School Sucks (Sometimes)

As I get older, I'm realizing that school (in many ways) is a colossal waste of my time. There's too much time that we spend just sitting in our desks listening to some teacher drone on. Too much time spent chiseling away at laborious busy work that we're required to do so our instructors can get some grading done. Too much time spent being forced to go to assemblies and pep rallies that do nothing but attempt to garner a socialistic unity that doesn't exist in the real world. "Why am I here?" is a question I ask far too often as I walk these cold, antiseptic, lifeless halls.

I'm not trying to be conceited or pretentious. I don't really think that I'm that smart, I honestly think that dumb kids get their time wasted at school too. If you're bad at math and you want to be a drummer with all your heart, you should be at home practicing the drums and not sitting in some class filling out your multiplication tables. 

The problem with educational systems is that they don't let kids grow in the ways they want to- they provide a framework for what our parents think we should learn and then let us roam about in that enclosure. Well, I'm opposed to any sort of boundary. If my friend is failing chemistry but is good at basketball, he should still be allowed to pursue it. At many schools they actually suspend students from extracurricular activity if they don't do well in their classes. That basically says, "What we deem to be important is all that is important and anything else that inspires you had better come second to our expectations". People don't give kids enough credit. I know some really depraved, horrible, drug-using people, who even despite their rejection of social protocol, still have passions and aspirations. We all know that life is boring without plans for the future. Our educators may think that we'll never amount to anything, but that is never our intention. 

I just don't like that we get force-fed through the system like we do... I learn half of the stuff I learn through self-education (reading articles online, taking online courses, reading lots of books, etc.). With schools today being what they are, one must be self-educated if they want to have a meaningful education at all. School kind of sucks sometimes...