Saturday, July 22, 2006

High School Confidential

In High School Confidential, author Douglas Coupland reminisces about his experiences in high school while participating in an art project that involves demolishing parts of a decommissioned school:
"I say the smartest—well, basically smart, and yet not at all. High school wasn't hard. I don't think you have to be smart to get through high school. High school's a reasonably easy-to-decode game. Half the people in my class could have finished the academic requirements by grade nine. I read these gee-whiz articles about home-schooled kids who 'graduate' five years early and say to myself, 'Yeah, well, duh.' I think high school is mostly about crowd control and keeping young troublemakers off the streets."

2 comments:

Harold Jarche said...

Just read that article this weekend, and that paragraph sure jumped out. Even those outside the learning profession know that the system doesn't work very well.

Jeremy said...

Totally -- I wonder what ratio of people feel the same way about their high school experience?