Homestar Runner Wiki Forum

Yeah, but it was a maggot school. I mean, magnet school.

- Kef

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We had a program like that for a few years where the smart people would go away for the afternoon.

Only lasted a year with me in it tho.

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Then you better shut your mouth, go to school, and work hard. I'd expect you'd need a full high school education and at least four years in a law university to even be considered for something.


Lol me, amarite?

Private school is just that, school.

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Ace goes to to a private school?

Oh yeah that's why he has a lacrosse team.

Naw not you.

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HHFOV's public school has a lacrosse team that I whuz on a couple years ago.

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Noid doesn't care for any of the sports they have at his school.

If we had a Ping-Pong team I guarantee Noid would be Captain, though. I got mad hand-eye quardination.

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Politicians don't shut their mouths, or else nobody would vote for them. Politicians have opinions and seem to be the only ones that express them these days (except those crazy people). So, if I shut up I could have a boring, stable job like being a M.D. or a businessman or something, but I have a plan and I want to see if the world is ready for it.

Also, you haven't been reading anything have you? I could drop out, get a GED, and go to college a year early.

I'm one of those kids they label "gifted" and try to put in advanced classes, give extra homework if you are in any "gifted" activities, and make other kids feel really bad that they aren't them. I hate all aspects of it. Then again I'm sure most of the kids (gifted or not) haven't figured out all of the freedoms we do have in a public school (underground newspapers, not saying the collectivist "Pledge of Allegiance", and so forth). I'm probably so educated in things they don't want me to know it would scare the teachers if they heard me go on a rant. Oh well!

A education doesn't make a man, knowledge and wisdom does. Both can be attained without a school.

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You still have to pass the test before you can get a GED; you can't just drop out and apply for one. And if you want to go to college after that, most colleges require you to get a certain score on the ACT and/or SAT.

I know. You take a test to get a GED and take the SAT. Isn't that a given?

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You just said "get"; that doesn't necessarily imply taking and passing a test. Keep in mind, also, that some colleges don't accept the GED.

Keep in mind that a GED or a Diploma is a piece of paper and doesn't dictate how smart you are.Also, some people get passed through high school when they don't know how to read!I really don't think you can get a GED if you don't know how to read...

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The GED is apparently pretty easy. That's why colleges don't take it so much. Also, when I said you could go to college a year early... unless you built up a doubleplusgood awesome portfolio of stuff you've done with your free time, good colleges won't take you. But they WILL take you if you do your freshman and maybe sophomore year in a community college (and get As) and then transfer.

It's easier to go along with the system, despite its incredible flaws. But if you have a plan and your parents are going to be behind you to make sure you actually do it, then knock yourself out, take the other way. And you're not breaking laws if your parents are behind it. Legal escape hatches DO exist. You don't have to be a rebel about it.

Here's another idea, though, that's more likely. Talk to your teachers. If you want to learn more, get them to help you do that. Ask them for opportunities for side projects or to have the curriculum altered for you. Sure, some will say no because they don't have the time, but others, especially teachers for gifted/honors/AP/IB/whatever your school calls them classes, will be happy to help.

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Please don't say its a dream or my local high school district wantsus to feel "imprisoned" in a way. Seriously, my main beef with school is the imprisonment when it comes to class choices. 3/7 electives I must do have to be related to three different subjects. I hate 2 of them, but the history elective requirement I like. And I'll likely only be able to have 2 free electives. Of course we have to know how to read, and string together proper sentences, so that leaves 30 or 31 out of 32 classes that would be restricting. I'm sure there can be a lot of growth from one student if he can choose nearly all of his classes liberally.

