School (Page 2 of 6)

Just wanted to say that all of you are spot on on your views of the schooling systems of the world.
They are mental preperation camps for the "real world" infusing students with mindless jibber about what they are supposed to know to get by in life and to become "successful" in your life and without it you will end up in the gutter in some street begging for your basic needs!
"Now if you dont get good grades and dont study hard you will be NOTHING"!
I have always believed why do i need to do this to become "successful"
in my life and the fact that i get to the top of some major co-op and have a ridiculous pay packet to show to everyone else that "i am successful" with all the material trimmings!
That is what is being drilled into students all over the world and it comes back down to the fear factor keeping people at bay and what better place to start this brainwashing than at school, the get them while they are young attitude of the STS!

Schools are set up in the exact way so that students cant actually think for themselves but rather be told what is what and it is accepted and if a student did question the topic in mind then the teacher could not  respond cause it was not in the cirricullum(sp?).

There are schools that actually teach life skills such as compassion, personal development, interpersonal skills and subjects of the like and ill be sending my kids to those schools.

I'll look into this more and get some details of these schools and where they are and ill look more into the subject of schools and their concentration camp style format and let you know what we need to change in schools to get the most out of society.

Oh my god!  I could have written that.  I have / had the same exact thing happen.   Just because I'm reading I therefore MUST be a student, because nobody but students read, right???   I mean, who reads for FUN???   Everybody watches t.v., we all know that! 

For me, by 11th grade, I had completely and totally given up all reading and writing.   I was a kid who from the age of 10 proclaimed that I would be a writer some day, and  who was a total book addict.   By 11th grade, life had gotten me into a zombified slump.  Between what was going on at home and what school had managed to accomplish, I had no desire to do ANYTHING, let alone read or write.   My 12th grade English literature teacher in California changed all that.   She was the teacher I mentioned in my first post here on this thread that I hunted down 10 years after graduating and emailed her to thank her for being such a good teacher, and letting her know that she single handedly is responsible for me becoming who I became.  I was a zombie when I transferred into her class at the end of my 11th grade year.   I sat there in a fog, tuning everything out, I didn't talk to anybody, I wanted to be invisible, I didn't participate in class, I didn't want to be there.   I couldn't write an essay to save my life and got all D's and F's on any essay I turned in.   Somehow though, she cut through the fog.   I remember sitting there in my fog, tuning everything out, but yet, hearing this woman at the front of the class talking about books and poems and literature in general in such an animated, energetic passionate way that it kept seeping through the fog.   This woman LOVED books and reading, and it came through loud and clear.   She was just the most animated and energetic person out of all my teachers.  Everybody else was so quiet and low key and unobtrusive.   Not her!!   She was like, "HERE I AM!!!  HERE'S THE BOOKS!!!  READ!!  READ!!  ISN'T THIS BOOK **WONDERFUL**???  ISN'T THAT JUST THE MOST AMAZING POEM YOU'VE EVER HEARD?!?!   THAT'S SO DIVINE!!!!"

Everything was so wonderful, divine, amazing, fantastic to her.   Here I was trying to tune everything out, but yet, her voice kept seeping in!   After awhile, with furrowed brows I started to listen.   Okay....what's so divine about that story?   Why is that book so amazing?   Every day for 5 minutes at the end of class she'd read outloud one short story from the book "The House on Mango Street" by Sandra Cisneros.  See...I still remember.    I'd never had a teacher in all my adult years read outloud to me, or anybody in my classes.   It was comforting....like being a kid again when adults read to you and still cared about you.   By the time you're 17, they don't care anymore.   So the class would get quiet, and we'd all listen, and it stayed with me as the ball rang and we all got up and ran off to our next class.   We also had to keep these daily journals, where she'd give us a topic every day to write as much as we could about for 3 minutes.   So that slowly got me back into writing and thinking.   When school was letting out for the summer she gave us all a list of recommended reading that she'd compiled of really good books that she thought we'd enjoy, encouraging us to turn off the t.v. and read. 

I took that list to the bookstore a few days after school let out and purchased some of the books, as well as others that looked interesting as well.  I hadn't read a book for fun since 10th grade, let alone buy any books....but there I was.  I also started a journal that summer for the first time in years.   And in 12th grade I had her as a teacher again, which I was happy about.   Started out the year still not able to write an essay to save my life, but by the end of the year I pulled my first A.   I was out on my own by May of my senior year and life was complete chaos for me, but her class was the only class I put effort into and gave my all to.  I studied, I actually showed up for class, I turned in my homework, I read everything we were supposed to read, and I tried my damndest to get an A on an essay.   But her class single handedly pulled me out of the fog I was in.    I'm really not sure WHAT the hell would have happened without it.   So, I had to hunt her down and let her know.    Give credit where credit is due!     There are some good teachers out there....but they're rare and few and far between unfortunately.    More teachers should have been like my English teacher, students would be in a better place.

