Let's complain about high school! (Was: I feel like shit.)

[agentwiggles]

I'm not the one being down on myself. That would be everyone around me. And while I am a bright kid, as you said, I am also infected with a terminal case of laziness. And I don't do well under stress. And my life is nothing if not stressful. So, yeah. That's pretty much it

Being bright and lazy is a dangerous yet all too common combination, and having other people down on you is difficult. But negativity, internal or external, stops with you, and like it or not, you're responsible for dealing with it. I'm sure I sound like I'm harping some new-agey self improvement bullshit, but I know that one of my biggest problems is accepting negative stuff like that and running with it, and when you think in that way it starts to permeate your life.

For example, you claim not to be down on yourself, but then immediately call yourself extremely lazy. If you do have this problem, then your own recognition of it is the most important thing, as it gives you the power to rein yourself in when you notice those patterns coming up. Instead of saying "I'm a lazy person, and a lazy person wouldn't do this right now, therefore I won't work on this homework (or whatever)" you might say "Right now I don't feel like working. However, I know I have problems with getting motivated sometimes, and maybe I need to consider if this is really a time where I can get by with taking a break or if I need to stop that thinking right now, buck up, and get things done.

I frequently struggle with this exact problem, and that's part of the reason I'm stressing it, because if you're like me in this respect (and I think you are) it's something you're going to battle with frequently. I've fallen into a pattern of thinking "Oh, well I'm just lazy, and that's why I haven't been going to class like I should" far too many times. It's very easy to act in the same manner you always do, or in the manner you expect yourself to. Challenge yourself by being aware of your problems and try to improve yourself.

So yeah man, my advice: high school doesn't mean shit. Have fun with it anywhere you can, get it over with, and move on to bigger and better things.

I think all in all, if you're an intelligent individual (which you seem to be), then the quicker you ditch the concept of high-school being about learning, the happier you'll probably be. Find yourself another source of intellectual stimulation like those I mention above, and accept that high school is all about conformity, playing the system, and keeping you occupied until society feels you're old enough to be useful to them.

FC's post has a lot of good advice in it too. Having a worthwhile hobby outside school is rewarding and keeps you grounded and sane. Something disciplined or challenging is best. And, like FC said, it can be a great way to keep those who need to see you working for their own validation out of your hair. Mine was guitar, which I played and practiced obsessively in high school. When I was bored in class, I'd write out modes for various keys or try to figure what notes are in a certain chord. This ties into playing the system - you're young right now so unfortunately you're going to have to conform somewhat to what the people in charge want you to do. Trying to battle this, or crying out about the terrible injustice of it all will do you no good, so just appease the system and spend the rest of your time doing worthwhile activities.

You'll be out of there before you know it, and while you'll be ecstatic to ditch the crappier aspects of high school, there's plenty you'll miss about it too. It's all bullshit in the end, man, so don't get too jaded about it and try to enjoy the ride.

[TheAnarchitect]

I want to DnD with you now.

The math anecdote reminded me of one of my own. I had a pre-calc class that assigned 50 problems every night. It was sheer tedium. After the third week, I went to see the teacher after class and said something to the effect of:

"Ok, look. I've aced every homework problem for the last several weeks. But It takes an hour each night and I have better things to do. I know I'm going to ace it. You know I'm going to ace it. So why don't I just do the last three problems (the hardest ones) and turn those in? Obviously if I ace those I'd have aced the lesser ones."

She went for it. For the rest of the school year I did 6% of the homework for 100% credit.

[HavokSCOUT]

I might just pull that with my current Calc teacher, Anarchitect. He seems like he might go for it.

[simanick]

story about math class

Great story, in fact i have nearly the same one, replace D&D writing with Magic the gathering decks and obscenity with drawings of spiders(i learned the teacher was arachnophobia the first day or so of class) and they are close enough that i would wounder if we have the same teacher other then the likely years difference in age but my bet is that stuff like this is not uncommon.

