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Did you enjoy high school?

Did you enjoy high school?

  • Yes, high school was great, and I'd do it again!

    Votes: 20 16.9%

  • Well, it was OK, but I wouldn't want to go back.

    Votes: 36 30.5%

  • No, it was awful.

    Votes: 57 48.3%

  • None of the above (please elaborate)

    Votes: 5 4.2%
  • Total voters
    118
  • Poll closed .

pgwenthold

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In another thread in this section

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=55171

we have been discussing the socialization benefits that schooling provides. However, many of the comments that have been brought forward have attested to bad experiences of school. So I thought I'd poll it out. For starters, let's stick to high school. We can try junior high and before at some other time.

Feel free to submit your comments about your experiences.
 
I voted yes, but this only applies to Grade 12, when I chose not to be a slacker anymore. The rest was okay.
The nice thing about high school was being around lots of people my own age. While I haven't kept in touch with any of them, it was relatively easy to make friends in that environment, and quite a few were cool people. Plus when I started paying attention in class I realised that we were learning some cool things.
 
No.
I almost did not graduate- starting seriously slacking off.
I was glad to leave the place.
My dad still lives in the same house, so I get to drive by it from time to time. Still do not like the place
 
I absolutely hated high school. Mostly because of the people in it. I graduated in 1985 and I still hate those people enough that I wouldn't piss on their heads if their hair was on fire.
 
Hated it. Hated all school.

I went to work when I was 14 and enjoyed that. Stayed in school, too, but didn't see any connection between my lessons and what was important to know.

I didn't believe in God and Jesus, listened to punk and smoked unfiltered Camels when everyone else was listening to Hank Williams Junior and dipping snuff, so I never fit in socially.

I preferred hanging out with the working-class kids, but many of them disliked and suspected anyone who made good grades and took advanced courses. I had some college-bound friends, but most of the well-to-do kids considered me lower-class and snubbed me (just as I considered them snobs and snubbed them, to be fair). The advanced kids were such geeks that I couldn't stand their company.

All of which is perfectly natural, but school forced us to be cheek-and-jowl with each other, which wasn't. What I enjoyed was working and hanging out with a very eclectic group of friends who enjoyed fishing, drinking and smoking out on the backroads, camping, and driving into the big city for punk shows and late night movies.

School was hell.
 
Nyarlathotep said:
I absolutely hated high school. Mostly because of the people in it. I graduated in 1985 and I still hate those people enough that I wouldn't piss on their heads if their hair was on fire.
Click to expand...

Not that dissimilar to my experiences.

I think it was a factor in my choice to become a teacher. I thought 'there has to be a better way of doing this, what could it involve....'

(probably my becoming a concert pianist instead, but ah well.... :D)
 
Kiless said:
Not that dissimilar to my experiences.

I think it was a factor in my choice to become a teacher. I thought 'there has to be a better way of doing this, what could it involve....'

(probably my becoming a concert pianist instead, but ah well.... :D)
Click to expand...

Actually it wasn't the teachers that I hated as much as my fellow students. My teachers I was pretty indifferent towards.

Though I have always thought I should have become a History Teacher myself. I'd have a captive audience to listen to me talk about my favorite subject.:p
 
I voted "OK", because in high school, most of the jackasses that had made the previous years like hell for me had either gone away, or grown up to the point of becoming marginally bearable.

Unfortunately, at that point I had lost my enthusiasm for school and only really cared about a few subjects that I liked - Latin, Ethics, Mathematics (at least while we did stochastics and linear algebra), Computer Science (at least the part where we worked on our own, doing projects), some isolated parts of History and English (A Midsummer Night´s Dream... at the same time as we were doing a modern version of it in the school´s amateur drama group I was part of). This was, however, only part of the curriculum. German, Social Studies, Music, Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Sports just plain sucked. Which, of course, was reflected in my grades.

Nyarlathotep, I can understand how you feel. Many of those guys I´ve been to school with before high school are that type. As we say here in Germany, put them all into a bag, then starting kicking it - you´ll never hit the wrong one. :D
 
No, it was awful, and I'd do it again.