Hi lyra,

I know I'm a bit behind from the rest of the forum but I travel a lot and can't find the chance to read the forum everyday. I just wrote the following on another subject on the forum (if only I knew how to give a link of that topic here.. ah! 'the miseducation of feritciva')

"In 1997, just in the middle of my PhD studies on phytotherapy & botany, I decided to leave the university. I had come to a crossroad in my life and gave two important decisions: "1. stay away from the university if you look for real knowledge" "2. stay away from all of religions and temples if you search for the creator". Yes, I practiced them both from that time on.  The result? Better than I ever expected. I would never think of the things I've found in this 7 years, especially last 8 months.

I don't know if I'm too "far out" or not, but I simply see academic knowledge as airport transport bus or train. Ok, it may get you to some point, but you have to step out of it if you want to get on to a airplane - and go much further!"

Although I think we shouldn't totally throw the importance of today's education away; it may only take to some point which is in fact only the beginning of learning process. If the education system would only teach "how to learn" and leave the rest to the child, it would really be better. But this seems as an utopia now.

I wasn't taught very much in school, but I did learn a few things.

In the first grade, I learned that school life is all about the mindlessness of the herd. It was during a school-wide assembly which started out with a routine by the pep squad. The little girls with their pom-poms came bounding out, and the audience went wild. The kids in my class, along with all the other kids in the bleachers, started frantically clapping and cheering. I thought this was utterly inhuman and insane. Their reaction was so scripted and meaningless! I started laughing, and then I started booing as a "comment" on the situation. ("As if anyone could boo!") I considered my actions to be as acceptable as clapping, if it was mindless reactionary enthusiasm they were after. Of course I got hauled out and yelled at, but it didn't bother me a bit. I had no respect for those people, even at a very young age. Their entire system was laughable.

In the fourth grade, I learned how school encourages style over substance. My teacher convinced me to run for Student Council Vice President. I drew up posters and brainstormed ideas, then I wrote a speech. My "platform" was increased student involvement in administrative decisions at the school. Among other things, I proposed a suggestion box in the lunchroom. I gave the speech, then my opponent gave his "speech". It consisted of him working his way through a box full of props--plastic bats, a football helmet, etc.--while pantomiming sports moves and reading a speech obviously written by his father. His big finish was to pull down his pants and reveal a sticker on his ass. The kids went nuts, the adults thought it was cute, and I had to roll my eyes.

In high school I learned that "education" was a literal waste of time. I was being made to spend eight hours a day, five days a week in class, but apparently that just wasn't enough. They also wanted me to do busywork at home, on my time. I refused to do so, because I already understood the material. I did only the classwork. My test scores were fine, but of course my overall grades went down the toilet. In the tenth grade, I dropped out and got my GED.

In college I learned that "higher education" is only a process of jumping through hoops, the purpose of which is to attain a degree which will unlock the door to a job sufficient to meet the monetary demands of the "success" life-script. The quest for knowledge and truth had nothing to do with it. Drinking, getting laid, networking, looking fashionable, building up a group identity, and weaseling their way into good grades through all the "success" skills they'd use later in life (cheating, being charismatic, stroking authority figures, etc.) were all that mattered to the attendees. I dropped out after a year's worth of studies.

Just like you guys are saying, school should teach you how to learn. Where did we get the material we now study? Einstein generated much of his understanding through "thought experiments", but we aren't taught how to conduct such experiments in school--in spite of the fact that such experimentation would come quite naturally to even the smallest child, with its inborn imagination and curiosity. The contributions of Pythagoras arose out of his study of the mystical nature of reality, yet school does not encourage us to hold mystical truths in mind while speaking the language of math--despite Pythagoras' warning of "a figure and a platform, not a figure and a sixpence".

True knowledge is the knowledge of how to generate wisdom, understanding, love, strength, and so on. Since it is better to have this generative capacity than to be a "camel laden with books" in the Sufi parlance, one should learn wisdom-generating practices, such as meditation, concentration, relaxation, etc. There is also a special dynamic which comes into play when two or more beings get together in the spirit of wisdom and communicate with each other. It is expressed in the biblical passage "Where two or more are gathered in my name, there I am also". Physical proximity and verbal/sub-verbal interaction with wise human beings (and perhaps other beings) is important. Studying the nature of false knowledge and false wisdom is important as well, because it may reside within us and it must be rooted out or purified. So it is not improper to discuss the shit and slime of this world if one can rearrange it in order to break its spell (like Burroughs) or tranmogrify it (like the alchemists).

Hi AZ1.  Yes, it's amazing the power of a good teacher, isn't it?    They truly have the ability to change and alter their students' lives....for good or bad......and I'm not sure many really realize this.    And don't worry about not getting Shakespeare...I didn't either.       The only Shakespeare that I ever enjoyed was Hamlet.   For some reason I really REALLY dug the story of Hamlet, it just stuck out in my head and was the only Shakespeare I ever tried to truly read.  If you haven't read Hamlet, that's the one I recommend!

