#anti school

[aronarchy]

[image ID: Facebook post by Songbird Schwarz

I often think about how gross it is the way we’ve normalized kids hating school. Like to the point of fear and avoidance. “Lol he’s pretending to be sick to stay home.” “She was so happy it was a snow day she jumped for joy.” “Hahaha he’s hiding under the bed to avoid going.”

It’s... It’s not funny. It’s actually really gross the way we make kids sit a desk all day to be force fed dry as hell information and make them ask if they can use the bathroom, for 7-8 hours a day. 5 days a week and then go home with oppressively unfair amounts of homework.

And then we laugh - we LAUGH - at how much they hate it. It’s become a cultural touchstone. To shake our heads and chuckle while kids try to scheme ways to get out of it.

That’s… That’s bad.

And then we ask adults to do the same with work.

/end image ID]

[coyotegirl-domestic-terrorism]

Although I had once pinned all my hopes on putting myself through school, believing I could thereby make something of myself, I now realized the futility of this all too clearly. No amount of struggling for an education is going to help one get ahead in this world. And what does it mean to get ahead anyway? is there any more worthless lot than the so-called great people of this world? What is so admirable about being looked up to by others? I do not live for other. What I had to achieve was my own freedom, my own satisfaction. I had to be myself.

-Kaneko Fumiko

[wanderingmindthoughts]

I come from a family of teachers, so I have been (and still am) in contact with many different kinds of teachers. a frustration that I often hear is that sometimes they will be explaining something about their subject that is legitimately interesting and someone will raise their hand and ask "okay but, will this be in the exam?". it frustrates them because it signals to the teacher that the student isn't really invested in the subject, and is merely focused on passing as fast as possible.

that is a correct assessment, however teachers need to stop complaining about it and start to reflect on how it was the mandatory school system (and by extension, the teachers themselves) who has taught the students that they must be focused on getting at least a passing grade. being actually, personally invested in the subject is optional and often discouraged. yes, it is very good that you enjoy biology so much, but right now you're failing maths, so could you please stop reading about oxygen exchange and do thirty integrals instead?

one of the most important values that mandatory schooling drills into students is that knowledge doesn't actually matter. it doesn't matter if it useful or interesting, and it matters even less if you like it; it doesn't even matter if you will use this knowledge in the far future. in fact, if you can only learn things that are either directly useful to you or that you personally enjoy, you're a bad student. in other words, the content of the course shouldn't matter at all for the student. the only thing that should matter to them is, will this get me a passing grade?

as they spend more and more years in the educative system, students internalise this message and as a result, they often become apathetic about the content they're being presented with. if personal motivation is not important, why bother finding it? a student that only cares about what will be in the exam is acting rationally in the environment they've been forced into.

if, as a teacher, you find this behaviour frustrating or worrying, you should start questioning why you're working in the environment that demands it.

[hold-schools-accountable]

One of the most hilarious lies that my school ever spread was “we are preparing you for college.”

Oh yeah, because all of those mental disorders you gave me and all of the bad habits I formed to save my grades really prepared me for studying the things I love, having understanding professors, and not having to do dumb shit for the sake of doing it.

Yeah, you totally prepared me for that totally terrifying situation! I would so much rather be back in high school where I was being put down and purposefully misunderstood constantly!

[your-hellish-student-rants]

I LOVE reading, but I HATE reading comprehension questions. They're so goddamn boring. I want to be asked my thoughts, not reword the question and say the right things for a grade. I want to talk about how the story was set up and how beautifully the dialogue was written-- not pick a multi choice question.

For crying out loud I want to read a story not an ANSWER SHEET.

[the-godly-apple-being]

I was today years old when i found out schools in the US have 3 minute breaks. What the fuck do they want you guys to do?? Piss on the floor???

