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alex_antoninIf I could fix the school system in this country there's a lot I would fix, but one thing in particular is that I'd start making group projects voluntary. All I ever learned from group projects is that people suck, and honestly, I already knew that. Though being literally forced to work with an actual bully despite my pleas to not have to do so only reinforced that idea.
I realize these group projects were meant to teach teamwork and shit, and I knew that from the beginning, but I also don't like most other people, I despise bullies, and so I never once cooperated with that nonsense. I was the person who just ignored everyone else and did what I wanted. I didn't care how that looked to anyone else, because there was no incentive for me to cooperate. Good grades? What use is that? We were poor. You can't eat good grades. You can't sell them for food or clothes. And in my experience, if you failed the grade they just sent you along to the next one anyway.
If they'd wanted my cooperation, they should have paid me. Cash, food, or clothing, wouldn't matter. As a poor kid who was overweight, effeminate, and just plain weird, I was already at the bottom of the social ladder. The only leverage they had for getting kids' cooperation with group projects was good grades and peer pressure. I didn't care about grades because I saw the whole thing was pointless(1), and there wasn't anything my peers could do to me they weren't already doing. The system only works when the kids going through the system can be motivated by nonsense like grades and peer pressure, there's literally no other incentive to cooperate with the shitty education system.
And yet, when I started getting paid to work with other people, I did it. Grudgingly, but I did it. So you can't honestly tell me that that lesson they were trying to teach us was even necessary. I mean FFS, I worked with my family all the time! I can't imagine anyone actually needs that kind of shit "lesson." Even orphans would know how to work with people already, from living with other people in an orphanage. It's a complete and utter waste of time and effort.
Hell, I can safely say as a high school graduate and someone who's had some college that college is exactly the same, except now you pay money to go through a shit system that fails to teach anyone anything they couldn't have learned from books or PBS. Hell, the education system can't teach anyone anything, it's set up towards rote memorization that quickly gets forgotten. Any learning that happens in the education system is incidental and coincidental.
We need to completely throw out the entire education system and start over again from the ground up. Because it's utter garbage as is. Though in the meantime, I'd settle for knowing that forcing kids to socialize with each other in group projects and other activities that force them to socialize with one another was punishable by prison time.
(1) = Pointless because I knew I was learning, and the tests showed the teachers I was learning because I tested well, but homework was dull and pointless and now I have science on my side for that one! I now have proof that homework is a complete waste of time! (LOL now I'm thinking, make a character who's a kid in a modern school, have them print out the scientific papers proving homework is a waste of time, and turning those in instead of homework!)
I realize these group projects were meant to teach teamwork and shit, and I knew that from the beginning, but I also don't like most other people, I despise bullies, and so I never once cooperated with that nonsense. I was the person who just ignored everyone else and did what I wanted. I didn't care how that looked to anyone else, because there was no incentive for me to cooperate. Good grades? What use is that? We were poor. You can't eat good grades. You can't sell them for food or clothes. And in my experience, if you failed the grade they just sent you along to the next one anyway.
If they'd wanted my cooperation, they should have paid me. Cash, food, or clothing, wouldn't matter. As a poor kid who was overweight, effeminate, and just plain weird, I was already at the bottom of the social ladder. The only leverage they had for getting kids' cooperation with group projects was good grades and peer pressure. I didn't care about grades because I saw the whole thing was pointless(1), and there wasn't anything my peers could do to me they weren't already doing. The system only works when the kids going through the system can be motivated by nonsense like grades and peer pressure, there's literally no other incentive to cooperate with the shitty education system.
And yet, when I started getting paid to work with other people, I did it. Grudgingly, but I did it. So you can't honestly tell me that that lesson they were trying to teach us was even necessary. I mean FFS, I worked with my family all the time! I can't imagine anyone actually needs that kind of shit "lesson." Even orphans would know how to work with people already, from living with other people in an orphanage. It's a complete and utter waste of time and effort.
Hell, I can safely say as a high school graduate and someone who's had some college that college is exactly the same, except now you pay money to go through a shit system that fails to teach anyone anything they couldn't have learned from books or PBS. Hell, the education system can't teach anyone anything, it's set up towards rote memorization that quickly gets forgotten. Any learning that happens in the education system is incidental and coincidental.
We need to completely throw out the entire education system and start over again from the ground up. Because it's utter garbage as is. Though in the meantime, I'd settle for knowing that forcing kids to socialize with each other in group projects and other activities that force them to socialize with one another was punishable by prison time.
(1) = Pointless because I knew I was learning, and the tests showed the teachers I was learning because I tested well, but homework was dull and pointless and now I have science on my side for that one! I now have proof that homework is a complete waste of time! (LOL now I'm thinking, make a character who's a kid in a modern school, have them print out the scientific papers proving homework is a waste of time, and turning those in instead of homework!)