crimesagainsthumanity - Tumblr blog

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My 7 year old son was shot down by his 1st grade teacher

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Sometimes, I feel like ripping apart my skin, and searching for a reason for why I feel this empty. Maybe my veins are tangled, or something is lodged in my ribcage. Because it feels like something inside of me is missing or broken.

Unknown (via felicefawn)

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School Can't Teach You To Create; School Can't Teach You Art

PropertyOfZack is happy to welcome back Tom Falcone in a new Contributor Blog. Tom is a well-known touring photographer that mostly works with Mayday Parade and has now found himself removed from art school and fully on the road as a touring photographer. Tom wrote a new blog for POZ on the subject of art school and how its confines often do not contribute to making an artist better, or making someone an artist at all. Read up and let us know your thoughts!

Is photography something that can be taught to you? Do you think the education of art is needed? Does a touring music photographer get his/her job from school?  Coming from no artistic background in my family, the decision of even picking up a camera was questionable. The dream to pursue something so different than anyone I grew up with did was even more questionable.  Being so young (21), and having a decent amount of fan following due to the bands that I travel and work with, getting questioned about school is always one of the first things that gets asked. Coming out of high school and deciding to continue school, New England School of Photography (Boston, MA), was where I found myself. I had a general idea on why I was attending, but the fact that I was so out of my element with what I photograph made me regret my decision at times.  As an inspired touring photographer, full-time now, there were a lot of bad critiques when I was in college. In the art (and even) music world, there are two different types of people: the people who “like”, and people who “don’t like” your work. It is one or another. I fell into a huge hole of people who didn’t understand my photography. Maybe it was because I was photographing bands - behind the scenes, live concerts, candids - not my friends modeling with a bunch of makeup on in front of a white wall. I found interest in people who are looked at in a heroic way by their fan base and wanted to break them down to show that everyone is human. No one “liked” it for two years. 

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If everyone hates things, why don't they ever change?

Where is the disconnect between thoughtful pondering, societal commentary, and political action? And why?

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My Psychology Professor: People who are not depressed see the world the way they want to see it. People who are depressed see the world the way it actually is.

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We live our lives afraid of the mistakes we’ve made. We’re afraid of the people we might become. We’re afraid of our failures and so we’ve become content with our mediocrity. We make excuses about the places we came from and the things we can’t change. We’ve settled for good. We’ve stopped fighting for great. People say The Greatest Generation grew up during The Great Depression and fought in World War II. They say they were selfless and determined. They say they shaped who we are now. They’re right. But it begs the question: Why not us? Why aren’t we reaching for the same? Why can’t we be The Greatest Generation? Your depression, your anxiety, your pain, your disillusion with the world; it’s time to put it all aside. We’re sick of settling for good. We’re sick of calling someone else the greatest. It’s our turn to shape the world. This is our chance to push through the challenges and the setbacks and define ourselves. I want to be remembered for more than this. I think we all do. People say, “The Greatest Generation has come and gone,” but they’re wrong. They haven’t seen what we’re capable of.

“The Greatest Generation” by The Wonder Years (via alextoor)

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the education system is so fucking corrupt people become depressed over school, heck some people commit suicide over school yet the schooling system only gives a shit about the grades you get. your feelings aren’t appreciated and you’re told to do your work to get your mind off things. it really needs to change, you can’t work when you feel like shit and want to die.

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is it really too much to ask to just want to spend your life learning things without being tested on them

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Get educated.

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One of the inspiration(s) of the record is the idea that there are so many stimuli going on right now, there are so many computers, iPhones, TVs, media, that nobody really knows what’s important anymore. There is no underground anymore because everything is homogenised and coming through the same filter. There are far fewer instances of certain circumstances affecting specific scenes, music and culture. has become a substitute for actually living and experiencing things. That’s scary… It’s like a cultural depression.