Horizon i think the point that most of us are making is highschool is not vary intellectually challenging but it gives you time to find a challenge in other parts of your life or make them for your self. and i do think i should clarify what i said there is next to no repercussions, there are some so dont just fail everything, highschool is a game that the winners are the ones that come out morally sound, with the least effort and the most enjoyment of everything else that is going on in your life at the time.

[morvelaira]

In middle school, I was written up several times as a trouble maker because I just would up and walk out of the classroom in order to avoid conflict, and for never paying attention in class. (Always had my nose in a book.) Out of all my teachers and the adults I interacted with on a daily basis, only one bothered to ask me why. She is not the one I am indebted to. The one I am indebted to is the one who paid enough attention to not need to ask.

I read all the time because I usually had about a week or two of homework done ahead of time, or I had already read the entire textbook. The conflict I was attempting to avoid was me screeching in anger at my classmates who wanted me to provide materials with which for them to cheat. The teacher I am indebted to brought this to Income school administrator's attention. They didn't feel like going through the trouble of finding more advanced material for me to study. Insisted that troubled didn't equal gifted. So, the teacher borrowed a blank test from his brother, who taught at a local college, and gave it to me.

It's pretty indisputable when an 11 year old aces a college-level trigonometry exam, with no instruction.

At the time, it was a big deal both for me, my family, and several of the other people involved. Now, it's just a story, and a better one than any I have from high school. Getting on to be closer to 20 years from that point than not, its also seems a relatively insignificant one when compared to the lessons I have learned in adulthood. So from that I am tempted to say that high school doesn't matter - much like several people have said. Certainly I cannot point to anything I learned there and say, "This changed my life." But at the same time, what I did learn there enabled me to learn greater things later on, either directly or in a more roundabout way. So by that token, it was necesary, and did matter.

It takes an extraordinary individual to achieve enlightenment in high school. Individuals of good character lack the arrogance or vanity to assume it will be them. So don't expect much, and enjoy your time as much as possible. It will pan out in the end.
.

[HaloGamefreek]

Don't get stressed. Nothing in your freshman year of high school is important enough to strain yourself. Plan ahead to avoid deadlines and keep out of stressful relatonships. High school is a great time and you should feel good that you have gotten there... Not bad that you didnt finish that report.

[VitaFrench]

While I agree high school doesn't mean anything it is an easy place to improve yourself without any downfalls. I aced elementary education with flying colors while having a job, playing baseball, soccer and participating in marching band. Yet doing great in school got me nothing, in fact I was hindered by the lack of effort I needed to supply to get my grades. I never studied, did homework on the bus to school, and would draw in my classes. I was convinced school was a free babysitter for my parents and that I was smart.

I go to a respectable engineering school with a graduation rate of 60%. I went there thinking that I would be good at college. I am a first generation student who had no idea what college was like. First year was great besides my test anxiety and I never got to play video games so I pretty much sat in my room playing video games. Fast forward another year I am now playing video games daily longer than I spend time in classes and doing homework combined. I still did my homework and would score near the top of the bell curve on my tests. I got more lazy with each test and stopped going to classes because I "could do it on my own". That was the worst decision yet the most beneficial decision of my college career. my GPA dropped significantly and I was put on academic probation.

This summer I made a goal list for myself, first time ever using goals, which were short term goals with incentives for completion. I made these goals because I need to graduate to do what I want with my life. I am shell shocked from my failure last year. To top it I start off with missing my first test this year from over sleeping by staying up to late with last minute studying. Instead of giving up and being upset with myself I bought two books about motivation and talked to a counselor at my school about what I have to make myself do despite not wanting to do it.

If I could give one piece of advice to someone who plans on going to college I would learn good habits (such as studying, time management, and self motivation) and to challenge yourself while you have an easy time with school before you need those good habits.

