What's the point of School, really?

[Holiday20310401]

I can't say as I enjoy school much, because I hardly learn what I want to learn. And a lot of the in class time is wasted, coloring, cut and paste assignments for cring out loud!!, in my biology class!!
And what is the point of essays when we aren't allowed to do them at home. No time for perfection, especially when there are so many structural factors that get marked. " You can't use pronouns, lead in must be coherent, quotes must be given author's name and page number....." And only given two periods in class, only allowed to bring in "quotes" for writing the essay. Silliness.
And chemistry class, . "Lets review the periodic table. Please recite the first twenty elements of the table" Oh yeah, like we didn't do that in grade nine.

Hopefully world issues class will allow for some opinion, and actually give understanding to society.

Physics has yet to get theoretical and imaginative. Yes it is al about theory but thats not my point.

Fire drills like every two weeks. Waste of a period.

And the boring way a teacher grasps a textbook so precisely during a lesson. Heck in english class (grade 11) we never got a lesson. How ironic, theres still plenty to learn, why not semantics and linguistics, or even logic.

So again, what's the point of school, besides the education (academically speaking). [If it weren't for other aspects existing I wouldn't go as much as I did]

[VideCorSpoon]

Enjoy it while you can. Simple times are better times. The fact that you realize that things could be more interesting and complicated can become a major benefit to you. You can use the time to build your references and study for the SATS. If I had put in half the effort I put in to my LSATS as compared to the SATS, I would have been in a top tier school on scholarship.

One of my favorite professors told me the formula to get into an ivy league school. 1. know the titles and authors of famous books. 2. Climb a mountain. 3. Play an instrument.

It sounds ridiculous, but in hindsight, it makes a lot of sense.

[Didymos Thomas]

Socialization. Seriously.

Meet a girl or boy you like to, and give fate a whirl. That's what high school is about.

Oh, and about instruments - I went percussion so I'm seen as the stupid drummer; ridiculous. Stick with something classical if you're going for ivy league. My advice, don't go ivy league.

[nameless]

I'm gonna let y'all in on a secret. Don't tell anyone, but, public school is merely to keep y'all out of our hair while we go about living our lives and supporting you. Thats it. If you learn anything of value, thats just gravy.
And they made their own breakfast, too, right from the beginning!
It just gives us parents a well needed break.

[Holiday20310401]

I don't think there is SATS in Canada, are you talking about university or high school?

[VideCorSpoon]

Oh, I didn't know you were in Canada. SATS are qualification exams to apply to university. I'm sure Canada has the equivalent test or something like that... unless they don't. Which... would mean... COMMUNISTS! ARGH!!!

[Zetetic11235]

They are talking about university admissions. I do not know what tests, if any, canadian univerities look at or how much weight they put on them. If you want to go to university in the U.S., study the SATs, if not, eh, I don't think canada uses them, but you should check it out. Ivy league by definition is a school in the U.S.A. based upon a competetive sports circle. Now it just means that the school is expensive and you can't get a scholarship unless you got a perfect SAT score while living in your mom's car due to the fact that you are homeless or you are some sort of child prodigy and started at 10. Otherwise, you got a pretty slim chance of getting in and have no guarantee without perfect stats and awards for somthing such as art or music. Unless your dad just donated 10 mill.

My advice is this:try to see if there is some way to test out of highschool where you live. In the U.S. you can take a high school equivalency at 16. Just go straight to college. If you don't want to do that, see if you can enroll in some classes at a local or online university.

Personally, Im pretty happy at my college. Its small, not very competetive so my SAT sticks out and I look good to professors by comparison, plus the classes are pretty easy for me.
I can get to know the professors, they are often available to talk. If I have an interesting idea I can visit their office and ask them about it. I probably will switch to another university nearby that is ranked higher to enable me to do graduate work while an undergrad for my junior and senior year, but before that there is little need to move.

If you don't want to do any of that, just read some books during class. Thats what I did, I still maintained a 3.0+ average. The grades in my school were kinda spiked. You had to have a 70% to pass, an 85% for a B- and a 93% for an A-, and I think that 100%=4.3. It seemed nuts to me because in a ten point scale my percentage would be equivalent to near 4.0 while instead they were just over 3.0.

