I don't think I learned anything beneficial from school after the 6th grade. Once you can read, write, add, subtract, and multiply you're pretty much set on a road of autodidacticism -- well you should be anyway.
Everything else (and what I'd guess makes the substance of my character) came from self-reading, exploration (talking to interesting people), BBS discussions, late-night phone talks, Internet research, and raw experience only a cold world can provide.
Hard to get that while you're cramming for a test about some asshole named Christopher Columbus and memorizing bullshit. What you do learn from school:
A) Classism -- hey, your family is poor and can't afford the latest Jordans -- go sit at the loser table.
B) Preferential Treatment -- I know you're having trouble in Calculus, but I have to give you this D; Johnny on the other hand needs at least a C or coach will kick him off the football team, and he's our star player.
C) Structure -- Don't think outside of the box. All we need is this 5 year old textbook and the lesson plan I borrowed from the teacher I replaced 15 years ago. Also, be sure not to express any intelligent opinions in front of other peers, because that kind of shit isn't cool. Sticking to the program always works!
The truth is the best teacher is one who will teach you to not need a teacher at all. The 12 years is prison. It's supposed to be. It's indoctrination and brain washing, making sure you have no doubt in the system and that it -- in the long run -- works.
Now college used to be the place you go to unlearn all the bullshit you learned in public school. It was the place where elite ended up, and so they were privileged enough to have this 'outer' knowledge of the nation's workings within the boundaries of their own blind-following; you couldn't get to higher education unless you pretended to swallow the 12 years before it, after all. So you gain this 'outer' knowledge and feel liberated in some sense, but you're still indebted to the 'father' of it all for giving it to you. That's when you work for 15 years to pay off thousands in student loans, never having a minute of free time to pursue much. Oh, that project you were working on? You can't complete it after working from 9-9 every other day of the week.
And so you're stuck. And so those who see through all of this usually drift away and get depressed -- maybe they become alcoholics, drug addicts, or just mental.
Welcome to your future. Sometimes you should envy the stupid people, because they can go through it all just like your household cat or dog -- licking their balls and eager to wake up to another day of systematic nothingness, where some bigger person determines when and how you're let out of your cage.
