I came across it a couple months ago and just stored it away on my Quiet Read app until now. If you've graduated and spent any time in the real world (whatever that is), I think you'll find yourself agreeing with a number of these things.
Here is a run down of the 5 things you didn't learn about high school until too late.
5. The things that make you cool now mean nothing after graduation.
This tends to fall hardest on two groups of people: jocks and class clowns.
For the jocks:
It's most noticeable among the jocks, who grow accustomed to being showered with praise on a level way out of proportion to what they're accomplishing. Oh, sure, if you're a rare athletic talent bound for the pros or the Olympics, congratulations, you'll be getting that praise for another decade. But at the high school level, just having the right genes, hormones and frame can make you good enough at football to win huge applause from stands full of adults trying to relive their glory years. These kids find themselves having to completely rebuild their identity and status from the ground up at age 20, suddenly living in a world where there are no longer rewards for tackling skinny 16-year-olds.
You see this sometimes in the coaching ranks or beer league softball/volleyball circuit, which seem to be the last realms former jocks can hang on to a bit of their past glory. There is nothing more pathetic than a grown man bragging about his former exploits as a player to a group of kids who see him as a dinosaur. And there is nothing more pathetic than some posturing over a great home run or spike in beer league sports.
The blogger then makes a point about those jackasses who are the class clowns now. The ones who crave the attention (for whatever reason) and have to act like idiots in order to get their immature classmates to chuckle at them.
Well, that works now while everyone is still in their teens. But there is nothing worse or more sickening than to see an adult who never grows up and still resorts to the dumbass style of hijinx to garner laughs.
Just creep Facebook for awhile and you'll see what I mean by this.
4. Not every teacher knows what they're teaching.
Sad but true. This could be because most teachers come from the bottom third of their class (education programs are notoriously easy to get into) or because many schools put an emphasis on hiring a teacher who can also coach or advise an activity or because many schools put a premium on hiring (cheap) new teachers over more expensive veteran teachers.
But admit it. Think back to your own education. Ever get an A in a class and learn absolutely nothing? Ever spend the bulk of your time filling in worksheets (again, when will you ever do that in college or the real world?)? Ever spend the bulk of your class time watching movies that have next to nothing to do with what you're studying? Ever spend the bulk of your class time being lectured to?
Here is the bloggers example:
When I was in school, we had a gym coach who was no longer needed in that position. But he had tenure, so they had no choice but to let him teach another subject, and he landed in algebra. He knew enough about the subject to get by, but knew virtually nothing about the more advanced problems, so he got daily lessons, himself, from another dedicated math teacher. It was a daily occurrence for the class to correct him when he flat-out got it wrong.
And he follows that up with an excellent point:
Understand that you are absolutely going to encounter one of these teachers because, after all, the school is a workplace, and no workplace is without a few mouth-breathers that the boss tries to hide away in the corner. The thing is, if you're the manager of a fast food restaurant, you put that type of person on dishes until someone calls in sick. And even when they're working fries in one of those emergency situations, if they mess up, you just have to correct a one-dollar mistake and move on. If a teacher does it, he's directly damaging the intelligence of hundreds of people.
3. No One Gives a Crap about your Crusades
High school kids can't help but get caught up in crusades. I recall how worked up I got when the MCRP wanted to put labels on cassettes and records. But in the real world? Who cares. Part of the reason for the trivial nature of the crusades of the young is that they are just that, young. When you have only had 16 years worth of experiences, you don't have a lot to choose from. So what gets you worked up at 15 will be a joke to you when you're 35.
2. Pep Rallies are Commercials
Ask a teacher to tell you - truthfully - their opinions on pep rallies in general. The fact that we cut off school for half an hour to have the obligatory ritual send off for the playoffs is a joke. First, maybe if something actually got accomplished it might be different. Instead you see the team paraded out in front of everyone (and if it's hockey, they usually are all prone to wear their super cool baseball caps to flaunt that they are too cool for the no-hat policy). The AD picks a captain or two to talk and those captains usually mumble something and then we are sent on our way. In fact, they don't have a whole lot of pep in them at all anymore.
But the truth of the matter is no one cares about whether or not you won a playoff game five years after you've graduated. If you do, there's something wrong with you. You're either living in the past or vicariously through your children. Don't do that. Life is too damn much for to have to resort to living it through anyone else.
But let me have the author give you his take, for he states it better than I ever could --
Take pep rallies, for instance. Most pep rallies are phrased as "We're all here to get our team pumped up and ready for tonight's game." But does it make sense to pull hundreds of people out of class to cheer for 10 basketball players several hours before the game even starts? The reason it doesn't is because what they're saying isn't entirely the truth. It's not so much about "team spirit" as it is "please buy a ticket and some popcorn and some sodas and some team merchandise." They're not trying to get the team pumped up. They're trying to get you pumped up, because the games need to make money.
That's most of the reason sports teams still exist. Forget about "it promotes healthy competition" or "it teaches the value of teamwork." That may be true for the dozen or so guys on the court or field or diamond, but it means nothing to the several hundred (or several thousand, if you live in a big city) people in the bleachers, looking at their watches and waiting for that last bell to ring. No, sports are still around because they bring money not only to the school, but to the entire town.
They're not doing it because they're evil, greedy corporate scumbags. They're doing it because public schools regularly get financially screwed by the state, and if they want to make any of their cut funds back, they have to do it where they can: sports, dances, candy bar sales, black market gun running.
1. Nobody Has any Clue what they're talking about.
How can they? The world changes so quickly that much of the technical stuff our graduates learn as freshmen will be outdated by the time they are seniors.
Have you ever had a teacher tell you "you have to do this because it's what you'll have to do in college." And I've been guilty of this. Then it hit me one day, when was the last time I was actually on a college campus, let alone in an undergraduate course? Maybe I don't know what I'm talking about.
Then there are the students. I recall, one day after the start of the war in Iraq, and a student declared, "the President is so stupid." Really? The man running our country is an idiot, or so says the kids with a whopping 16 years of experience and maybe a total of 20 books read to his credit! Likewise, last year I had a College Comp opine, "the President has ruined health care." Really? In all of your 17 years of existence, just how has health care been ruined? Or are you just regurgitating what you heard your parents say? Where is the analysis and evidence and rational discussion.
I'm not saying that these points can't be valid and argued. I'm just saying young people are great at spouting opinions, which is the easy part. The analysis and support that should go with opinions, well that's the hard part.
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