My early childhood I was more free, the school had less rules and structure, and more importantly, I had loads of free time that my mother let me spend with my friends that lived in the same building.
I remember how we learned not only physical stuff, but also theoretical one, purely out of curiosity, like one night where we all sat on the ground, and wondered why the sky was blue even at night. (resulting into a couple of us that knew how to read go read books, so that then we could impress others with our newfound knowledge, resulting into everyone learning why the sky was blue).
Also, when I was around 5 years old, I had a female friend on school that I grew very close, we became natural leaders of our class, we were the most intelligent students (not hard when your class has 8 people, the female friend was asian, and my parents gave me lots of books since before I could read), the most playful ones (when others wanted a new game, they would ask us to invent it), and although individually we were the usual bully victims (since we were the nerdy types with glasses), we two were respected, other kids looked to us to what to do when shit happened (like when one girl got hurt by a bee, me and my female friend quickly figured how to carry her from the place where she was, and find a adult, and ice).
Also I visited her home a couple times, and although I was very young, I might say that I DID saw her as someone I wanted to be with the rest of my life.
Then the first grade came, it was in a huge school (I moved from a school with 80 students to one with 7500 students), my parents told me (correctly) that now things would be "serious" and that I would start to learn how to work (I guess, "work" as in be in a corporate environment).
Although I changed schools many times after, some things were constant:
First, I did not gave a fuck for whatever the school taught, my first 2 years (first and second grade) teachers saw me as the stupid kid (because I never finished my copy of the blackboard, getting distracted by other things, and also because I frequently failed to finish my tests on time, both situations would result into me being berated, and then me crying), when I learned to "play along" instead I became the genius (ie: all tests I had the maximum score), not because I learned what teachers taught me, but because I already (before first grade) had as hobby read the school books the fastest as I could (I love reading, sometimes I spend 3, 4 hours daily reading wikipedia, or everything linked here in HN), and because I disliked getting berated for not copying stuff or not doing homework.
But that time, I also learned that the other kids were NOT my friends, they were competitors, they were people to crush, destroy or annihilate, with better grades, or just go and punch them in the face when they piss me off and I will get away with it, because if I avoided that, they would do with me... Until the fourth grade I was bullied heavily (well, I was bullied until I left university), but on when I reached the fifth grade I started to learn that being cruel, being fearsome, destroying other people, made them bully you less... I still could not bring myself to throw a rock into a girl head (like some guy in my seventh grade class did), because I thought that going to downright evil was not the day, but doing any bullying that would not get teachers worried, was worth it, like sabotaging other people, setting them to fail, usually all that as revenge, never first strike, because then people would come for you, but revenge, ooh, that was sweet. The sweetest one was kicking a guy mouth in the middle of a group photo (all students of the school, lined up in a ramp, with all staff of the school looking, the guy was annoying me the entire day, and decided as final trick of the day, steal my hat and make me lose my balance so the photo captured me in ankward manner, and I decided that the best course of action was kick him in the mouth so hard that made him tumble down the ramp, and made all girls run around screaming in panic).
Only about 4 years ago (I am 25) now I started to realise how all this is fucked up, I became a sort of psycho, in my final school years I envied the columbine people and wanted to do the same...
Now I am playing catchup, my first kiss I was 23 (at 23 years old, is the first time that I felt for a girl what I felt for that one when I was 5/6), I left college realising that if I had not joined it in first place and instead took a job, I would be better at the job and would have more money (currently 50% of my money is to pay debt, and my net worth is deeply negative), and I have no friends (except one of the guys of the building I lived when I was 5, IF I can really consider him a friend, it is already 2 years that I don't visit him), at weekends I have nothing to do but stay at home or see my SO, when I need money for my startup, there is noone to ask, when I want to play split screen multiplayer games, there is noone to ask either, board games is a family thing only, and when former school people come to talk with me (usually because they need me...), I still feel really weird (ie: I feel lots of things, among them desire to revenge, fear, desire to murder them, ressentment, frustation...).
I feel like if my life between 8 years old and 20 years old was non-existant, like a black hole in my history, something that left more negative things in me than positive.
I wish there was a way, to do it all over again, to learn how to have friends, to have playful time with people I can trust, to not have this stupid debts, to not be unhealthy like I am now (I only learned how to eat properly recently, I am struggling very heard to get my weight below 100kg, I did managed to reach 99kg last year, but I am 118kg now), or not be weak as I am now (not having much physical play means I struggle to carry everyday items with my arms sometimes, my dad that never went to the gym and is a engineer, can carry stuff much heavier than I can, my grandpa is always much stronger than me, if he wants he can lift me! also he never went to the gym, and his hobby right now is lottery statistics, he spent most of his time of the day writing numbers in a sheet).
My first girlfriend broke with me after I told her I would not send my kids to school, no matter what. (in Brazil this is dangerous, since it is a crime and government DO arrest you if you refuse to send kids to school).
I feel like mandatory "education" is one of the most evil things you can do to a kid.
I DO prize some sort of schools, but only if the kids WANT to be there, because a school where schools don't want to be there, they use their time ruining the day of those that want. (ie: when a teacher DID managed to get my attention, usually talking about physics, someone else would be throwing erasers at the teacher, or kicking my chair, or hiding my backpack, or atheists stealing my bible and playing soccer with it, then calling themselves rational and reasonable...)