Because most of the reason it was awful was because of my own dumb-assery. I wasn't "there" for most of it. I usually had my head in a crappy sci-fi or fantasy novel, and if I didn't I was daydreaming about being in a crappy sci-fi or fantasy novel, and by the time I got to the point I was able to I began ditching regularly to go home and play games on my C-64. I was never interested in learning about programming or anything, I just wanted the escape, little realising that the reason I didn't like my "real life" was because I wasn't doing anything with it.
 
Kiless said:
I think it was a factor in my choice to become a teacher. I thought 'there has to be a better way of doing this, what could it involve....'
Click to expand...
That's refreshing to here. That's often my way of looking at things. The line, "there's got to be a better way", runs through my head more often than I care to count. We need more teachers like you to counter the apathy.

Grade School was a positive experience for me. It was a small school and class that became like a 2<SUP>nd</SUP> family. I felt most of the teachers were there for me... coaching me to succeed. The principal routinely came in to the class to chat with the class as a group and individually. I truly was inspired to excel. Junior High (grades 7&8) were like a bad nightmare. It was a place devoid of caring where everyone just went through the motions to get through the day. High School was better. Still too many kids falling through the cracks and not enough individual attention. I enjoyed it overall, but it could've been so much better.
 
Piggy said:
I preferred hanging out with the working-class kids, but many of them disliked and suspected anyone who made good grades and took advanced courses.
Click to expand...

This was the problem at my school. For some reason, success in any venture (grades, activities, sports) was considered bad. I always tell my wife, the one thing my class excelled at was underachieving.


I had some college-bound friends, but most of the well-to-do kids considered me lower-class and snubbed me (just as I considered them snobs and snubbed them, to be fair). The advanced kids were such geeks that I couldn't stand their company.
Click to expand...

What's wrong with geeks?

Odd that you comment that the "well-to-do" kids were snubbing you, but then, you admit you snubbed the advanced kids.

You played your part in the system.
 
pgwenthold said:
What's wrong with geeks?

Odd that you comment that the "well-to-do" kids were snubbing you, but then, you admit you snubbed the advanced kids.

You played your part in the system.
Click to expand...
Yes, I did. I got my back up and snubbed the preppies, too, some of whom might have made good friends.

What was wrong w/ the geeks was just a matter of fit. I didn't give a rap about what they were into -- their music, their games, their comix, their TV shows, their clubs. Didn't interest me. And my interests were equally lame and boring to them.
 
Yes and no. I enjoyed the classes, which were more interesting and more challenging than all my previous classes, and I got to pick more interesting subjects. Finally we were reading on the adult level in English classes, and history wasn't so whitewashed, and new subjects like art history were options. And advanced placement classes! And with college looming up, there was something interesting to think about and brochures to look through and research to be done.

The bad part was that while we were supposed to be accelerating toward adulthood, not everyone was ready to go. A large portion of the student body simply wasn't ready to mature and act like adults, and they persisted in behaving like rotten children. I was never really bothered by bullies, although I did get my share of being teased because of doing well in my classes, but it was disruptive and irritating to have that sort of thing going on even if one wasn't involved directly. Students interrupting class, goofing off, etc. And I have to say that such behavior seemed to vary by location. I attended ninth and twelfth grades in Virginia, and tenth and eleventh in Tennessee. In Virginia, the immature would disrupt class and bully other students they disliked. In Tennessee, the immature simply cut class. If they didn't like someone, they didn't bother them, they just ignored them. As a result I preferred Tennessee, because at least there the bad element only damaged itself.
 
No.

Infact, I had to spend my last remaining year being home-schooled and after that it took ALOT of tears to forget that place. But, eventually I found confidence in myself again.

The worst time in my life was in that place.
 
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I enjoyed my time both in school and cutting school although I enjoyed cutting school a lot more. I felt trapped in school since we had so little choices and many of my classes were boring but my senior year I had more choices and so it was a lot better (and I actually went to school). I had different groups of friends, the kids from my neighborhood, the smart kids who I was in classes with, the bums I cut out of school with, and the assorted kids that I smoked cigarettes with behind the gym at lunch break. I knew most of the kids in the school since I had been at the same school since kindergarten with most of them. And while I was a minority race there mostly that was not an issue though I did get in a couple of fights because of that.
 
Detested it. My father once told me school days were the best days of my life. I nearly killed myself that night. I couldn't believe life got worse after you left school. Fortunately I was right.

Happiest day of my life was the day I left high school.
 
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