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columbina has me wondering about a lot of things. I'm going to write more about some of them in a bit (that is, not today), but until then I'd like to ask a slew of questions. Answer some, all, or none of them, as you like.
Did you have a good high school experience? (For those of you outside the US, this question applies to your schooling in your late teen years, somewhere between 14 and 18 for the typical student.) What do you think is most wrong with the way your schooling at that age was conducted? Do you have anything you think was institutionally most right with how your schooling was conducted? (By institutionally, I mean that "Ron Gabriel, my ninth and twelfth grade English teacher, is so awesome" doesn't count unless the school specifically nurtured his awesomeness. Which it didn't. Rotten bastards. You do not use a person's disability against him. This is not acceptable human behavior.)
Do you have stronger, less strong, or similar feelings towards grade school? Junior high/middle school? If you went to college, college? If you went to grad school, grad school? If someone says "your school," which one do you think of? (That presumes that you're not currently working in any capacity at a school that's becoming "yours.")
Did you have one best year of your schooling, where you were learning the most and figuring out the most about yourself? Did you have more than one? Did you have one worst year? Did they correspond with best/worst years otherwise, or did you separate out your school life and your outside/home life?
Was there a time in your schooling when you really enjoyed the books assigned to you to read? What kind of books were they, or, if you remember, what books? Did you otherwise manage to find good books to read, mostly, or did you go through dry spells in your reading life when you were younger?
My high school was a wretched experience, as growing numbers of you on the friendslist know firsthand. I think the most offensively wrong thing about it is that no one in charge actually seemed to care whether individual students were learning anything or not. There were a lot of wrong things competing for the honor of most wrong, though, and total orderings etc. etc. I don't think RHS did a lot right, institutionally, although there were individual teachers who did their best in a very flawed system.
I have stronger feelings towards college because my alma mater, for all its flaws, was mine: I chose it, and I chose my major. I was stuck with Blumfield Elementary, Ralston Middle School, and RHS. Gustavus I chose. If you separate out Gustavus Physics from Gustavus Adolphus College, it is the closest thing I have to blind patriotism.markgritter and timprov are still bringing me out of "My Department, Right Or Wrong," ("My Professors, Drunk Or Sober" actually might have applied from time to time -- certainly more often than that general sentiment applies to my mother). Whenever I'm reading something where people give their countrymen sanctuary just for being fellow exiles or what have you, the way I get into the mindset is to imagine that it's some Gustie physics geek. Or maybe a Gustie gamer geek. Just a Gustie isn't enough. Aaaaaanyway, I have pretty vivid memories of grade school and junior high, but it's not as much a hot button as high school is. And grad school sucked but is not a very important chapter in my life: I forgive people who don't know me very well for forgetting I was ever in it.
My seventh grade year was probably my best year of schooling, but I've had better years of learning or of personal growth. I had Marylyn Bremmer and Mr. Lesch and Mr.Fishhead Troutman, and scottjames and I were doing all kinds of geeky fun stuff that actually had something to do with school and not just, y'know, making our own geeky fun. My middle year of high school -- since I skipped one and clearly had a freshman year and a senior year, you can call the middle one sophomore or junior, as you like -- was probably my worst. Other years have had their low spots, to be sure, but the middle year of high school was the most consistently bad. Well...my grad school year was bad, too, but I did quit, and I wrote Fortress of Thorns in the meantime, and I think I learned quite a lot of unrelated stuff.
It occurs to me that 12 and 15 are my "resonant ages" for writing YAs. Huh. I'd known 12 -- 12 is my year, my mental age and all that. (Making me, from my understanding of previous con panels and conversations, younger thanpameladean but older than sdn.) But I hadn't spotted 15 as my worst year, which it was. Huh.
I enjoyed the books Marylyn assigned my seventh grade class. Mythology. Ray Bradbury. Mark Twain. "Julius Caesar" with Marylyn doing recitations for us. I'm not sure how much of that was Marylyn herself -- I might fling myself into who knows what, for her sake -- I'd give the woman a kidney, heaven knows I could give her a bit of Sylvia Plath if it would make her happy -- but part of Marylyn being Marylyn herself was that she had us reading The Illustrated Man and not some illustrated abridged nonsense. I never really had a gap in finding books I wanted to read. Seventh grade was also a year in which books I wanted to read totally exploded, because I heard the news that there were genre labels that would give me a much higher probability of giving a damn, and off I went. No wonder I reach for 12 when I want to write books.
