Are you proud of your school years?

[Rorie]

i certinally are not so now i have gone to tafe to attempt to pass a maths & english course i started tafe almost 3-4 years ago

[KeenRush]

My grades were good, not that I care about such things anymore, but I'm not proud of those years, as they more or less went to waste when I had to sit in school. Alas, no alternative.

[tulip]

Why would anybody be proud to have been in school? I mean in countries where you have to go to school.
But I enjoyed my time at school. I never had any problems with grades, so my years in school really mean a lot of free time, and (now I know) many friends with free time as well.

[Galaxieretter]

High school was a waste of time. Was I proud of my school years?

Looking back I realize that it doesn't matter now does it?

I wish I was more academic. I could have been much smarter than what I am. Problem was with the public school system is that they didn't let you tell them (the state) that you are smarter than what they tell you, you aren't.

I should have went to college.

[Commander Spleen]

I loved my primary school years, and the time I spent down at the local secondary college. Many awesome memories that I'd go back and relive if I could. I learnt a lot and built up a great circle of friends, all of us pretty much misfits.

When I moved to a private grammar school, things went downhill significantly. Everything was about grades and discipline for their own sake. The content of what we were learning was, as far as I saw it, considered secondary to that. I wanted to learn as much as I could related to game development, but there was nothing at all (even in the IT classes, which concentrated more on technician work and noob-level programming in Java, for example) that would contribute to that, except the option of going to university and studying it further. By the time I crawled my way through VCE, I had no further interest in enduring the education system and being away from home all the time, so university was the least appealing thing for me.

I took a TAFE course during my second year following school, but it turned out to be a customer service stream rather than programming as I'd hoped. And so much of my time was spent in the library on the Internet, or in class drifting to sleep every ten minutes.

Since then I've been teaching myself everything I want to learn. It's a much slower route than if I moved somewhere to take a couple of courses for a few years, but at least I don't have to put up with all the irrelevance that gets laced into them these days, and remain free to maintain my social life down here.

[Ceilick]

I don't know if proud is the word I'd use, I'm generally satisfied with my early education. I spent elementary, junior high, and my first year of high school in a private Christian school. Classes were small, I got good grades and I was smart aside from simple memorizations.

My second year of high school I transferred to public school, which was a disaster. Similar to what Galaxieretter said (I think), I was forced to take classes that I was several years ahead of; I blame this for atrophying and ruining my ability to do math.

My third and fourth years of high school were spent in the Running Start program, allowing me to go to Community College instead of taking high school classes. This was by far the biggest contribution to my education and I wouldn't be the person I am today without it.

I'm currently spending my second year at the University of Washington. University is...not what I expected. I consider it a pathetic excuse for education, its like being in public high school again. Right now I'm here to get a degree and then get out.

[DSL]

Schools are generally stupid.

They give young kids false information about what it means to become a productive part of society, simply means many schools won't give any real, valueble, specialized information/education, often the teaching only benifits people with good memorize capability (we all know it all comes down to the tests in most cases, don't we ;) and many extra wasted years are required just to get a diploma or certificate.

I realized that much that i was taught in school was totally pointless and wasted time for me. Yet i had to take part in that education.

And perhaps one important fact is that schools are generally bad to educate on what to do when failing. So many schools assume that you will success in what you are doing, but failing is a fact of life and you need to know how to handle failing. People who graduate college are left toally confused when there is no more school and they are expected to know everything from start. It's learning bye burning after you graduate!

I'm proud about my scool years in a way, they showed me education is not all nessecary and will not guarantee sucess even if you work hard for it.
Learning about yourself and what dreams you want to realize can be as good as any education and can take you just as far.

[IMA3HDDMNKY]

It was quite possibly the worst time of my life. I rarely think about it anymore.

[DSL]

We should be proud that we actually have working school systems though, school systems that teaches us, perhaps unrelevant knowledge sometimes, but basic education. In very poor countries with no working educational or communicational systems people still believe in witches, magic and all sorts of random beliefs about reality.

We should be proud that we don't have an educational system that actively forces any religious or political beliefs upon us (that goes for me at least.)

[Deltamatic]

We should be proud that we don't have an educational system that actively forces any religious or political beliefs upon us (that goes for me at least.)

You don't live in the US, do you?

[KeenRush]

@IMA3HDDMNKY: I feel exactly the same.

Nothing of it makes sense. It's all about turning one into a cog in the machine. Which in itself is pointless. I should become a punk... You don't even learn any trade in schools, do you? You might learn some skills, but when you're hired somewhere you have to learn plenty of new stuff, and how the real world works. I guess this is especially true with university studies. And it's silly how they make you learn all that pointless stuff when you're a kid. I remember nothing. Just the same if I had stayed home playing Keen those compulsory years... Plus they promise you big things and then you can have nothing in the end!

Edit: Wherever you are your school will pump you full of their ideology. There is no such thing as neutrality.

[DSL]

We should be proud that we don't have an educational system that actively forces any religious or political beliefs upon us (that goes for me at least.)

You don't live in the US, do you?

Nope. Europe.
I understand things are a bit different over in the USA.

Perhaps my statement wasn't meant for everyone...

[tulip]

I can agree with everything DSL has said here. Maybe it really is different with schools in europe.

[DSL]

Wherever you are your school will pump you full of their ideology. There is no such thing as neutrality.

I was fortunate during my years in basic school. My brother moved to a new school and i didn't want to but eventually switched as well. I never regret that decision. That new school taught everyone a concept of freedom and responsibility, independent work and studies driven by students themselves and we had alot more resources to work with. You may think 'indepencence and responsibility' sounds like a mean ideology, but the concept was that every student had the access to every corner of the school but also had responsibilty to not abuse this freedom.

The same thing with the studies, we were direct involved in shaping our own studies (it was still lead and supervised by professional teachers.) The responsibility for shaping your own knowledge was important way of seeing things since other school kinda feeds you with pointless stuff, just like you said. All classes and subjects where honest and open minded.

Unfortunately i noticed the difference first when i got to college. It went back to the standard feed of knowledge, at least the regular classes.
But i'm happy i've made the right choices during my school years. Even college was a success and it has led me to the point i am today, working as a 2d/3d/comp artist for computer graphics and film production. (Still it was job contacts that helped me in the end!)

Since i was in seventh grade i have had the goal of working with this stuff.
Of all the things i learned through my school years only 5% helped me with any knowledge about this profession. I have driven my studies about it totally on my own on my spare time, sacrificing alot of my youth.

So that's what i mean about leting students realize their dreams and goals in life, not just feed them pointless knowledge everyone allready know and make stupid tests about it.

[DaVince]

I am definitely not proud of dropping out in University. I should pick up and finish another study one of these days...

My high school (well, the Dutch equivalent to it) experiences were rather simple: I was disliked by students, liked by teachers, really shy and quiet all of the time and did well nough to at least pass. I also get the feeling that a bunch of people thought I was racist and/or gay, for some reason.

Well, generally I can't say I'm all that proud of myself with any sort of achievement ever since high school. I had the most fun in lower school and uni I guess.