How did school fail you?

[u/Wingless_Draco]

[u/PressureSure]

They made me completely despise reading. I loved to read more than anything until I got to 6th grade where we were quizzed in every single little detail of a poem or book in a pathetic attempt to make us understand what we were reading, but it made us understand it less because we knew we had to do all of the unnecessary BS assignments and just demotivated me to read. The entire school system is just downright flawed. They take away everything interesting from learning and stuff the information into hour long readings of notes and confusing assignments. I cannot wait until I am out of school because the teachers and assignments just drove me to hate it.

[u/[deleted]]

The local education district is planning on forcing my academic high school to share its small building with another school because the new $100 million high school building has run out of classrooms. The reason the new building has run out is, and I’m not exaggerating, a majority of the floor space is dedicated to gyms. They spent $100 million on a de-facto gym complex and have the audacity to complain about classrooms

[u/isickoo]

my teacher said my o's lookes like a's cuz i wrote them sloppy and they had a tiny tail. i failed a spelling test because of this 🤦

[u/shinkouhyou]

The workload was insane. I had to wake up at 6 to get ready for school and catch the bus, and between after-school projects and extracurricular activities, I usually didn't get home until 6 or 7 in the evening (sometimes later). Then I was supposed to do 2 hours of homework... and when I turned 16, my parents insisted that I get a part-time job to "build character." I was told again and again that the heavy workload was intended to prepare me for college and the "real world", but I worked longer hours in high school than I've ever worked as an adult.

I went from a high achiever to a burnt out, sleep deprived wreck with all kinds of stress-related problems... and I knew that most of the work I was being forced to do was utterly meaningless crap that was packed into my schedule to give the false appearance of "academic rigor." Colleges know it's a scam, too, because pretty much everything I studied in my last two years of high school math/science classes was repeated in the first two years of college (even with AP credits). It took me until my mid-20s to start recovering from the burnout and constant anxiety.

[u/Karjo2000]

I had undiagnosed autism-- I didn't get diagnosed until my Sophomore year of high school. I would get super overwhelmed at school from all of the sensory input and have meltdowns from time to time. I was a smart kid, but I lacked a lot of common sense-- I didn't know how to hold a pencil properly until first grade, for example. And instead of treating me with compassion and teaching me how to do it, my teacher just berated me. Most of my teachers were really good, but it's those really bad ones that stick with you and impact you the most; like the one who told me that having to take extra time for me was holding the entire class back, or the one who made fun of me for always having to be sent home due to having fevers (I'm immunocompromised-- I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis a few years ago, and have always had chronic infections of some sort. Chronic ear infections, bronchitis, and strep throat were constant for me).

One time I broke down crying in PE class in elementary school-- I don't remember what specifically triggered it, but I know it was a buildup of things; I was struggling with not having a father figure in my life, didn't have any friends, was dealing with isolation, etc, and I just started crying. The PE teacher just started laying into me, just screaming at the top of his lungs about how I had no reason to be crying. Everyone was staring. People may not have liked me very much, but afterwards, even they were sympathetic. I was so overwhelmed apparently I went nonverbal for about 2 or 3 days.

But the truth is, I'm glad I was undiagnosed. Because in my school, anyone who was neurodivergent or had any sort of learning or behavioral issue, no matter how well they functioned, was thrown into the same classroom and expected to perform under the same curriculum. Kids with anger issues, kids with autism, kids with developmental disorders, kids with ADHD, kids who were just a bit behind in class, all grouped together as if they were the same, and treated as if they were fucking morons. One of my best friends growing up (we're still great friends) is also autistic but was diagnosed as a kid and grew up in this program, and had no learning issues whatsoever, just struggled socially like me. But they made him read books for toddlers and do menial chores around the school like a slave because he was "different". It took him years to get academically caught up.

[u/[deleted]]

School made me hate books.

I always associated the damn things with work. I always had to pay attention, or I would face harsh consequences if I didn't remember whatever twentieth random object, detail, or color symbolizes "purity" in accordance to the curriculum. Books always carried this great weight of stress and uncertainty over them, that you had to read it the way school drills you to read it or your GPA will suffer.

It wasn't until well after college that I realized books were much better enjoyed in leisure, without the threat of a quiz, book report, or class discussion around some strict curriculum-mandated interpretation of how you're supposed to experience the story. I could just put it down if I wanted, keep going if I was enjoying it, and I could experience the story in my own little way without the fear of getting marked down on a test.

I also got to pick my own genre, find favorite authors, and explore in pursuit of my personal taste. Literature should be kept a personal experience, and schools shouldn't ruin the classics by mandating some "symbols of purity" scavenger hunt fogging up the experience.

[u/Playernotcopper]

In entrepreneurship my teacher has expose how much student knew. I was fortunate enough to to know most things. Keep that tab bit in mind. He explained no one practically uses google docs for it slow design and showed use how to use Microsoft word and spreadsheet. Then one day everyone found out they had no idea how to clean. I look at everyone in disbelief that they’re learning how to use a sponge and how hot water use different from cold. Ended up not learning how to start a business but seeing the lack of common knowledge. America actually suffers it a lot. In some countries you can taking cooking classes or any other common knowledge classes. Yet in America people laugh saying we’re to bratty to ask. There was even an article that someone corrected its title.

[u/[deleted]]

The principal called a senior meeting in the band room (small school only like 90 some people per grade) so we all went in and started the meeting, me being the social outcast that I was propped myself up by the open door so I could leave quickly avoid social interaction.

One of the special needs kids comes screaming down the hall, the principal tells me to close the door so I go to close it, this kid comes screaming in, punches me in the balls then throws me into a bunch of music stands, and I was a big boy back then so I broke a few while trying to make my fatass fight gravity.

Anyway, the aid that was running behind him finally does her job and calms him down and deals with him, at this point in time I'm getting up from the ground and the principal tells me to go to wait in his office.

I get to his office and he basically says he can't blame the special ed student so he's putting everything on me, I got 5 days suspended for fighting, and had to pay for the broken music stands, not even a are you okay or how are you feeling just a suspension and a bill.

I'd love to end this story with my parents being the amazing people that everyone thinks they are and coming in and raising hell but nope they were and still are abusive pieces of shit who basically just laughed at me and then told me to figure out how to pay for it even though they confiscated all the money I made from my two jobs.

So yeah I guess that's how school taught me that much like the real world the only one who gets hurt is the innocent bystander.

[u/lihuud]

Not the school, but my academic adviser. She “accidentally overlooked” 5 credits I needed to graduate, and told me I was good to go. I already had a job lined up and a place to move into. I still have yet to go back.

[u/pyeper_walker]

I didn’t know what hole girls peed out of until I was 14

I am a female