I did great in high school and was so concerned about being top of my class and always having good grades. Then I did poorly (I thought I did, but not really) on a really important test and was crazy upset about it at the end of my junior year. 

My biology teacher, who was a seriously cool guy and had a really solid lookout on life, sat down with me and reframed how I thought about how the relationship between the real world and this ridiculous controlled experiment called “schooling.” Literally blew my fucking mind. Suddenly I saw school for what it really was and all of my frustrations and anxiety about it made so much more sense. SO much of it had felt pointless to me but I couldn’t explain why.

I immediately let go of the weight of it all and had a great senior year realizing that my frame should be on what I wanted to do afterward that was going to matter, and how my high school GPA basically wouldn’t mean shit in that regard. I still did pretty great, ended up 4th in my class, but literally all of the anxiety had vanished when I saw it for what it was.

I’ll never forget what a profound impact such a simple change in perspective was. And how quickly I was looking back on my “old self” and thinking what an idiot he was for not seeing what was right in front of him. Even something that he had felt and had itched at him for years, but couldn’t understand.

I look back now and realize that 99% of what I learned during those years that was even slightly useful, was all in Science Olympiad, which was basically a series of engineering challenges for students to compete on. It had nothing to do with my classes or my grades.

Had it not been for that, I would be shocked at how utterly pointless all of it really was. I can’t believe the amount of time and energy I had put toward something that was so meaningless when it came to the real world.

Homeschool your kids and teach them something useful. nostr:note18t3fcafeq8gxnj520frhleh3lrx2njrjpn9fyktez7dytguafcjs07lh9g