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Joshua Freedom

The Teenage Liberation Handbook : How to Quit School and Get a Real Life and Education

Damn, do I wish I had known this thing existed back in the day. I haven't read it - only just found it a minute ago. But I'm psyched just knowing it exists. Maybe it'll save some kid from years of depression.

 

Slightly Stoopid

Sounds like something that would destroy my mind if i read it! Encourages teen anarchy, and to drop out of school

Have you read it, tell us more. They didn't have the best review at amazon.com

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Slightly Stoopid
"Before you knock it, try it first. You will learn that it is a blessing and not a curse"
-Ben Harper

Joshua Freedom

It's only for kids who are being held back from learning by school. I once posted the long and sh|tty saga of my school years here, but it's now been scattered on the electron winds, unless someone saved a copy. The short version is this: I was pretty damn good at learning stuff on my own, but then had my curiosity killed by teachers who thought that busywork was the best way to teach. I was a "gifted" student, but grew to hate the slow torture of public "education". It ruined my creativity and concentration. (I now think this may be part of the intentional function of public schools, but that's a post for another day.) Childhood and the teen years are the best time to learn, and school wasted mine.

If you read the reviews on amazon, the person who posted about their worries that their child would become insufferable and arrogant totally missed the point. The book does not "mak[e] the child feel ill-used and put-upon", that's what school does - or it does if you're the type of kid who this book is for. If you're comfortable and learn well in school, then great - stay there. This book is for those who do not fit into the one-size-fits-all educational system, and who have the best motivation in the world to learn - their own natural interest and inquisitiveness.

Ganjx

come on dude thats a little biased. that's the kind of comment i would expect some clueless, narrow-minded bureaucrat to say. not a fellow stoner here at marijuana.com. its not a personal attack on you my friend, but this line of thinking is really frustrating to me (assuming you werent kidding.) school these days is only an obstruction of education. its confinement of thought and its unconstitutional practices only encourage things like school shootings. public school systems are a government within a government within a government, and it provides no educational value after grade 4. i, for one, encourage articles like this. we need to preserve our minds for productive and meaningful knowledge, rather than a collection of outdated useless information thats rarely even accurate. these a**holes often forget, that schooling was originally a preparation for life. nowadays they'd sooner throw you in detention than actually teach you something. ive not yet read the article, so for all i know the guy could be a moron, but i think you should give something like this a change stoopid, especially if you havent even read it.

by the way i didnt mean to babble on about such a brief comment you made. its just, it represents something i hate with a passion, and that is the ignorance of society and lack of respect for those who dare to think a creative thought.

madToker69

Freedom, for you was it that you would go to school, sleep through class have no interest at all, make decentgrades, yet at home read and were very interested in learning and understanding? cause thats kinda how i am...My dad a micro biologist have sat up for like 5 hours talking about genetics and our diferent theories, yet i get in Biology class in school, and cant keep my eyes open for more than ten minutes. I want some interest and substance to the teaching, and in english class maybe some true literature instead of 10 million short stories by authors ive never heard of. the best thing we have read all year was "an open leter to a young negro" an essay by Jesse Owens the sprinter. I would encourage everyone to read it. it wasnt superbly writen but had a great message of understanding with it. Anyways, thanks for the post Joshua Freedom.

 

madToker69

Freedom, for you was it that you would go to school, sleep through class have no interest at all, make decentgrades, yet at home read and were very interested in learning and understanding? cause thats kinda how i am...My dad a micro biologist have sat up for like 5 hours talking about genetics and our diferent theories, yet i get in Biology class in school, and cant keep my eyes open for more than ten minutes. I want some interest and substance to the teaching, and in english class maybe some true literature instead of 10 million short stories by authors ive never heard of. the best thing we have read all year was "an open leter to a young negro" an essay by Jesse Owens the sprinter. I would encourage everyone to read it. it wasnt superbly writen but had a great message of understanding with it. Anyways, thanks for the post Joshua Freedom.

Joshua Freedom

Kinda, yeah, madtoker. Before I was conditioned to hate the entire process of public school, I loved it. I would be so riveted during class that I could hardly wait to read the whole textbook. So I did, and all the information stuck. I was just lucky like that. I barely had to try. I was just not challenged at all in a class that included average or below average students. Up until about fourth grade, I would do extra work, just for the sheer joy of it. Eventually, however, this got me labeled a nerd. And I started catching flak from other kids a lot of the time I was in school. So I tried not to stand out, and just do what everyone else did. But I was so goddamn bored all the time, still didn't have to actually try much to do well, and spent most of my time rehashing stuff that was new to everyone but me and a few others. Around tenth grade the static just got too loud and I stopped trying completely. I nearly failed a couple classes just because the work was pointless and I saw no reason to expend the effort anymore. I slept through half my classes for most of high school. There was a funny side to this; I overslept so much that I turned my 12th grade AP chem class into cheers. I'd walk in between 10 and 60 minutes late and everybody would yell, "Josh!!" I had 95 lates that year. When I got in and went to sleep, the fat prick teacher I had would wake me up to yell at me, and I'd go back to sleep a minute later.

I just think that there's so much out there to learn that spending eight hours a day learning to think just like everyone else is not the best thing that we, as a society, could be doing with our kids. Some kids are born lucky, with the ability to think differently than everyone else, and this is not something that we should waste and crush. Diversity is strength. I read voraciously as a kid. Of course, as my real life got worse, it turned into escapism, mostly.

I hardly ever had to try in public school, so I never really learned to work at things that didn't come easily to me. Being challenged is the most important part of education. The best way to make a kid accept the challenge is to give them work that is viscerally interesting to them. This means letting the kid decide what areas to concentrate on. If this means they never get into history much, so be it. Not everyone needs to know every subject. People don't typically use a broad base of knowledge in life, but they do use a deep one. This non-history student might learn all there is to know about microbiology. When it comes time to get a good-paying job, you'll find that you don't need to know a little bit of everything, you need to know a whole lot about one specific field. Now if, ten or twenty years down the road, this person discovers that they do need to know some history, if they've had a good educational experience, they should be able to pick up a history book and learn from it. With the internet, you can even subscribe to a microbiologist mailing list and listen to the big boys talk amongst themselves. Or one about the cia-drug connection.

Once you start learning on your own, you may even decide, as I have, that public schools operate in the poor way they do by design. Go on, start learning about the things they don't mention... Heck, you already have. You're here.