But 15 has its promising bits, too; I'll have to think on that.
Anyway. You?
columbina has me wondering about a lot of things. I'm going to write more about some of them in a bit (that is, not today), but until then I'd like to ask a slew of questions. Answer some, all, or none of them, as you like.Did you have a good high school experience? (For those of you outside the US, this question applies to your schooling in your late teen years, somewhere between 14 and 18 for the typical student.) What do you think is most wrong with the way your schooling at that age was conducted? Do you have anything you think was institutionally most right with how your schooling was conducted? (By institutionally, I mean that "Ron Gabriel, my ninth and twelfth grade English teacher, is so awesome" doesn't count unless the school specifically nurtured his awesomeness. Which it didn't. Rotten bastards. You do not use a person's disability against him. This is not acceptable human behavior.)
Do you have stronger, less strong, or similar feelings towards grade school? Junior high/middle school? If you went to college, college? If you went to grad school, grad school? If someone says "your school," which one do you think of? (That presumes that you're not currently working in any capacity at a school that's becoming "yours.")
Did you have one best year of your schooling, where you were learning the most and figuring out the most about yourself? Did you have more than one? Did you have one worst year? Did they correspond with best/worst years otherwise, or did you separate out your school life and your outside/home life?
Was there a time in your schooling when you really enjoyed the books assigned to you to read? What kind of books were they, or, if you remember, what books? Did you otherwise manage to find good books to read, mostly, or did you go through dry spells in your reading life when you were younger?
My high school was a wretched experience, as growing numbers of you on the friendslist know firsthand. I think the most offensively wrong thing about it is that no one in charge actually seemed to care whether individual students were learning anything or not. There were a lot of wrong things competing for the honor of most wrong, though, and total orderings etc. etc. I don't think RHS did a lot right, institutionally, although there were individual teachers who did their best in a very flawed system.
I have stronger feelings towards college because my alma mater, for all its flaws, was mine: I chose it, and I chose my major. I was stuck with Blumfield Elementary, Ralston Middle School, and RHS. Gustavus I chose. If you separate out Gustavus Physics from Gustavus Adolphus College, it is the closest thing I have to blind patriotism.
markgritter and timprov are still bringing me out of "My Department, Right Or Wrong," ("My Professors, Drunk Or Sober" actually might have applied from time to time -- certainly more often than that general sentiment applies to my mother). Whenever I'm reading something where people give their countrymen sanctuary just for being fellow exiles or what have you, the way I get into the mindset is to imagine that it's some Gustie physics geek. Or maybe a Gustie gamer geek. Just a Gustie isn't enough. Aaaaaanyway, I have pretty vivid memories of grade school and junior high, but it's not as much a hot button as high school is. And grad school sucked but is not a very important chapter in my life: I forgive people who don't know me very well for forgetting I was ever in it.My seventh grade year was probably my best year of schooling, but I've had better years of learning or of personal growth. I had Marylyn Bremmer and Mr. Lesch and Mr.
scottjames and I were doing all kinds of geeky fun stuff that actually had something to do with school and not just, y'know, making our own geeky fun. My middle year of high school -- since I skipped one and clearly had a freshman year and a senior year, you can call the middle one sophomore or junior, as you like -- was probably my worst. Other years have had their low spots, to be sure, but the middle year of high school was the most consistently bad. Well...my grad school year was bad, too, but I did quit, and I wrote Fortress of Thorns in the meantime, and I think I learned quite a lot of unrelated stuff.It occurs to me that 12 and 15 are my "resonant ages" for writing YAs. Huh. I'd known 12 -- 12 is my year, my mental age and all that. (Making me, from my understanding of previous con panels and conversations, younger than
pameladean but older than sdn.) But I hadn't spotted 15 as my worst year, which it was. Huh.I enjoyed the books Marylyn assigned my seventh grade class. Mythology. Ray Bradbury. Mark Twain. "Julius Caesar" with Marylyn doing recitations for us. I'm not sure how much of that was Marylyn herself -- I might fling myself into who knows what, for her sake -- I'd give the woman a kidney, heaven knows I could give her a bit of Sylvia Plath if it would make her happy -- but part of Marylyn being Marylyn herself was that she had us reading The Illustrated Man and not some illustrated abridged nonsense. I never really had a gap in finding books I wanted to read. Seventh grade was also a year in which books I wanted to read totally exploded, because I heard the news that there were genre labels that would give me a much higher probability of giving a damn, and off I went. No wonder I reach for 12 when I want to write books.
