Why I Enjoy School
24 Mar 2023Writing this with a C in APLAC lmao. Now a B. Now an A. lmao.
Our school recently encountered a power outage where we got a good amount time off from school. When the announcement came, I was surprised to see how prevalent the belief that students-must-hate-school stuck (I am somewhat guilty of this, but in my defense it meant I didn’t have a quiz tomorrow). Everybody cheered because there was less school, as if the fact that school was bad was dogma and self-evident. Well, I don’t hate school and thus here this 💩post goes.
Meeting People
No, the first reason is not learning. I am not that corny/predictable (for now).
Despite the striking lack of diversity my 90% Asian high school has, there’s a good amount of varied attitudes and people. It’s not hard to find math nerds five feet away from students blasting music and playing spikeball. As part of going to school, I enjoy chance interactions/conversations and making as many jokes, however degenerate, as possible. Collaborations & opportunities all come from exposure to people outside your “bubble” - I find you only (or at least for me) get that from talking to different people. Futhermore, it’s always interesting to learn about people and what they spend their time on precisely because sometimes I could never imagine myself doing what they do. I will sometimes even pretend that a door is not open just to start a conversation with whoever will open it 💀.
These chance conversations literally whenever - during class, passing periods, walking to and from school - are already a good enough why to go to school. Regardless of how much sleep I got the last night, meeting new faces who eventually become friends makes school worth it.
Shared Suffering
OK, so I’ve been talking about how I like school but now state that in it we suffer? Let me elucidate (as my english teacher says).
Getting screwed week after week with hard tests in tough classes, as far as I’ve seen, generally brings people together. I’ve noticed that the hardest classes usually create the best bonds as everybody tries to prepare for the upcoming test. I would argue that is part of the reason that students actually enjoy harder classes than those easier (assuming it works out for them). For some reason it can be embarrassing to admit, but we do like learning.
Generally Useful Information?
Starting with a quick disclaimer that I am in awkward position to praise the American public education school system as a student at a high school ranked in the top 100 in the US and top 10 in California.
But as far as I have seen, most of the information we learn in school is NOT useless. Gaining a broad foundation across disciplines is valuable at an age (<20) where it cannot be expected (in first-world countries) that we should know what we want to dedicate time to. I do think there is value in being able to understand the world around us, which school addresses somewhat completely - how the world formed around us (history), provable truths about our world (sciences), what our world & collective psyche is based on (language classes). It’s not bad.
Conclusion
I’d say most students would happily take two weeks off from school if given the choice but then secretly want to return in a month or so. Would anybody ask to restart school? Idk.