Jokes, Riddles, and Other Philosophical Insights

It's So Stupid

It's so stupid
All these tests and essays and homework and crap
What do they show about you as a person

Nothing

Why

Why then do schools make kids do these things
Jump through hoops, scoring them as numbers and letters instead of by merit

The stress
Staying up late into the night crying because you feel you will never finish
Saying
Oh mom, I have a ten-page essay due

Tomorrow

And I must finish it, because if I don't...

If I don't, I'm going to get a bad score, and if I get too many bad scores then I won't be able to pass this course, and if I can't pass this course, then I'll fail my grade, and if I fail my grade then I will be left behind with no job and no degree, and where do I go from there

They are...

Forcing kids
To go through all this ill-suited curriculum that doesn't even work for them

Forcing kids
To judge themselves by numbers and letters and not by their own unique merits and skills

Forcing kids
To believe they can't simply because this method or that

Is not how they learn best

When homework and schoolwork take over your lives so much
Occupy so much of your time that you're
Remembering what date it is because that's the day when your essay is due
And forgetting that your friend's birthday party was yesterday because you were too busy writing it

Is this the best that schools have to offer?
Stress, and pain, and no sleep, and endless nights, and endless homework

One essay after another

And when it's all over

When you've taken the test at the end of the year or the end of the course

Does it really matter?

You say finally all the stress is gone for now
You say oh thank god the test is over
You say I hated that subject and I'm so glad it's over
You say I just wasted a year of my life learning about a subject I care little about, and I didn't even learn that much about it

And now that the hated subject is over, done with

You will never revisit it again.

Is this the kind of world we live in?