Of course, schools emphasize taking harder classes, and would say a person who took basket weaving and got an A would be beat by a person who took AP Chemistry and got a C. Sure, I can see why, but come on! Colleges should have applications be based more on honest enjoyable student commitments than a possibly unhonest, unenjoyable one. Say a student loves filmmaking/art of filmtography and somehow manages to have all school time dedicated to it. I don't know why or how, or how impossible it might be, but he just does. Anyway, he turns out many excellent, well-thought out films that takes weeks and much labor to produce, and enjoys taking apart old movies line by line and see what makes it what it is to help, and honestly plans on this as a future career. Now, let's take a student who is forced by school to take many hard classes he doesn't even care about. Instead of having more time to work/learn what he loves, he plows through books, makes pages of proofs, and takes long nights typing something he doesn't understand yet cares about about on a computer because of the single external/internal force of not failing.

And I have to agree with Wes on this:


They say that the greatest generation is filled with knowledge and wisdom. I can listen to my dad (turning 60 in March, but you know) go on for hours about computers, Poland, family history, history and war and its machinery and will hang on to his every word. And no doubt he learned much of that out of school because he was interested and gained it over the years. Yet, I never really hear much of his education. Co-inky-dink?

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And Wes, one more thing: that comment on how you "know things teachers wouldn't dream about" and how you could "scare them if you went on a rant" - you really want us believe that you could know more than somebody who's been through about 20 years of school altogether? It just sounds really, really egotistical they way you put it.

There's a lot more I could put in this post but I'm not sure how to phrase it.

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Yeah. Sure, teachers aren't all Stephen Hawking, but they're not dumb. They might be scared, but in a "Oh God, I'm gonna have to put up with a 14 year old on a high horse now?" way. Really, these rants that Wes is on right now, if he'll look back on them in 10 years he'll think "Wow, I thought THAT was a rational argument?!" This is the kind of stuff that just seems so self-evident to his specific kind of sheltered American teenager, but falls into a million pieces as soon as the real world hits.

Though that in itself is a great reason that young people should have more real-world-type experiences. There are plenty of great angles from which you can pick apart the way our school systems operate. The libertarian argument isn't one of them.

Wes, the world as you see it now only makes sense to the you of now from the limited perspective you've been allowed. Instead of ranting about it, do something. You have 8-10 hours a day that aren't school or sleep. What are you doing with those? Get a job, volunteer, do independent learning, talk to people, and after a couple years you'll see how the world really works.

Short answer: School is the way it is not because of some government oppression, but because your precious free market has decided that presence or lack of high school diploma (and increasingly college degreee) is the easiest way to weed out dedicated workers from slackers. The government requiring school is just a response to that. The kinds of jobs that require college degrees these days... it's just absurd. Even some jobs even monkeys could do require high school diplomas. It's not the government, Wes, that's being "unjust". It's. The. Market.

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That may be true, but if I learned anything from my History teacher is that the easier way of handling a situation is immoral. For instance, in the early days of unions and strikes, business owners would hire strike-breakers instead of making better working conditions, fewer hours and more pay. Now, replace that with what Inverse said about how school is this way from the quote. There can be more moral ways to operate a school if the system can take the time, dedication and money to do it. BUt we're in a capitalist country, and while the big cheeses might have time and dedication they simply don't have the money.

However, it might be better for a smaller, fiscally stable, developed country to take a step into this unknown.If successful, it might lead to a global education reformation. Well, wherever there's money, anyway, as that's what the world is made of.

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The easier way isn't always immoral. Sometimes, when things are more difficult, it's because they're not possible. Just because something would be better if done a different way, doesn't mean it CAN be done that way. Also, if this is such a moral cause, why don't we see any students actually doing anything about it? Go ahead, drop out. Stop taking the easy road yourself. If it's against your morals and you think something can be done, be ready to fight and pay the price for fighting. Otherwise, find ways to deal with the situation at hand.

What's needed is definitely more flexibility, though. Students who can and want to go ahead need to be allowed to do so much more easily. Moving ahead at your own pace needs to be the rule rather than the exception. The government needs to work with business to return some students to vocational tracks instead of this everyone-to-college nonsense. Expectations need to be increased, subjects need to be taught better and sooner (other countries do it, so why can't we?), junior and senior year of high school need to be made work-specific for vocational students and turned into community college style (and credit bearing) classes for college students.

