How school has affected me.

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I think because of my aspergers, school has had a very negative effect on me. First of all, in school we are taught that the purpose of life is to please others. We are taught to please our teachers by getting good grades and agreeing with whatever they say. We are taught to unconditionally defer to authority. We are put into an environment where we are unnaturally surrounded by people our own age, which puts pressure on us to conform to the ways of our peers through implied competition.

Although everyone who is put through such a system is negatively affected in some way, I think it creates even more problems for some one with aspergers. For some one who is incapable of learning social skills, that person is constantly in situations where he or she is unable to please people. So when that person is taught their purpose in life is to please others, they are constantly in situations where they fail to live up to their purpose as human beings. This leads to that person feeling like their life has no purpose, which creates all kinds of associated problems.

I know this is how the education system has affected me. Thankfully, I am now enlightened enough so see through all the BS, and can honestly say I don't care if nothing I ever do meets the approval of a single human being ever again.

I am wondering, does anybody else feel this way about school? By school, I am referring to school as it is conducted in the United States. What I am writing about here may not be relevant to how schooling is conducted in you're country.

I agree completely. It was pretty much educational compliance (in the same way that law-enforcement officers use pain compliance) in my experience. And, that was 35 years ago! I can only imagine what it has come to these days. Home schooling is the only way to go. Thank God I was extremely autodidactic.

I agree - certainly grade school and high school are very much that way. I can't say I have fond memories of either.

I found university quite different however - it was more about learning to think for yourself. Don't want to go to the lecture and prefer to learn from the textbook - go ahead, the prof doesn't care. Just you and the exam at the end (and the labs if the course has labs).

I really enjoyed my time at university.

it maybe a difference in schools attended, or maybe the difference in when we went to school, or maybe i was just "less autistic" in my younger years (though i was never NT), but....

i went to public school, and there was never mention of life's purpose that i recall, and certainly no suggestion that we're only here to please others - that would have been left up to whatever religion individual families belonged. were you in parochial school?

nor did i ever feel it suggested that my grades had anything to do with my teachers' happiness - grades are (or were) simply a chart of academic achievement. i'm not saying that teachers find no joy in seeing their students doing well, but if they see that as the sole route to happiness, then they have some deep issues. and agreeing with whatever they say? LOL, by high school at least (and probably some in jr. high) we (classmates and i) were having some rousing classroom discussions calling out the teacher's BS.

i grew up in neighborhoods with kids my age, so gathering at school didn't seem unnatural to me; humans have been educating children en masse for thousands of years. generally speaking, it works. and i felt no pressure to be like my peers (other than stuff like following the general rules of deportment), i did not feel thrust into any implicit competition. was the competition implied, or did you infer it?

now, you say

Yes, definitely. I'm in Scotland but I had the same experience.

I think school a negative effect on everyone...obviously it is worse for people with neurological disorders and learning disabilities...but the sad thing is most "normal" people never realize how much going to school screwed them up and they just take it as being the way things are.

The education system in the US is designed to produce docile, compliant people who will enter the workforce and do the menial "slave" jobs without questioning authority.

Check out this book:
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/index.htm

Famous quote pertaining to this:

In our dreams...people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. The present educational conventions [intellectual and character education] fade from our minds, and unhampered by tradition we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or men of science. We have not to raise up from among them authors, educators, poets or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians, nor lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we have ample supply. The task we set before ourselves is very simple...we will organize children...and teach them to do in a perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way.

Rockefeller Education Board, 1906

Funny story: I walk into music classroom in grade 6. We divide into groups, so I turn my chair around with my back to teacher. Once we're done, I keep seated that way but turn my torso towards teacher to hear him talk (didn't think anything of it). He sees me not seated forward and tells me to turn around, so I turn my back to him (thought he meant that). He calls my name, I look towards him, he says to turn around, so I turn my back to him. After a few more rounds of this, teacher gets angry and I get a confused detention. Thinking back on it, it's kinda hilarious

The authoritative dynamic (in general) definitely zapped my creativity. I was discouraged to pursue tangential interests for the sake of staying focused, and when I couldn't comply, I was labelled (and treated) as an intentional deviant. It's frustrating to think of how things may have been different if only the education system fostered different kinds of ways of being rather than suppress and exclude them. I wonder how many Temple Grandins there would be out there if only we all had her science teacher. Maybe we would have taken over the world by now, mwahahaha

I hate school but I don't think it has affected me much (except for the bullying in middle school and the fact that the elementary school teachers made me develop ODD) because I didn't follow orders nor I listened.

All I can say is that it was 12 years of lonelyness and depression, I'm starting college soon and hopefully it won't be anything like that.

School is like a prison and a communist political reeducation camp. The purpose of school is to conform children for use by the state. Here is a quote from John Dewey who might be considered the father of modern education

The United States became a nation late enough in the history of the world to profit by the growth of that modern (although Greek) thing ? the state consciousness. This nation was born under conditions which enabled it to share in and to appropriate the idea that the state life, the vitality of the social whole, is of more importance than the flourishing of any segment or class.

Compliance is the key to school survival. Since many Aspies seek autonomy, there is often conflict.

Much insight can be gained into education in the books by John Taylor Gatto;
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/

We homeschooled our children and would never consider letting the state get ahold of them.

Kindergarden - loved school, loved life, loved self
Grade 2 - hated school, self, life
Grade 9 - successfully challenged a course
Grade 11 - dropped out of highschool

In school, I lost my nerve. I had a few very bad teachers, and lots of bullying. I actually really liked the academic part, especially sciences and maths. I think if I'd done distance-learning or homeschool, things would have been different.
Ageed @ Coolguy