this is beautiful (I only skimmed in a hurry), with a few edits it should be published! original, creative, rich ... consider submitting a version we could publish at supermemo.guru with or without attribution, just to illustrate what a creative student feels!
>>>6. I don’t like long texts
I love them now. Incremental reading is great, but AI makes lovely summaries in seconds. Still I prefer to read your text entirely :)
p.s. As my Inbox is getting thinner (through hard labor), I know I got one mail from you in wait :) (early May?)
p.
Sent: Jul 20, 2026, Mon 16:42 To: woz2026@supermemo.org Subject: Ancient document I found, and other stuff
Even though my exams probably went well, I still am pretty lonely. This is quite old. I wrote this before I read your stuff. ________________________________
Written for Piotr A. Wozniak
This is an edited version of one of my old documents BEFORE I read any SuperMemo Guru. I expected only a few problems with school. Little did I know the same mechanism of slavery and imprisonment would cascade to many issues; it would soon be obvious: through the learned helplessness of not being able to change anything, the bad (and thus, the motivation to find out the bad - problem solving without the "solving") gets suppressed! And then they can throw whatever the hell they want without any meaningful way to object! Pretty classic, huh? Reminds me of certain people or certain events in history, but I'm getting ahead of myself here. Why don't you just look at the beautiful list of things I hate about school? It's wonderful.
Essentially, it is work. De facto, biology makes teenagers have insufficient sleep, including me, as sleep is postponed beyond what adults find normal. Adults made the school system; using their standards, ignoring what durations and scheduling we find "tolerable". With the obvious restriction that we cannot sleep in class, chronic sleep deprivation is a very sad reality amongst us!!
School bus and train back home both are noisy and shaky and stop me from being able to sleep! I also hate begging for seats! At that time, ALL I wanted was to sleep! In fact, when I would go to my classroom (5F) right before school formally starts, me ACTUALLY falling asleep for 5-10min was not unexpected!
Natural walking I now think is fine. However, when the staircase is crowded, the lift is off bounds (due to otherwise "everyone will use it and overcrowd"), and US being blamed if THEY (an external factor outside our control) walked too slow or blocked us, here comes trouble!
All my lessons are noisy. In such a stressful environment of exam years, all I wanted was peace. (I have ADHD by the way.) Yet there is no way to overcome noise.
Even teachers scream and scold due to noise. I get it, they have to silence the bored class (them talking to others about other stuff) to "teach", but I remember in the past, I had nightmares all about this!
Somehow, I got fooled into thinking this would be solved after "maturity". Nope! Not in kindergarten, not in middle school, nor in high school! As long as the structure which is against human hedonism is there, what they call "distraction" is the norm.
I think that due to psychological factors, a noisy room would make me want to have a part of the share too! When the other half of my brain knows it's "wrong"! I have no reason to talk to begin with! This put me in a dissociation of wanting to be "well behaved" without conforming in a place where I was supposed to conform to my environment. My brain couldn't solve such paradoxes at that time.
I also get reminded from the above that I lack many friends. I just want more mature people. I had unique interests in programming, learning science, and such. Rebellious me would get mad, but then on a bad day, I would paradoxically think to myself how great the existence of friends would be! Even though they are technically breaking the rules...
I also remember times where the "whole class" was blamed for noise, including one time where I was falsely accused of disruption and ended up in detention! I (honestly) swear that I am innocent! You don't punish the innocent for others' actions out of ANY REASON whatsoever! (see, teacher is always reliable and the dictator of all)
It's even worse when it alternates between quietness and noisiness. Pure hell, as in pure uncontrollable industrial factory noises!
Doing lots of questions. LOTS of them. 7 past papers, 16 past papers (which I had to negotiate and freaked me, and my sleep, out of the water, due to me fearing some of my teachers).
The teacher is also rude (or naturally unable to have empathy) to the underdogs and expects everyone to know math well. I remember she even says she would give detentions to people scoring under As in tests, telling people to "jump off", calling me "mental", calling students "arrogant" when they in fact did lots of revision, and more stuff I forgot out of Pure Disliking, as in Pure Math. Little tolerance towards natural mistakes.
Worse of all, I'm not even that bad at math. In fact, I got the top mark in the midyear.
The problem is likely boredom. The expectation that I do everything in math right without rebellion like a robot. My brain likely turned math revision, homework, note-taking, sitting in class waiting for others to finish... etc. into a boring chore. The "help" turns into a chore due to needing to do things like "everyone else".
