How school students convince themselves they aren't suffering

in #school8 years ago (edited)

While studying A Midsummer Night's Dream in school, I remember being taught about how in Elizabethan times, people believed in a natural order; apparently they believed that if this natural order was disrupted, it would cause great natural disturbances and disasters.
We were shown in a variety of other ways also, this superstitious theme of the natural world being upset by human society.
But no-one ever wanted to point out that this idea of a natural order was already horribly flawed.

School is a natural order

This has entirely to do with our experience at the time.
We were a classroom of people ritually attending homework-delegation meetings.
In some years time a higher-educator would use this to distinguish us from those 'unfit' for degrees.
Then this process, followed by working for a degree, would tell employers whether or not we were worth their offered salaries – and so it is that we would find out where we ought to sit in the social/salary hierarchy.

The worst part of all of this is that most of our class had slowly been made to feel like the results we got had nothing to do with how much we were learning.
We would get marked on having done as much homework as everyone else, and then on how well we could handle a time-pressured test on what we remember, but no-one ever got feedback on how ready they were for the real world, or how their abilities could help others... in fact feedback was usually just a list of all the instructions we failed to follow.

Either this was some moral nightmare of psychological programming drawn out over our years of growth, or it was a painful, but necessary part of structuring our society, that gave us the best opportunities for future employment we each deserved.
Naturally at some point over the 12 years of schooling we had experienced at this point, most of us had come to the second conclusion, if only to justify doing the work we were given.

And so it wouldn't have seemed that strange to ignore the error in assuming that each person has a place they "ought to be", because if they didn't, what were we doing in school?

Human Action

Society is of course nothing but the accumulation of human action.
This means that the employment opportunities we "ought to have", are only provided by the actions of another human being; if they didn't act to start a business, how could we be employed by them?

But this creates a problem for our natural order; if they started a business through human action, how could we justify forfeiting our desires for the sake of working there? How could it be where we ought to work, when the idea of having a natural duty destroys the very human action providing that work?

Working for someone else because one ought to, is a great lie, and during this last year of my time in high-school, this realization brings me pain.
I have ambitions for what I want to do and create, but the idea of personally starting something big, of influencing large numbers of people, seems like impossible. How could it be that I am one of those people? Am I more prepared for following someone else's ambitions than demonstrating my own?

So act!

With all of my plans and wishes for the world, I know that this natural-order mindset is extremely important to be mindful of, in case it prevents me from making the best decisions for my life, and is just one of many reasons to raise children outside of any school system.

Hopefully we can all do something to show the world what an individual is capable of!

Sort:  

Great to see people from school sucks project joining Steemit! Make a post in #introduceyourself

Great to see I'm not the only one! Yeah, good idea, I just haven't made my mind up on publishing my face; I want to capitalize on the post but that is a big step for me?

I didn't post my face; just share whatever you ate comfortable sharing.

Congratulations @spivee! You have received a personal award!

2 Years on Steemit
Click on the badge to view your Board of Honor.

Do you like SteemitBoard's project? Then Vote for its witness and get one more award!

Congratulations @spivee! You received a personal award!

Happy Birthday! - You are on the Steem blockchain for 3 years!

You can view your badges on your Steem Board and compare to others on the Steem Ranking

Vote for @Steemitboard as a witness to get one more award and increased upvotes!