What I Wish Someone Told Me in High School

Then the bell rings and they give you a carton of milk and a piece of paper that says you can go take a dump or somethin'. I mean, it's not a place for smart people, Jerry.

-Rick and Morty

My elementary school had a schoolwide chess and checkers competition. 

Each class would have all the students play in a round robin, and the winners would play other winners until there was a final victor. The school had a rule that one person could not be both chess champion and checkers champion. I was in 3rd grade and my brother Jeff was in 6th grade. We played each other in the chess finals. Jeff was a better chess player than me. As soon as we sat down, Jeff told me that he’s going to win the checkers championship, so he’s going to throw this game to me, “Just do the 4 move checkmate” he said. “Won’t the teachers know?” “No, it’s fine.” I did the four move checkmate, we showed the teacher that I won, and I was the chess champion. It was a powerful lesson that I took the wrong way.

Maybe the teacher noticed Jeff threw the game. Maybe he just didn’t care... but his value in life came from being an authority figure. Authority figures, especially those over children, don’t appreciate being the fool. I have great respect for teachers now, and a select few teachers changed the course of my life. But I viewed the average teacher as an obstacle to everything I wanted. They weren’t there to help me. They were an adversary that I’d play along with knowing they aren’t on my team. I’m awful at pretending to like someone. It confused me how some of my friends in junior high and high school befriended our elementary school teachers after. I never had that same affection. I never broke that barrier… my teachers made me feel uneasy.

I thought school was the most nonsensical place. I assumed everyone knew this and was just playing along. I had an insecurity that if I thought of something, it must mean that someone else had already had the same thought. It was true sometimes with family, but it was false when I was around others. Rarely did someone have my same thoughts/ideas, but I thought they always did for the longest time.

I thought everyone knew school didn’t make sense. Of course it doesn’t make sense. Who would design a system based on rote memorization… my least favorite task. They didn’t even teach rote memorization properly. It could have been bearable if they had a Moonwalking With Einstein style course where they teach you how to train your memory, but they didn’t and still tested us on it. I didn’t know memorization with memory palaces was a thing, and I didn’t understand why we were learning all this random trivia. If I studied, I got an A. If I didn’t study, I wouldn’t get an A. From the little I knew of adult life, none of this knowledge seemed applicable. All I knew was that my parents cared a lot about grades, and all my friends cared a lot about grades. No one gave a good explanation why. Some said it would help get into a good college, but then the explanation died down. I thought why would someone care what college you went to? Because they cared about how much useless info you studied in high school? What kind of stupid, fucked up society is that?

Add in that teenagers naturally need to go to sleep later and wake up later. The circadian rhythm of teenagers shifts forward 1-3 hours. Sleep scientists are constantly lobbying to start high school later in the morning. Our public school system was inadvertently structured to deprive teenagers of sleep. My circadian rhythm was tuned later than the average teenager, which made high school particularly painful. 

I wish someone could have told me:

Yes, school doesn’t make sense and is stupid. But not everyone can simply study and get an A on a test. Some people can study for weeks and still not get an A. Some people lack the discipline to ever study. As a society, we use school to differentiate who can get A’s and who cannot get A’s. This helps decide who can get into which university, which in turn classifies you for the rest of your life. You’re different, and you need to show you’re different to the world by studying for these sometimes silly tests. It’s annoying at times, but the rest of your life will be positively impacted by jumping through these particular societal hoops. Yes, you can choose not to study, but you’ll have to work even harder the next decade after college to prove yourself. Working now will save you time and energy later on in your life. Do future you a favor and take these stupid tests, get the grades. The good news is that it’s just a few years, and unless you want to go to grad school, your grades in college don’t really matter.

I needed someone I respected to give that speech to me. I can’t say for certain, but I think I would have listened. On the bright side, all my choices led me to who I am today. And I quite enjoy my life. That said, I hope this serves as a guide to a precocious teenager out there.