An Annoying FB Status I Saw

TheConductor

The status read thusly;

"Hi Im school. I make you work 6 hours a day, 5 days a week. Don't get to excited about the weekend, cause I might just throw in some homework while Im at it. I take up most of your childhood and sometimes I'll give you pointless lessons to learn about things you'll never need in your life. Also Im going to give you crappy teachers who hate you, cause Im to school for cool "

Ignoring the spelling and grammar, my reply would be this;

Hi. I'm school, I know, I know I'm unpopular but I'm a pivotal part of teaching you social interactions. I'm a privilege that your grandparents (and maybe even your PARENTS) didn't really have, I'm a gift provided by the people around you so YOU don't have a crappy life in the future. So why don't you show some God damned appreciation? You blame me for "taking up all your time", bull, you come in pretty fucking early and leave pretty early as well. And if you learned to manage your time better homework wouldn't be such an issue. Trust me, you hate me now, but the alternative is working in a factory from six AM till seven PM for very little money. Not so bad now, am I?

Ungrateful kids. 

GLORIOUSLeader

Courier New, it annoys me.

This little bastard, he also annoys me. 

Nova

This thread annoys me. Specifically, the implication that school is an inherently good thing.

Khwarizmi

Cut him some slack, he doesn't have the power of hindsight that an adult's perspective brings.

And school is not the same experience for everyone.  Maybe his school experience really does suck.

Gelzo

To be fair, quite a bit of school involves busywork and knowledge you won't ever have an opportunity to use.

Nova

• And school is not the same experience for everyone.  Maybe his school experience really does suck.
  

Thank you, Khwarizmi.

IanExMachina

I hate those kind of messages.

Contribution of an annoying update:

" Ey guyz sex is maths u add bed,subract clothes,divide legs nd god wl multiply nd u gt u answer as pregnat den ur scrip wl b marked in hospita by nurse den u got u marks as boy,gal or gay.!"

Saigyouji

Ah, school... good memories.

...No, wait, that's a lie and a half.

ClockworkUniverse

While I feel like "but it takes up so much time!" is a pretty bad argument, not everyone really needs to attend school to the extent that people think they do.

Nova

• While I feel like "but it takes up so much time!" is a pretty bad argument, not everyone really needs to attend school to the extent that people think they do.

It's illegal to go for less than six hours a day, 5 days a week, 40 weeks a year, for 12 years minimum here.

ClockworkUniverse

Yeah...and that's a lot less than most jobs.

Nova

You are also receiving no remuneration for this, though.

ninjaclown

My school life was hell...and I'm thankful for it. Thanks to school, I understand social interaction and the very real possibility of disappointment much more clearly.

Khwarizmi

My school life was mostly pretty horrible, and it rendered me too timid to even attempt to exercise any social skills for over 15 years.

I'd say it was a bad thing.  Not that I'd rather have worked down a mine or in a factory, but y'know.  At the time, it wasn't fun.

MillerCross

While my school life sucked ass (Being everywhere around the continent meant that I could not make friends without the usual "never gonna see you again" fear) it didn't affect me that much.

I was bullied, almost failed a tenth grade, yet I got good things out of it. Good friends, and met amazing teachers. 

Overall, it was a good experience and it made me realize that I needed to be a more mature person.

ClockworkUniverse

Honestly, I'm probably just so pro-school because I was homeschooled through middle school, had plenty of free time which I wasted on boring shit I don't even remember, learned absolutely nothing, and lost literally all of my social skills to the point that I wasn't able to speak unless spoken to for the first year of high school.

Gelzo

Anyway, I think it's fair to require people to get an education to the point where they can read, write, and do math, since those are things that are pretty important to have a basic understanding in. Also important but probably less vital is a basic understanding of human health (even if health classes are typically jokes), some history, and how civics work (we need less Sarah Palins in the world). Things like calculus and literature aren't really entirely necessary to be a productive member of society unless it's a subject you're going to pursue for a career.

If it weren't for hiring practices, I think a good number of people would be able to function just as well with a middle school education depending on their jobs.

TheConductor

@Glory: Courier New was used because of the copy and pasting that was involved in making this thread, and I wanted it all to look consistent.

@Cygan#1: School IS a good thing, compared to the alternatives.

@Khwarizimi: Fair, and tbh I hated school, but I appreciated it. If that makes sense.

@Gelzo: It's not about the knowledge itself, it's about learning how to apply knowledge, how to interact with people, how to manage time, all vital skills.

@Cygan/INUH: I'm with INUH on this, where I come from, getting to school takes no more than 20 minuets to get to the nearest school meaning you get most of the early morning to yourself. Then you finish at 3:30, so you get the rest of the DAY to yourself.

Wicked223

If school is what's supposed to teach people about social interaction, then social interaction must suck massively.

And around here, school isn't enough to keep most kids from ending up in jail/dead, so I'm a little skeptical of that last point.

ClockworkUniverse

It also depends on what school you go to. I got good ones, with the exception of the aforementioned homeschool.

Saigyouji

Yeah, school really sucked at teaching me anything about social interaction. Except perhaps "find random corner, stay there". Which doesn't exactly count.

MillerCross

"If school is what's supposed to teach people about social interaction, then social interaction must suck massively."

You're surrounded by a group of your peers under massive supervision  from adults in order to avoid shit escalating. Me thinks it's perfect...in most cases.

Nova

• @Cygan/INUH: I'm with INUH on this, where I come from, getting to school takes no more than 20 minuets to get to the nearest school meaning you get most of the early morning to yourself. Then you finish at 3:30, so you get the rest of the DAY to yourself.

Not here- we are given four or so hours of homework to do after school, usually, which means we are left free... at 7PM.

And a lot of people here receive a lot of harassment. I myself, and several other people, have to suffer through a lot every time we go to school (to the point that I have been physically assaulted several times).

School is forced social interaction with people you do not necessarily have anything in common with, learning non-vital skills.

Myrmidon

School is a godawful piece of shit.

snowbull

>goes to a kickass school with awesome teachers, hard working students and almost no bullying at all

This has probably been the greatest experience of my life.

Of course, I might have a bit of sampling bias because of the program I'm in, so I pretty much only interact with nerds/people who realize the value of education.

LouieW

I think Cygan, Saigyouji, and Khwarizmi make legitimate points about how social interaction and other things can make school really annoying.

I hear that bullying is especially frustrating at school, especially when one really does not have an option to avoid it since one needs to go to school for most of the week or risk other problems. I wonder if part of that has to do with maturity. I feel like a big reason why people are bullied is because of differences they might have and I think that increased tolerance tends to go hand and hand with maturity. I guess that depends on your definition of maturity and tolerance though.

Even if what I just said is totally true, the Facebook status in question does not seem to indicate problems with socializing or bullying so I agree that it is pretty silly. I can agree with the idea that one should probably cut the person who wrote that some slack, but I think the truth of the matter is that going to school is very helpful in life, especially as people need more and more years of schooling to qualify for jobs these days. Of course, that assumes that one's education was adequate and I realize that that is a pretty big assumption to make given the disparities between some schools.

Sorry, I am afraid that I mostly just stated the obvious.

ninjaclown

That's strange, for my friends and I bullying ended at Junior High. Most of us just wised up, and I made amends with some people I didn't get along with, the worst you would get was indifference from some people.

MillerCross

Well, I wasn't bullied that much in the later years. But I was indeed an outcast. But I had friends and we made it through together and it's not lie we were really outcasts. the "popular kids" did indeed let us hang out with them. We just didn't feel good around them.