“School of rock”: PAramount Pictures 2004

“You’re stupid because you have bad grades.”

Wear a suit&tie and you will automatically be smart.

Thanks to my mother, I had the privilege to go to school in two different countries with two different school systems. Those countries were Germany, where I was born and raised, and New Zealand, a country of my own choice which I now consider my second home. My mother, a teacher at a school in Southern Germany for Physics and Mathematics, is not rich and we definitely weren’t able to get everything we wanted, but thanks to her higher education level of going to the ‘Technische Universität Berlin’ and getting her PhD in Physics, she does earn better than most of the teachers in Germany. She enabled us to go travelling every so often and then at last she was able to fund my trip to New Zealand (or at least have access to a fair loan) to attend a private high school in South Auckland for two years. I left Germany when I was 15 years old.

Starting at my German school — I’ve gotten into trouble pretty much every single school year since the 6th grade and that lasted until 10th grade, when I finally left that school. My mother never forced me to study but she did push me and said that I should study to have a better future so I can one day attend university. She always says, that kids should have a better life than the parents. I tried studying. Seriously. But it never really worked out for me. Luckily I always kind of managed my way through tough times and was always kind of ‘happy’ with my life.

Now I realize I hate studying for an exam that just determines how much a student can memorize. Any of you who have left school a couple of years ago — can you even remember ten percent of what you learnt at high school?

I once read somewhere, that school should teach you how to think, not what to think. Nowadays, school certainly does teach you what to think rather than how to think and from my experience it really compromises each student’s individuality and creativity. I mean, even in my art class in Germany, me and my classmates were told that the way we drew a picture was the wrong way and I should draw it within the boundary of what the teacher has given us. Bulls**t, right?

Most of my teachers were always forcing the students to do things in one specific way — and it’s always such trivial matters. This one time in my English class in 10th grade, I had to read some English text out loud and pronounced “can’t” in an American accent. The teacher then forced me to say “can’t” the British way. I ignored her and continued reading, which she didn’t like and tried to start an argument and was basically trying to tell us that in her class, things are done her way — Funny thinking that that teacher actually had such a strong German accent.

During my senior year at my school south of Auckland, I was friends with one other German guy who was at that school for six months. He was almost two years older than me and had that typical German blonde hair — the girls loved him. Anyways, during those six months we always hung out and went on some great adventures. We had this contest going whoever could go longer without shaving (the face), because it was almost certain that if a guy’s facial hair at that school was longer than three millimeters, the strict Maths teacher, aka the Cat-Lady, will find you and send you to detention. I think I lost that ‘contest’ one or two times and had to go to detention for 30 minutes in my much loved lunch break, where every naughty student was given a handout with the school rules. We had to copy those rules down — as far as I can remember. It pretty much said that every student has to look smart, guy’s facial hair isn’t allowed, girls may only wear black or dark blue hair ties and the holy law was — shirts have to be tucked in. So remember folks. Look smart to be smart. Right?

To top that. I remember one of the Dean’s saying, that the Year 13’s (no uniform) should dress up for school as if there was a job interview every day. And here’s one of the notes I made in my senior year while interviewing the International Dean:

“Why did you say yesterday at the dress code meeting that we MUST look smart? — It reflects the appropriateness. The school is a work place and it is not a relaxing environment.”

Reading this over one year later made me doubt that she actually meant this. But what can I say? It’s true.

You may think now: Oh well, I chose that private school. But I can assure you it’s similar in many schools in New Zealand and many other countries probably. For three months in 2010 I went to a public school north of Auckland and made some similar observations. Although they were a lot more laid back there.

Was I the only one who always had a problem with the way things were done?

No. My friends usually rebelled too. But I had the feeling, that they were just looking forward to leave school in a few months and then it would be all over anyways. They wouldn’t have to worry about school anymore and who cares about what happened in the past, right?

But just to make it clear — I realized different people have different needs. Those schools I went to must have been heaven to some people, but to others it was hell. It’s just the way things work out. Some love that most of Germany’s Autobahn has no speed limit, but some find it horrible and even develop some kind of anxiety because they get overtaken by some hooning Mercedes. Some might love that in New Zealand you can drive around with a 5 inch diameter muffler that produces 120dB, while in Germany noise-sensitive people are in luck, because you rarely see a tuned Volkswagen with a muffler much louder than stock due to the strict laws.

Same with the school: Some like to be given grades based on how much they can memorize and how well they ‘perform’. Some might not like it, but have a genuine interest in what you learn at schools. And some might find it awful and just want to do their own thing. Somebody might be an awesome photographer or writer or filmmaker and taught it all him- or herself, but he or she might ‘suck’ at school and simply do not want to waste time to study some given topic just to memorize it and to get that A grade. Especially in countries like Germany, where the ‘Abitur’ demonstrates how well-educated you are — chances are almost zero that you will get accepted into a tertiary institution, if you don’t have the ‘Abitur’ or an equivalent.

But an upcoming artist may as well think now that he or she doesn’t have to go to university. They will just do their own thing by starting a business or doing some freelancing to build a portfolio. That person might only realize during their senior year or more commonly after school has finished, what they really want to do.

So why the heck were they all forced to do things at school if they have no genuine interest in it?

Why exactly do we actually have to figure out at school already what we want to become later in life? Again, some people might already know it when they’re ten years old, but some simply need their time. And that does not mean that that ten year old kid is better or smarter than the twenty year old who has no clue.

School really does make it very clear that if you have bad grades, you’re kind of stupid. That’s at least the message that I received. “You’re not intelligent!” Wrong!

Everybody who learnt how to walk or talk is already intelligent.

If you type into Google ‘Definition Intelligence’, it will tell you that intelligence is the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills. Fair enough, but what knowledge? A single person can’t know everything that exists, hence it depends from how you view it. A student might be really interested in Physics and has the ability to acquire everything that is taught by the teacher and can then apply that knowledge by figuring out tricky questions in the exam paper. He might be the best in the Physics class. But what if he is the worst student in his Geography class, where most of what you learn isn’t derived by formulas but rather memorizing processes. Is that student intelligent or not?

Students rarely get asked for their own opinions and rarely are able to even get acknowledged for their own values and ideas. This needs to change. And luckily it has already begun. It’s just a matter of time, but let’s accelerate that.

This writing is about my observations at school and I don’t really feel like it’s my time yet to suggest any changes. Or actually I don’t feel like I have sufficient opinions nor am I in the right position to declare war to the current school system, but day by day I’m learning more about it.

In the meantime — I’ll go learn more about ‘Ruby on Rails’ because that makes me happy.