what was he late too

[Freakboy]

school?
thats a bitch

[opopopo]

i still hold the record for most lates in a year at my junior high

[thelatebphelium]

i too came close to the record. me and another dude were late like
50 or 60 times one year. the next year, they implemented a new policy that
stated that if you were late more than 7 times in a quarter, you'd be suspended
for two days. failing grades, etc. well.. of course, i hit 7 rather early. i'd be driving to
school looking at the clock. "oops.. i'm one minute late. i guess i'll have to stay home today and be sick." one sick day is better than 2 suspension days. :cool:

i HATED school. worst part of my life.
i still have nightmares.

[opopopo]

im still in highschool... and im going to have to take an extra year because the whole mental hospital thing screwed this year completely... boo

bp, (or anyone else, though no ones quite as cool as the late mr. helium) what made school stink so much? is there anything you regret and/or would do differently? i just want to know what would make my school experiance more worthwhile... i mean do you wish you had worn underwear on your head and danced about the hallways, or spent the entire time speaking in one huge pallendrome... i dont know.

[thelatebphelium]

hmmm... i guess everybody's take is a little different though surprisingly similar. i was on the lowest rung at my high school and had very few friends. some days i attempted to see if i could go through the school day without ever having to say a word to anyone. i came close a few times. i suffered from terrible stress, anxiety and paranoia. and subsequently depression! whenever i heard people laughing, i thought they were laughing at me. even if they were a football field away! it was complete torture each day i went to school. eventually, my parents finally got clued into what was happening to me and said i didn't have to go to school if i didn't want to go. so i didn't! :D i never went back! it was the best thing ever! i got my G.E.D. and went to college. but i still have dreams that i have to finish high school....

so i'm not saying you should drop out. but maybe if you're stressed and paranoid like i was, you should try to eliminate these things. it's hard to have a broad perspective. i mean with raging hormones and such. ;) just don't let the little things get you down. relax. don't worry about the people who are jerks. you're way cooler than they are! be yourself!

if i was back in high school.. i'd get a mohawk immediately... with liberty spikes.

[Edited on 5-25-2003 by thelatebphelium]

[dolemites_sister]

Yeah! :)

High school for me was a nightmare as well. I was in the band, which provided me with many friends, but no one was like me. I don't know.. My brother had me listening to the Smiths when I was in elementary school which may have contributed to my oddness.. :)

Nonetheless, the people who made fun of me or thought I was weird are the real losers here. I am just proud I escaped high school being myself. I was in the National Honor Society, the band, but I hung out with the kids with the liberty spikes... :)

It was fun in someways, but I never want to do it again! Hang in there kid... College is way better! :)

j

[sir_rockaby]

i suffered from terrible stress, anxiety and paranoia. and subsequently depression! whenever i heard people laughing, i thought they were laughing at me. even if they were a football field away!


Thats exactly what school did to me too. I just completly retreated into myself and I'm only just starting to get myself together and have some confidence in who I am. I can't see any other part of my life been as bad as my school days.

[perfectbrokenmirror]

school became utter hell about mid way through 8th grade year. i hated going and refused to go. my mother thought i was depressed and my days were spent at the doctors. they found out that i wasn't and to this day i'm still unsure as to what happend to me. i was ok in 9th grade but part way through decided to switch to home school. its been really great. i still go to school and take classes (now i take classes at college too). in 10th grade being a home proved a blessing because i was able to find out who i was and how i wanted to act. since our move i have made friends who like me for who i am. i'm glad to see that i wasn't the only one with an high school life. i'm looking forward to college...a place were i can study what i want.

opopopo, have you ever thought of homeschooling to catch up?

[channelfan]

school was a giant wasteland. when i was young i had no idea who i was, so i tried to be what my parents wanted me to be, which was actually just like my brother. when i got into highschool, i had 2 friends and even those weren't like best friends. i was a total dork. i was really depressed and extremely reclusive. i thought of suicide all the time but i couldn't get over how totallly selfish that would be. my senior year i turned in a poetry project and upon reading it my teacher started talking to me after school and for some reason i decided to share with her my feelings. supposedlly what i said there to her was to be between us alone. but one day i got called to the guidance counsler's office and as i turned the corner to walk in i saw my teacher there, then there were my parents, mother crying. great. the only person i trusted with my innermost feelings and she blows it. then there were trips to the doctor and such. the psychologist recommended medication but even though i was prepared to try that, my parents would not allow me.
high school is really not that good for you. the popularity contests, the jocks, the act that everyone puts on just to be accepted by people who in fact are also acting. what a joke. at such young impressionable ages you have all this stuff flying in your face. its no wonder so many kids turn out depressed and stressed.
we are definately going to home school our kids through elementary grades and perhaps even the whole way through. i really can't imagine sending my son into that horrible scenario. /sorrysolong

[floating norman]

i went to 2 different high schools. i started out at a rather large suburbian school and transfered to a very small town school in the 10th grade. i completely relate to all the comments thus far concerning my first school in the Houston, TX area. but the small town school ended up being quite fun. i would have to thank my brother (1 1/2 years younger) for that experience. we share a lot of the same interests, and we kind of just did our own thing through the last few years of high school. i guess we just figured that most people were mean because they were insecure about themselves. after all, i wasn't the only one with the occasional pimple or new hair growing in strange places. i can vouch that i learned next to nothing in high school, other than how to ignore jeers, insults and flying fists. the familiar east texas call of "yew stewpid hippie!" became more comical than anything else. i can't really imagine going through it alone, so i feel for you who do, but just remember that there are others who see past people's clothes, body-types, and popularity, and seek those people out. if you see someone who seems not to want to talk to anyone, that's a potential good friend. so just remember that it's your life and after you get out of there, you'll probably never see most of those people again, so just keep them in their context. and yeah, college is much, much better.