[Horizon]

Thanks for all of the comfort. Thanks for taking a few minutes or so out of your day to help a 14-year old on the internet maintain his sanity. Also, today, I learned that I have to show my work on tests as well. And you know what the reaction to that was?
"Right, well, fuck this, I'm outta here."
And with that, I switched to pre-ap geometry, because for fuck's sake, doing math is tedious enough, don't make us spell out what we did for you. You know what we did. You're the one who taught us to do it.

[TheAnarchitect]

You know, I had the same attitude when I was in school. But since then, I've realized that showing my work is kinda helpful. I mean, if I get the problem wrong, it lets me or someone else figure out where I got it wrong, which aids the learning experience. Also, being able to solve a problem without knowing how you did it doesn't do much for repeatability.

Now it's one thing if that's the reason your teacher wants to see your work. It's another if they just know you're "supposed to show your work" but don't know why.

[FlowerChild]

Thanks for all of the comfort. Thanks for taking a few minutes or so out of your day to help a 14-year old on the internet maintain his sanity. Also, today, I learned that I have to show my work on tests as well. And you know what the reaction to that was?
"Right, well, fuck this, I'm outta here."
And with that, I switched to pre-ap geometry, because for fuck's sake, doing math is tedious enough, don't make us spell out what we did for you. You know what we did. You're the one who taught us to do it.

Lol! Ok, our high-school experiences are developing more than just a bit in common:

My senior year, I was in honors physics. Like math, this course was also a joke to me.

However, at one point I decided I was going to bring my marks up to get into a good college. So, in turning over a new leaf, I decided to study for the next exam that I had, which was for this physics test.

So, the night before, I read through the material, did a few of the problems that had been assigned as homework, and felt myself prepared.

Next day, I take the test, and I knew I aced it. I think I actually rechecked everything twice before turning it in just to make sure I hadn't made any silly little errors, as I knew I deserved 100% on it.

A few days later, the teacher was returning the tests, and I looked over smugly at my friends and said "watch this...I got 100% on this thing".

I get the paper back, and written on it is a big fat red "F".

Huge "wtf?" moment while my friends doubled over in laughter.

I asked to see my friend's paper to compare results, went over them all, and sure enough, I had them all right, so I went up to see the teacher, and said something along the lines of "wtf?"

His response:

"You cheated"

More "wtf?" from me.

"You didn't show any of your work and got everything right, so you cheated."

At this point I was totally red-faced and started saying that if he gave me a similar problem to that on the exam, I'd solve it on the black board right in front of him using the same methods I had for the test.

At this, he backed down, and conceded to give me a 70% because I didn't show any of my work.

You see, when I didn't study, I'd normally derive the necessary equations for myself on the exam paper, which would bulk out my responses to the point where I guess to him it represented me "showing my work". In other words, by not knowing the material as well, it would satisfy his arbitrary criteria for how much work was required to resolve such a problem. When I didn't study, I'd also score somewhere in the mid 80's on such tests.

The warped lesson I took away from that experience: that me not studying resulted in better grades, and that I'd best just give up on the concept altogether. I never forgave that teacher for that one :)

[FlowerChild]

You know, I had the same attitude when I was in school. But since then, I've realized that showing my work is kinda helpful. I mean, if I get the problem wrong, it lets me or someone else figure out where I got it wrong, which aids the learning experience. Also, being able to solve a problem without knowing how you did it doesn't do much for repeatability.

I don't think that's what most teachers are referring to when they say "show your work". It's usually along the lines of wanting to see all the basic arithmetic you're performing with each step.

Yes, obviously the overall method is important, and should be shown, but at least in my experience, they just weren't accustomed to someone being capable of performing the kind of math in their head that I could, and thus assumed I must somehow be cheating.

Of course in those days calculators weren't even allowed in exams, so things may be very different in that regard today.

