Ever since i started school back in 2005 at primary school ive thought why am i here, if i knew how to read, write and understand basic math at the level i was expected to along with most of my classmates why was i assessed and had teachers calling my parents back at home if i didnt do my cutting and pasting or painting pictures, with them also saying i was a troublemaker and needed extra education outside of class. This is why the schooling system in my eyes has been wasting my time since before i even started.

This continued throughout my high school years where i had to learn subjects that i had no interest in and ended up failing because i wasted a whole year not paying attention to the bullshit i was being “taught”, 4 periods a week, spent money on booklets i never used where i could have spent all that time studying something that i actually showed interest in, when will i ever need to know about controlled burnoffs, cold war or the british empire. If i wanted to learn about those i would go to the library in my own time and study it myself where i cant be failed or passed based on my knowledge of the subject.  My current boss at work has taught and prepared me more in a year and a half of working part time than school ever has, ive learnt skills in the work force while still attending high school where im given a certain amount of subjects to choose but so far only 2 out of 8 have actually benefitted me this year as i dont see myself using business skills for example, in the near future. So those other 5 classes where i sit in a class for an hour a day, i think about how much time im wasting, how boring this work is and what im still doing here. Throughout my school days ive failed to use some of my strongest skills that i have found very useful in the workforce (physicality, patience, directness, initiative) that are not praised for or taught inside the classroom which is something i believe should be encouraged to prepare us for life after school, ive found these qualities are not commonly shown even by my own teachers? As if they also are unable to show their strongest values in their own teaching job at school which also makes me think what are they doing here? I had a chat to my mate whos recently left school about how level 1 and 2 has been unuseful in his career, how hundreds of essays and exams, passed papers, failed papers, 12 years of his life in schooling have failed to show use in his day to day life as a builder, which is the currently same career path id like to take so what does this say for me and others in this school. My grandfather is another example of this who dropped out of school at the age of 14 to work at a saw mill where he says he learnt alot and gained heaps of experience which led to him setting up his own business at the age of 17 in forestry where had his own employees that were much older than him which i found funny that a 17 year old drop out had men 3 times his age working for him and even teaching them stuff which to me was empowering, he went through multiple trades, started up and sold a few successful business and to this day is still currently running his own business that he started back in 2003. This is what i aspire to be one day, being able to say that my schooling life had no contribution to my success, that it would prove to those teachers that said i wouldnt get anywhere in life if i didnt knuckle down on my mathematics or sciences, that i never really needed them because it was pointless and that we can all achieve without annual exams or multiple internals and be expected to know every single subject in the system, we are there to set ourselves up for a future career that is all. My grandfathers only views on his experience at school was that he felt he didnt really miss out on much after he dropped out and had learnt more from being in the workforce for his career path which to him was all that mattered and i feel is relevant to my situation in school right now.

To conclude i feel that school should be a place where students can discover what they love and see themselves doing for the rest of their career, they should be able to pursue those careers and be supported and kept focused on that single career path that they want to follow throughout their life without being distracted with unnecessary subjects, essays, exams that have no relevance to what they want to be doing but most importantly they should leave school knowing what they are good at. Albert Einstein (also a high school dropout) once said “Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he has learned in school.”

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  1. Time wasted: Do a quick search online and find someone who has made a big success of themselves after leaving school, preferably in a short time – showing what you could have achieved in that time.

    Strong Points: I definitely encourage you to do this, identify the things you’re good at in the job and explain how those things aren’t encouraged or valued in the school – even identify that they’re not qualities you even see in your teachers very often: Directness, physical strength, patience, good humour, ability to get along with a wide range of people, seeing a job through, responsibility etc.

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