Ask Lemmy

The racism, discrimination, and segregation. As a Native American in a white school, it was frequently traumatic. Frequently assaulted and threatened by teachers and the principal to cut my long hair. Then had to sit in class to learn about how all those things I was actively experiencing were in America's past was bullshit. <30 years ago.

How dumb it all is. Seriously. The highly regimented structure of curricula and examination is a shitty way to learn. It’s optimised for making teaching and grading easier. And also teaching young people to be obedient facile production line workers.

But intellectually and academically, it always seemed obviously bad and boring to me. And I’ve since gotten to understand a number of academic topics relatively well to know how true this is. Proper understanding, intellectually, and skill in application, are things that are far more organic and purpose driven than the shitty curricula that pencil pushing educators spit out as though the human mind were an excel spread sheet.

I didn't realize it at the time, but in hindsight, not getting diagnosed with ADHD was the hardest part for me. I guess at the time, there were still a lot of misconceptions about it, so my parents and teachers never recognized it for what it was. Because I was placed in a "gifted and talented" program when I was young, my slipping grades were just attributed to laziness instead of a disorder. That spiraled into many other problems in school; failing classes, getting into trouble, and several lifelong anxieties that still follow me many years later.

Honestly, my whole life would probably have gone in a much different direction if I had actually gotten the help I needed as a kid. I don't blame anybody for not recognizing it, but it does suck having slipped through the cracks like that.

All the fucking assholes

Gym class. Why that exists in class format absolutely stumps me.

Going without motivation.

I graduated college the first time with straight C's and major that didn't have much headroom. It was a struggle and I was a terrible student. Always late, always bargaining with professors for extra time, always "faking it". I couldn't find work fitting a degree, went on to do landscaping work, field surveying work, security, all minimum wage.

Then I got into firefighting, then wildland firefighting, then saw how computer science and geospatial data played in, and the motivation clicked.

I saved my money from a pair of very very busy fire seasons (lots of OT and hazard pay), Went back to school for CS and GIS with straight A's, found the whole experience easy and enjoyable. (Not that I wasn't challenged and had late nights). If you've dug ditches for money and don't want to do that any more, the asks and challenges of college are comparatively trivial. Even in upper division classes the teachers are crystal clear about the expectations, the schedule, the tests, all of it. If you approach classwork like a job, it all falls into place in ways it never did when I had competing interests and really just wanted to fuck off, drink beer, and go skiing.

Everyone else wants to go do whatever during office hours ? Nah Im there. Every time. Etc etc

Motivation made all the difference, even when content was hard for me (linear algebra after 5 years of no academic math? Fuuuck that was some late nights for my dumb ass. )

Undiagnosed ADHD until I was almost 30.

I flunked out of nursing school despite the content itself being fairly easy because I didn't know how to deal with mean girl shit yet. I passed the second time by just doing whatever they told me to until I graduated. In particular, I remembered some advice from years earlier from an older roommate who had just gotten back from their coast guard training. They said their goal had been to go as long as possible before the instructor even knew their name. Honestly that's been a pretty great strategy for me when I've needed to escape abuses of power ever since; keep your head down, do whatever they tell you to, don't draw attention to yourself, then book it the first chance you get.

Sitting still and not being bored senseless. I was a hyperactive kid with adhd, having to sit anywhere for more than 10 minutes was the bane of my existence.

Was bullied constantly by other people in high school. Caused a lot of trauma I'm still trying to solve...

Getting up on time

I hated school as a kid and went back as an adult. The experience is a whole other level and actually really nice.

Not getting to have "schooling". I was "homeschooled", in that my parents kept all 8 of us kids at home and didn't bother to provide much in the way of education beyond reading and basic math. The lack of real education I was able to overcome, but the gross lack of any socialization has left me struggling with poor social competency to this day.

Personally, I really liked school. Even high school. It would have been easier if I'd had more mental health resources, but I learned a ton and had a lot of freedom in terms of electives. I was taking college-level history courses as a senior in high school and absolutely ate it up.

The only nuisance was that I am a good singer and my parents forced me to skip a writing course and advanced biology my senior year because someone the chamber choir had selected instead of me decided to quit, and I wasn't assertive enough at the time to tell my parents no when the choir director called my mom and convinced her to make me do it, so my last semester I performed with the chamber choir and absolutely fucking hated every second of it. (Though I did put my foot down on weekend travel competitions, so at least I didn't have to give up weekends for that shit.)

My only other regret is of the time-travel variety. A former schoolmate was high up in the RNC when Trump was elected, and I wish I could go back in time and intervene somehow.

Not being able to take a “mental health” day off, in both high school and college. In high school my parents wouldn’t let me (though I don’t fault them for that), and in college it was hard to keep up if I even missed one lecture. As an adult with a job , if I need a day to decompress, I can decide to take off tomorrow and nobody can tell me no. In school it was hard to keep on going with the tank on empty.