(Also, my school uses Cornell Notebooks, but only for math? The teacher won't let me use my MacBook to run a Virtual Machine to run SuperMemo. Probably because they want control. Ideally, I just imported the facts from online and call it a day. I don't even look at my math notebooks that much.)
I was convinced my teacher dislikes the presence of students. Rather, now, I think that she just had too high expectations! Worse of all, I think this is natural when it's a public exam class! This shows how systematic the school system's problems are... omnipotent... everywhere.
Teacher dislikes two students in particular: Iush and Syan. (not real names). I see them as rebellious heroes: but even if they get good grades, they then get figuratively assed on their "attention" and "respect" (which I need to say it's as in "respect all the unjust rules thrown upon you, slave").
I seem to have had a particularly negative first impression, as she falsely accused me of gaming during class! Even after clarifying, I see no remorse, as if she said, like, "likely a misunderstanding". False accusations give stress (especially with power imbalance)! Stress is bad!
She also has weird rules. No non-water beverages (for a while), and toilet restrictions. And guess what... the PRINCIPAL imposed such rules onto teachers! So traditional yet so Prussian. Rather than blaming her, I praise those heroic teachers who let us do that anyway.
One time, she also put a test coincidentally on an influenza injection day. She refused postpone requests as she said she had already postponed it. The fact I considered skipping it was a testament to how the pressure of school was! Sadly, I did take it, and I fell asleep due to the combined fatigue of thinking, writing, and the injection aftermath… Truly a low point. As I said before, it's hard to fight biology (if I even can..)
This one is a literal hellhole. I preferred English for nearly my entire life. Why do I have to use a harder language system, man? I prefer to specialize in the most popular language in the world.
Not this year, but I remember two years ago, my teacher would have us memorize a 50-70 word passage EVERY SINGLE DAY. I doubted the value of that, as it focused on short-term memory (and toxic memories made me forget all). Strangely, when the teacher asked whether it honestly helped, almost all agreed! The fear of disagreeing with the teacher, man... Might be an illusion, that it helped. This was DEFINITELY one of the most stressful periods of my entire life, even more than public exams, as the frequency was unprecedented.
It's the boring school stuff. Probably due to the need for this being accessible even to those who aren’t keen on philosophical concepts, but it’s not great for my tastes.
I don't blame anyone. It's the classic systematic trap that subjects have to be accessible for "all".
Now I free-learn philosophy. Pretty interesting. A lot of things can fall into it.
Many cheered when the teacher was leaving. Maybe I'm the only one liking philosophy? (Though I have to admit, I like philosophy much more than the teacher herself)
I thought I was bad at it. Rather, I have eczema. It makes me sweat, and it makes me worse. I also get stomach pains when exercising sometimes, and just wish I had better reaction speeds. Yet again, fight against biology! Fatigue, running laps, thirst... Perhaps I had the toxic idea that I should conserve as much energy as possible for studying at home! Though now I know, physical and mental energy are less connected than I thought. What's surprising is that if you involve a natural activity, like physical activity, and make it school-based, you WILL almost always dislike it! Except for the ones that naturally had sporting talents from the beginning (I am just a tiny bit slightly jealous of them)
This was a tricky case where there were constant teacher swaps due to one teacher randomly leaving. In the end, the complaints about this subject aren't specific to this one; that's why I don't have much to say. (Other than: My previous year had after-school tests-giver teacher that violates an implicit "contract" that we should be able to go home when it's the time to do so!)
How much it promotes memorization instead of actual learning. Amazing. In goallessness, the goal is grades. Grades on that one particular fateful day. Whether my school likes "actual learning" or not, the fundamental nature of grades maximization arms race has affected every school. EACH AND EVERY ONE is duped. I have noticed the sheer monotony compared to before. The psychological effects are ALL very real - yet students have to suffer through it. Students may even get blamed for their stress levels (which is not their causing). Perhaps the thought that blaming a system does nothing (reflecting on how it has PLAGUED all of us) - and the bias towards a JUST CAUSE. In fact, many teenagers suffer through pain that is none of their causing: "Why am I a slave to just get a letter on a piece of paper?"
