School problems, intelligence and stupid teachers

I said on another post I liked school when I was a kid because it got me away from the abuse at home. It allowed me to find more books to read to satisfy my insatiable curiosity. However there were still major problems even at school.

One day in first grade we were given an assignment to color some pictures of the pilgrims. They were on a mimeographed piece of paper and we all had the same ones to color. The teacher gave us our instructions and then the whole class started coloring.

I was coloring away, going outside the lines and getting the assignment done quickly when the teacher came over and watched me for a minute. She started talking to me telling me I need to color better and to stay inside the lines. Then she walked away and went to help someone else.

A few minutes later she came back to me to see if I was coloring inside the lines. Lol, I wasn't and she got really mad at me for it, chewed me out for not following her directions, called the classes attention to what I was doing wrong and in general embarrassed me. This was my first introduction to the stupidity of teachers and school. After all the anger at me for coloring outside the lines I didn't understand the problem. I'm sure you don't see it here either. I'm pretty certain you are just seeing me as a stubborn kid doing what he wanted to do instead of what the teacher told me to do.

Well, you are wrong. You see, it didn't make any difference if we stayed inside the lines or not because the last instruction the teacher gave us was when we were done coloring the pictures we were to cut them out!

As grade schoolers we had to walk about two blocks to the high school for hot lunch. Now you can't even begin to imagine how bad hot lunches were back then. Particularly instant mashed potatoes. For gravy they grayed up some ground beef, added water to it and put this stinky mess over the crappy mashed potatoes.

That stuff was so bad I couldn't stand to smell it let alone eat it. Another few things I wouldn't eat were liver and green beans. No matter about those tho. I had eaten everything on my tray but the mashed potatoes and crap gravy and went to scrape off my tray so I could get outside and play.

One of the teachers took exception to my throwing the mashed potatoes away and told me I couldn't and that I had to eat them. She escorted me back to my seat and told me I couldn't leave until I finished them. Being a tad bit stubborn I never touched them and lunch hour got over. She still wouldn't let me leave. In fact she told me she was going to sit there with me until I ate them.

I told her I wasn't going to eat them and we argued about it for a long time. Finally around 2 hours later I told her if I ate them I was going to puke and she said no I wouldn't. Just eat them and get it over with. She kept telling me as soon as I ate them we could leave and I kept telling her I'd puke. Finally I took one bite, tried to chew and swallow it and guess what. I puked all over the place and all over the tray. Guess what, she finally believed me and I got to throw it away. Never again did they try to force me to eat something I didn't like.

In 9th grade I had the best teacher I ever had. Mrs Harker was my algebra teacher. Really nice lady. However I had a major problem with algebra, at least to her. You see I could figure out the answers in my head but I wasn't able to put the steps to solve the problem down on paper. Heh, I have that problem with a lot of things. I can see it but I can't get it down on paper how I reach my conclusions.

My grades in algebra for getting the right answers were straight A and my grade on my report card was a F. At the end of the semester she informed me I was being removed from the class because I couldn't show how to work the problems out. So here I am getting throw out of class because I can't work the problems yet I never had a wrong answer.

Her rationale was if I couldn't show my work I'd never be able to move up to calculus or trig or anything else. This really irritated me because she wasn't even going to give me the chance to see if I could do the work in the higher math. So because I couldn't show my work I ended up in math for dummies class. I never bothered to do even one paper in that class because it was so far beneath what I was capable of. It was like being in second grade to me. BTW, I passed the class because I got straight A's on every test.

By then I hated school and when ninth grade was over I never went back. Yep, one of the smartest kids in school and I quit. Schools were still teaching to the lowest level and they had no idea at all what do do with someone like me who was highly intelligent and so bored by it all. It's better for kids now but still not as good for the ultra smart as it should be.

They still want everyone to conform, do what they are told and they still teach to the slowest person. It's no wonder intelligent people quit school. I also heard I'd never get anywhere without a high school diploma. Yeah, right. I passed my GED on he first try while I was going to computer school in Massachusetts in 1965. Never studied for it and never got my GED diploma because it cost 5 bucks but I did keep the piece of paper with all of my passing test scores on it for years. I probably still have it somewhere. I just took the test to show them I could pass it, having the diploma didn't make a bit of difference to me.

Was I successful? Lol, I doubt you think I was after I told you about all the trouble I got into but yes, I was very successful. I've owned 4 different business and made money with all of them. The last one was an internet business and I made close to two million dollars in 6 years. Here's a quote for you. "A child educated only at school is an uneducated child - George Santayana". After I quit school I never quit learning and haven't quit to this day.

While I'd never, ever, tell anyone quitting school is a good idea I do know that you can be quite successful without having formal schooling. I've taken so many courses and so many seminars thru work that I could get college credits for that I have more than enough credits to have a college degree. Lol, no, I don't have one. It's just another piece of paper and I wouldn't go thru all the paperwork I needed to do to get it.

Any kids reading this, STAY IN SCHOOL. I was lucky, smart, highly curious and stubborn plus I have a huge fear of failure. Not everyone can do what I did. Some days I do wonder what my life would have been like if I'd have had better parents. For sure it would be very different than what I have now. There's a depressing thought for today. ;)