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[Aklyon]

I... I actually liked my lit classes.

Being taught about the mechanics of a story, how to think critically about the message of a work, and place a story in its context in the real world has given me a much deeper appreciation of all the fiction that I consume on a day-to-day basis. Sure I ended up reading garbage like A Farewell to Arms and Thousand Cranes, but I also read novels that have become my all-time favorites like To Kill A Mockingbird, Jane Eyre and The Grapes of Wrath. And I actually thought about and contemplated them, at first because I was forced to but later because I was actually passionate about the stories and characters.

We read none of those.
Books I remember reading in high school that were actually in english (as opposed to library books):
Macbeth, Romeo & Juliet (in book, movie, and west side story forms), The Giver (this might've actually been in middle school, idk), The Great Gatsby (least interesting of the entire list), Canterbury Tales (partially), and several other books I do not remember the titles of due to only being in the textbook, not their own books.

[Lord Shonus]

I once failed an English test by answering the question "What purpose did Dickens have when he wrote A Tale Of Two Cities?" with "£1 (149.41 in today's money)" (Dickens wrote the book in twenty installments, and was paid 1 shilling per installment. I hated questions like that.

I don't like the idea of "psychic questions" that ask you to basically infer what someone was thinking from basically nothing.

I mean by what measure is "Getting paid" NOT a correct answer? Ohh that is right because Charles Dickens is some sort of angelic writer who was clearly beyond money DAMN IT SCHOOL!!!

Ok maybe it was just my schools that were terrible with the author worship.

The "correct" answer would have been to shit out something like "A Tale Of Two Cities is an allegory for Dickens's repressed homosexuality, with the violence of te French Revolution standing in for the repression of his male-male urges and England representing the dream holy land where he could express his love in the way that is correct for him." NO matter if there isn't so much as a single syllable that supports a pet theory, Death of The Author (as it was explicitly taught to me) means that anything anyone says on a work is 100% correct and what the work must be assumed to mean.

[Amperzand]

Everything I've seen of high school suggests it does a better job of damping enthusiasm for learning than anything else.

>Is homeschooled.

[itisnotlogical]

I was homeschooled and it was the most depressing year and a half of my life. I did one or two worksheets every couple of months to make it look like I'd been working, then sat alone in the house all day because I didn't have any friends or know anybody in the area.

[Amperzand]

I spent a lot of time reading. Not necessarily how I would have preferred to spend this many years, but it's turning out okay, and I'm apparently not that behind school-wise, for some reason.

[O.Wilde]

Yeah, homeschooling is weird. I just stopped doing school for a year and a half, and didn't end up behind at all. Took community college classes, and I'm going into my freshman year of college with about 45 transferable credits.

[TheBiggerFish]

I once failed an English test by answering the question "What purpose did Dickens have when he wrote A Tale Of Two Cities?" with "£1 (149.41 in today's money)" (Dickens wrote the book in twenty installments, and was paid 1 shilling per installment. I hated questions like that.

Oh wow, I totally want to use that answer now.  What did you convert it to?

[chaotic skies]

I really want to be home schooled , but my parents say it's too much work. It's not like they parents have to leave all day. They work in our house, so that's not the problem. I'm pretty sure the problem is that it wouldn't earn them money, because that's all they seem to think about. Kind of annoying, considering these are the same people who get angry at big companies and stuff for being greedy, then spend 4k on new computers and still say they don't have enough money :-/

[Amperzand]

I mean, what ended up happening with me was mostly "Unschooling", which amounts to leaving the kid alone with nigh-unlimited study material. I have spent many, many hours voluntarily reading scientific discourse, in and out of the internet. I think it might not work as well with more access to places like Bay12.

[Flying Dice]

Hoo boy, yeah. Productivity with vs. without internet access (for non-academic purposes) is a pretty drastic difference.

[TheBiggerFish]

Indeed.  Speaking from experience.

[Akura]

Today's been a pretty good day, foodwise. At lunch, had some yogurt as I normally do, but it tasted extremely good, and I wish I had more.I do, but it's all for next week. Seriously, yogurt is one of the best things ever.

Was feeling extremely hungry by 2 o'clock break, so I got a Hershey bar and a bag of chips from the vending machine. The machine dropped two bags of chips for me, though I gave one to someone whom the machine shorted them on change. The Hershey bar turned out to have almonds in it, which I didn't expect.

On the way home, my mother decides to get take-out from Boston Market.


EDIT: WTF, I thought I put this in the Happy thread. I guess now it belongs here.

[chaotic skies]

I'm in the other boat: All I've eaten today is a sandwhich. Braces sucks.

[TheBiggerFish]

I feel like that's the fault of whoever is making the food.

[chaotic skies]

I make the food, but I don't buy the food. That's the main problem.