How did you feel about high school?

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So I read a topic about math homework, and it really struck a chord. I wanted to find a way to explain what homework and high school classes really felt like other than just misery, boredom, etc. Three hours later, this is what I came up with. I wanted to see anybody else felt similarly. Let me know?

First of all kids would intentionally slow classes down, and teachers would have to say everything three times. I know they did this intentionally, I was asked point blank to help them.

Imagine watching a TV show, and after every scene, they rewind and replay it 3 times because someone had get a drink, get popcorn, take call, go to bathroom etc. And this happens with every single scene in the show. And you do this 5 days a week, for hours on end, year after year. Sound miserable? Eventually you get mad at the people causing the distractions and very angry at the person with the remote (the teacher in this analogy) for constantly enabling the others.


Also while I'm making analogies.... Say you are taking a driving class, and the teacher tells you to a drive the car down the block and make a U turn then come back. Now when you get back

Teacher: Write down what you did so I know you understand it.

You: What do you mean, you just saw me do it.

Teacher: Doesn't matter, you have to write it down.

You: (get out paper write "drove down block, made U turn, came back." give it to teacher) Here.

Teacher: Nope, it's wrong, there is not enough there. I need to know how you did it. You have to prove it to me.

At this point you start getting confused. You have no idea why have you to write anything down in the first place, the teacher has seen you complete the task and knows you can easily do it. But you sucked it up and have written down what you did. But this is not enough, they need more. What I am supposed to write? How much detail do they want?

So now you write down something like. "I walked over to the car, extended my left arm, and using my left hand grasped the door handle, then pulled the door open. I then let go of door and entered vehicle. I turned the key clockwise until the engine started, then I released it after the engine had started. At this point I closed the car door and put on my seat belt..........................................

You now turn this into the teacher. Teacher asks "Why did you write so much?" You reply "because you told me to." The teacher probably then makes some snarky comment about how you are too smart for your own good.

This wonderful episode of driving class then ends with the teacher telling you, that for homework. You must drive x number of feet and make U-turn. You must show all your work to get credit. And you need to do this 20 times, with a different value of x each time.

Replace driving with math, you get the picture. To this day, there are many times when I have no clue what work I am supposed to show or why?

I think it is much worse when you care about school or have a genuine interest in any of the subjects. Because then you can't just blow it off completely, and you will try.

Regarding class behavior, I think students are testing their boundaries which is probably normal. What is not normal is having a situation where having a enough students together leads to small societies or tribes.

Finally of course, the worst is the teacher failing to function as a leader establishing boundaries. I actually had one 8th Grade teacher who did this. He booted certain kids out of class every day. His teaching style was very fair and he would let you have a lot of do-overs in homework. Yet, he wouldn't take any screwing around while he was teaching and sent kids to the hall or the principal's office almost routinely.

There really was one or two kids that actually deserved this. He wasn't an unfair authoritarian guy. I think he just wanted to establish order.

There were definitely times when kids would test boundaries. Some teachers were better about setting boundaries better than others.

However, when someone says "let's drag this lab out as long as we can so we don't want to have to take the quiz afterwards." Or "I'm going to bring up No Child Left Behind, keep Mr. W going as long as you can, I don't want to do anything in class today." They are intentionally trying to slow a class down.