Post your favorite anti-school quote from songs, movies, plays, or books. I'm hoping to re-create a really fun thread we had on unschooling.com back in the day. The purpose is to show that—despite the widespread support that formal schooling receives—people really do know that something is wrong with it.
I'll start:
"I want to run through the halls of my high school, I want to scream at the top of my lungs. I just found out there's no such thing as the real world, just a lie you've got to rise above." ~ John Mayer, "No Such Thing"
Traveling, sleeping
2 hours ago
38 comments:
"Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school." ~ William Shakespeare
I'll probably get a Grammy
Without a grammar education
So fuck you school
And fuck you immigration
-K'Naan, "Somalia"
We broadened our minds more in the pool hall than we did in the school hall
-Queen, "Drowse"
I go to school, I write exams
If I pass, if I fail, if I drop out
Will anyone give a damn?
And if they do, they'll soon forget
And it won't take much for me
To show 'em my life ain't over yet
-Barenaked Ladies, "What a Good Boy"
"Catholic school, vicious as Roman rule, I got my knuckles brusied by a lady in black. I held my tongue, as she told me, son, fear is the heart of love, so I never went back." ~ Death Cab for Cutie, "I Will Follow You Into the Dark"
One more!
So if you're too school for cool (I mean...)
And you're treated like a fool
You could choose to let it go
We can always, we can always
party on our own...
-Pink, "Raise Your Glass"
"I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school. They don't teach you how to love somebody. They don't teach you how to be famous. They don't teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. They don't teach you how to walk away from someone you don't love any longer. They don't teach you how to know what's going on in someone else's mind. They don't teach you what to say to someone who's dying. They don't teach you anything worth knowing."
- Neil Gaiman, The Kindly Ones
"They'll try to push drugs, keep us all dumbed down, And hope we'll never see the truth....." Muse, Victorious
"Dear Mr. Vernon, We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. What we did *was* wrong. But we think you're crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. What do you care? You see us as you want to see us - in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. You see us as a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal. Correct? That's the way we saw each other at 7:00 this morning. We were brainwashed." ~ Brian Johnson (Anthony Michael Hall) in "The Breakfast Club," written by John Hughes
"Well, we busted out of class,
had to get away from those fools.
We learned more from a three-minute record, baby, than we ever learned in school." ~ Bruce Springsteen, "No Surrender"
"And the head said that you always were a queer one from the start
For careers you say you want to be remembered for your art
Your obsessions get you known throughout the school for being strange
Making life-size models of The Velvet Underground in clay
"In the queue for lunch they take the piss, you’ve got no appetite
And the rumor is you never go with boys and you are tight
So they jab you with a fork, you drop the tray and go berserk
While your cleaning up the mess the teacher is looking up your skirt..."
~ Belle & Sebastion, "Expectations"
“High school, those are your prime suffering years. You don't get better suffering than that.” Little Miss Sunshine
You know what? You're an individual, and that makes people nervous. And it's gonna keep making people nervous for the rest of your life. Harriet the Spy
“The key to faking out the parents is the clammy hands. It's a good non-specific symptom. I'm a big believer in it. A lot of people will tell you a good phoney fever is a deadlock, but you get a nervous mother, you could wind up in a doctor's office--that's worse than school. You fake a stomach cramp, and when you're bent over, moaning and wailing, you lick your palms. It's a little childish and stupid, but then so is high school.” Ferris Bueller
And there's always The Replacements song "Fuck School" :)
"There is, of course, this matter of being afraid to give freedom to young children. I believe they have that within themselves which makes it possible for them to meet the world and life, and interpret it more nearly aright than can we. They carry with them that inheritance of faith and imagination undimmed; and that tremendous surging desire to know, to see, to feel and to do, which is rarely betrayed. In our desire as adults to lay hold of a child's life, to grip it, mold it to our own values, we do unwittingly a great harm. We confront children with our own fears, our own lack of faith; to safeguard them we attempt to thrust between them and life those many false illusions which we have picked up in our own twisting, turning way. Children take a far more advantageous highroad. A free child is a happy child; and there is nothing more lovely . . ."
-- Ruth Sawyer, in her acceptance speech upon winning the Newbery Award for Roller Skates, 1936
And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They're quite aware of what they're going through. Changes - David Bowie (though this is a Breakfast Club quote, as well ;))
I used to get mad at my school
The teachers who taught me weren't cool
You're holding me down
Turning me 'round
Filling me up with your rules
-The Beatles, "Getting Better"
And if you ever have to go to school
Remember how they messed up this old fool
[...]
And if the homework brings you down
Then we'll throw it on the fire
And take the car downtown
-David Bowie, "Kooks"
"So I'm on my own
Far from my broken home
And it costs
Feels like 10 below
Pack me off to school
Innocence and trust
Are all lost
Where did my childhood go
Calling from the payphone
Trying not to cry
Feeling I am dying
Telling you I'm fine
You tell me it's the making of me
That's a fucking lie"
~James "Ten Below"
Schooling, instead of encouraging the asking of questions, too often discourages it.
~Madeleine L'Engle
Music lessons — or lessons in anything — can be dangerous to us, for the weekly guilt can become addictive. We can come to believe that we deserve scorn, and that we really can profit from being told repeatedly how to do it, from being given "right" answers. Gradually we lose our child-like enthusiasm for music or tennis or roller-skating or tightrope walking and substitute an intense yearning to do it "right" for the teacher.
~ Eloise Ristad, A Soprano on Her Head: Right-Side-Up Reflections on Life and Other Performances
Too much rigidity on the part of teachers should be followed by a brisk spirit of insubordination on the part of the taught.
