Education, education, education!

As muttered elsewhere, though, school was a fun experience for the most part. Though I hated getting up early every day, where now I just acknowledge it.

I liked my friends in high school. That was about all I liked about high school. I was bored in classes and just hated them, but I've already detailed my snapping points in depth and we don't need to keep going into it!

I hated school, always felt like it was my parents fault-they betrayed me by sending me. Same thing as going to the doctor, always thought it was a punishment or something. I still avoid the doctor as much as possible.

I hated playschool/kindergarten. I kicked and screamed and caused a fuss and didn't go back. I stayed at home after that, learning at my parents knee. I started school aged nearly five, and most of the kids I started with couldn't read - I could; couldn't write - I could; couldn't tell the time - I could. Waste of time going to school so young.

As for exams, I wonder why I bothered. I've got the certificates in an envelope somewhere, I've never taken them out and no-one has ever asked to see them.

Anyone in here giving law school any thought, keep all that in mind and ponder whether there's anything else you might want to do with yourself.

And B) because the rest of the world *isn't* like that. The important things that you learn in schools have nothing to do with Shakespeare or the sum of the hypoteneuse, they're things like dealing with authority, managing deadlines, working effectively in groups. I never learned any of things, and I never got properly socialised, hence I find it ridiculously difficult to function in society.

I don't know about the vocational courses thing- unless you want to be a mechanic or something very specific, it's hard to tailor them. Most schools *do* teach typing and computer skills which are pretty much the only cross-career vocational skills that most people need. I can't judge what the "normal" education system needs to teach more of cause I never had the normal education system. I *did* learn things like logic and problem solving instead of fact repetition. I would have liked more socialisation, more people skills, more life skills.

You're kidding, right?

Yeah, so I was way into art's and crafts and drama between the ages of seven and eleven. I was way into science and math between the ages of 11 and 15. No.. I'm still way into science and math. Anyway, I had to jump through all sorts of hoops to take classes that were even just a year ahead of me! When I started taking philosophy courses at the local University, I really freaked about the 30 year old students who where just finishing up their degrees and getting in their humanities requirements. I enjoyed that social circle much more than my high school social circle.

But I was 17 when I started University, and that's pretty young, but the really young kids, they were 16 or 15, and in one case 14. And wouldn't you know that they were the first ones to start smoking lots of pot and doing coke and committing suicide.

I should have gone to an easy liberal art school, but intead I thought to challenge myself so I went to a "technical school". I think I had too much homework to have a lot of fun. But I think I'd rather be in school now that be doing what I'm doing. Although having money to do stuff is also cool.

I don't know. Conclusion: School is awesome. Kids at school aren't.

So, if at school, they'd given me interesting, challenging, stimulating stuff to do, then maybe I wouldn't be in the situation I'm in now of trying to decide what to do with myself.

Maybe it was my fault for going to the wrong school, I was offered a place in a nearby grammer school but my brother had gone there and hated it (they were very aggresively interested only in those who would make their results look good, quietly encouraging people likely to fail exams not to enter because it doesn't looks so bad in the league tables) plus all my friends were going to another school and at 11, that is *far* more important. And they had stupid red and black striped blazers.

Then again, maybe I'm just an inherently lazy person. Maybe I was never that smart a kid, maybe the level of a reasonably brainy 15/16 year old was always going to be my smartness level and I just got there a bit early.

I still think formal education is a massive swizz and though it's already been said and it is a bit of a cliche, trigonometry doesn't come in that useful in much of day to day life - but without it, you can't do your maths GCSE, and without that you can't do your A levels and without those etc.

Even though I've got a bit of a downer re: eductation at the moment, I still have a huge amount of respect for teachers who seem to be blamed for Everything That's Wrong With The Education System and get credited for absolutely zip.

I used to think I was brilliant but I'm not.

Was there ever a time in western educational history when 'c' (aka 'average' according to numerous syllabi I've received, even though no teacher/student/parent I've encountered thinks this way) was actually considered a reasonable/good grade?

What a waste. Teach yourselves, assholes!

It's considered a reasonable grade in Britain (or at least it was when I was at school), particularly at A-Level. Not outstanding obviously but nothing to be ashamed of either.

would never, ever, have guessed the results of this survey of U.S. schools.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/15/education/15sat.html

Average scores on the SAT fell across the nation this year, with the reading score for the high school class of 2011 falling three points to 497, the lowest on record, according to a report Wednesday by the College Board, which administers the exams.

The average writing score dropped two points, to 489, and the math score was down one point, to 514.

The College Board attributed the decline to the increasing diversity of the students taking the test. For example, about 27 percent of the nearly 1.65 million test-takers last year came from a home where English was not the only language, up from 19 percent a decade ago.

I find this to be pretty offensive!

how about "more students from schools that have suffered under horrific national education policies are taking the test"

skills

training

stakeholders

governance

vocational

Edexcel

values

lifelong learning (revoked)

funding

^^

bed bath and beyond

our offer

kick a ball in the street

Singapore

IQs

targets

performance

Employability

Efficacy

Thought leadership.

indicators

oh i just came across a "thought leadership" in the wild, good shout

robust

Ofsted

league tables

guarantee

environment

competitive

Practicalitabilitiness

Just had an e-mail about "building channel-agnostic content that super-serves our learners".

A two-fer to watch.