Have you read any books by John Taylor Gatto or Charlotte Iserbyt? If not, the entire compulsory school agenda will be swiftly illuminated once you do.
My early childhood I was more free, the school had less rules and structure, and more importantly, I had loads of free time that my mother let me spend with my friends that lived in the same building.
I remember how we learned not only physical stuff, but also theoretical one, purely out of curiosity, like one night where we all sat on the ground, and wondered why the sky was blue even at night. (resulting into a couple of us that knew how to read go read books, so that then we could impress others with our newfound knowledge, resulting into everyone learning why the sky was blue).
Also, when I was around 5 years old, I had a female friend on school that I grew very close, we became natural leaders of our class, we were the most intelligent students (not hard when your class has 8 people, the female friend was asian, and my parents gave me lots of books since before I could read), the most playful ones (when others wanted a new game, they would ask us to invent it), and although individually we were the usual bully victims (since we were the nerdy types with glasses), we two were respected, other kids looked to us to what to do when shit happened (like when one girl got hurt by a bee, me and my female friend quickly figured how to carry her from the place where she was, and find a adult, and ice).
Also I visited her home a couple times, and although I was very young, I might say that I DID saw her as someone I wanted to be with the rest of my life.
Then the first grade came, it was in a huge school (I moved from a school with 80 students to one with 7500 students), my parents told me (correctly) that now things would be "serious" and that I would start to learn how to work (I guess, "work" as in be in a corporate environment).
Although I changed schools many times after, some things were constant:
First, I did not gave a fuck for whatever the school taught, my first 2 years (first and second grade) teachers saw me as the stupid kid (because I never finished my copy of the blackboard, getting distracted by other things, and also because I frequently failed to finish my tests on time, both situations would result into me being berated, and then me crying), when I learned to "play along" instead I became the genius (ie: all tests I had the maximum score), not because I learned what teachers taught me, but because I already (before first grade) had as hobby read the school books the fastest as I could (I love reading, sometimes I spend 3, 4 hours daily reading wikipedia, or everything linked here in HN), and because I disliked getting berated for not copying stuff or not doing homework.
But that time, I also learned that the other kids were NOT my friends, they were competitors, they were people to crush, destroy or annihilate, with better grades, or just go and punch them in the face when they piss me off and I will get away with it, because if I avoided that, they would do with me... Until the fourth grade I was bullied heavily (well, I was bullied until I left university), but on when I reached the fifth grade I started to learn that being cruel, being fearsome, destroying other people, made them bully you less... I still could not bring myself to throw a rock into a girl head (like some guy in my seventh grade class did), because I thought that going to downright evil was not the day, but doing any bullying that would not get teachers worried, was worth it, like sabotaging other people, setting them to fail, usually all that as revenge, never first strike, because then people would come for you, but revenge, ooh, that was sweet. The sweetest one was kicking a guy mouth in the middle of a group photo (all students of the school, lined up in a ramp, with all staff of the school looking, the guy was annoying me the entire day, and decided as final trick of the day, steal my hat and make me lose my balance so the photo captured me in ankward manner, and I decided that the best course of action was kick him in the mouth so hard that made him tumble down the ramp, and made all girls run around screaming in panic).
Only about 4 years ago (I am 25) now I started to realise how all this is fucked up, I became a sort of psycho, in my final school years I envied the columbine people and wanted to do the same...
Now I am playing catchup, my first kiss I was 23 (at 23 years old, is the first time that I felt for a girl what I felt for that one when I was 5/6), I left college realising that if I had not joined it in first place and instead took a job, I would be better at the job and would have more money (currently 50% of my money is to pay debt, and my net worth is deeply negative), and I have no friends (except one of the guys of the building I lived when I was 5, IF I can really consider him a friend, it is already 2 years that I don't visit him), at weekends I have nothing to do but stay at home or see my SO, when I need money for my startup, there is noone to ask, when I want to play split screen multiplayer games, there is noone to ask either, board games is a family thing only, and when former school people come to talk with me (usually because they need me...), I still feel really weird (ie: I feel lots of things, among them desire to revenge, fear, desire to murder them, ressentment, frustation...).
I feel like if my life between 8 years old and 20 years old was non-existant, like a black hole in my history, something that left more negative things in me than positive.
I wish there was a way, to do it all over again, to learn how to have friends, to have playful time with people I can trust, to not have this stupid debts, to not be unhealthy like I am now (I only learned how to eat properly recently, I am struggling very heard to get my weight below 100kg, I did managed to reach 99kg last year, but I am 118kg now), or not be weak as I am now (not having much physical play means I struggle to carry everyday items with my arms sometimes, my dad that never went to the gym and is a engineer, can carry stuff much heavier than I can, my grandpa is always much stronger than me, if he wants he can lift me! also he never went to the gym, and his hobby right now is lottery statistics, he spent most of his time of the day writing numbers in a sheet).
My first girlfriend broke with me after I told her I would not send my kids to school, no matter what. (in Brazil this is dangerous, since it is a crime and government DO arrest you if you refuse to send kids to school).
I feel like mandatory "education" is one of the most evil things you can do to a kid.
I DO prize some sort of schools, but only if the kids WANT to be there, because a school where schools don't want to be there, they use their time ruining the day of those that want. (ie: when a teacher DID managed to get my attention, usually talking about physics, someone else would be throwing erasers at the teacher, or kicking my chair, or hiding my backpack, or atheists stealing my bible and playing soccer with it, then calling themselves rational and reasonable...)