Tuesday, September 21, 2010

How I learned high school is completely pointless

Once upon a time, before I got my bachelors degree that was so instrumental in my employme- oh wait, I cant get a job bagging groceries despite my countless hours of Latin drilling.  What a shock...

Once upon a time when I was a wee young high school student, all awkward and covered in zits and the stink of angst/hormones, I decided to test out of Sophomore year English.  I figured that since I had gotten over 100% in my freshman year class, I might as well not waste my awesome brain power on shit like English when I could take jewelry design classes. (Oh yeah!)

What I was supposed to do to test out:
Read Hamlet, Animal Farm, Tuesdays with Morrie, Lord of the Flies, and one other book that was so insignificant I cant even remember it.  Read and practice on a large study packet about 5 paragraph essays.

What I did to test out of Sophomore English:
Read half of Lord of the Flies, and Hamlet’s suicidal rant.

So I wandered into the test-out facility, all bright eyed and bushy tailed, wrote an essay on something, and answered a bunch of multiple choice questions on what happened in a bunch of books I didn’t read.  A week later, I stumbled into the test out office, expecting to be told what a ‘time wasting little delinquent’ I was, and didn’t I know women couldn’t read anyway, and how had I even managed to navigate my way from behind the oven?!  Instead, I heard this:

“Well, your reading comprehension was appalling, you hardly got a question right.  But your essay was as glorious as a bald eagle resting on Andrew Jackson’s shoulder while he prepared to duel with those American hating bastards from over the sea*.  So you passed sophomore year English.”

And that’s when I knew, nothing in high school that I was learning had any point at all.

* Actually, she just said it was really well written
* I am not a supremely uneducated wolverine, and I did read all the books later.  Maybe even the one who’s name I cant remember…

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