BTW: The same ideology you're talking about above is also applicable to programming, and is largely the reason why I'm so anal about meaningful variable names and code comments. Coming back to a piece of code you've written months ago to either fix a bug or expand on it is hellish if you don't properly document your own code, as it forces you to think through the entire problem again to figure out how you initially solved it.

[morvelaira]

Heh, even ten years ago, calculators were required for exams in some subjects. xD

[FlowerChild]

Heh, even ten years ago, calculators were required for exams in some subjects. xD

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I'm an old bastard :)

[Horizon]

[rant]
Math teachers: Stop making us show our work. Try encouraging people to do the math in their head, it's good for them. And for the love of god, stop giving homework just to give us homework. In fact, maybe stop giving us homework at all, if we need to practice, we'll fucking practice.
[/rant]

[darahalian]

After reading through all of this, really the only thing I have to say is that I'm extremely grateful that I went to a small private classical K-12 school, and not to a public middle-school/high-school/whatever. I don't think I should really say much more on that subject as it might start getting into politics.

Also, today, I learned that I have to show my work on tests as well. And you know what the reaction to that was?
"Right, well, fuck this, I'm outta here."
And with that, I switched to pre-ap geometry, because for fuck's sake, doing math is tedious enough, don't make us spell out what we did for you. You know what we did. You're the one who taught us to do it.

I don't know how much work they want you to show, (whether it's like FC is saying with all the basic arithmetic or not) but, yeah, writing down the steps you take in a problem is a good habit. You may not need to yourself for smaller problems, but it becomes very useful (for you or anyone else trying to understand what you did) when you are doing more complicated problems.

And, to be honest, the best way for the teacher to see that you know how to do a certain type of problem is if you show your work, and the whole point of a test is to test your knowledge and see if you actually learned the concepts. When you show your work, even if you get the final answer wrong, if you were on the right track and then made a calculation error or something, the teacher can see that and give credit accordingly, but if all they see is a wrong answer, the only thing they really can do is mark it completely wrong, and as far as they can tell, you might not even know how to do that type of problem.

Maybe I'm completely off, not having gone through a public high-school education myself, but that's how I've always viewed this subject.

[rant]
Math teachers: Stop making us show our work. Try encouraging people to do the math in their head, it's good for them.
[/rant]

Maybe I'm just lucky, but I had a teacher who occasionally gave us a few "mental math" problems to do in our heads. It was certainly something I enjoyed, and I bet others would, too.

[Horizon]

I can do a geometry problem entirely in my head. Something like,"If x is at (4,-9), and y is at (-9,4), find the midpoint."

[HavokSCOUT]

Man, I wish I remembered any of my geometry. It is a very useful math to know. I guess my teacher was too busy singing "I'm on a boat" :/

[william711]

showing your work with math becomes more useful when you get to higher level math classes, like calculus. put a good physics class in with the mix and showing your work becomes something that you do just so you can keep up with whats going on in the problem.

I would recommend taking as many high level classes as you can because regular classes pretty much teach to the lowest common denominator which doesn't seem to be you. while an AP or preAP class won't guarantee you a good teacher, at least there is a chance that you might get one who actually knows how to teach.

[TheAnarchitect]

Two pertinent anecdotes for "showing your work" and negotiating with teachers.

In freshman geometry, on my first test, I noticed a pattern between problems one and two. So I wrote a small theorem in the margins of the paper, with a proof, and then applied that theorem to the rest of the test. This little sidetrack saved me time over the next 20 problems. So I turned in my test about 30 minutes ahead of everyone else. The teacher looks it over, then takes me out in the hall.

"So, you can't use this theorem because this is a test on chapter one, and you don't learn this theorem until chapter 4."

"I didn't learn it, I derived it from the theorems in chapter one."

