Am I the only one?

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Has anyone else been harmed by compulsory schooling?
Has the theft of your freedom caused long term harm to your and/or those around you?
Has the denial of your right to educate yourself caused long term harm?

I've heard/read some bad stories but how many people are still suffering due to it?

I want to know if I'm the only one. I doubt that I am.

I believe compulsory standardised schooling is harming a lot of people and needs to be scrapped, or at the very least completely overhauled so parents and teachers get to direct learning instead of beurocrats.

The claim that compulsory schooling is necessary in order for children to learn is unfounded and therefore does not provide lawful excuse for politicians to violate the rights of children, or their parents.
Children will learn without being forced. Forced learning is a destructive and impractical way to encourage learning as no-one can be forced to comprehend and remember anything.


My ex girlfriend suggested I might be on the autism spectrum (first suggesting aspergers) because of many of my eccentricities. Some traits fit but others don't. I am aware that the spectrum is quite wide and everyone is different so I do think there's a good chance I'm on it somewhere.
I'm high functioning when I'm not stressed, depressed, or sleep deprived, which meant it didn't really get picked up. I just got treated as a bit of a nerd, and a bit of a weirdo for most of my life.

I believe these traits made it tricky for me to fit in and therefore tricky to get the most out of school. Although I did well academically when I applied myself and was interested, I started to do pretty poorly in everything else. The more depressed I got the worse I did.
Because I wasn't very social, and was a bit of a geek, I got bullied and never really fit in.

The bullying and inability to fit in, plus the loss of rights and interference with my desire to educate myself, kicked off a series of events that I can't seem to forget, and can't seem to get over.


I didn't need to be forced to learn. I wanted to educate myself. I still do.
But I was denied my right to educate myself and terrorised by public servants under the name of compulsory schooling.

My life has been ruined not just by what happened at school, but also how I was treated once I refused to go to school.
I was bullied by students at school and by school staff and public servants when I refused to go. They also threatened my parents into trying to force me to return, which caused an irreparable rift in my family.

One school staff member came to my house and into my bedroom and harassed me, trying to get me to get into his car. He refused to leave until after I got dressed but I refused to go with him out of fear and anxiety.
He mentioned that he has done it before with another student, so it wasn't the first time he did it.
Being 14 (at the time) I was scared if I called the police they'd assist in forcing me back to school.

I was told by a psychologist I have the symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder due to what happened.
I've attempted suicide in the past but failed so I spent weeks ill from an attempted overdose. I regularly think about suicide, as it seems the only way to stop the memories I have, and it makes it easier to cope if I know I have a way out.

Now I'm stuck on disability payments due to a long list of diagnoses including insomnia, depression, ADHD, anxiety, agorophobia.
I want to do something worthwhile with my life but every time I've started a job or contract work I end up unable to sleep and it quickly spirals into depression and serious contemplation of committing suicide.


I was a high achiever until school ruined my life. Now I rarely leave the house, I rarely (if ever) socialise.
Even on my birthdays, christmas, and new year, I'm usually too depressed or stress to participate so for the past few years I've just stayed home while everyone else goes and enjoys their self.


I now face the prospect of living the rest of my life on disability payments, unable to work to provide for myself, and not being able to fulfil my dreams, because everything I've tried in the hope of recovering from this has either failed or has actually made things worse.
I still contemplate suicide as an alternative to that but I fear failing and just making things even worse.


I'm not looking for sympathy I'm looking for people who comprehend my situation, because the only way things will ever change is if a lot of people make their servants (politicians) fix it.

Part of me hopes no-one else is suffering like this. But part of me hopes I'm not alone in this.

The prefix "auto" means self. The suffix "ism" means state of action or being. "Autism" = inward state. "Autodidactic" shares the same prefix. A lot of Autisitc Spectrum people are also strong autodidacts.

I left schools 10 years ago. I couldn't do any more. There is nothing wrong with educating yourself, but you must do it for the enjoyment and practicality of the interest itself - you will be pursuing a full-on responsibility for yourself - and it is not without it's difficulties.

Schools seem to exist not only to relay knowledge, but to do so under a stamped hierarchy- to specialize you for a career purpose. It's not about the knowledge only, it's just as much about paying for an official voucher. And that's something both paid for, and earned thorough work. It is a rite of passage in our society, and circumventing or rejecting it makes people angry. I do it anyways.

