Comment by timr | Hacker News Reader

Comment by timr | Hacker News Reader

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"Maybe I'm misinterpreting you, but you seem to think that high-school kids who are reading this are arrogant and stupid."

You are. I'm talking to the people who see stuff like this, and think about dropping out. Clearly, that set doesn't include all high school kids.

"As for learning things you won't "use in real life"? I agree, it's good. But I'm sorry, some classes don't just teach you things you won't use - they just don't teach you. How much good will it do you to analyze dozens of books in essays about their arbitrary qualities, eh? Not that much."

...and when I was in high school, I said the same stuff. "Why do I have to learn about Keats?" "Why must I write structured essays about James Polk?" "What will I ever gain from knowing the rules to basketball?" "Why can't I just learn more about programming?" On and on.

But you know what? I was an idiot. Back then, I didn't have the perspective to know what was important and what was unimportant (for that matter, I'm still learning what to value). Had people let me study whatever I wanted to study in the 10th grade, I would have missed out on exposure to a lot of stuff that I find very valuable today. I would have turned out to be a very one-dimensional person.

Try not to find this advice condescending, and see it for what it is: one nerdy guy who has been there, telling you that you don't know everything, and don't have enough experience to make good judgments about what knowledge is valuable in life. In the meantime, you can learn something from every situation -- just so long as you want to learn.

> I was an idiot. Back then, I didn't have the perspective to know what was important and what was unimportant...

And what makes you think the people designing your high school curriculum knew any better or that teaching you important things was even their goal?

I think with a little guidance from well educated people I could have spent my high school years learning a hell of a lot more important things than my school wanted me to.

I agree with your advice that dropping out of HS should be discouraged, but mostly just because it'd hurt you later if you didn't have a decent grasp of reading/writing/math and a diploma to get past the stigma of not having one.

"And what makes you think the people designing your high school curriculum knew any better or that teaching you important things was even their goal?"

I don't think they knew for sure, but they had a hell of a lot better idea about what was important than I did, at the time. And in retrospect, they weren't too far off.

Most people who teach and design high school curricula are incredibly dedicated people, who want you to learn. They certainly aren't doing it for the money and fame.

http://www.textbookleague.org/103feyn.htm

Yes, I've read that essay. The very fact that Feynmann was compelled to do what he did, by people who cared about the system, is proof of my point.

You can find corruption in any sufficiently large system. It doesn't mean that the system is inherently corrupt.

"And what makes you think the people designing your high school curriculum knew any better or that teaching you important things was even their goal?"

The insinuation here borders on slander.

How much time did you spend asking your instructors for more interesting work to do? Did you ask them about why they chose the curriculum they did? Whether there were better choices? For advice on guiding your personal learning process?

If so, you might have a case to make here (but only for your specific teachers, not the entire profession). If not, you malign your teachers without enough evidence to back your accusations.

I remember two teachers specifically, who were ecstatic to have a student who actually gave a damn about learning. One affectionately (and jokingly) called me his "disciple." They went out of their way to find experiments for me to do in the course of applying for my state's summer science school. They found ways to help me learn more about computers and programming.

If you just blew your teachers off and did not even engage them about how they could help you learn, the blame falls more on you than them.

If it was anything like my school, the teachers had very little choice in curriculum.

The English teachers were told what books to teach. The math teachers had the books picked out for them. The AP teachers had a strict test for which to prepare us. Foreign language teachers likely had the most flexibility in retrospect. The science teachers didn't have enough money to do much more than teach to the book. (Some of them did an admirable job none the less.)

Mind you, the teachers liked me. I didn't complain about the grades, asked questions, and was engaged with the learning process. That doesn't mean I don't regret dropping out after the sophomore year (1995) like I almost did and go to the community college. I regret not getting my associates and cashing in at the end of the boom so that I could have gone back to college in my time.

Thanks for the response, I appreciate it. I guess you get a wider perspective as you age, and I don't really have much of an idea about what I'll think later.

Though I might disagree with you on specifics, I agree that it's important not to restrict yourself to a limited set of things. I guess I was slightly annoyed mainly due to the fact that a few of my school admins sound very similar, except they don't bother to take the time to explain their views in a less condescending sounding way.

No problem. For what it's worth, I realize that high school (especially public high school; I went to one, too) can be a brutally authoritarian place sometimes. I pretty much hated most of mine, for the same reason.

That said, there are parts of high school that I'd give money to experience just one more time. And of all of the people I know, I don't think anyone has ever said that they wished they'd paid less attention in school. Good luck with it.

I sure wish I had paid less attention in school.

I attended college prep high schools and was a 3.9+ GPA student, took many AP courses, etc. I ate the dog food. But at the end of the 11th grade I decided I was through, and left early for college en route to a PhD in CS. Looking back, I am disappointed at myself for being so focused on the main curriculum -- the only activities that I am proud of now were ones done outside of it.

I think the flaw in your argument is that you assume that ignoring school yields narrow mindedness. It does not have to be so. For example, in my spare time I developed a web site of a well-known physicist that was eventually reviewed by the Scientific American. I can understand how someone would consider that narrow, but it required me not only to read physics and hack HTML (this was the mid-90s), but also to write essays, develop design skills, and become comfortable holding my ground in discussions with people far my senior who wanted the site changed in one way or another. These were all invaluable skills that I learned, really internalized, only because I pursued something that I considered important. With the exception of one class, that never happened at school.

That being said, I agree that in order to get a PhD one needs a certain level of tolerance of inane work. But that tolerance should be extended only to activities that stand in the way of accomplishing some goal that is important to you. To people reading this board a high school diploma is irrelevant, so I think most schoolwork does not achieve any particular goal for them.

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