~Agnes Repplier ("Agnes Repplier, a female essayist from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was born on April 1, 1855. Daughter of John George Repplier and his second wife Agnes Mathias, Agnes Repplier taught herself how to read at the age of ten and grew to be a voracious reader. She attended two schools during her teenage years, but was asked not to return to either school after only a few terms at each due to her independent and rebellious nature. Repplier began writing and publishing stories when she was just twenty years old.") http://essays.quotidiana.org/repplier/
Sick
I cannot go to school today,
Said little Peggy Ann McKay.
'I have the measles and the mumps,
A gash, a rash and purple bumps.
My mouth is wet, my throat is dry,
I'm going blind in my right eye.
My tonsils are as big as rocks,
I've counted sixteen chicken pox
And there's one more-that's seventeen,
And don't you think my face looks green?
My leg is cut-my eyes are blue-
It might be instamatic flu.
I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke,
I'm sure that my left leg is broke-
My hip hurts when I move my chin,
My belly button's caving in,
My back is wrenched, my ankle's sprained,
My 'pendix pains each time it rains.
My nose is cold, my toes are numb.
I have a sliver in my thumb.
My neck is stiff, my voice is weak,
I hardly whisper when I speak.
My tongue is filling up my mouth,
I think my hair is falling out.
My elbow's bent, my spine ain't straight,
My temperature is one-o-eight.
My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear,
There is a hole inside my ear.
I have a hangnail, and my heart is-what?
What's that? What's that you say?
You say today is...Saturday?
G'bye, I'm going out to play!'
~Shel Silverstein
We don't need no education
We don't need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the classroom
Teacher, leave those kids alone
Hey, teacher, leave those kids alone
All in all, it's just another brick in the wall
All in all, you're just another brick in the wall
- Pink Floyd, "Another Brick in the Wall"
When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school, it's a wonder I can think at all.
~Paul Simon, "Kodachrome"
"get out your measuring cups and we'll play a new game
come to the front of the class and we'll measure your brain
we'll give you a complex, and we'll give it a name"
"get out your measuring cups and we'll play a new game
can't have the cream when the crop and the cream are the same
liquid or gas no more than the glass will contain"
"when you talk about the hand of glory
a tale that's rather grim and gory
is it just another children's story that's been de-clawed?
when the tales of brothers Grimm and Gorey have been outlawed"
"i think they're gonna make you start over
you don't wanna start over
put your backpack on your shoulder
be the good little soldier
take your places now, cause we're all predisposed"
"measuring cups, play a new game
front of the class, measure your brain
give you a complex and we'll give it a name"
andrew bird "measuring cups"
Education – compulsory schooling, compulsory learning – is a tyranny and a crime against the human mind and spirit. Let all those escape it who can, any way they can.
John Holt
"Avoid compulsion and let early education be a manner of amusement. Young children learn by games; compulsory education cannot remain in the soul." – Plato
"By looking at your own life, you can quite easily discover in what areas your own abilities lie by following the shape of your own impulses and inclinations. You cannot learn about yourself by studying what is expected of you by others – but only by asking yourself what you expect of yourself, and discovering for yourself in what direction your abilities lie." – Seth through Jane Roberts
ha ha ha from The Oatmeal today...
http://theoatmeal.com/blog/bus
"It is a prison for children." ~ Winifred Sanderson (Kathy Najimy) in "Hocus Pocus," written by Mick Garris and Neil Cuthbert
Brian Johnson: Saturday, March 24,1984. Shermer High School, Shermer, Illinois, 60062. Dear Mr. Vernon, We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. What we did *was* wrong. But we think you're crazy to make us write an essay telling you who we think we are. What do you care? You see us as you want to see us - in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. You see us as a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal. Correct? That's the way we saw each other at 7:00 this morning. We were brainwashed.
-Breakfast Club
"The boys and girls in the clique
The awful names that they stick
You're never gonna fit in much, kid"
-Teenagers, My Chemical Romance
"They keep coming up with new ways to celebrate mediocrity!" - Bob Parr (aka Mr. Incredible), The Incredibles
"Bankrupt schools grind out fool after fool then feed them to a system where idiots rule."
-Justin Currie
Song:: No, Surrender
All claims of education notwithstanding, the pupil will accept only that which his mind craves.
Emma Goldman
"No more pencils, no more books, no more teachers' dirty looks." ~ Children's rhyme
"Whistle blowers gotta get outta school
They don't want poets, they want pigeons on a stool
You're examining fossils, defending criminals
I'm clock watching, getting dumb
Photographing models a house painter's solace
I'm like sisyphus in the sun
"And I give up
Raising your kids America
You treat 'em like an obligation
Welcome to the occupation"
from "Welcome to the Occupation" by Cold War Kids
"I went to see the doctor of philosophy
With a poster of Rasputin and a beard down to his knee
He never did marry or see a B-grade movie
He graded my performance, he said he could see through me
I spent four years prostrate to the higher mind, got my paper
And I was free."
~Indigo Girls, "Closer to Fine"
Emancipate yourself from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our minds.
~Bob Marley
I've never let my school interfere with my education. ~
Mark Twain
"As soon as you're born they make you feel small
By giving you no time instead of it all
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be
They hurt you at home and they hit you at school
They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool
Till you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be
When they've tortured and scared you for twenty odd years
Then they expect you to pick a career
When you can't really function you're so full of fear
A working class hero is something to be
A working class hero is something to be"
- "Working Class Hero", John Lennon
"This is what you wanted right?
How many nights were spent pouring out your guts dummy?
How many punishments endured for fucking up in school?
How many teachers proved wrong by writing songs instead?
My point exactly"
- "Shoot Down the Stars", Gym Class Heroes
"Was there ever such a self-defeating idea as compulsory education?" -- Matthew Appleton, "A Free-Range Childhood"
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