[butchhatred]

I think requiring children to work 35 hours a week with working at home as well is inhumane actually

[flowers-and-literature]

Anarchists, rebels, and general punk rockers I am begging you to listen to children and teenagers experiences in school!! It's a fucked system and needs to be abolished asap and idk if I'm not digging deep enough but I never hear anyone talking about it! We need to raise our hand to speak & to use the bathroom, we can only eat once a bell says we can, any sort of self expression like hair dye, piercings, etc, can land you a detention, suspension, or expulsion, and schools do nothing about suicidal students and victims of bullying. Teachers will scream at you and if you defend yourself it's "disrespectful", and I am sick to death of all these adults having authority over us!! So please, if you consider yourself part of the revolution, make sure you're fighting for everyone

[anti-school]

"School only exists to turn children into wage slaves" and "school doesn't actually teach us anything useful" are two statements that CAN and SHOULD coexist. Stop pretending like they're not.

[brettdoesdiscourse]

Something I very distinctly remember from high school was a kid asking a math teacher how often we would actually use something we were learning in real life. And this woman looked him dead in the face, in completely 100% seriousness, and do you know what she said?

"I use it every day."

Surely the math teacher will not have a biased view of how often the average person will use a math concept.

[hieronymus-botch]

Phineas and Ferb is actually social commentary on how the school system holds smart kids back because the fact that it's their summer vacation implies they're still making two kids who are capable of building functional spaceships and supercomputers and shit go to school

[aronarchy]

https://twitter.com/butchanarchy/status/1663942855746895875

Schools are sites of extreme social control and abuse, serve as state propaganda distribution centers, and are by and large focused on creating docile servants to capital rather than inquisitive learners. School abolition is a necessary radical demand.

If you got through the experience of schooling with your love of learning and self-esteem intact I’m honestly very happy for you but that is not reflective of how many youth experience school as an institution. Reach beyond your own experiences in your analysis please.

The idea that children can’t and won’t learn unless they are under power of centralized authority has the same roots as the belief that no one would ever labor if not under the coercive control of the state and capital. It’s a myth to justify control and domination.

If you find yourself scoffing at the idea of school abolition I hope you will see that reaction for what it is: a defense of something you have always been taught to see as natural and inevitable. As a radical such a reaction calls for analysis, not dogmatic acceptance.

Liberalism has taught many that politics need only ever be in reaction to what conservatives are doing. Right-wingers attack the institution of schooling? This must mean School = Good and that any critique of schooling = conservative. Radical politics require we step beyond this.

Teenage suicide rates fell when much of school turned to remote learning, and they rose again (by 18%!) when in-person schooling resumed. This is not an institution that needs your defense. It is an institution that inflicts frankly incalculable levels of trauma on youth.

Let’s go even further than just critique the authoritarian institution of school, keep digging up the roots! What would happen if we opened ourselves up to inquiring about the values laden in the conceptualization that education is something that can be “given” Teacher ➡️ Student

Let’s analyze the idea that the Teacher is someone who is Already in possession of Knowledge, who then pours that Knowledge into the Passive Vessel of the Student, who has no Knowledge. Is this the only way learning happens? Is it really the best way?

What other lessons are we teaching youth when we accept the above as true? What are they learning about their own worth, what about themselves and their learning process are they being taught to ignore and suppress because it does not align with the processes dictated by Teacher?

What wounds do we ourselves still carry by being taught in this way? Did this process teach us how to explore, how to be creative, how to drive our own learning process forward without the dictates of an Authority figure? How do we see these wounds reflected in our peers?

And what lessons are we missing out on when we believe that youth are simply receptacles of Adult Wisdom? When we devalue their agency so much as to outright deny its existence in our defense on institutions that control them? Could they not also be our teachers?

The beauty of radical politics is that they reveal that all forms of social relations are vulnerable to critique. Social structures are choices, not states of nature we cannot help but reproduce. We can keep digging, keep questioning. imo it is a moral imperative that we do so.

There are always more questions to ask! There are always more options for exploration than we are presented by authoritarian hegemony. That many of us are not accustomed to analyzing and exploring this way is, itself, a symptom of how our society approaches learning.

