How many people think they could do better at school now?

We all know the sweaty, anxious nightmare. You're in uniform and your assignment is late. The teacher collects essays, until he gets to YOU!
Well seriously now, how many of the over 30-age-group would love to be back at school?
I was the fattish dork who hated sports, but now I love it, and I'd go back tomorrow. Perhaps in my next life I'll be he school jock!
Ecch - it was all so embarressing.
Anyone else with a touch of nostalgia, or wasted opportunities?

I do! I do! I do!

Really I would.

To do it again knowing what I know now, I would always be arguing the point


[edit on 7-12-2009 by The_Seeker]

reply to post by halfoldman

Anyone else with a touch of nostalgia, or wasted opportunities

There are a few things I might do differently given the opportunity. There were a few girls who were very obvioulsy (now) interested, but at the time I completely didn't get it.

Also a couple fights I might like to do over again. Winning a fight is mostly about frame of mind. I was always scared, and that made it difficult. In retrospect, very few people in high school knew how to punch, and nobody ever really got hurt because nobody knew what they were doing. I don't think there's anyone in particular I'd want to go back to "beat up" but my social life would have been very different if I had been known as the guy you didn't want to upset because he'd pound your face in instead of the guy you threw oranges at because he wouldn't try to stop you.

You're in uniform and your assignment is late. The
teacher collects essays, until he gets to YOU!

Yes, that's enother thing. If I were to do it all over I would totally flake out more the second time. It took me a few years to realize that highschool is nothing but a social drama. By the time I did realize, it was a little late to take much advantage of it. It would be a lot of fun to go back and look some of those teachers straight in the eye and with happy, cheery smile on my face simply say "Nope! I didn't do the assignment. I probably won't do the next one either." Would have been a lot more fun than sulking and feeling guilty about it.

I'll be he school jock!

In my case I was far more athletic than most people, but I was small and I always let that bother me. I wouldn't want to participate in sports, but I'd certainly want to date more cheerleaders than I did. I knew most of them. And I knew a lot of the jocks. At my school they were actually some of the nicer people.

Hindsight is a funny thing. Sure, there was a jock or two who were jerks, but for the most part they tended to be rich and and dumb, so there was never much incentive for them to create problems for people. They didn't have anything to prove.

Really...I think most of the problems I had in highschool were created by me, not by other people. If I were to do it all over...and simply relax, not be so scared all the time, not feel like such an outcast, and on those rare occassions when somebody else genuinely was giving me trouble, simply knocked them unconscious and moved on instead of running away and dwelling on it...I think I would have enjoyed it a lot more.

reply to post by RUFFREADY

Oh so would I, as the current "me" in that historic situation.
It's almost too much. Well we had uniforms and corporal punishment, and only 3 showers (but only the alpha males showered because they knew they were hot).
And then the crap they tried to teach! Oh I want to go back that way.

Well, I'm turning 50 this month, and I can say without reservation that I could not only "do better" in school now, I could probably teach in school better than it's being done these days.

I always excelled in school in all classes and courses, but my problem was with authority. I was smarter than most of my teachers, and a hell of a lot smarter than the school administrators. Consequently, I was always at odds with the principal and vice principal, the counselors, et cetera.

As an adult dealing with teenagers myself over the years, I have seen the schools doing a worse and worse job at educating. Kids still rebel against authority, as always, but these kids are don't have the intellectual ammunition to rebel effectively.

I mean, my three teenage great-nephews come to visit pretty regularly; and, when I engage them in conversation, I am amazed at how dumb these otherwise bright kids are. They don't know very basic things, things I knew when I was in grammar school.

Grammar is one thing they don't know. An elementary knowledge of American history is another — and forget world history. They have no grasp of geography, no grasp of general science, no understanding whatsoever of technology.

Their ignorance is chilling.

I ask these kids what books they're reading, I'm told that they don't read books... instead, they text. Their vocabularies are essentially monosyllabic. These kids are between the ages of 13 and 16, and they have the reading comprehension of fourth-graders. I'm not guessing at that, I've seen their reading comprehension test results. Pathetic.

I've often contemplated going back to college sometime — not to "brush up" on any subject or to enhance my job skills, but to scold and humiliate the educators for betraying our trust.

— Doc Velocity

its funny but ive felt that way for a long time

as children we are too immature to know the importance of school, no matter what the adults tell the kids


being an adult you have more maturity (and i dont mean college kids), but people who have grown older and settled down in life


it almost seems as we are allowed to grow older and older as a civilization we should start schooling at a older age, give the brains more time to develop to learn the importance of scholastics


right now we force learning on kids, and look at what we have, a bunch of george bush/obamas running the world, with media covering britney spears, paris hilton, and tiger woods, all while we are sending a extra 100 thousand or so troops to fight a futile war


its pretty obvious our education system isnt working


i really think if the school day started later, we started school at a later age, and had more specialized teaching early on the kids would be in better shape


i understand the concept of having "general education" that all the kids have to learn, but kids at a young age often have certain subjects they just hate, or dont understand/want to understand, i feel we shouldnt push kids in a direction they dont want to go, instead find out what they are interested in and help them down that path

School is too easy these days.

How many of you could do well in an American high school circa 1950?

I bet you'd all fail.

(except for me and a couple of others who'd pass. They know who they are. )




[edit on 7-12-2009 by Exuberant1]

Originally posted by Exuberant1
How many of you could do well in an American high school circa 1950?

I would DESTROY a 1950 high school curriculum, no problem.

You wanna talk hard?

