What I learned in high school (and still remember)

Posted by Steven Garrity on Saturday, February 2, 2002 - 14 comments

My clearest memories my high school days have little to do with high school itself. I remember the days we skipped school, driving in my parents Saturn and listening to Poor Old Lu.

That's not to say I didn't leave high school having learned some valuable lessons. I had a few fantastic teachers. Still, the lessons I will really take with me through life came not from my teachers, but from my fellow students.

Today, I share a few of those timeless lessons that I can still remember from high school:

Don't be nervous - nobody gives a shit about you.
This astute observation came to be from the guy who sat next to me in French class. He wasn't really a friend of mine, just some guy. It was that dreadful time of year when we all had to give two minute oral presentations to the class (two minutes - in French). Like most of my unfortunate classmates, I hadn't yet had enough life experience to put the gravity of an event like this in its proper context. As far as I was concerned, it would be the end of my little world.

My fear must have been apparent to those around me, because the guy next to me leaned over and said something like "easy buddy - nobody gives a shit about your speech".

He wasn't trying to reassure me. On the contrary, his tone was so condescending and detached that it was clear he had little concern for my wellbeing. It was also clear that he sincerely believed this. He went on to explain, 'Do you care about anyone else's speech?' No, I didn't - not in the least. My nervous young mind slowly followed the logical steps to the inevitable conclusion: No one cared about my speech either - I was one a large group of insignificant nobodies - so relax.
Stuck at a party with orange cheezy stuff on your fingers with nothing to wipe them off in site? Use your socks.
This advice wasn't given directly to me. Rather, I overhead a guy in my class explaining his brilliant discovery to an eager and attentive audience from the surrounding desks.

His logic went something like this: You can't lick your fingers; it's considered rude (apparently a big concern of this particular fellow) nor can you wipe them on your (visible) closing, as it would leave a big chemical-orange perma-stain.

The solution was so elegantly simple that it had escaped all of us. Pull up your pants a bit, and wipe your hands on your socks. No one is the wiser.

I've done this.

Comments

Peter Rukavina - February 3, 2002 12:53 am

http://www.dnalounge.com/

Unless you're going to build rocketships (and probably even then) most of the "content" of high school is useless. Or rather, the medium being the message and all, any usefulness it might naturally have is rendered useless by the delivery mechanism.

If you had to describe high school to aliens -- go to an ugly utilitarian building every day for 10 months of the year, listen to mostly bored, mostly stupid people talk about things that they're mostly not interested in, repeat -- they would think us a barbaric society.

We have high school (and for that matter, elementary school) because we need something to do with pre-18 year olds during the day while we're at work. And because we don't really want to apply any energy or creativity to the problem. And because most people don't actually like children, so they'd rather have them shipped off to daily prison-like learning camps than having them around to sully up the weekday.

Most people who thrive in life -- by whatever measure -- do so despite their formal education, not because of it.

Alan - February 3, 2002 8:22 am

I intensely hated high school, though many of my pals 20 years after grad are still my friends and on my e-mail loop. I took grade 12 February entirely off when my folks went on a trip to visit family in the UK. I also cannot think of one thing that I learned there that I either did not know already or was irrelevant. I had the good teachers like everyone else but (and maybe this was grade 9 so strictly speaking junior high) I also did have a science teacher who encouraged us to shy from interracial marriage based on a regularly repeated genetics argument. On the other hand I had a great history teacher - Len Barrak - who had us play out the Nuerenberg trials: I was Gobbels and though I somehow convinced my judges/classmates that I really did nothing much...they still had me hanged just for being me. No doubt the right thing to do.Ivan Illych, the liberation theologist, writes about education's main function is to ensure that those who are not from favoured families learn that they are failures and that they ought not aim too high. When you think about the painted cinder block walls, the dancing to the clock and bells, the use of blind authority, my high school was a training ground for the factories around Truro where most grads ended up.I suppose I learned that having friends sharing the suffering which comes from the leadership of incompetants was quite useful. Comes in handy still.

