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"Education"

I apologize in advance - this isn't going to be well planned.

School sucks.

I don't mean that in a 'teacherz r crap, I don’t need no education, I could survive on the streets' way. I mean it in a 'funning hell this is a stupid way of doing things' way.

Let me try and explain.

I'm in year 11. I have half a term of compulsory education left - it's about 9 school weeks. In May I start my GCSEs - the things I've been working toward for the last two years.

I can't say that I'm an exceptionally hard worker, but I'm smart. I read a lot, I try to keep up with politics, I'm interested in the world around me. The thing is, after two years of doing minimal work, I'm really screwed - I have two years of I.T. coursework to do in the next three days. This isn't the schools fault, it's mine, and I accept that. Believe it or not, I'm not perfect.

So now I'm spending my entire time worrying about what I'm going to do. The coursework is stupid, to put it quite frankly - as with a lot of coursework, you have to DELIBERITLY make mistakes in order to rectify them. That doesn't make much sense to me.
The way they mark coursework is silly. They have a mark scheme, the teachers have a mark scheme, and you have a mark scheme. So all you have to do it jump through a series of boring, utterly useless hoops. Inspiration is strictly a no go area - with GCSEs, thinking for yourself seems to have been banned.
Even poetry - you have to interpret it in the areas that they want you to interpret it. For example, you have to make points about structure, make points about language…it, like I've already mentioned, it stupid.

I don't want to do the subjects that I am doing. I have no interest in Geography, or French, or DT, or IT, or History, or Maths. And they certainly aren’t educating me - when was the last time you *really* needed to know how an igneous rock was formed?

What I'm wondering is just what I've been doing spending THE LAST TWO YEARS OF MY LIFE on these things. I can't see a reason for it, other than that it is the easiest thing to do - it’s the thing that everyone else does so I have to follow or society won't like me.
I'm not saying that I'm intending to drop out and live as a hermit or something - I'm too balless to do that. I intend to ride the system through to university. So maybe I'm being a bit of a hypocrite here - I'm moaning about a system but I have no plans to try and change it or leave it.

What I'm just getting my head around is that school is my life, really. Yes, I do do other things, but like it or not everything else has to fit in around school. It's the center point of my existence and there is nothing I can do to change that. Yes, I can get married and have children now that I'm 16, but I have to attend French lessons against my will.

It's just so frustrating. I feel like I'm spending my life waiting for school to end, just procrastinating. I'm waiting to start my life, yet I can see it flashing past me. All I have ever known is school. 5 days a week, 9 - 4, every year of my life that I can remember. And when I think of what I could have accomplished in that time had I put my mind to it…

11 years I have been at school, and what have I got out of it education wise?
Well, I can read and write, and I can add numbers up. That's quite handy, but I learnt almost all of that on my own out of school. Nobody has EVER taught me how to write a story, or how to construct sentences, or even told me what words mean. I've leant it all through copying the books that I've read.

Out of school I have got no education. I've learnt a lot of facts by rote, but there is no understanding there. I wouldn't care, it's just 11 years - just think, if I had spent that time in a music school, wouldn't you expect me to come out of there being able to play at least one instrument?

I need GCSEs so I can go and do A-Levels. Philosophy, Politics, Film Studies, and English Literature. To do these subjects, I need GCSEs in French, DT, IT, History, Geography, Maths, and Science.
That doesn't make much sense to me, but then, I suppose none of it does.

I'm off to make up the results of a questionnaire. Excuse me.

Hmph. Just you wait until you're in a job where a manager who's been cut'n'pasted out of a Dilbert cartoon has you making changes that actually make the product you're designing worse. And then three weeks later berates you for making the changes, and tells you to put it back like it was.

Then, and only then will you know the true feeling of wasted potential.

It's alright studying at home though, it just means no homework ;)

Microchips wrote:
> And another thing- I really wanted to do Philosophy too, but it was in
> the same option pool as Physics- which is my best subject. The
> solution? I'm now studying at home. I bought two books yesterday
> "Philosphy: The basics" and "The consolations of
> Philosphy (I think it was called that)". I'm annoyed though- the
> one thing that interests me has been shut out of my school life in
> order for me to do physics.
>
> Damn school.