[ladylamentingonalawnchair]

School is bad for you. No one can learn by being forced to learn, and one needs a teacher to learn. Here are some good books to read on homeschooling (any other suggestions, anyone?): The Teenage Liberation Handbook by Grace Llewelyn, also books on homeschooling by John Holt, Deschooling Society by Ivan Illich, School is Dead by Everett Reimer. I wish so deeply that I had dropped out of school maybe in high school, I would have had a happier life. I turned out okay, but it took a while to become a real self-confident creative person. School drums that out of you, with its arbitrary rules and compulsary curriculum, you can't learn what you want to learn and you have to fit certain standards of behavior. The other kids usually don't help, but the whole institution of school is what's the problem.
College is a bit different, as you choose to go there, and it certainly depends on the college.
Congrats to y'all who dropped out, are homeschooling, are homeschooling your kids. It's totally brave and might make the world a better place.

[rickard]

wow... you all sure seem to have had an awful time in school... Maybe it's the schools in my country or maybe I'm just lucky, but I've never thought that school is bad for you... You get to meet people... nice people, stupid people, whatever... but you get to meet people and that's what is important... And I did learn some things... (the wonderful english language for example;)) so without school I guess I couldn't hang around on this board...
I just thought someone should say that school can be ok... maybe it wasn't the greatest time in my life but still it was ok.

[friend]

junior high came as a huge shock to me. i was new in town and i went from being well liked and confident to being labelled a nerd and feeling like an outcast. i knew it was a big mistake, but didn't know how to get out of it. everyone is insecure and the successful kids are good at picking up on your insecurities and making you feel lower that they are. by 9th grade, i switched my friends, to new ones that were less picked on and nicer. some of them i still have and i'm 29. things more or less have gotten better and better since, figuring out who i really am (basically very similar at the core to who i was when i was very young and innocent)and learning how to communicate and love other people, especially me.

[William]

I left school in 8th grade to be homeschooled. I still am today. I didn't have any friends, and the work was completely inane, I hardly ever did it. I was sick all the time too from stress, etc...Elementry School was okay. But my former middle school was dirty, and just horrible. High School would've been worse since its all the same kids, just older, and more horrible. So I'm not going. Homeschooling is much better - I don't need to wake up at 7 in the morning just to ride a bus to hell.

[Edited on 6-6-2003 by William]

[dolemites_sister]

I don't know about the whole homeschooling thing. I know that jr. high/high school is really tough on kids, but I think it is good to experience other people and to be in the enviroment, be it bad or good. There are two people in my family who were homeschooled most of their lives and both regret it deeply now. They feel as if they have been cheated, and both have bad social problems. Of course, this is only two people. (who are now in their 30's)

And I think that you get more than an school book education from public school.

I don't know.. I don't dislike school. But then again... I want to be a teacher, so I guess I will be the one forcing information down people's throats then I guess... Hmm? :)

[muskogee]

well, my brother f.norman tells much of my story as it relates to high school. and the best advice for parents, have 2 kids close together so they can be best friends like my brother and i were through school. I've always followed my brother around and felt some type of security with him and my 2 and 1/2 years of high school were spent mostly hanging out with him and his friends. i'll have to say, i didn't always treat him as a brother should, but I guess most siblings have a few problems like that sometimes. anyway, junior high was the worst for me, during those unsure days, i was heckled on more than one occasion for bodily appearance, (how i hate shirts/skins). But, on into the high school years, with the help of spiritual faith and a big brother, i learned the same things that norman mentioned above, and made light of the situations when others would try to put me down. we wrote songs about incidences, like "tommy and the getalong gang", etc. and it made us laugh it off a bit. Persistent in my desires to follow my brother, I took my GED test and went to florida for college (where we bumped into matt otherwise known as channelfan) when I was in the 11th grade. College, ahh, what a relief. I finished college too, and I did not feel like missing that last year and half of high school made any difference in the least. If anyone is considering the GED route, I recommend finishing out your education in college asap with a degree that suits you.

oh, dolemites, there are exceptions to the rule. My wife was a teacher for a couple of years and she loved it and I think she gave her students alot of love, concern, and good things. Good teachers make a difference and hopefully more of the same will flourish in the schools. Personally, I lean towards homeschool b/c I have seen alot of people go through it successfully and some of them appear to be kings and queens of the social realm.

[Edited on 6-6-2003 by muskogee]

[dolemites_sister]

I don't know.. I am just speaking about the experience my cousins had. Maybe they would've had social problems anyway.

[perfectbrokenmirror]

homeschool depends on the person. i don't mind being alone and self-motivation comes easily. to some the prospect of spending hours alone is utterly unbearable. i dont' really see myself as homeschooled this year because most of my classes are either at the university or the highschool. though next year i may not go to the highschool because i can't stand it anymore. wasting time listening to teachers repeat the same damn instructions drives me mad.

c.s.