You know it's August when...

[A Black Falcon]

NOOOOO! Oh for... no way do I miss that! High school is the worst place in the universe, well unless you fit into a nice social group, then from what I understand it's fine. If you, like me, just didn't get all the social stuff and your "peers" decided that meant you had to be ridiculed, then you basically SURVIVED the experience. On the other hand, college is full of people who are actually ADULTS about life.

DJ, high school isn't as bad for that stuff than Junior High was, though... Jr. High is the worst, high school definitely had its bad points but it was a definite improvement... people have grown up slightly and seem to be slightly more mature... people picked on me less, at least... and the classes are more interesting.

Children certainly are cruel, especially when they're younger, though...

(On a lesser note, gym should have always been, from the start, an elective. Kids excercise on their own running around like maniacs, exactly like I do... um used to do (yeah, I don't suddenly sugar spaz and flail around my room pretending to be some sort of dancing ninja acrobat and scaring my cat... at least when someone else is in there). What possible use could climbing a rope or fluffing up a parachute or dodgeball actually have? I've heard the fluffy hypothesis that it "builds character" but the evidence seems to be totally lacking. Any teamwork skills they are supposed to build can be just as easily built in a setting like a TEAM PROJECT that actually does what school is meant to be about. Plus, they waste money on a lot of pointless junk that could be better spent on UP TO DATE BOOKS.

Given the current increasing problems with childhood obesity, mandatory gym is a very good idea.

They don't know anything and thus have nothing TO teach anyone about social skills. What, do they want to reinvent the progress society has made every single generation by random experimentation with the masses in a confined setting? The second issue is this is not anything LIKE society. This is on so many different levels, the first being the ignorance that high school "populars" have with how the real world works, but the arrogance thinking they do. They will either ignore or sometimes even take it upon themselves to "teach" the unpopulars the way they should act, even though in a scant few years, every single thing they ever did in high school will be utterly meaningless except, gasp, the actual studying. Being queen of the dance won't impress anyone, and with every one of your friends spread thin throughout society, it becomes clear that being popular in school does not translate at all to the masses who just don't care at all about you (nor should they).

I just ignored people, pretty much... not exactly a way to be popular for sure, but I didn't exactly care about that. :) So I had one friend... so? :)

Anyway, that is partially true, but it is true that far too often the real world does work like high school popularity... that is, you win things based on popularity (read: high school class elections!), and not based on actual issues...

That said, I did enjoy the chance to learn at least, when the other stuff didn't hinder the experience. You may get the impression that I'm rather opinionated about the way school operates these days, well yes, yes I am. The entire K-12 experience was an aweful time and I'm glad it's over, and I'm a little upset that I know there are better ways to go about it and that current methods could easily be abandoned, like gym, and replaced with better ones but aren't. The adult world has it's problems but even at the worst times I've had in recent years, it was nothing like that. The most I can say is that I had a loving home and that the few teachers that apparently didn't have the same experience I had in school saying things like "these are the greatest times you'll have in life" must be real losers because my life right now is a LOT better.

I've definitely always enjoyed classes, which is probably why I have good memories overall of highschool... some good classes. :) (had a perfect attendance record in highschool too...)

Basically the main thing that I liked about it over college is the added structure... oh sure college is nice, but it's harder for me to do well without more structure making me do things...