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Dropping Out to Learn by Tristan Shaw Exclusive to STR March 5, 2009 When
I entered high school, I realized that the only way to “succeed” in
class was to follow teachers like dogs follow their masters. Not in the
sense of doing as well as I could, but to do better than the next person.
The intense competitiveness and regimentation brought me to question the
efficiency of conventional schooling, and the effect it was having on me.
Towards
the end of high school, I found myself slipping away from class and
struggling to stay focused. I took time off from school and started to
nourish my own interests. I would read, study, challenge and question. No
sense of competition, no strain or relative ranking. At school, however, I
became a “behavioural problem” and according to my teachers, “needed
to be disciplined.” It
starts in kindergarten: the school system tries to repress independence
and teach obedience. Kids are not induced to challenge or to question, but
the contrary. If you do start questioning, you’re a behavioural problem
or something like it. You’re supposed to repeat, obey, and follow
orders, or else! If
I think back about my experience, there’s a big dark spot. That’s what
schooling generally is: a period of regimentation and control, part of
which involves direct indoctrination, providing a system of false beliefs.
But more important is the manner and style of preventing and blocking
independent and creative thinking and imposing hierarchies and
competitiveness. My
passion to learn brought me to a stage of confusion; what next? I
couldn’t let school bog me down, I needed to thrive. Was dropping out an
option? When you hear those badly stereotyped words “high school
dropout,” you think of losers, stoners, and minimum wage job workers. I
had a choice: stay in school, or drop out and learn. The ironic choice
that I faced tells something very important about the intentional design
of the school system. I was trying not to let school interfere with my
education. All
my experiences lead me to one conclusion: school really does “suck.” Tristan
Shaw is a senior student enrolled at a public school on the West
Coast.
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