Ben Weinman, of The Dillinger Escape Plan, for Kerrang! April 2010 (via alextoor)

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No. Whoever told us that we have to start thinking about "what we want to do" and "who we want to be" from our youngest age so that we can "fend for ourselves" got it all so f*cking backward. It fucked us up. Shriveled Americans into-- robots... who churn out work... and for what?? We are so consumed by our realities, our experiences, our need to be "self-sufficient"... that we don't let ourselves experience miracles anymore. It is the most frustrating thing... to still be... here. Be now. Be this. (It's a travesty that "regular jobs" are called "regular." Those jobs should be the "abnormal" ones.) But it's all we prepare for in school. School-- Hilarious. A thousand people with a thousand separate families and a thousand separate problems... a thousand separate horrible weekends and sinus problems and insomnia... All forced to wake up early so that other people with their own problems can "teach" them all to repeat the same thing-- that if we memorize and cheat and tie our shoelaces, we will make it.

Writer Brett Lewis for character "Tiffany Blues" of Fall Out Toy Works

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It is a miracle that curiousity survives formal education.

Albert Einstein

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The Problem with Public Education, Part 2:

"Behind every good student is a great teacher".

You know, it's a shame that's not true. There are too many teachers and faculty members who don't get paid enough or have the natural morale to sit through the day and accomplish tasks with a sense of rejuvenation. For that matter, it's a shame that our education isn't valued very much by anyone in charge. I take that back. We are indeed JUST as important as state and federal prisoners who are fed by the same food suppliers as public schools. It's a linear system where you are expected to step-through Kindergarden to Senior Year with a 4.0 GPA, never asking questions, skipping assignments, or missing a day (because we still reward people for perfect attendance). If you go off the beaten path, you are a failure, and a distraction more importantly. By the time that everyone gets out of the system, they are so disgusted with it that they want nothing to do with public education anymore and surely aren't going to waste their time focusing on the negative energy America's schooling institutions give off in an attempt to make it better. Politicians and our "representatives" have their own problems, but no one under 18 can vote for their re-election anyway so who gives a damn about us. We are just being set-up from Day 1 to repeat our mistakes.

Now, those who run the system do care. They care about how much they are being paid at the end of the month and how large their bonus will be. They are old and disgruntled and power-hungry; forcing themselves into situations that were better off without them, such as demanding the direct control of all school websites to be administered by a county board executive. And all this time I just sit here...observing my own silencing, wondering why it became this way.

I say, it's a pity being such a lowly number in the sea of a future generation.

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The Problem with Public Education:

Steve Jobs once said, "Handwriting is probably the slowest input method ever." I wish this could be more true. You know, if I had to take a bet on it, I'd say schools don't really appreciate the You vs. Me mentality that most teenagers have. But they sure will do everything they can to encourage it. It seems like they want to fight against anything someone currently living within modern day times would like. Which makes no sense when you think about it. If they want to teach us, why would they want to attempt to do so in the least effective way possible? Why not embrace the things that not only do we already know and love, but that make things easier on everyone. You can tell me not to use a calculator and insist that I need the skills to do work like calculus without one, but no one in the real world with half a brain will ever expect that I should or can. I can't even pull out my phone in class to read an iBook; instead, I'm realistically expected to carry around a 630-paged book with me at all times so I can deal with loads of problems later on in life caused by years of developing scoliosis. Despite the fact that my boss will never demand anything to be hand-written in a future professional setting, we're not allowed to use our smartphones to take notes with in class, even though they provide me with a much more efficient, interesting, flexible, and useful way to study...anything. No, rather than seeing today's "newfangled gizmos" as a window of opportunity to both reach out and relate to kids as well as adopt an innovative and more efficient way of accomplishing learning tasks, the public school systems see technology as the enemy and as nothing more than a mere "distraction" (I kid you not). They only embrace such futuristic advancements when forced to under county, state, or federal law...and typically by the means of a 7 year old defective Dell workstation running Windows '98, Microsoft Office 2003, and Internet Explorer 7 packaged-in with Bing as the only usable search engine.

The policies educational boards have across America towards technology only being used in counterproductive manners versus an effective tool to further effort and accomplishment have done nothing to benefit neither them nor the students. All that it has done is made me grow to despise everything they stand for as I forcibly advance in this program for 12 years of my life now (K-11). It is ridiculous; you can not be afraid of what you do not understand. This can't go on.

It's impossible to teach 21st Century kids in a 19th Century fashion.