But 15 has its promising bits, too; I'll have to think on that.
Anyway. You?
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blind patriotism
Date: 2005-01-10 03:24 am (UTC)*cough* Sorry.
Interesting question, and one I am planning to chew on.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 03:50 am (UTC)In terms of what was wrong with my schooling, I guess I can't say the immense suckitude of my trig teacher, right? Seriously, the biggest problem was probably the lack of funding--we had lots of budget cuts which caused them to cut a class period from the high school, so I only got one elective, which was choir. That and they were very rigid about the tracking. I wanted to take a mythology class as an elective and was told I couldn't, because it was too easy for me--even though it was something I was interested in. Once they put you in a little slot you were expected to stay there--which was fine for me, as I was near the top of the food chain academically speaking, but I can see how it would have sucked if you were near the bottom.
Parts of both elementary school and junior high were excruciating for me, in ways that I'd rather not talk about. College sort of bit, too. I would have done better at a smaller school than I ended up at, I think.
Bookwise, most of what I like to read these days doesn't show up on school curricula, except for maybe A Wrinkle In Time (fifth grade, Mrs. Chenman's class). I read a lot of Norse sagas and histories of the Vikings in high school. Those myths are still pretty resonant for me, along with the Celtic myths I discovered in college. I discovered science fiction and fantasy in 9th grade--my father always read science fiction, but I never got into it until I was desperate on a family camping trip for reading material and picked up some series he had with him called "The Sand Wars"--I can't remember what it was about, who wrote it, or if it was any good, but I was hooked. And, um, Alan Dean Foster's Spellsinger series. Oh, Jon-Tom!
no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 03:50 am (UTC)I learned survival skills to complement the survival skills I'd learned growing up in a family where violence was frequent and savage, and so home was never safe just as school was never safe. It took me years to unlearn the moral fallout from those skills, but the skills themselves did help me in other ways. Like, I am very good at being invisible in a crowd.
The standards of teaching, though leaving a lot to be desired, were far higher than the years immediately following my graduation in summer '69, so no use in going into that here.
The blithe assumption of superiority of white middle-class Republican stances became quite hard to bear.
The good memories have to do with some friends, with dance performances, and of course with writing, which I sneaked every chance I could get.
Probably the nadir was the geometry teacher who used to ridicule me in front of the class for my wrong answers, rather than ever explaining what to her was so blindingly simple. I obtained from that experience the conviction that I was incredibly stupid. She would actually read out the right answer and then turn to me and say something like, "Now tell us all what YOU managed to come up with, Miss Smith?" And sure enough the answers I'd labored over for hours would all be wrong.
Nowadays at least teachers cannot get away with that. I hope. I hope.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 04:12 am (UTC)Nowadays at least teachers cannot get away with that. I hope. I hope.
No, nowadays she'd be scoffed at for not using your first name.
Umm. Seriously, usually teachers need to be slightly more subtle than that in belittling their students, but it still happens unfortunately often, in my experience.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 05:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 02:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 02:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 03:55 am (UTC)That attitude, and a lot of similar creepy restrictive stuff about what you couldn't wear and how cheeky you could be and what order things had to happen in, was rampant at my school. You could learn if you were quiet, and obedient, and answered questions the right way. Also, if you were a victim of harrassment rather than an instigator, you were still one of the bad guys for the moment. It wasn't so much implied that you had asked for it as it was that you should have figured out how to settle things before the teacher had to notice -- rather like gym class, only without a schedule.
In twelfth grade they got rid of the dress code and I got to take both Creative Writing and AP English. I felt much happier and better able to concentrate when I wasn't strangling in horrible clothing, and that English class was the first time I enjoyed anything that was assigned to me to read. Also I was lucky in that the people who had been trying to bully me since ninth grade were not very academically gifted, so once the class was getting more split up by interests, they basically just weren't around any more. I learned more that year than in all the others put together, though I did have a shining ninth-grade English class where I actually learned grammar. I didn't get an A, though, because I wouldn't participate in class discussions. After that I never participated in class discussions no matter how much I was cajoled or threatened. In general, actions taken in order to "show THEM" don't work out so well, but I have to say, thinking over my life, that really, I have, the autocratic automatic unthinking bastards.
