Throughout school, teachers, friends and family have all been feeding you the same lines. In grade school we were told to do our homework and to “get used to it” because this was a preparation for middle school which they said is much harder and the teachers were much more strict. But by the end of 7th grade, only one thing had changed…and that was just a little bit more hair in some funny places. The teachers weren’t any harder on you and the work wasn’t any more than it was in grade school. What did happen though was that you had to take more classes that you had a feeling would be useless in your life. However teachers told you differently. “These are important classes and they are good preparation for high school,” they’d say.

Then came high school. For eight years teachers have been preparing me for that moment I stepped into the doors and they couldn’t have had it more ass-backwards. High school was a joke. Let me say that I did not finish top in my class or even close. I was your average student, with a below average/average SAT score. But I can’t say that I really worked hard to achieve this. I did what most kids like me did. Homework for the morning classes on the bus on the way to school, in homeroom, or before class started. Then homework for the afternoon classes at lunch. I did my fair share of cheating, but for the most part I was pretty good at being an honest student.

By sophomore year I had began to really figure the whole thing out. I figured out how to get by with barely doing the work needed, and certainly doing half the work that my past teachers had said I would need. Procrastination was my friend and I mean literally my friend. I knew that procrastinating would never effect my grades so it was a pretty simple system.

By senior year, I was checked out. I don’t remember doing a bit of homework at home, or even at all for that matter. I can’t even remember clearly enough to tell you if I even had homework to do. I had survived “the toughest and most important year of high school-junior year.” I had gotten into college and now all I had to do was just not get into any trouble that would keep me from walking at graduation.

The message from teachers in high school was clear. “This is a preparation for college.”

Of course, College was pretty much exactly the same as high school. The only difference was that I had to do more homework and especially on my own, and I was living on my own. But all in all, the teachers were the same, you either got a lazy asshole or a really cool efficient one. But the more time you spend there, you start to familiarize yourself with ways to get around doing work and finding new ways to just “get by.” If I wasn’t in music college, I don’t know if I would have gotten my dad’s monies worth. Lucky for me I actually wanted to do well, so I took it pretty seriously, unlike high school. But after the classes I was into started to end and I started feeling like it was just becoming high school all over again, I took it for what it was worth, and I dropped out. I couldn’t watch myself slack off for another 2 years and risk wasting credits and my dad’s money.

So now let me tell you what I think all of this means.

In grades K-12, it was never a learning process. I strongly believe that not one thing you do is in anyway a preparation for your next round of classes. Obviously it’s helpful to learn how to add/subtract so you can move on to multiplication/division, but there are plenty of things you learn that will never apply to your life. In fact, can you even remember what you learned in those grades?

But I’ll tell you what those grades did for me. They provided me with emotional lessons that I will carry with me for the rest of my life. And it seems sad, but it’s the truth. Being an overweight kid for almost my entire life, I faced plenty of teasing. And don’t you know that I cannot remember a single math formula that I learned or date in World History that I learned, or even the plot to any books I was made to read. But I can’t even count on my hand the names of those I remember calling me fat, the words they used, and in what spot in the school building it happened.

I recently began to hang out again with someone who specifically did something to me that I will remember for the rest of my life. And the funny thing is, I can almost guaruntee that this person doesn’t remember it. This person is a fun person to hang out with now and although I don’t see this person often, I certainly don’t mind seeing this person when I do.

I also recently added someone on facebook that I can remember at least three different times when they made comments to me that were pretty shitty. I haven’t talked to this person in about six years and I wonder what it would be like to talk now. Would this person remember how mean this person was to me? Or would this person still think the same way and hold this prejudice against me?

It’s really hard to say because you meet the same kinds of people in every grade. You would think that people would mature. But there are always the same kids, from Kindergarten to Seniors in college. There are those who are assholes and don’t even care or maybe they don’t even know.

With all the classes that don’t matter through the years, you would think that schools could replace one of those classes with a new class. A class where an open discussion can be had about emotions and how to treat others. We go through life thinking that if we have problems we are supposed to talk to a close friend, family member or a doctor. We are made to feel like feeling bad about something, or being upset is something that should be kept private and told to someone behind closed doors. But yet if we are feeling good, we are supposed to openly show it. In school if you are upset about something, you are supposed to see the school counselor. So you get to feel like a loser and like you have some kind of medical problem, and nervously spill your guts to a strange school social worker, and the root of your problems (most likely other kids in your classes) never have to talk to a social worker about what they feel, because they don’t feel bad about what they do, they don’t know it really hurts people, and they don’t know enough to care.

But I wonder if some of those kids from my school would realize now, some almost 10 or 15 years older, that what they said really hurt me, when they hear me recall the things they said to me as clear as if it were yesterday. I wonder if they would apologize knowing that something they did would be with me until the day I die.

Currently Listening to:

The Hold Steady – Stay Positive

You know the timeless tale about the two guys fighting over the same girl? Each guy starts off by doing nice, sweet things for the girl like sending her flowers or writing her a love note. They each butter her up and make her happy. They are both fighting for a chance to be her date at the big Ball at the end of the year.

However, what used to be two handsome, sweet, funny and intelligent guys quickly takes a turn for the worse. The two guys start bad mouthing each other to the girl. They make up lies, twist the truth, trap the girls feelings in a corner. Suddenly the girl starts to see evil, manipulative, ugly men in these two once great guys. The end of the year is coming too quickly. It used to be hard for her to choose because they both were so wonderful but now it’s getting hard for her to choose because they both seem so cruel. At one point they were both her type but as the Ball grew closer they were seeming more and more wrong for her.

And finally the week of the Ball arrives and its time for the girl to make her decision. She is standing outside of her house on her porch and the two guys come screeching down the road in their brand new cars (which they bought just to impress her). They are racing and trying to bump one another off the road. The first car pulls up in front of the house and the second car rams it in the back bumper. The two guys get out of the car and wrestle their way across the front yard, beating each other on the way. They both walk up the stairs and stand side by side in front of the girl. She looks at the two of them, black-eyes, bruises, bags under their eyes, messy hair, sweaty, a foul stench coming from their bodies.

“So who’s it going to be?” one of them asks.

“I know you’re going to choose me,” barks the other one.

“Look guys I’m sorry,” says the girl, “but you both used to be so great and now I think that was all an act just to impress me. You’ve both shown a side of you that is so mean and nasty. I’ve decided that I’m not going to go with either of you to the big Ball. I’d rather not go than have to go with one of you. I’m sorry, but, you brought this on yourselves.”

With their heads hanging low, they both turn around and walk back to their cars.

“Was it worth it?”

“Not at all.”