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comment by cgod
cgod  ·  2500 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Choosing a School for My Daughter in a Segregated City

I along with several other people on Hubski went to what was billed as one of Americas best public High schools. The graduation rate was above 99%, only a few kids didn't go on to college. It met some kind of standard about how many computers per kid and what classes offered that gave it some kind of award.

I hated just about every minute of it. I learned next to nothing from my teachers. I had four really good teachers in those four years and two of those were teaching me things that had nothing to do with the subject at hand.

I spent most my time reading books of my own choice. I think that it became common knowledge that leaving me alone to read my book was best for everyone because getting me involved in class wasn't going to make anyone's life better.

Maybe other people on Hubski will tell you how enriched their life was because the incredible opportunities available at Rochester Adams High School, that well funded island dedicated to pursuit of fake ass excellence but I found it infantalizing and repressive.

I hope my kid loves school and goes to football games and all that shit and becomes a happy little cog in the machine for her own sake so she can go on to the next bloated bureaucracy to strive and thrive. I have little faith that any of that will do much to contribute to her cultivating a life time love of learning or attaining a sense of compassion because all people basically want the same things for life and their failures are all our failures or so many other lessons that get lost in formal education.

I desperately hope that she becomes a voracious reader to consumes everything before her, trash and treasure, like a horde of locust. I hope she loves learning and can't help but find out more about her world every day.

I think 80% of her time in the classroom will make her board and dumb. I hope 20% of her time might expose her to something that lasts a life time. Schools don't teach people to think, hunger for knowledge and exposure to great thinkers can.

I think this whole thing might become a problem in my life if my kid isn't a good little cog. I couldn't care if what her grades are, or what stupid shit she is being spoon fed in school as long as she has her nose in a book. I'm pretty sure grades will be important to my wife and mother.