For college, see, well, you know.
P.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 04:15 am (UTC)Is that luck? I suppose it is, since there are plenty of genius assholes, but in my experience honors classes were a million and one miles better than the regular kind. I was "safe" in honors classes.
And I think "show THEM" is not sufficient motivation for doing something...but if it also happens to be something you'd otherwise like, the added bonus is not at all a bad thing.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 08:17 pm (UTC)I forgot to answer your question about reading. I never had any trouble at all finding good things to read. I never had a reading dry spell. Class assignments were mostly just orthogonal to my ongoing immersion in words.
P.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 08:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 04:00 am (UTC)High school was pretty lousy for me. First of all, I went to school in a small town in Texas--some rather close-minded teachers, an administration clearly biased in favor of the students who wore Ropers as opposed to Docs and flannel. Also, I was a year younger than my classmates (I had homeschool for kindergarten and started a year early) and generally socially awkward and not aesthetically pleasing.
My first year of college at UT Austin was pretty wacky, mostly because I had a lot of leftover self esteem problems from high school and did stupid things. Then I moved to UNT and things got much better. I'm still there, doing sporadic grad work and working for the library. It's my school and I'm fond of it, but I don't feel any kind of patriotism for it.
My senior year of high school was the best, I think. I knew I was getting out, and we read a lot of Shakespeare and Chaucer and Austen and other fun stuff.
Writing-wise, my first year of grad school was the best. I finally trunked the book I'd been working on since my junior year of high school and started something much better.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 04:17 am (UTC)Not aesthetically pleasing for real, or not aesthetically pleasing by local standards? It's amazing how much more attractive I became in the three months between graduation from high school and the beginning of college, without changing my hairstyle, any of my measurements, or any facial features. Absolutely a-mazing.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 04:31 am (UTC)One of those things boys who think being a cowboy involves driving a big truck and dipping snuff wear. I can't remember now if they're boots or jeans.
In high school I was about two inches shorter and twenty pounds heavier, and my hair was a disaster, but I didn't have any horrible growths or spots or anything (never having acne was my saving grace). And then I went to college, and suddenly people thought I was pretty. It about blew my mind.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 06:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 05:20 am (UTC)I mean really bizarre.
I skipped 1st grade; repeated 3rd; switched to a nearby district's G&T magnet program mid-5th; came back after 6th to middle school except that I'd already run past the math options they had in my home district's middle school (there was only one), so they put me in 1st period algebra at the HS along with a couple 8th graders in the same boat, and drove us back to the MS in time for 2nd period; took math and science at the HS in 8th grade, then rode over with a special ed teacher who was time-shared between the two schools; finally, two months into 9th grade, we worked out a plan that basically moved me up two grades (waiving all sorts of requirements that were district reqs instead of state law, mostly), so that I was instantly an 11th grader.
The district administrator made a lot of difference in how the system worked; the move to another district was during a particularly bad one, the two-grade bounce was under the best one we dealt with during my time there.
12th grade was probably the best, because school was almost over, I had one particular extracurricular activity that I very much enjoyed (not that, an official school activity; get your mind out of the gutter), and I had good friends who were the co-valedictorians as well as the co-captains of the football team (which basically eliminated any bullying issues, heh).
Worst? Gah. Too many options to consider there.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 02:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 02:44 pm (UTC)The minute any of the athletes at my school had shown any support for or interest in newspaper staff, debate, marching band, math club, etc. etc. et-freakin'-c. would be the time I'd have started to worry about whether their feelings were hurt that I wasn't supporting them in their 40th straight loss.
In marching band when I was a freshman, we got lots of lectures about SUPPORT, about how the band was supposed to SUPPORT the cheerleaders and the football team and they were supposed to SUPPORT us and so on. My friend Megan and I agreed that anyone who wanted support should go buy a better bra because it was not our problem. We started catching each other's eye and making a bra-strap-hitching motion whenever we heard about SUPPORT after that. We amused each other through a lot of crap, Megan and I did.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 06:48 am (UTC)I had a fairly good Senior AP English class because it was a curriculum based on some college prep syllabus. We read a lot of international literature, but didn't spend a whole lot of time "discussing" it. ::rolls eyes:: We were still being pushed towards the early entrance college exams or other standarized tests of the day (the SAT being the BIGGEST focus my junior year.)