I have often wondered why we are educating people forcibly, in an almost mechanical way. Ushering children through rigid school systems, placing them in classes based on their birthday, and assuming somehow they will develop at the same rate, or respond to the same general style of teaching. It's all very questionable to me. There is just such a lack of educational diversity. People think in so many different ways. The system as it is now is nudging perfectly talented, competent people out, because of some involuntary systemic issue the student has with how they are being taught.

It is a strange world we live in.

You're locked in a room with 20 kids, 10 years old. You have to teach them to divide fractions before they can go home. And...GO!

I don't think that I learned a lot in primary school, I remember learning a lot more at home after school (I was bullied and had no friends in my third one). If I have children I'm going to teach them as much as I can myself and send them to secondary so that they will learn how to deal with the structure.

i start off with the assumption that most people were miserable in public school, and miserable as children in general. becoming an adult means growing out of that. childhood sucks. (and mine was objectively decent, with married parents who loved me, cute kid brother, blah, blah. . .)

That's a dangerous assumption....that children are always miserable.

They (or rather "we") are miserable because of their environment and their upbringing. To claim children are miserable by default is to excuse the maltreatment and ignore the consequences.


The reason you may assume that most children are miserable is because most children have had their rights and freedoms stolen from them. It's pretty obvious that when you take away someone's freedom you will likely make them miserable.

Now most people will (from experience) respond with "but not everyone in compulsory schooling is miserable". To which I respond "not everyone who drives a car ends up crashing but we still put in seat belts to mitigate a foreseeable risk".

Just because not 100% of students end up miserable does not excuse what happens to those who do become miserable.

Assumptions are the enemy of truth and real comprehension and understanding. My life has been ruined because people assumed they knew what's best for me, and now they go on with their life while I endure the consequences of their imposition.

You can make assumptions that affect you alone....as that's your right. It's when people make assumptions and impose them upon others that I have a real problem.

Policies created by industrialists back in the day. They want(ed) a cheap, uniform workforce for their mills, factories and whatnot.

Before then, kids didn't go to school, unless they were aristocracy.

School was crap, but I don't think I'd have done any better down a mine.

Compulsory standardized schooling is akin to compulsory fast food.

We all know that fast food companies are an effective business model that are extremely consistent and effective at.... producing rubbish.

School follows the same model, aimed at helping beaurocrats to control people, and not at helping students. Just as fast food companies are aimed at making money and not providing good food.

If you want to go to a good restaurant you go to one that has ZERO standardization. The best restaurants tailor their meals to suit the produce available and the skills of the chefs.

I wish I could take compulsory schooling to court and have the entire legislature jailed for:
- failure of someone with parental responsibility (ie. any guardian and anyone imposing upon a child) to care for a child
- perversion of the course of justice (by depriving people the freedom to learn what their rights are and therefore defend theirselves)
- interference with political liberty (by denying people the right to learn alternative views of history and politics and therefore deny consent to be governed, which IS entirely lawful)
- failing to prevent forseeable harm (ie. bullying and harassment by truancy officers)
- and the list goes on

Thos above points are in the criminal code in australia and many have a minimum of 3 years jail time.

There are also other civil angles such as the schools act saying:
- a child's education is the primary responsibility of their parents
- every student has the right to the highest level of education possible
- and the list goes on

These terms in the legislation are being routinely violated. They won't be reason to send people to jail but violating these is a violation of a social contract (ie. legislation is a contract enacted via a society that binds public servants to do their job) and therefore grounds to claim compensation.


Unfortunately the State succeeded in traumatising me enough that I am unable to persue legal action at this point. Hopefully one day.

I just sent a message to ABC (aussie broadcasting corporation) offering to tell my story, because I want the compulsory education legislation changed to allow for self education.

May not work because ABC is government run and I'm trying to challenge the government policies.

If they don't take it up I might try commercial media, who care about nothing except having a good story. That could be a good thing in this case.



Anyone else prepared to confidentially share their testemonial about negative school experiences? I'm not referring to just a few bad experiences that are likely to happen anyway. I'm referring to severe events caused by compulsory schooling.


If it works I'll likely post here and let people know.