The more time you spend doing or thinking about things you don't like, the more the pain will be. That should be a classic fact of math, of big numbers, yet EVEN THIS GETS DENIED. The school system comes back with "building resilience." Yet I don't think studying in itself can become positive affect anytime soon. Thus the pain may continue to increase for each moment spent: studying, thinking about studying, thinking about how artifical the goal of studying is, deliberating how much to study, guilt in not studying, guilt in sleeping (which is not studying), guilt in the associated stress of studying, guilt in the associated stress of not studying, guilt in not having a hard-drive memory (we have to keep it archaic to keep it "meaningful".), guilt in a lack of motivation towards the horribly boring act of studying (which SHOULD BE 100% normal), guilt in not being able to detach from studying, guilt in having a "negative" mindset, guilt in trying to know what is not known, guilt in trying to fix what is not fixable, and then guilt in not being able to EVER an optimistic view of studying... it is officially EVERYWHERE. "You do not have to go through this alone," BUT THIS ONLY FURTHER STRENGTHS THE POINT THAT IT HAS BEEN INDUCED IN ALL OF US WITH IMMENSE HELL, YET NO FIX BUT SURVIVING (like a zombie) AND GETTING HIGH GRADES ITSELF (which you do have to go through alone in the most stressful hours of your life) - A UTILITARIAN NIGHTMARE OF ANOTHER LEVEL..
Fake willpower? Certainly not real abilities that society values. The problem where there is no other metric. When exams themselves cost, but non-participation can cost you your life by making you seem incompetent to do a job!
Paying money, past papers, flashcards, to suffer through strict mark schemes. Effort in them trying to know what they don't know, and make it known, with revision needed out of school, specific knowledge that fits the syllabus, total judgement, just to go through another year of still seen as no alternative system, because everyone is tested the same way.
It's real, it's to all, it's all the time! See the darkness, and realize its scale. When they say "student-centered learning” is literally " exam-centered learning” that centers on “students doing well” (with coercion). So it’s accurate, but they take credit. Nice. Only those who are in it can understand its undesirable repetitions in revision, though. Otherwise, like the exam board, you may forget the downsides of coerced zero-sum gamership.
The suppression of negativity. Including natural responses to exams and natural dislikings of schooling. The fact that even if I write this, it likely isn’t getting better, for the better. But this does not justify censorship. The tabooness of being honest about the bad, the fact that I feel like people think it's a weakness of the mind. Positivity is not always really the answer? “Just be positive” “Just try your best” is extremely lame.
I think pessimism on the inside is more so a response to coercive schooling than the ideal itself, but I did experience extremely strong dissociation when I hear only about the little joys 'when it should be the BADS that should be much greater in scale. Naturally, it makes me more negative than positive. Even though I now know that optimism is for creativity, this is school! They may not care honestly about mental health, even if they pretend otherwise.
The classic case of powerlessness is a sure-fire way to reach pessimism, even if it takes a while (which paradoxically makes it more dangerous because it's hard to notice).
In fact, if it is slow, it's hard to even notice, let alone say, what the issues really are, beyond the superficial. Knowing the issues, lack of meaning, and lack of purpose at school won't solve it, which is huge discouragement! If so many people go through this, yet few even know or can speak of the horrors despite little incentive... Mental health problems out of our hands, guys.
Drinks are expensive. Dehydration leads to disappointment, again! The
fact we have to use money to slog through a bad system. Queues depend on
which classroom you were in the previous lesson, sometimes even the food
would run out! Ridiculous!
Like with above, almost all problems come from the lack of alternative
choice.
Though I didn't even bother with the alternative, perhaps it's karma for
not bringing my own food?
Creativity is useless in a standardized, governmentally regulated authoritarian system that is designed to convert people to factory "robots". Though, unlike a real factory, there is no pay, in fact, for most, you have to pay to work. (Usually overtime with exams) Doing fake work just to have the potential of "real work" (and by making it hypercompetitive with exams - no way around it!) It baffles me how it has not changed even after hundreds of years with the ages, with facts, and research...
It is far from democracy, unlike the intrinsically valuable state! It tortures those who act naturally - those who want to be free!
Complaints about its uselessness to parents, teachers, especially in years where it's solely focused on doing well in exams (for "university")... Slaves to both the school and exam board. In fact there is the toxic expectation to maintain positivity or not complain. Is it ironic that a system designed to stress people to the point of total obedience, sucking out all the joy of the act of learning and working for examinations, expects calmness and stress-relief? Valuing grades and work over well-being - students being awake and spending their life for grades.
