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0 pointsA_D_E_P_T1y ago0 comments

I grew up in the US, we're about the same age, and I went to a public school where I had a similar experience. More than anything else, I remember the crushing boredom and the feeling that time had slowed to a crawl. I wasn't beaten or abused, but I felt trapped in amber, and the school really was prison-like, just as you describe it. I've never hated anything so much in my life as I hated school.

So I escaped the prison. I dropped out at age 14 and went to work in a book warehouse at the age of 16. Everybody was screaming about how much I'd regret it, but to this day I consider it among the best decisions I've ever made.

Now I have young children of my own, and I'm not sure how I'm going to handle their education, but home schooling -- /w private professional tutoring and organized athletic activities -- looks like the best option. There's no way I'd subject them to public school.

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monophonica1y ago

I learned basically nothing in my k-12 public school but it was fun times.

Emotionally? It is really hard to top those times in high school.

It was the opposite of a prison for me. Like a garden of adolescent roses that had nothing to do with the real world other than the sweet smell of roses as an adolescent.

It is why I am glad to be child free. Anyone posting here is going to have a child that is better off than almost anyone who has ever lived.

I would suspect the best strategy in 2025 for anyone here is to not crush the creativity of the child. The only thing bad you can really do is to impose yourself too much on the child. The more hands off the better. The lighter the touch the better.

Yours skills are not what your child will need t+50 years.

nyarlathotep_1y ago

It also says something about the quality of the "education" that you were able to (presumably) manage some sort of technical aspirations and career without the "required education".

I know the feeling.

bell-cot1y ago

> Everybody was screaming about how much I'd regret it, but ...

In a really healthy society, with really good schools, dropping out would (99%) be quite regrettable.

Some of those screaming people probably cared about you and your future. Most of them just resented you, for highlighting the actual state of their society and schools. And perhaps making them doubt their own choices.

9rx1y ago

> In a really healthy society, with really good schools, dropping out would (99%) be quite regrettable.

That depends.

Those who drop out because they can't hack it will find misplaced regret, blaming future woes on dropping out when in reality the problem is a continuation of the deficiencies that lead them to dropping out.

Those who drop out because they have bigger and better plans won't think about it again.

petsfed1y ago

I think there are two assumptions embedded in the parent comment that I think you're ignoring:

1) The people who are on to bigger and better things are in fact vanishingly rare. Like, yes, Bill Gates dropped out of college, but he dropped out of Harvard, not Evergreen Community College. He wouldn't have been there in the first place if he wasn't already capable of some big things.

2) A really healthy society, with really good schools, would provide a path for those who can't hack it. Its almost definitionally not a good school if the process exposes some deficiencies, then just gives up. Like "well, it turns out your dyslexic, here's your cardboard box and begging pan" sounds like a bad school.

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