30 Things I Learned in School

People keep asking me what I have against school, why did I always hate it so much. I never really was able to tell them because I thought I would be offending them for some odd reason, or maybe I was just shy. Who knows? I also remember back then people asking me what I learned in school, and one answer was always the right answer: nothing. Now that I’m older, I realize that’s something that just isn’t true. Some I’m going to shoot both questions down with this list of “30 Things I Learned in School.”

1. Learning happens in spite of education; not because of it.
2. You can’t choose your friends. They choose you. And they will unchoose you if you don’t do as they say.
3. Adult life will suck, and adults will repeatedly remind you that adult life will suck until child life starts to suck too.
4. If you ever finish all of your work then there’s just more work to do. So don’t finish the work until the last second, and procrastinate half the time away before you start to achieve previous said goal.
5. People are morons. It’s just human nature.
6. Every job you will ever have in your lifetime will suck entirely no matter how prestigious or well-paying it is (see future post for examples).
7. How to tune out people screaming at your face while looking totally, and utterly alert.
8. The best way to sell a crappy book: get a teacher to like it. As it becomes mandatory reading, sales just go up every year. Who cares if the book ends up in a landfill?
9. Friendships come and go. They complain that you don’t have any friends, and once you do they spend every waking moment keeping you apart.
10. When you laugh the world laughs with you. When you cry the world laughs at you.
11. You can’t please any of the people… ever.
12. How to convincingly feign being sick, and how it can solve virtually any problem.
13. You can’t rely on other people to take care of you, protect you from bullies, do their job, be sane, be competant, or be decent human beings. Expecting anything else sets you up for disappointment.
14. If there’s something you don’t understand or don’t like you can make fun of it until it goes away, or kills itself.
15. What seems petty now may traumatize you for years to come.
16. A single letter on a crumpled piece of paper put there by a person you utterly hate for reasons that you don’t care about has the power to turn the world against you.
17. Technology moves forward. Public schools don’t.
18. Proxies are the best things since sliced bread. They aren’t just for people under oppresive governments anymore.
19. Anyone who ever said that “high school is the best time of your life” should be convicted of assisting a suicide and get mental help. Immediately.
20. Anyone and their dog, and their dog’s fleas can become a substitute teacher.
21. Society doesn’t like you. It laughs at your misery. You must be a terrible person.
22. If you learn something the first time and it isn’t interesting, it won’t be interesting the next time you learn it, or the fourth time after that.
23. You are your own best friend. Loners may be freaks, but freaky is cool. And some of the sanest people I’ve ever met are loners.
24. Total strangers leave you alone. Friends are allowed to take things without permission, punch you (two for flinching), and impose. Family members are allowed to outright humiliate you because… you know, you’re family.
25. Kindergarten teachers learn from Marx. The best way to teach sharing is not taking a toy away from someone who is content and give it to the other kid who just looked at longingly.
26. Suicide prevention doesn’t do much if it relies on the person who probably doesn’t want to be stopped.
27. Everybody lies. Trust no one.
28. Just as school kills creativity, it kills logic. “Homework is to help you do well on tests. Tests determine your grade.” Acing all tests and doing no homework nets you a failing grade.
29. A private school does not mean a good school, or a safe school.
30. The human stomach is absolutely amazing considering it can digest all the crap they put in school food when it’s supposedly young, weak, and still developing.

If I ever have kids, I’m homeschooling them. Don’t tell me schools will improve because they won’t. They’re using the same outdating methods they’ve used for the past two centuries. If this sounds like satire, it isn’t. I learned a hell of a lot more from school, but I’m trying to keep this light-hearted. You don’t want my nightmares. Trust me.