Steven Garrity - February 3, 2002 11:20 am

<blockquote class="smalltext">Most people who thrive in life -- by whatever measure -- do so despite their formal education, not because of it.</blockquote>

Great pull-quote Peter. I suspect Neil Postman's Teaching as a Subversive Activity and The End of Education : Redefining the Value of School would be pertinent. I haven't yet read either of these books, but <a href="index.cfm?article=187#187">I quite enjoyed reading</a> his Amusing Ourselves to Death.

I'm working my way out from under a pile of books steming in part from a spontaneous Amazon.com shopping spree - spurned on by the recommendation of the new Oprah of weblogs. I just finished the Lord of the Rings series yesterday too - which clogged up my reading list for a while (totally worth it).

Alan - February 3, 2002 12:13 pm

Peter's quote would be undermined by the validity of the Illych idea I just re-read this morning in Tools for Conviviality. He writes books with loverly titles such as Deschooling Society and The Right to Useful Unemployment. My reading this morning makes me think I agree in a way with you Peter but not in degree. I have always thought something more was going on - but I am a child of Scots, the source of all conspiracy theorists.In Tools..., he talks about "radical monopoly" as being a goal of industrialization. It occurs when an industry so occupies a human activity that other means to accomplish the activity are destroyed. Cars destroy autonomous transportation (walking/biking/distance), professions destroy autonomous decision making and education destroys communal or personal learning [contra community schooling which I am a fly tying proponent of now]. He writes that one side effect is the making valid of the product of the industrialization of education: we learn that we must over-consume, accept radical monopoly and abandon the self-capacity to do that which the radical monopoly does. As a result, is it true to say that "most people who thrive in life -- by whatever measure -- do so despite their formal education, not because of it" if we think of how we fall into line with the patterns education would have us fall into? I would say if we do thrive here in North America or even just survive, we do so thanks to the reliance of industrialization on using up the lives of people elsewhere and leaving polluants in their backyards not ours. [Sometimes I recall where my coffee and chocolate come from.] We also "thrive" because we learned it is possible to "win" within the construct of the radical monopoly - to gain the place that allows us preferred consumption habits - the best coffee and chocolate. Those poor guys in class who hated it as much but could not muster the resources to succeed despite of it have "lost" and I don't think thrive.

Dave Moses - February 4, 2002 9:16 am

http://www.mosesmedia.ca

the scariest part about high school is that it never ends. i "graduated" from Grade 13 twenty years ago but i've discovered that i'm still there and everybody is doing exactly the same stuff.

Scorched - February 4, 2002 11:22 pm

i had assumed my whole life that once people left high school that they would quit playing the petty popularity games, trying to bully people, and all of the immature sillyness that goes on. the most disappointing moment in my life was when i realized that most people never grow past that. interoffice politics feel just like the stupid high schools games that we all were forced to play.

Alan - February 5, 2002 9:33 am

So has the real goal of high school been taught? If the lesson taught is to destabilize autonomy and create dependency, does the continuation of those themes in the workplace [desire to advance and compete for approval of boss/teacher to gain benefits to consume more] prove the theory?

waz - February 7, 2002 9:55 am

http://www.newsqueak.com

I don't think it's so much that people continue playing the same "games" they did in high school. Those "games" are part of life - high school is just the primer. That said, here's the biggest lesson I learned in high school: being a nice-guy in a jerk-guy world doesn't help you get the chicks any faster.

Alan - February 7, 2002 12:48 pm

I recall it being an inhibiting effect somewhat related to automobile access.

michael - March 5, 2002 6:59 pm

http://members.truepath.com/michael72

Poor Old Lu, huh? Cool. One of my favorite bands. They're working on a new record (minus Jesse, who joined Morella's Forest), fyi.

Steven Garrity - March 5, 2002 7:30 pm

Jessee joined Morella's Forest?!?! He is one of the best drummer around (along with Jeremy from Our Lady Peace and the dude from Live - notice that's best drummers, not best bands. Thanks for the tip.

I'm eagerly anticipating the new record.

michael - March 6, 2002 5:28 pm

http://members.truepath.com/michael72

Yeah, I've got to think that Jesse teaming up with them is going to be extremely interesting.

Not sure what to expect with the next Poor Old Lu record. I'm pretty scared of it, actually.

You should add Brandon Graves to your "best drummers" list, among others.

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