This went back and forth a bit, but the pertinent point was that I had clearly shown a proof of the theorem in the margin of the test. It ended with the teacher agreeing that if I could derive a theorem using only the theorems we'd learned already, I was allowed to use it on the tests and homework, but I had to show the teacher my proof. And then in what turned out to be an elaborate proof that you never give me an inch unless you want me to take a mile, three weeks later my teacher informed me that I had turned in a proof for every theorem in the book and that I could just go ahead and read in class for the rest of the year if I wanted.


Also, In my AP physics class, I programmed my graphing calculator to do most common physics equations. Normally such programs were forbidden for use during tests, but my teacher agreed that since I had programmed it myself, it relied on my personal knowledge to function correctly and thus was an acceptable proof that I understood the material.

[Dwarg91]

Two pertinent anecdotes for "showing your work" and negotiating with teachers.

In freshman geometry, on my first test, I noticed a pattern between problems one and two. So I wrote a small theorem in the margins of the paper, with a proof, and then applied that theorem to the rest of the test. This little sidetrack saved me time over the next 20 problems. So I turned in my test about 30 minutes ahead of everyone else. The teacher looks it over, then takes me out in the hall.

"So, you can't use this theorem because this is a test on chapter one, and you don't learn this theorem until chapter 4."

"I didn't learn it, I derived it from the theorems in chapter one."

This went back and forth a bit, but the pertinent point was that I had clearly shown a proof of the theorem in the margin of the test. It ended with the teacher agreeing that if I could derive a theorem using only the theorems we'd learned already, I was allowed to use it on the tests and homework, but I had to show the teacher my proof. And then in what turned out to be an elaborate proof that you never give me an inch unless you want me to take a mile, three weeks later my teacher informed me that I had turned in a proof for every theorem in the book and that I could just go ahead and read in class for the rest of the year if I wanted.


Also, In my AP physics class, I programmed my graphing calculator to do most common physics equations. Normally such programs were forbidden for use during tests, but my teacher agreed that since I had programmed it myself, it relied on my personal knowledge to function correctly and thus was an acceptable proof that I understood the material.

All that I have to say on this is that that is awesom and you must be really good at figuring out problems Anarchetect.
Also having to show your work should only be for when the problem is too big to do in your head, and even then it shoudn't have to include the really small simple equations just the larger "building blocks" and how they connect.

[Horizon]

If it can be solved by a computer, than it sure as hell can be done mentally. I'm proof.

[Xekrom337]

[slightly-offtopic-but-still-ontopic]
I have not done a single peice of math homework for the last 4 years. And I always get 90%+ on tests.

WHO NEEDS HOMEWORK!
[/slightly-offtopic-but-still-ontopic]

If it can be solved by a computer, than it sure as hell can be done mentally. I'm proof.

Not Pi. Never Pi.

Code: Select all

3.14159265358979323846264338327050288419716939937510

(Recalled from my head. Try calculating circles in your head with that...it hurt brain. me no think straght.)

Or trigonometry. I do not know how to do that shit without a calculator. WHY WONT THE TEACHERS TEACH ME?!?!?!

[Thorium-232]

Or trigonometry. I do not know how to do that shit without a calculator. WHY WONT THE TEACHERS TEACH ME?!?!?!

When I was learning Trig, we had values tables we worked from and figured the rest out by hand. SohCahToa, motherfuckers.

[morvelaira]

*puts on ritual robes*

SohCahToa. SohCahToa. SohCahToa....

I remember the tables. Oh dear, the tables. Trust me, you're happier with the calculator.

[lostone1993]

Here is my advice if you want it, having just come out of high school recently

High school is nothing, just a day-care for teens pretty much

If you fail class's it doesn’t really matter, the class's and tests are structured and made towards very specific attitudes and personalities. If you don't fit, you fail pretty much

There is always another way or path to same place you want to get to

Just use the time to learn more about yourself, others and create friends

By the way I effectively failed 4 of the 6 class I took, mostly because of exams. Yet most of my teachers knew that when it came to practical or non-exam theory I could run rings around my class mates.