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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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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.