I do Philosophy at AS - I can honestly say you're missing out. I'm not going to be kind and say it's rubbish, because I'm not like that. It's my favourite subject. But if it is any consolation, the exam papers look as hard as the aforementioned igneous rock. Which is very hard. Three parts to each question - a six marker, fifteen marker and twenty four marker.


And to the original post - you don't need the subjects at GCSE (like Geography) that you don't want to do at A level - why would you? Unless the college you want to go to requires 11 high grades, which is unlikely. I go to the 4th best college in the country (according to average points per person) and I needed 5 B's. Granted, I got 4 A*'s and 5 A's, but I could've got in with 5 B's. So you might need one or two subjects that you don't want to do, but not all of them.

Compared to school Uni is awesome. The work is harder, but its never baffling and you have real freedom. The only thing i hate is the fact that due to travelling and stuff i can be away from home for about 11 hours on some days.

Being somewhere near the end of the education chain - at University - it does seem like we have a pretty stupid system. I wasted five years, at about 5 hours a week, doing French all through secondary school because we had to. Despite getting an A - god knows how - can I remember any of it ? No, do I care about it ? No !

The good news is that when you get to Uni;

a) you do very little - from what I can see a 2.1 is no problem by just doing the minimum work.
b) you do what you want - in reason
c) you've lost all the idiots who just want to mess around all day
d) you actually have long holidays with nothing to do in them, like end of May to start of October......

And even better, the dissertation you do at the end gets to be about anything you want as long as it fits the subject. Excellent :)

~~Belldandy~~

And another thing- I really wanted to do Philosophy too, but it was in the same option pool as Physics- which is my best subject. The solution? I'm now studying at home. I bought two books yesterday "Philosphy: The basics" and "The consolations of Philosphy (I think it was called that)". I'm annoyed though- the one thing that interests me has been shut out of my school life in order for me to do physics.

Damn school.

Yep, I'm in the same boat. I'm going away on holiday tomorrow, and guess what? yep, I have to do an essay on Lenin for History, an Essay in Englsh and a load of Maths tests. Ummm... this was supposed to be a holiday, yes?


School- it infests your life. Most weekends are devoted to Electronics coursework, countless essays and even more homework. And when I come back from holiday, all I see is a sea of revision. And further still- I still don't know what I want to do career-wise. This means that I've had to be careful choosing my A-Level subjects- So I've gone for Physics, Chemistry, Maths and Geogrpahy. They'll allow me to go into all types of profession.

But it is scary really. All those tests, homework, essays- all build up 11 tests.

I'm scared.

You sound a lot like me. I'm right there.

I've stopped caring that much. They're only GCSEs - I know I'm gonna get 11 A-Cs. My coursework's all there, it's not all perfect, but I've done it.
And exams really don't bother me.
You just sit quietly for a few hours and regurgatate everything you've been told and try and pass it off as your own.

I do have a whole DT folder to do this half-term
*Sigh*
Which is easy, and boring and just plain dull. I knew what I as going to do right from the start, now I have to do all this crap on research and different idea I came up with - even though I've stuck with the original.
It's called the 'design process' apprently. Here's my design process:

"That's a good idea"
*Gets made*

A lot less complicated.

Poppety.

Yep I'd agree with most of that, especially IT, it gets worse at A Level, so glad I dropped it after just the AS year. Even at A Level though you still need to write things within certain boundries just so you can score marks, this is especially true with English.

Good on you for choosing Film Studies I can honestly say it's the most enjoyable lesson I've ever done, it's really interesting and fun, I actually like that lesson and enjoy going.

And yeah everyone makes up results to questionaire's I always do it.
Good luck getting you IT done, fortunately I finished mine just in time and got a good mark (I think it was a B) so keep at it, make that thing fail!