And it almost never is the optimum level of difficulty. This comes from the fact that it’s designed for gigantic groups to do all the same thing; inevitably, the majority will feel like it doesn’t suit their taste. If the student is too behind, the student gains stress, but if too ahead, the student becomes bored.
I was once sexually assaulted by a teacher; he also did it to others. Power imbalance, and the fear of being expelled for speaking out led me to silence. Honestly, it's so long ago that I forgot its details, which is a common thing when adults reflect back on school too! It's scary it's happening to me... Yet it's clear there is an influential role of power imbalance here ;)
I wonder whether I can be nice to everyone. When classes are somewhat randomly allocated. My nature makes me hard to be befriended; if my brain is unique, few understand me. I’ve been told and falsely believed for a long time that my unique thinking was a problem. The number of times I was told to “be normal” is crazy! I don’t even know what it is, and I don’t even see any reason why “normal” is “right”. The expectation that I should do “common activities” like sports to get more friends. Once, a teacher told me to play basketball (I hate it!) during a certain break, and then I just left when she was not looking because I clearly knew something was wrong. This is very artificial! It's the double empathy problem. A reciprocal relationship is harder. I thought traditional friends were only pleasing the norm. And to the point that I think my existence is a problem? That doesn't happen frequently, right?
The fact that I want to use time to think logically means that physical communication, which relies on a quick response to fulfill someone else’s comments, is something I dislike. Ideally, if people weren't so rushed... I could actually talk about philosophy, psychology, logic... Even if there are people that are interested in it, as long as it is not pop culture, I feel like it's too risky!
My problematic, strange, “different” behavior in early years clearly repelled lots of people away. I also used to think that empathy was not needed. In hindsight, it's the fact that most are suffering at school! The total amount is really big. I wish someone could demonstrate real empathy to me...
I also had the realization of the paradox that you can't talk in class, how to make friends? (Now I know the answer: Simple: Other options are difficult in modern society)
Yet I was still "expected" to have friends... So much hell is born out of expectations, which do not have to be consential
I had feelings about national security education! They even put a quiz machine, and a whole little subject dedicated to China! In addition to having a separate history subject called Chinese History! Wow! I'm very happy about the law!
This will be the longest part. Again, most of these can show that restricting freedom is a big cause! There is the lack of freedom of speech! Lack of freedom of doing! And a whole lot more...
My school calls us "moving adverts" as an excuse for why we have to wear uniforms properly. I spot a contradiction: If we all wear full random attire any mischief and its associated negative PR is actually harder to link to the school. Instead, forced uniforms, tucking in shirts, no dyed hair, no make-up... Let's just make everyone look the same from the outside, even though on the inside they are completely distinct creatures! My school (international school btw) does not really “celebrate” diversity outside of advertising. It tries to convert diverse students into the same system, in a mechanism akin to slavery camps and such. I don't think anyone would give a fake reputation of school being much better than it is... only if we had the choice to choose not to! Right?
I heard that leadership positions lead to better chances for jobs or universities, but unfortunately it appears that accepting someone who complains about the very system and school he is in (spreading “negativity”) would be troublesome, so he will certainly be ignored. (Forced credential hunting probably is the biggest bad thing of school: you can't quit me!) It’s more so about the reputation of the school and promotion of the “values the school likes”, and I, and of course the interviewer, clearly see the conflict of my job being related to both these things and my personal values and desires.
Also, my school mostly posts about extracurriculars (medals, trophies, e.t.c) on their social media accounts as evidence that they help talents shine. Maybe this is true, or maybe they are taking credit for what students have achieved outside of formal schooling. I think you can implicitly tell that the core activity of education: lessons, are boring to its very core. Even with a "beautiful and optimized environment"! Hiding the truth with aesthetics... a classic in graphical manipulation.
They also want us to keep smiling. This is aesthetics again, especially when they are advertising. Though this can be a social norm, the issue is clear yet again: lack of freedom to be "real" in a fake environment.
I heard that pointing out this might be risky for the reputation and land me in trouble! I am being factual though, not intentionally trying to sabotage the reputation of the school… In fact, this was what I used to think. Now I don't even think they care! Students do whatever. School still exists and is more popular :)
You might say that I'm going a bit extreme... but I would argue that this is the absolute PEAK of strategic manipulation - exactly what Machiavelli observed in political philosophy! You can see this almost everywhere! But school may be the biggest master of this, especially to people who haven't seen the other side of the argument; many words they use have positive personality or "growth mindset" connotations, a deeper truth they try to hide, and implications that you're not doing "good enough". As such, it is the most damaging when used in a power-imbalanced environment. I spot clever uses of language: "Respect" = "Obedience", "Inattentive" = "Omnipotent requirements to endure boredom", "Disciplined" = "Hustle and burn yourself out," "Blanket word we use to justify anything we say by ATTACKING YOUR PERSONALITY!"... I see a lot of "intelligent" uses of vocabularies there.