Math. I sucked at math since 3rd grade and that shit was a struggle all the way through college. I'm lucky i can even count, I swear to God. Had to pass THREE remedial math courses just to be allowed to take the course that counted for actual credit towards my degree. Lately I've been contemplating going back to college for a second degree, but I realized I'd have to take shit like pre-calculus for the degrees I'm looking at and I just don't think I could do it. My brain is such a letdown.

Having undiagnosed autism and parents not believing in it. I fucking hated school

The pledge of allegiance in US schools

Sitting still and I wasn’t the only one, I didn’t have ADHD or anything, I was a boy who was in a class with a bunch of his friends and was told to sit still and quiet for 8 hours a day and if we were lucky we got a 20 minute recess but now of that was lining up and walking outside and back inside. Also, from the Midwest so odds are it was cancelled and we had to stay inside and read because it was too hot, too cold, too rainy, or too tornadoey outside.

I still get into arguments with my mom to this day about this. She told me I was “always getting in trouble” but it was because I was bored out of my mind and having to sit still all day. Me and most young boys are out into a lose/lose situation with modern schooling.

Well right now it's that my prof speaks excruciatingly slow and makes sure to read the entirety of each slide of the PowerPoint.
This class is already boring. He doesn't need to make it worse.
I'm usually just trying to stay awake.

I found school incredibly inefficient. There were subjects in which I did so well that the standard curriculum left me feeling uninspired and bored because I wasn’t being challenged enough. In other subjects, the class moved too fast and I got left behind.

Also, physical education was often neglected in secondary and post-secondary in favor of more academic subjects. Given the cardiovascular disease epidemic, I think that was a mistake. How can you have a healthy mind without a healthy body?

I didn't struggle academically in grade school at all, with the exception of mathematics. And by that, I just mean that I had to put in a moderate amount of effort to learn it.

But when I started college/university in a new city, I was alone, wholly unprepared, and paralyzed by severe (and untreated) anxiety, depression, and ADHD. I didn't know how to make friends by myself. The thought of having to interact with my dorm mates would send me into a panic.

Not to mention, I was not only having a crisis of sexuality, but I also convinced myself that I was an ugly, gross loser whom no one would ever want to be with sexually or romantically. (Jesus.)

I took a break for a semester because I was very suicidal. I started therapy again/taking Zoloft—the latter of which saved my life—and went back for another semester. But I knew, even before going back, that it just wasn't for me. It really didn't help that I already knew college in the US is a scam.

So yeah, I ended up dropping out. I have a lot of mixed feelings about it, now.

The damn 6 miles daily walk. From grade 4 until 12. Not in the USA, BTW. A shithole 3rd world country.

Grade school, just how slow and boring it was. Waiting, nothing to do.

High school - bullies, the stupid rules, and also trying to write essays in the days before the Internet.

College - juggling parenting, earning money, and school. Also finally getting classes I had to work at to pass.

Homework, I always did fine in class and on tests but as soon as I stepped off campus I wouldn't usually get home until dark and half the time I'd leave my backpack in the gym locker so id fail because of the homework assignments. I even remember a teacher calling me out because I was the only one who passed a test but I'm failing the class to make the rest of the kids feel bad.

Getting out of bed.

the fucking grift of it all.

tpaying a $60 license fee to pearson just to be able to submit fucking required homework.

Waking up early. Also the harest part of my work - trying to complete complex work while I can barely stay awake.

Putting the work in.

Switching from 5th grade at a little red schoolhouse, where the only homework assignments were reading and projects/presentations to 6th grade at a college prep middle/highschool with homework assignments every day.

The 80km walk, in the snow and burning sun, bare feet on broken glass, uphill in both direction. - My dad

I loved math and was good at it until we got to integrals. I could do algebra, geometry, trigonometry, probability, and derivates...and loved all of them. But my brain went splat against integrals.

I barely passed Calculus levels 3 and 4. Honestly, I should have failed them. The professor wasn't very good, he knew this, and he took pity on me. But it was ultimately my own fault.

It was kind of humiliating. I'd always done really well at math, and even tutored other students. Then I just hit a fucking wall with integrals. At that point, I fully understood how other students who struggled with math had felt all along. I had been empathetic to them. But now I suddenly knew what it was like.

I sometimes wonder if a virus or some other unknown medical situation broke that part of my brain. It kind of felt like it. Or maybe it was just beyond my natural abilities, period.

Depression.

Any writing. Grammar, punctuation, and spelling were always easy, but I never knew what to write.

Also, I often skipped homework and believe that I was right to do so. Even though I've been out of school since 2008 and have no children, I still maintain that the school has zero right to assign anything to be done outside of school.