Hi feritciva, long time no see!     Those ideas are not far out at all....they are both great points, and I definitely agree with you.

Czyx....thanks for sharing your experiences.  I loved your first grade example....you were already a rebel at the age of 6!   You would have gotten along with my brother back at that age.  He used to coerce his kindergarten class to change the words of some patriotic song they had to sing every day after the Pledge of Allegiance because he knew it would make his angry kindergarten teacher flip out and start psychotically banging that bell she had on her desk.   

YES....I have thougth the same exact thing myself.   "What if I had had really good parents who could've homeschooled??"   "What kind of person would I have become had I not gone through public school and all the crap that goes with it??"   Crap that goes with it entails the bus ride to and from school every day, and the dysfunctional kids from messed up families that were in my classes making life a living hell for other students.   Add the curriculum and the dysfunctional teachers on top of that...quite a recipe for disaster.

Hi Ayla,

Welcome to Noble Realms.  I'm glad you found this place.

Your post brings me back about 11-12 years to when I was in high school going through the same type of headache.   Every other week it seem like, having to have meetings with my guidance counselor and my parents about why I am not doing my homework.  Why am I getting such lousy grades.  Why I'm missing so much class.  "You've got a good brain, why waste it?"  A bunch of dumb idiots the lot of them; the whole system disgusts me.  Exquisite torture is what it was for me.

Realize it's a game, a joke, and don't worry about it.  It's not worth it.  If you feel like you want to get through, that's fine, do it. Good for you. If you want to drop out and do something useful with yourself now, more power to you.  Either way it's your call -- your life -- there's no right or wrong answer.  Take your time, relax and figure out what's right for you, and then do it and everyone else be damned.  The ones who really care aren't going to judge you or abandon you over a decision about whether to finish high school.   Even your dad.  He may not understand, be disappointed, whatever, but maybe if you get your thoughts together, and explain your reasonings and your plans to him he might at least understand a bit even if he doesn't agree.  Maybe, I don't know the guy.    Just don't make decisions about what to do with YOUR LIFE based on what OTHER PEOPLE think or want you to do.  There's not enough time.  The world might end tomorrow for all you know.   Be strong. 

"Live for yourself, there's no one else more worth living for." - Peart

i never get on here and post but I READ EVERYTHING almost every day.  u guys gotta know this---YOU ARE THE TEACHERS.  you all are brilliant.  you are the very product they wish they could've produced.  your minds are of the utmost caliber.  i come on here all the time because of the intelligence i see.  lyra--unbelievable obsevational skills, kmowledge of the written word, syntax, amazing grasp of the thought process and parlay onto paper (anyway, forum style), ability to express complicated thinking, critical thinking, what do ya mean?  you write incredible "essays" everyday.  cyxz--another highly intelligent individual, seeker, wandering1, and the rest of you guys on here that i can't get back to the thread to see to write your names.  all of you, and all you guys on this thread.  and tom, not on the thread but what a brainiac, and a sage to boot.  absolutely well-read, highly literate, remarkable thinkers.  i enjoyed reading all of your opinions and was blown away--the supposed "lack" of traditional education NEVER TOUCHED you, you are still the products of your own seeking of knowledge and understanding, you're exactly what the system would have liked or would/could claim to produce.  but in all actuality, you all came into it with brilliant minds and apparently, immediately picked up on their "strategies", even the short stints some of you guys reported in the education system influenced you to know there was more.  that's all its supposed to do anyway, show you the way to get more info and to go out and reasearch, find it on you own.  i was lucky i went to elementary school in the 60's in the midwest where life was good but one could still see the indoctrination campaign.  i remember how throughly that struck me in 3rd grade.  thats why it starts at 8 am and ends like at 4 or so, its a frickin work shift, thats clear.   i have 2 bachelors' and 2 masters' and also post grad degree.  IT'S FOR THE PAPER you guys.  i got enough paper to sink a battle ship.  got it on purpose, all the while rebelling, telling the system how it sucked.  i always figured, destroy them from within and that's what i did everyday.  enter the matrix and observe its follies,  try to awaken others, but that is very dangerous.  one can get strung up doin that and i've been crucified and hung a few times but lived to tell the tale.  anyway, learned more about stuff i really care about on the net since 1996, changed alot from my studies on the net.  anyway, just love how you all saw thru the veil of deception early on, like most of us that are into NR.  it seems, this is the biggest similarity, the "awake-ness" of everyone on here.   i learn more from you teachers on here than any other folks i know right now.  all of the characteristics of fine educators and leaders are IN YOU.  had to come on say this.  it's totally admireable.  if you guys taught formally, OH MY GOD!!!!  zenden