Our biggest problem is that we're not being taught how to THINK. We're being taught how to take standardized tests. I was not encouraged to problem solve in ways that weren't with the standard. I was not taught how to think "outside the box". I was not taught how to handle awkward social situations. High schoolers were either treated like animals--to be caged and then released on a schedule--or pumped for the next state exam.
On the positive side, I was accepted into a state program that was like an "arts high school" for a handful of students from each high school in our county. For a couple of days a week, I'd be bused off-campus to a college campus and then take a class of my choice. I was accepted into the poetry program, believe it or not. My sister was accepted into the drama program.
It was the only time during my high school education where I felt my opinion and thoughts mattered--yes, it was a workshop type of environment (the teacher was a published poet and she was very very encouraging to all the students).
Our arts and music programs were fine--I was in the marching band, the orchestra, the drama club. There was even a writing/literary magazine, but the teacher was more of a "benign guardian" than guide. She knitted while we read each other's work and gabbed about it. I don't recall her ever reading any of our stuff, but she was neither dismissive nor patronizing... at least our school wasn't totally devoted to its sports programs. We seemed to be a fairly even keel sort of place with no real out of balance clubs or organizations that I was aware of.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 02:50 pm (UTC)This was very important to me about Academic Decathlon. There really wasn't much that was outside AcaDec's official scope, so we had an excuse to talk about whatever we wanted, literature, art, politics, religion, science, philosophy, whatever. And Jan, our advisor, argued with us as though we were reasonable human beings, go figure. She and I disagreed on an alarming number of things, given how close we were then and have remained. Which was a good lesson in itself, I suppose.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 06:57 am (UTC)It's interesting to note that, when I started programming for the college administrative data processing center (the college in town, while I was still in highschool) in 10th grade (not 9th; it was 1969, but late in the year, so it would have been my 10th grade time actually) I met a the other college students doing that, and their friends. They were mostly around 4 years older then me at that point. And I found a lot of my social activity happening with that group (or I started having a lot more social activity now that I'd found that group). I was reminded at my 30th reunion that I'd graduated jointly at #1 with the yearbook editor (I was the photo editor that year).
There were annoying things, certainly. Some students were a bit unpleasant. The interest in sports was unpleasant. But, in Northfield, several of the major football players and the cheerleaders were also in the same math classes with me. And asked for help on homework sometimes :-) . Pep rallies were a pain -- but taking them on as a photographic project made them much more interesting.
"School" may well mean my highschool; "college" is Carleton. I may use "school" for college sometimes, I guess, or at least accept the usage if somebody else starts it.
College was first-rate. It's pretty handy to move to a new environment. There were a few people from my higschool class still with me in college, but I saw almost nothing of them (nobody I'd been close to or disliked, either one). I knew pretty much from the beginning that I wanted to work with computers; I just wasn't sure if I wanted an advanced degree. In the end I didn't (I was tired of school by then), and by then I had 8 years of local work on my resume and a pretty good network of people in the industry that I'd worked with. So that worked out well.
I don't ever recall being assigned an especially interesting book to read for a class. Some okay plays (Shakespeare). I didn't *hate* Dickens. And one teacher let us pick a book to read, so *I* made *him* read Dune. It was very interesting to have a literary discussion with an English teach about a book I knew 10 times better than he did -- having read it many times before, read it just then for the class, and even read the sequel (awful piece of crap) again just to be sure. I never took a literature course in college.
I have no idea about "worst" or "best" years in school. Nothing really sticks out.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 07:49 am (UTC)Nothing truly awful happened to me at school. For the longest time I didn't believe those books and movies about kids being tormented at school; that just didn't happen around me. I was just grindingly unhappy. It was (and is) a small public school--my graduating class was ~115--and barring a few transfers, the classes had been together since sixth grade (and some longer; I went to the largest of three grade schools, which fed into one middle school, which fed into the high school).
This was good for the usual cited reasons, small classes and such, and especially because it meant they couldn't be too fussy with who got to do what: the cross-country team was the track team was the Scholastic Bowl team was the jazz band was the pit band, etc.
This was bad because it meant that by the time you hit high school, everyone knew who you were, and that was that. Dunno if this is where my terror of getting stuck comes from, but it did some cementing for sure.
