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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lasher Dragon" data-source="post: 2180075" data-attributes="member: 26634">Yes, I realized this, which is why I asked. I have been around the world - telling me that Americans aren't the center of it is preaching to the choir.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> In our schools (for the most part - there are all kinds of schools here, I am speaking generally throughout this) you start between 7 and 8 am, and you go to all kinds of different classrooms for different classes all day long, with mostly different classmates throughout. IIRC school is out around 3 or 4.Anyway, yes, your schooling is very different than the average American experience. I can obviously only speak for myself, so here is my view:School to me was like a job I was overqualified for yet nonetheless forced to attend anyway. I liked some classes, don't get me wrong, but I learned more on my own via my voracious reading habits than I learned in my 12 years of regular "school". I despised homework so rarely did it. I loved projects and tests and aced those. The supposed "gifted" courses more often than not only increased the amount of homework IME, so while I got placed into those, I soon slacked my way back to regular classes. I hated math - not because I wasn't good at it (I regularly scored within the top 0.02% in the nation) but because apparently I learn a lot differently than the majority. A normal homework assignment might be a sheet with a hundred math problems on it, all the same formulae just different numbers. This disgusted me so I never did it. I learned how to do it after the first 2, I don't need it jackhammered into my head thank you very much.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> There is a huge social heirarchy in American schools. The haves/have nots, the cool/uncool, the followers/outcasts, etc.. You are labeled, whether the label fits or not, whether you give a damn or not. One thing I always find amusing is when people make fun of other people because they are more intelligent than themselves. It sounds ridiculous but it happens every day in our schools. Now, I am not saying everyone does this, or even every school is like this - but I'll bet the majority are. If you don't wear the clothes the cool people wear, or listen to the same bands as them, or if you ride the bus because your parents don't believe in buying a 16 year old kid his/her own car, you will be harassed. Speaking of which, I knew a kid whose parents bought him a brand new corvette for his 16th birthday!!!! Oh man it astounds me how ignorant some rich people can be sometimes.  <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/laugh.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":lol:" title="Laughing    :lol:" data-shortname=":lol:" /> Speaking of stereotypes in schools, it goes beyond just the students. In high school I wore a lot of black, gray and sometimes white (didn't like white too much cuz I always stained it). Reason? I am really colorblind, and after my mother asking me a dozen times "Are you going out looking like that?!" I started wearing colors that go with anything. Anyway, my high school counselor (I was sent to him often because of my never doing homework) one day asked me if I believe in god. I told him no. He goes on to ask me if I believe in the devil. I said "Now how could I believe in the devil if I don't believe in god? That's a package deal, with one you get the other. You can't pick and choose." He called my mom the next day to tell her I was a Satanist LOL. My mom is very cool - I was home when he called and I swear she told him he was a "F*'ing idiot" and that he apparently had no qualifications to even be counseling me. Ahh it was funny.Anyway, I got off on a tangent. Point is, American schooling can be torture for a wide variety of people.</blockquote>

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