Lotuslands All Die (A Collection)

Confessions of a Childhood Genius

You love your child. By the gods, you adore them. You want what's best for them, of course. No picking from the lower branches; no settling for less than you can achieve.

Your child was at the top of their class in elementary school. They always took pride in getting medals upon medals for their hard work. They loved school; they loved it because their mind clicked with its system. Do I dare say they're brainwashed? No. Of course not. But couldn't they be?

Middle school came, your child at the top of their game. But the methods here...they're different. These teachers--they require you to not just understand information but to apply it to the real world. Your child--always given the necessary instructions in a straight-up format--will begin to suffer.

And then high school will come. They will be expected to take honors classes, and even college courses. Because they can absorb information and spit it back out onto tests. Simple. And they will come to realize that they are not smart at all. All they are good at is regurgitating knowledge.

You see, when you tell a child they are a genius, they will believe it. But the more and more you put a child through, the more they come to realize that they are not good at everything. The school system is unfair; life is unfair.

Tests are their friend, and only friend. They engulf the information, hold it, and shoot it back out in a layered format. All this is is a memory game; you learn nothing from this. And when the child steps out into the real world...what then?

It's hard to accept this when all your life you've been praised for your smarts and precision with tests and knowledge...and then you grow up, and you realize that you were brainwashed to think this way. You were not a holy creation. You're just a sponge. Soak it up; spit it out.

Regurgitation.

Learn the material, use the material, forget the material.