[Holiday20310401]

Zetetic,
Did you go to a gifted school, cause my cousin goes to one and he has to maintain a 75% average but any university is available due to the vanity of the school is is enlisted in. I was recommended for gifted a while ago like grade eight and under, perfected the otis lennon test, but now as I thought high school would be interesting academically, (and it isn't), I just stopped caring. So perhaps I should have gone to a gifted school.

Though at the time I believed that the gifted program offered around my area did not differ in terms of what content I'd learn from much. Plus being noticed is not something I want,. .. latent.

[Zetetic11235]

Unfortunately, I did not go to a gifted school although there are a couple in my area. I am certain I would have qualified since I participated in gifted enrichment at my elementary school, and I found a piece of paper later on indicating my WISC-IV verbal to be just shy of 140 (about 99.5 %ile,I don't know my other subtest scores but verbal is the best indicator of ability and can be used as a stand alone score). So I can relate to the dissatisfaction you feel with your school situation.

I was quite advanced in elementary school starting full fledged algebra in 5th grade only to repeat what I already knew the next year in 'advanced math class' and then placed in the normal class again by accident for part of the following year which totally threw me off track.

I was very non confrontational then and wasn't sure how to handle the situation, it took me a while to work up the nerve to ask whether it was a mistake that I was in the class, and of course it was. Upon finding out what had happened I was switched back into the 'advanced class' only to find that I had missed nothing and they really hand't progressed much at all. Being so uncomfortable talking to the teachers, I never asked whether there was any way to take highschool courses, which was indeed an option. By the second half of the eigth grade when I found this out, I had givien up on school alltogether but still kept my performance above average in order to avoid an unpleasent discussion with my parents.

During middle school I did no homework out of class and generally not at all, I read during class due to how useless the subjects were (I always knew them already) and I still managed an A/B average and 99th percentile standardized test scores. I was more knowledgable than my science teachers (I would often read Scientific American and Discovery as well as other books on science/electronics) and often they could not answer my questions, which lead to a lable as gifted in sciences. This meant that I could either A)Go self study away from the class and do a couple extra useless projects, or B) Talk to friends and still get an A. Tough choice.

During High School I kept my academic standards low to avoid wasting my time on mediocre/outmoded coverage of academic subjects by choosing instead to develop my talents in Art and Music. My mother having an MFA made up for the incompetence of my art instructor and I won a few awards including honorable mention in the tristate level (it goes up to national) of the scholastics art competition for a very nonstandard piece. By the time my senior year of high school rolled around, I was ready to go to Berklee school of music in boston to study composition and guitar performance after playing guitar for only 3 years studying under a well known avant guard/jazz guitarist in my area who teaches lessons at a local music store when lo and behold my interest in science and mathematics creeps back in through my reading of The Elegant Universe.

So I buckled down and got a 3.5 unweighted for my senior year (almost 4.0 for second semester) and took the at the last minuet SAT with no prep and got a 1380 (650 math 730 verbal). I realized that I would have to attend a local school, albiet a decent one, for at least the first year due to my late score, and I applied to it. I tried to test out of calculus one through the clep exam and got a 46, however the requirement is a 50, which isn't bad for only having started with algebra 2 and limited trig, besides; I knew how to derive the formulas pretty rigorously for 3 months of self study.

I don't know if this is at all similar to your situation, however if it is I hope it helps. My advice, if your situation is indeed similar, is to ask about taking college classes and be very persistent. Self study to show that you are motivated and see if you can test out of introductory college classes to prove you can handle the challenge.

I said the rest in the above post.

[midas77]

I am glad that you realized early in life that the monotony of everyday school sucks. It is a fact of life we must accept and go on with it. Having realized that mass education has no more to offer you does not mean that is entirely worthless. It always provides the basic, the speed of the mastery of subjects though rely heavily on the speed of your so called peers and the educational politics of the time.

But don't worry follow DT's advice. Spice up your High School life. It will only happen once. Don't try drugs though, its illegal with the exception of "weeds" I supposed. Its all over your flag for crying out loud. J/k