The most wrong thing for me was (I assume) another casuality of the school's size. Limited honors courses, and if that was honors, I can't imagine what the regular classes were like. Not much at all by way of electives. And I don't want to blame the teachers, exactly, because they weren't doing anything wrong. (Or I don't want to blame most of them. The guy who spent a week on comma placement worksheets in a senior honors English class? Blame!) But there wasn't enough done right for me, and I was desperately bored. The only time I was a) given stuff that was hard for me and b) made to work and understand it was in physics, senior year, and man. That was my very favorite class.
Some of this--I don't know. Looking back, I wish I'd taken more responsibility for my own education. To a certain extent? Yes. My fault. But at the same time, I was a kid, and it seems like it's asking a lot for a kid to take that kind of responsibility in an institution (my school, not necessarily all schools) that doesn't encourage or reward, let alone demand, it. I needed more. We all did.
Best thing. Having trouble thinking of anything. Individuals, yes. That physics teacher. And my cross-country coach. And cross-country in general. But they're not really what you're asking about. I will say that my sister went to the same school--was a freshman when I was a senior--and had a totally different experience. Of course, we're different people, so there's that. But it does sound like there are some newer teachers doing a fantastic job.
"My school" is college. Not the choosing thing in my case, since it was less a choice than "I don't want to go, but I'm too busy freaking out to find anything else useful to do, so I guess I will." But it was a different place, with different people, and that mattered more than what place and which people they were, because I was different to them, too. I kept changing--still keep changing--but just getting out was superhelpful in getting my feet back underneath me. College was the first place where I started feeling that people saw me. It--the philosophy department in particular--was also the first place where I ran up against that blend of stuff that I could grasp and stuff that was just out of reach, and profs who seemed interested in helping me grasp it, and helping me figure out how to help myself. Heady and addictive. Me? Hooked.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 02:26 pm (UTC)If I gather what you're saying, I agree. I wish high school could have spent more time guiding toward possible careers. Take a whole year just to show us the possibilities, even. I don't think much would be lost.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-11 03:46 am (UTC)I'd like a good career guidance program, for sure. But I'd like more for schools to really teach how to think and such.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-11 03:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 08:02 am (UTC)The academics match their physical plant; one of my senior year classes was called "Individual Humanities" in which the final paper required was a 50-page biography (I did mine on HL Mencken), a 10-page bibliography, in which you had to discuss the books you used for the larger paper, and a 15-page personal statement, encapsulating what you learned in examining your biographical subject. Suffice to say that once I got through academics at Webb, it took me a year and a half at the University of Chicago before I wasn't learning stuff I had already learned in high school (this would explain my low rate of attendance in college classes). In short, a great place to learn because it had the resources and it valued learning. Academically, I can't see that Webb did much of anything wrong.
I should note that I was *not* the son of a well-off person, which most people who attended the school were; I was the charity case of the class of 1987. However, I would note that contrary to most rich kid stereotypes, I was never made to feel like money (or my lack thereof) mattered. There was certainly snobbery and the usual teen crap, but not along that axis. The school was small and everybody was in everybody's business because it was a boarding school -- as a result I was fortunate to make a number of very excellent friends who remain my very best friends to this day.
Being nominally a geek, I recognize that high school was supposed to be a very difficult time, and I would be lying if I said it was all smooth sailing (I was a twitchy kid in a number of ways). But overall I think I had just about the best high school experience you can have, and I've always been grateful for that.
In fact, I was fortunate in nearly all of my educational experience -- I had uniformly excellent teachers from kindergarten forward who encouraged me (and other students) to learn as much as we could, and took the time to aid us. I was also always fortunate to have good, close friends every step of the way, so I didn't feel the isolation and alienation a lot of smart kids have, and again, I've always been grateful for that.
College was a blast and I definitely went to the right school for me (University of Chicago has all the resources of the best universities of the country -- because it is one of the best -- but without those annoying ivy league striver types who will claw your eyes out trying to get to the top of whatever heap they deem important), so again, very fortunate. Basically I don't know what I did to accrue this sort of educational experience karma, but whoever I was in my past life: Hey, thanks, guy.
great expectations
Date: 2005-01-10 09:45 am (UTC)It makes me understand that you are different from me, as I never even had idea that anyone would have had be bothered by that. What an individual student learns is their business only - school gives the access, no more, ever. An individual failing student becomes important only when there are suddenly too many who fail, so that school is not doing its duty to society (and some educators are VERY cynical about what that duty is. Some say public high schools are mainly meant to keep the young people, who would be unemployed and making trouble on streets otherwise, occupied and out of the way ...).
