Member-only story
Why I Hated School
…and why I think education is a waste of time.
I remember nothing from school. Except the Rivers Act of 1876: A tiny piece of legislation to try and clean up the waterways of England.
Why I remember this particular fact is not important. What is important is that I shouldn’t have been learning it in the first place. Or indeed any of the subjects I spent 15 years studying during my time at school.
When I was twelve there were a few things I was interested in: music, drama, cycling, nature and drawing. This is what I actually studied: English History, French, Maths, Physics, Geography, Religious Studies, Latin, Chemistry and Biology. Out of all of those, there was only one I was interested in. Biology.
A damning indictment of the educational system, surely.
True, if I hadn’t been such a spineless schoolboy, I might have said something like, ‘Why am I study these subjects; I don’t even like them?’
It’s a pretty damn good point, don’t you think?
And yet avid supporters of the educational system — teachers, lecturers, governments — would insist I had a rounded education.
No I didn’t! I didn’t in the slightest. A rounded education would have consisted of me playing the piano while cycling around the UK. Putting on plays in parks or woods…
