Gripes with Formal Education

[aejones]

I'm finishing my sophomore year at a University in the midwest, but since the middle of high school I've had my reservations about formal education. Although recent (last two years) events have made my educational situation perhaps different from others (humble compared to some of this forum, but significant nonetheless), I've had qualms and gripes about formal education since the middle of high school.

I can't help but think to myself, "Why should I be learning this?"

Obviously, many people share this sentiment (and many from the poker community have dropped out of school because of it, perhaps). However, my complaints are somewhat deeper than that. I have a complete distaste for recieving grades for our efforts. For example, I always did very well in school, I was 4th in my high school class, got high standardized test scores, etc.- but there were some people that had it ruin their lives. When I was a junior, a girl that was in my class put forth so much effort into school, she repeatedly told some of us that if she ever got a B her mother would ground her. A year later, she got a B in an academic class, dropping her from the validictorian spot in our class. Her mother wrote a letter a week to the teacher... there were tears and animosity between classmates.. the whole situation was ugly, and had even more details than that.

That is simply an example of how seriously some families take formal education. Why? I have no idea.

Does that B mean that 'straight-A Suzy' (not her name obv) can't get into an Ivy League school? Possibly. But is even the remote possibility of losing a few thousand dollars of scholarship money worth splitting a family apart at the seams?

I've had some professors in college- great professors- who do a fantastic job of de-emphasizing the importance of grades. So many students in this institution of higher learning are obsessed with grades. My roomates girlfriend calls him up in tears once every two weeks about how she failed her chemistry exam.

Perhaps I'm being naive by thinking that the amount of effort you put into your school work is the amount you get out of it. Maybe it's always come more natural to me than the average person, and I'm being selfish by complaining- but I always thought: You work this much, you deserve this grade. There are some exceptions and some variance in grading, depending on what you study the night before or what you happened to remember from class, but in general the effort should correlate to the result.

Aside from grading being over emphasized, formal education seems to mislead students. I mean sure, by now I should be in college and have a more focused major to study, but I still have the occasional "Cultures of South Asia" class that I'll never have to know anything about in my life (although the globalization of India is fairly interesting).

I really do believe in specialization of labor. Sure, this is a long time after the industrial revolution, but even now I keep thinking: "My mind isn't going to waste. I enjoy studying poker. I want to study poker a few hours a day, and then put that study into practice."

Some people like to work on cars, let them work on cars.

Obviously, this is oversimplified, and I'm not suggesting that we don't require Americans to graduate from high school- but since college is becoming the norm, I feel that all too often today's youth is being forced to acquire unnecessary knowledge- and even then, it's more like "I'll cram for this test 6 hours before, and not remember a damn thing 6 hours after."

What a waste of time.

I want to travel the world, I want to read Freud and figure out what the hell he's trying to say on my own, I want to teach myself the piano, I want to have conversation with intelligent people, learn about New York by traveling around the city, I want to eat good food and talk to good looking women, god damnit I want to read El Diablo's Discussion Forum and find out good buys at Whole Foods- but I don't want to be held to a standard of formal education that defines who I am and my worth in this society.