Re: great expectations
Date: 2005-01-10 02:37 pm (UTC)The problem here is not too many who fail but not enough who fail: people who have claim to learning they haven't mastered. People who aren't ready to do anything in society, and society has been shielded from finding out about it.
Re: great expectations
Date: 2005-01-10 03:26 pm (UTC)Also, do not you think you were too privileged (in good brains and good parents department) to say "It did not give me any access!" Or did you really go to school where all the study was done in foreign language? Were most of books on your parents shelves, in libraries and in shops in foreign language?
Re: great expectations
Date: 2005-01-10 03:41 pm (UTC)If I'd gone to a school where all the study was done in a foreign language, there might have been something new to me there! My parents' shelves, the (non-school) library's shelves, and bookstores' shelves had nothing to do with what the school was doing or failing to do. Sure, you can easily come up with worse circumstances. But we can always do worse. We're good at doing worse. The point is to do better. So yes, I was privileged to have smart parents and good bookstores in the area. But that doesn't mean that the school and its administrators weren't an obstacle, and weren't deliberately an obstacle, rather than an aid or a neutral point, in learning.
Re: great expectations
Date: 2005-01-10 04:43 pm (UTC)you are more right than you know - in specialized schools, considered to be better, there are 48 pupils per class. And who fall behind are weeded out to thse small 30 people classes
Re: great expectations
Date: 2005-01-10 05:14 pm (UTC)Re: great expectations
Date: 2005-01-10 05:37 pm (UTC)A 30-person class would be anomalously small for a public school graduating class that wasn't in a farming community. It would be reasonable for the group of kids who were all learning algebra in the same room at the same time.
Re: great expectations
Date: 2005-01-10 08:18 pm (UTC)Aet
Re: great expectations
Date: 2005-01-10 08:23 pm (UTC)Re: great expectations
Date: 2005-01-10 08:29 pm (UTC)Aet
Re: great expectations
Date: 2005-01-10 05:38 pm (UTC)But no one ever said that the experiences you've had are as good as it can possibly get. Aspiring to improve things is good.
Mixed bag
Date: 2005-01-10 02:01 pm (UTC)The really crappy part of school for me was middle school and junior high. Once I was pushed around and had my property trashed in front of the teacher, who didn't even say "stop it." On top of the mediocre quality of the teaching staff and the complete emphasis on athletics, I was the smart fat kid. I got picked on a lot, and responded by becoming quite the little shithead out of self-defense, which just compounded the problem with people who weren't going out of their way to torment me. Some self-realizations about what a jerk I was being helped that a lot in time for high school, and getting in shape didn't hurt any with the ladies, which helped my high school experience suck less.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 03:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 04:48 pm (UTC)I can't really talk about any of my education in institutional terms. Administrators didn't help or hurt me, as I remember. It never crossed my mind that I wouldn't be allowed to do what I set my mind on (I'm *so* different now, ha), and the administrators either genuinely wanted not to get in my way, or they had more pressing things to worry about.
I had better and worse years, but those had more to do with personal and family situations than school. I did like junior high and high school somewhat more than elementary, because the academic and social sides of school were more segregated, which made my life easier; I could be academic, or social, without them getting in the way of each other.
I remember 11th grade as being especially good for reading--we did American literature in English class, and it was the first time I understood what made it distinctively American. Also, 11th grade was when I really grasped the concept of literary symbolism, so that gave everything I read an extra sparkly sort of shininess.
I don't remember an outstanding "personal growth" year. Kind of the opposite; there were the years I sort of just rolled along, and then there were the years I could tell I was stuck, but couldn't put my finger on it at the time. Sophomore year of college was when I really grasped the concept of having a chosen direction in life,
so that's when I started connecting what I was studying with who I am.
I'd say my high school experience was mostly good. I wasn't tortuously bored in classes, I played lacrosse, I was an editor of the literary journal and part of the math club and competed in language competitions, I did a lot of chatting. I could have gotten more out of it, and I could have done without some parts of it, but I don't think I should retroactively judge harshly for that.
