School, something you're forced into at a young age whether you want to be or not. Most people have a love-hate relationship with it. To me and most others, sitting in a desk for 6+ hours a day, 5 days a week is not ideal. Yet for some, there's nowhere else they'd rather be. There is no other word to describe these people other than crazy.
Throughout high school, I was a pretty average student. I had report cards with a couple C's, a B, maybe a D. If I was lucky I would receive an A in a class like gym or choir, but never really in an academic class. It was frustrating to me that I could study for days before a test and still receive a C grade or lower while my friends knew the material like the back of their hands and got an A every time. It just didn't seem fair.
I was so frustrated. It's not that i wasn't smart, or that I wasn't trying. I just didn't care anymore. I knew my low grades and standardized test results were not a reflection of who I was or what knowledge I had. Just because math and science weren't my strong suits didn't mean that I had nothing else going for me. Getting a bad test back didn't make me want to try harder, it made me wonder why I was sitting in a desk learning things I had no interest in, and busting my butt just to face failure again and again. Why should my bad memory be an indicator that I wasn't as intelligent as other students? School has become not about learning, but about memorization. How many terms can you memorize before the test tomorrow just to forget them as soon as you walk out the door afterwards? Can you remember the equation for this math lesson? If not, then you can guarantee that the test will be impossible for you. Why is this a fair way to teach? It needs to change. I thought I was at school to learn, not to be belittled for not remembering or understanding things.
It makes me cringe to think about all of the time I wasted stuck in a dark building, sitting at a desk, taking notes on unnecessary subjects just to forget all of it. There is so much more to the world than the dusty, grimy schools that us students are stuck in. Imagine the places we could go with all of the money we spend on our schools. Send us on a plane halfway across the world, drown us in culture, take us through the jungle, let us swim in the ocean.
I understand that once school is done, you have the rest of your life to travel, but with work and a family it makes it that much harder to go. I believe that you need to gain these experiences and knowledge while you're young and before it's too late. Your younger years should be spent exploring, adventuring as far as you can go, and learning completely hands-on not only in the environment you live in, but across the world. Let's face it, your whiteboard and my notebook won't teach me how to be independent and adventurous.
If you're anything like me, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that you are staring at an overhead with a cramping hand from writing notes that we both know you don't care about. You'll get through it and it'll be over before you know it. When it is, hop on a plane and go somewhere.