I bet nobody out there could pass an intermediate arithmetic class in the 1890s. They couched all of the math problems in workaday analogs... For instance:

A southbound train with an engine weighing 48 tons, a coal car weighing 20 tons and 16 passenger cars each weighing 25 tons, leaves the depot in Chicago at 4:37 p.m., northbound for Milwaukee. The driving wheels of the engine are 13' in circumference, and may attain a constant velocity of 40 mph. Meanwhile, another passenger train leaves the depot in Milwaukee at 4:22 p.m., southbound for Chicago. The second train features an engine weighing 42 tons, a coal car weighing 22 tons, and 12 passenger cars, each weighing 23 tons. The second engine's drive wheels are 12'-9" in circumference and may attain a constant velocity of 46 mph. The inclination between Chicago and Milwaukee is a mean average of 3° over a distance of 91.7 miles. At what time will each train pass the other in good weather (hour/minutes/seconds)?

Now that was some tough readin', writin' and 'rithmetic.


— Doc Velocity





[edit on 12/7/2009 by Doc Velocity]

I think about it if I had the chance to do it again. But only if I know what I know now.

reply to post by halfoldman


Na not me, school was what it was, and i found out they where using electronic mind control, and they just wanted to destroy my life in 6th form, which lead to the rest of my life being destroyed for people having vendettas against me.

So i understand what op means, but i am where i am, and thats life. I am glad i found out about this stuff i did, even though my life is rubbish.

Ignorance is not bliss.

I'm not long out of school, well compared to some of the old fluff flying around here, but I wish i could go back so much.

My parents always used to stress that they were "the best days of your life" and I took that for granted I suppose.

Can you put Class Clown on a CV?

reply to post by LiveForever8


Yep they are, but just look forward.

Its life and you just have to learn, that the way it is.

I think I could do a lot better at grade school (I graduated in 2000) because I put forth essentially zero effort. I still got decent enough marks to get into engineering at university later (finished that in 2006).

I don't think I could do a lot better at university than I did; I worked my behind off there, but if some of my personal situations had been better, particularly in my first year, I could have done better. A lot of things outside school that year made it difficult for me, that I won't get into.

I would definitely take a different set of courses in high school, though. In particular, I'd take grade 12 biology, in addition to the other sciences I did take, and I probably wouldn't have taken so many spare periods I'd have filled them with

I'd probably also handle a lot of social situations differently. I was pretty much (and still am, really) a social recluse, particularly in high school. I had a few close friends, but didn't make the effort to get to know more people. Earlier in my life I was always 'that kid who got picked on' but by high school I'd managed to get past that, so I think I could have had more friends socially if I'd tried. And, like LordBucket, I think I'd have changed how I acted with girls :p One in particular comes to mind that I didn't have the guts to do anything about at the time!

reply to post by Doc Velocity


its funn yhow you blam eit on the schools, when the media is far more responsible for the rebbellious behavior. School just allows te accumulation of all these bad habits learned. I wouldnt go back. or at least wouldnt do anything different. i wasnt popular, well until i pounded couple of jocks when i grew to a normal hieght in grade 11. then everyone wanted ot be my friend. but i stuck with my "geek" friends, and you know what. for the last 2 yrs of school, the "geeks" were the popular kids. comp lab was all of a sudden FULl of people at lunch time no joke btw

School was fun...but back then i would not know what i know now so it was more of a transition for me to progress i have had now...i'm taking the education psych. class in university and its amazing what i've learned and if i were a teacher i would change things up...my past teachers were just a bunch of numbnuts following the school curriculum and just enough work to get them a paycheck....the best teachers are those who allow students to think for themselves

Id love to go back to High School. Those were awesome years.
EVERYTHING happened then. Drugs, Sex, a teacher or two in tears, some sorrow most in laughter, 6 riots in 3 years during St-Jean Bapiste weekends (June 24, Quebec National Holiday) wow, yeah the memories. Even went to Space Camp in Alabama in 92.

No. No, I would absolutely not go back to school. I just finished...

I understand your point, actually, I felt very similar too. I didn't value learning until I wasn't being taught anymore. But it's an opportunity that oughtn't be missed. Because... the school system, much like any other government operated system - begs of you to come back to it. You don't need to, that's the beauty of it! Everything THEY teach you, you can teach yourself. Advanced physics? Hell yeah! Go to your local library - and if you're anything like me, you took physics (and failed with flying colours) - but even if you failed you still went to the classes and HAVE this information readily available to you. Granted, it is much much harder to learn on your own than it is with a teacher (I play a violin, I think it would have taken me triple the time to get to where I am without a teacher), but it's more satisfying to learn on your own...

yes school was very much fun (for what it really was) but, looking from an objective viewpoint of it, it's very much a sort of, slave service.

for example - when the bell rings, the students through 12 consecutive years of conditioning to listen for the bell, the action then is either to skip class... or make like the brain-washed (and fairly uneducated at that) students and go to class.

And the things they teach in school, are absolutely unnecessary for survival without the government. Agriculture should be mandatory, or horticulture... some natural science should be mandatory... but instead, we have maths and english as mandatory. Why? I understand the importance of communication and arithmetic knowledge in this new modern world - but WHY are they not teaching us how to live in any other way than what has been prescribed to us? It doesn't seem like a very self-sufficient service to me - for in future years when we have less luxuries and rely more on needs than wants - then what? The school system won't have prepared us at all for such things.

This is just my opinion and should be taken very lightly for I have been wrong and will be wrong again.

reply to post by halfoldman

For some reason maths was so complicated to me. But nowadays most people don't need it (they've got calculators, phones, pc's), so i foresee it becomming a minority subject.
Or take English grammar, why do we need a full-stop AND a capital letter?
indeed wat is rong with riting like this? it has nothing to du with the fact dat som people r kwite meen and som r kwite frendli. not so?

reply to post by halfoldman


Well, @ 40 I returned to college. It was a lot easier then I expected. For sure.

I will say, I still get that old knot in the stomach feeling during exam week...