Education is about beating others down.
Anyone who knows me knows I hate school. And before I go any further on this, I'll make you all aware I am not some drop out who aims to live off the dole, so back off.
A summary of how they grade you here in NSW Australia: You're only good if you're better than everyone else. There is no such thing as everyone being le awesome, or everyone sucking, because weather or not you rule at life depends on your rank out of 100. Just to let you all in on a little secret: I hate being compared to people. Why should my future depend on how many other people out there are complete nerds? I am me, and I do the best I can, are you telling me my awesome marks don't mean shit because some other competitive freaks will shrivel up if they don't top every subject? That's bull! If the whole fucking state gets 99% in an exam, the guy who just happens to come last on 98.999999% shouldn't be thrown out to dry because everyone else did well. I'd be pretty happy with a 98.999999, why aren't you pretentious bastards? The Board of Studies needs to have a good hard look at themselves. Most of the uni courses out there only accept those in the top 20% of the state. No wonder there is a shortage of doctors! Just because someone didn't get in the top .01% of the state (where you need to be to be a doctor) doesn't mean they're a dumb shit who can't learn to be one. Seriously. Standards are too high, if you get to the point where students have to memorize facts or essays rather than actually know what you're on about, then I'm sorry sunshine but what you're teaching isn't getting through :)
I'll wrap this is with a little bit of irony: They don't teach kids what a noun is here anymore. Yet they expect me to analyze 'Brave New World' at a more sophisticated level than my teacher did in Uni? Oh if irony were chocolate it would be Easter!!
147 people hate school.