[coyotegirl-domestic-terrorism]

so i’ve been having an existential crisis for like the past hour. i suddenly came to the realization that in order to “contribute to society” (something i don’t want to do because i don’t want society) im going to have to go to school for a few more years to to college for a few years become a wage slave until i die (because of some physical health conditions i doubt ill grow old). i don’t want to live a life like that, and apparently im just lazy because i want to live a life worth living. that’s, to be quite frank, disturbing. if we have to give up some of our liberties to live in a society, if we have to give up our happiness and freedom to live in a society, i don’t want one. it doesn’t make sense to just toil away and convince yourself everything’s okay for your entire life, and then when you finally can’t work anymore just go be abused institutionally again.

that’s a really fascinating thing about modern society. the fact that during the beginning of your life, you are forced to go to school (institutional abuse) and when you’re elderly, your forced into a nursing home or other facility (institutional abuse). your expected to contribute to a society that doesn’t help you, otherwise your ungrateful and lazy because of course the company owning billionaires work hard to allow you to be miserable and poor your entire life.

i hate capitalism.

[wanderingmindthoughts]

a thing I am able to see more clearly the further from highschool I get is that grades, in the mandatory school system, exist purely for control.

when I was still in highschool, I thought that certainly, my parents would treat me much worse if I failed classes. after all, if getting less that 8 points out of the total 10 meant that I got yelled at and made to repeat problems for hours, it would have been that much worse if I had failed the class, right?

I think the same thing happens to kids who fail, who probably get told over and over that all of their problems are logical consequences of failing school, and would all go away it they just passed. so they actually believe that there is something that would free them from poor treatment, even if it's something they are unable to achieve. just how I believed that I was actually avoiding being treated worse by not failing.

but really, how differently was I being treated, compared to a kid that failed classes? I was already not allowed out of my room in the afternoons. I wasn't allowed to sleep in on weekends, because I had "better" things to do. I got nothing for getting good grades, often not even a "good job". I couldn't be seen doing hobbies or reading for fun without my mother popping in and chiding me for wasting my time. I was regularly punished and made to study until 2AM for not working hard enough during the afternoon.

yes, school and adults will use your bad grades to treat you poorly, and that sucks and I'm so sorry this is happening to you. but there's absolutely no guarantee that getting good grades will make them treat you better. good grades are not a magic pact that forces teachers to be nice to you, or help you. in the end, kids have no power to make adults stop treating them poorly, and grades is often just the excuse that pins the responsibility of their behaviour on you.

I am saying this not to be a downer, but to point out how similar both situations are. the good grades student is treated just as poorly as the bad grades one. you're both subject to the whims of the same school system, and get the same allowances from it: zero. you're given extra work because failing means you don't deserve to rest, and they get extra work because they've finished the initial alloment too fast and it's disorderly for one student to rest while everyone else works. you're both equally trapped in the same system.

[anarkittyuwuuniverse]

"Who benefits when people are taught not to question the value of what they have been told to do but simply to toil away at it and to regard this as virtuous? Follow this query where it leads and what initially looked like uncontroversial claims on behalf of homework turn out to reveal a very specific, very debatable set of cultural values.

In fact, we may sniff out an economic component to this defense, too. Among the reasons homework is seen to be useful is that it develops “work-related skills that can transfer to adult occupations.” So perhaps all the talk about homework’s value at promoting good work habits is actually less about what children need than about what their future employers need. Perhaps the assertion that homework is “practice for life” is a partial truth: It’s really practice for a life spent working in corporations. And perhaps it’s not just about teaching skills that may be useful to a future employer; it’s about inculcating norms, helping to produce “workers who are used to, and will not complain about, the long working day.” -Alfie Kohn, "The Homework Myth, Why Our Kids Get Too Much of A Bad Thing"

[inhumanliquid]

Grades are so pointless and demotivating. What do these letters mean and what's the fucking point when I won't care about anything by the time I graduate anyway.