldn't read/write it. However they would have had more education in their local language which was never counted.

sofixa 1y ago

> There was a lot of time spend sitting in a room and "learning", yet I basically learned nothing Do you think that was because their methods were bad, you didn't bother and they couldn't force you, or that their methods were not adapted to the way you learn? Also, I'd find it surprising if you really learned nothing. From what I know of German schooling from people who went through it, you certainly learned at least a bit about the depths to which humans can go to and how to prevent them (Holocaust and wider Nazi atrocities). Also, you probably learned social skills, basic project management and collaboration, and some knowledge which is probably useless other than maybe as a basis of understanding the world and various things you might encounter. I don't recall much from my biology or chemistry classes, but I recall vague outlines, which is enough.

constantcrying 1y ago
>Do you think that was because their methods were bad, you didn't bother and they couldn't force you, or that their methods were not adapted to the way you learn? It was because they had nothing to teach. I still remember trying to learn fractions from a teacher who clearly did not understand fractions either. Just to be clear, I did very well in school. Given their standards I would be considered a "successful student" and I went on to get a university degree. >Also, you probably learned social skills, basic project management and collaboration, and some knowledge which is probably useless other than maybe as a basis of understanding the world None of that I learned while sitting in class. I learned it despite the school activities I had to do.
- sofixa 1y ago
  > None of that I learned while sitting in class School is about more than the part where you sit in class. The social skills, time and project management navigation etc. is all stuff you learn and do because of school but outside of class.
  - constantcrying 1y ago
    But if that is the goal of schools then we would drastically reduce the time students sit in class.

roenxi 1y ago

You have put your finger on something - the actual purpose of school is to socialise children (it isn't very efficient as a teaching system - tutoring is better and what the people who really care about educational attainment use). But a side effect is teaching them a lot of useful things. And telling if time spent learning is wasted is actually quite hard - if you know something and everyone else knows something it often fades into the background and nobody notices. But it still makes a difference.

constantcrying 1y ago
>the actual purpose of school is to socialise children I agree that this is probably the most important thing for children to learn. My point is that sitting in a room for 8 hours does very little to accomplish that. >And telling if time spent learning is wasted is actually quite hard - if you know something and everyone else knows something it often fades into the background and nobody notices. But it still makes a difference. I had the direct comparison when I went to university. It became very clear that I was learning much more and faster. To talk about schooling we first have to make clear what the goal is. Sure everybody needs to learn how to read, write and do basic arithmetic, but that is not a 12 year endeavor. Even including basic general knowledge is not a 12 year endeavor. And we should not be wasting children's time on things, just because we can't be bothered to have them do something actually meaningful.
- myrmidon 1y ago
  > I had the direct comparison when I went to university. It became very clear that I was learning much more and faster. Sure, but this should be expected. If you filtered out all children with low interest/performance/support in preschool and just threw them onto a playground, learning rate could also be much faster in school for the rest. But if you want a solid baseline of reading/writing/math/general education for everyone in society, those twelve years are already barely enough. I'm very confident that early discrimination/segregation ("gifted" and "idiot" tracks in school) is a net negative for society and encourages unethical outcomes on top. Optional programs for faster/more targetted learning are much better and can be very positive IMO, but even there you need to be careful with how you set things up to avoid problems.

2muchcoffeeman 1y ago

I know several teachers. So these sorts of comments are always funny. I know math teachers who lack support but continuously attempt to present topics from different POV because some students don’t get it. So some self proclaimed smart person “learned nothing”, and therefore school is a waste of time. At the same time, ignoring that maybe a school or system is indeed not prepared to handle some individuals (which is not good), or that maybe some teachers are bad, or maybe the system does not support their staff enough. But that can’t be the case because they learned nothing. Whole school system must be a scam.

constantcrying 1y ago
As I wrote below. My most memorable math class was a teacher failing to explain fractions to me, what later became obvious to me was that the teacher did not understand fractions either. I am sure you want to blame me for this, but somehow I went to university and got a degree in (applied) mathematics. So I doubt it was some fundamental problem with me. Everybody is upset when someone tells them they fail at their jobs and teachers are an entire industry of total failure. In a single semester of university I learned so much more than in 12 years of school. If teachers aren't at fault, who is? By any metric I was a successful student.
- 2muchcoffeeman 1y ago
  I’m not blaming you. But as intelligent as you may be, you have discounted all the possibilities for the failure of you school or your particular teachers. Because you had a bad time, then the whole system is malicious right? I know a high school teacher with a PhD and has tutored and lectured at the university level. But they are a teacher now. Guess I’ll paint them with the same brush as all teachers.
  - constantcrying 1y ago
    >then the whole system is malicious right? Where did I say that the intentions were bad? >Because you had a bad time, then the whole system is malicious right? No. In university the expectations were drastically higher. If the goal of the school was to prepare me for university, then it failed at that for everyone. The mismatch can not be attributed to me. >But they are a teacher now. Guess I’ll paint them with the same brush as all teachers. We had one of these as well. Average teacher, learned basically nothing in her class.

closewith 1y ago

And yet consistently the happiest, healthiest, and most developed societies are those with the highest levels of primary and secondary education attainment. Not necessarily causative, but we'd want to be very sure the educational fence isn't contributory before we tear it down.

watwut 1y ago

Quite a lot of Germans learn quite a lot. German schools expect quite a lot from students that do actually want to go to better schools. But yes, it is possible to slack through it all if you want to slack.

constantcrying 1y ago
>German schools expect quite a lot from students that do actually want to go to better schools. Not my experience. >But yes, it is possible to slack through it all if you want to slack. I was a good student though and did really well. I never learned for anything though and was bored in basically every subject. There never were any expectations on me which I didn't trivially meet.
- watwut 1y ago
  Hey, you are the genius who knew it all before learning and got highest possible grades with no effort. Congrats. Overwhelming majority of people is not like that, they do not get highest grades, they do not get into gymnasium without effort, don't pass tests without effort.
  - constantcrying 1y ago
    Haha, are you serious?
    - bmn__ 1y ago
      He is. Today is the day you realise that thanks to your innate intelligence you had a time of privilege in school.
      - constantcrying 1y ago
        I felt much more privileged when I was at university and there were students far more intelligent than me, who helped me with the material.
    - 1y ago

barbazoo 1y ago

“I basically learned nothing at school” is such a silly obviously wrong thing to say. Really doesn’t help you make a point.

constantcrying 1y ago
I spent 12 years there. Give the time investment the education results were extremely underwhelming.
- barbazoo 1y ago
  Same here, full 12 years in the German school system and I can't say I would complain given where I'm at right now.