As for loyalty, patriotism...I'd say my hometown wins that, hands down, and I can't separate out my hometown schools from that. But my college departments--linguistics and Celtic Studies--have my educational loyalty. That is where I think of myself as becoming me, intellectually.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 11:16 pm (UTC)He's also got lots of stories of older adults continuing to read and enjoy classics. All of which seems to indicate that those schools, or the culture, or something, did more than just allow students to get an education.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-11 03:54 am (UTC)More broadly, if the so-called Greatest Generation was so freakin' Great, why didn't they convey their ideals, values, and traits better to their immediate descendents?
no subject
Date: 2005-01-10 11:27 pm (UTC)My HS teachers weren't bad and I had especially good ones in English and science. The one piece of institutional stupidity was that the gifted program there was just having gifted English and Math classes (equivalent to AP, which the school *also* had, in English) and one period a week in which we were supposed to review and work on independent study projects but in which in practice the principal forced us to do SAT and PSAT practice. For *three years*. The study and research habits from a project would have done me a lot more good when I got to college.
Penn is "my school" but ever since graduation and getting the alumni magazine to show me what others had done, I've felt a little disengaged from it, like I'm not as tightly linked as the people who had family tradition there or who participated in all of the traditional or innovative activities there. I never lived in the Quad (Penn's biggest dorm) and my main extracurricular activities were Drinking and Hanging Out. When I talk to people who rowed or sang in Glee Club (or any of the other gazillion different types of choirs there) or acted in plays, they seem to have had a more intense bond with the school. On the other hand, Engineering classes left a lot less time than the Arts and Sciences people had - they had to take one less class per semester, for one thing.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-11 03:50 am (UTC)I would say yes, I remember my high school with pleasure – not that I would want to do it again, but I am glad that it happened with me exactly the way it did. I cannot say that it is comparable with High school myth in Northern America, being that my school was an unusual institution in the strange times, and in Russia.
What do you think is most wrong with the way your schooling at that age was conducted?
Do you have anything you think was institutionally most right with how your schooling was conducted?
Both right and wrong have the same cause: our education was rather chaotic (wrong), and experimental and free-spirited (right.) My high school years (two) started with the fall of Soviet Union, in the strange and confusing and hopeful atmosphere of the early nineties. We actually were a group of history geeks, who chose this high school on our free will (the regular school structure in Russian schools is that we have “classes” of thirty students as permanent groups who have all classes together, which brings a cool sense of unity with people, whom you otherwise wouldn’t be caught dead together.) so, two years in group of like-minded, but very different teenagers who thought very highly of themselves were a blast. We had lots and lots of history classes, lots of literature, and some subjects that didn’t usually exist in Russian school in that time. Plus, the principal and the teachers were listening to us in many concerns.
Do you have stronger, less strong, or similar feelings towards grade school? Junior high/middle school? If you went to college, college? If you went to grad school, grad school? If someone says "your school," which one do you think of?
I have the feelings of the same strength – the eight years before high school left a strong mark on me, as well as the university after. My school? They all are “my school” in different ways, but the university the most, I guess, bred that feeling of patriotism, where I will defend till the last breath that they are the best and are always right.
Did you have one best year of your schooling, where you were learning the most and figuring out the most about yourself? Did you have more than one? Did you have one worst year? Did they correspond with best/worst years otherwise, or did you separate out your school life and your outside/home life?
The best year was the third year in the university (law school), when the learning itself was giving me the most enjoyment. The high school years were great, too, and the year before high school. My worst year in terms of schooling? The closest I can think of my seventh year at school (I was 13), since I don’t remember much about it. My overall worst year was when I was 15, but in terms of schooling it was fine.
Was there a time in your schooling when you really enjoyed the books assigned to you to read? What kind of books were they, or, if you remember, what books? Did you otherwise manage to find good books to read, mostly, or did you go through dry spells in your reading life when you were younger?
Books and I? There was never a dry spell, always too many to read. I read chaotically, children’s books, adult books, fiction, non-fiction, sf, fairy-tales, classics, poetry (since fourteen) (fantasy started to be published in Russia later) Books in school program I enjoyed when I managed to read them before they were assigned and over-analyzed at school – before the new literature teacher in the high school, with whom we went beyond the confinement of rigid old school program and had actual meaningful discussions – on those books that were “in the program” and those that were not.
no subject
Date: 2005-01-11 05:59 am (UTC)