Also what's needed is more parental responsibility. The best teacher of all is a smart and loving parent. Home- or un-schooling for kids who have the personality for it and parents with time to dedicate to it is great. But if you're still in school right now and would rather be learning at home, don't blame the government. Your parents hold the key to your "prison". Maybe they feel a public school is best for you. Maybe they're lazy. Maybe that good ol' market has got them in a bind where both of them are too busy working to deal with that kind of thing. But in no case is this about government oppression.

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...
Have you not listened to the basis of my argument? F-R-E-E-D-O-M.
I personally love the free market, and an even better way to weed out the slacker would be to make education, while still free and public, non-compulsory. That would really weed out the slackers, you think? The free market would actually work better if it was more free, but that is for another thread and another time.

Also, my parents don't have the time to homeschool me, they have jobs.

I also am quitting Latin class. I'll probably still learn some in my free time, and in a less stressful manner to tick the school off though.

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Dude, don't quit Latin, it's too cool a language to give up on.

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Nope.

It'd just make more people that those of us who work would have to support.

Freedom?
That's hilarious.
School IS freedom. You're being taught things. Look back in the middle ages. The lower classes were denied knowledge, thus ensuring they would stay in the lower class (and be easy to control). The more you know the harder it is for them to control you.

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

If you don't like Latin, though, then don't take it. Languages you don't like are not worth learning. However, you might hate a language at one point and fall in love with it later in life, which happened to me with Spanish...

- Kef

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OH MAN, REBEL ROUSER ON THE LOOSE!!

Wes, you aren't listening to us. S-H-U-T U-P A-N-D G-O T-O- S-C-H-O-O-L B-E-C-A-U-S-E, I-N T-H-I-S D-A-Y A-N-D A-G-E, Y-O-U'-L-L N-E-V-E-R G-E-T A-N-Y-W-H-E-R-E I-F Y-O-U D-O-N'-T D-O T-H-E W-O-R-K Y-O-U'-R-E T-O-L-D N-W S-I-T D-O-W-N C-LA-S-S

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...
You people haven't been listening to what I'm saying.
Okay, let me lay out a ground plan:
Make schools better, still free, and noncompulsory.

That's what I want to happen to America's substandard schools.

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We've been "listening" perfectly well so how about you be quiet and "listen" yo'self for once, sonny.

If you weren't forced to go to school, the same taxes would still be paid, only less people would be employed and less business and jobs could be created by a lack of education.

As many people have been saying, knowledge IS freedom, so yo' ol' libertarian booshee ain't gonna cut it right there, boy.

Because we are given this, we are less subject to control and will question authority more constructively. I know you're going to say that we would have the OPTION of going to school, so this would be available to us, but barely anybody would take this option, and thusly few people would not be ill-equipped to handle more important jobs in America, such as teachers and medical doctors.

So how about you pay attention, respect your elders, and do what you're told.

Kids these days.

They got no idea of what's good fo' 'em. I blame that rock and roll newfangledness that's been spouting from my radio recently. I say.

We didn't have none of this internet neither. Hayul, if you would read your history books for once instead of yo' computer box you might be better suited for an edumacation, son.

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Knowledge may be power, but I'm not looking for power by any means, I'm looking for freedom.

And I won't respect my elders until they respect me.

BTW: The current education most American children have is substandard at best. Have you seen how smart those homeschooled and and unschooled kids are? Very smart.

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I can't stand knowing that I have posts in an R&P topic, but I have to jump in and jump out real quick to throw this out.


^Yes.




kbai

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Oh, like students who graduate from public schools aren't?

They are too real jobs!....

Meh.

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I think he's saying smart as the student to think for themselves and make rational decisions as well as having a good education. Public school students' minds have been dulled to the point where they cut corners and later realize that they made a poor decision, and there are those who simply "can't" survive without someone thinking for them. Telling them when to get up, when to sleep, etc.

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Sorry, didn't see that.

I'm saying they don't have the potential to grow as far as homeschooling and unschooling can let you. A set curriculum and out of date teaching methods does not a good school make.

I also agree with Chicken Leg.

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