I guess giving out superficial rewards (especially ones that are point system-based) is another method of such manipulation. In such goallessness, one that is seen as a good thing can quickly become a goal in itself.
There is one that wants to love all. (Human intrinsic nature vs Christianic altruism) There also is another that wants merit. (Exams) In such a case, just like with Absurdism, where something a human desperately wants cannot be reached no matter how hard he or she tries, a conflict, a contradiction is born. It's a problem when self-interest is implied to be a bad thing, though. When forced zero-sum competition is done, that may be the only choice (and this argument may be used to guilt-trip you to perform worse too) When I don't like the principles because they make strategic optimization impossible... Because I have huge doubts about whether my life should be dedicated to others... Like I just won't accept "God's love" when there are omnipotent freedom-restricting forces here! Why is there no separation between the state and the religions? I'm surprised there even are religious schools :)
Bans on gum like in Singapore (even to those who chew it properly), bans on running in the corridors even if uncrowded. Bans on toilet biology which is denial of health (just like sleep deprivation) (also they don't clean them!)
One time, a teacher said that a person in the class getting an 1hr detention would result in all else getting a 20 minute detention. The fact that people cannot directly control others’ actions, yet people are punished for not “policing” others’ morals and choices. This pops to my head: the North Korean three-generation rule. I think it's fear out of punishing other people... But the fatal flaw is that, at the end of the day, it's just a proximity illusion; in my opinion, my class is just random people. Luckily this was dropped almost instantly, but the sheer audacity of even suggesting this...
They say that students' voices matter. Dead wrong! (to the main purpose of discussion: finding out which side of the opinions conflict is stronger.) Arguing with staff, in my handbook, is a 20-minute detention. This shows the total freedom of lack of due process - the teachers are the judges too! If they want to burden us with gigantic loads of homework, valid! While if we do anything "unideal" to them... Invalid!
Bigger of all, they are trying to hide their problems with a "student council". I don’t even think it’s a fair system, because many are eliminated quickly according to a panel of teachers, leaving only 2 for us to vote from. The teachers, who have different goals than the students, decide which 2 councils are best for the students. It’s just convenient, plus I don’t think student councils can do anything about the nature of education (lessons & unfreedom) itself. As an aside, one council in the past suggested a sleeping room for recess/lunch which in hindsight was a HELLA BRILLANT idea and one of the only good ones (that has long-term benefits, not just a one-day fun event) ever, and guess what? They were argued for against because the teachers really did think that teenagers lacked self-control and would go absolutely crazy, noisy, and unhinged in an unsupervised sleeping room, defeating its own purpose. Wow...
The biggest thing that school tries to obfuscate: Social media (& screens) is not the biggest cause of negative affect amongst youth (in fact it's innocent), school is! As an anecdote, I recall times where I was blamed for videogaming in recess. Yeah, RECESS! Worse of all, the school and media coverage made me fall for this, while ignoring freaking school itself. Blaming videogames, then blaming social media, while forcing us to wake up early and endure unfreedom... Anything but the school blaming itself is valid in their eyes.
When I returned to physical school from the pandemic, I was really depressed on the contradiction of what I really wanted to do: make friends, not have pressure, know metalearning (luckily now I do use SuperMemo)... Stuff that is not that common in the media!
P.S. The school is promoting reading in the physical form of physical paper books. We (and the technology) have passed that by now. I know it can be good, but there are “better” methods. I also heard that the school is planning to relocate the library from 7F to GF, and I believe the money can be spent better.
Anyways, I could feel school was a problem, but did not bother to think or research the exact causes for a long time out of sheer helplessness. So I can only say this now: Please don't fall for their myths! Hunt for the truth! And read more of Piotr Wozniak's articles on what really is true (like the 100 bad habits learned at school).
This was a longer article than I expected. If you are in this period of unfreedom itself I would encourage you to write about your own honest takes on school (and perhaps send them to Woz too.) The amount may shock you! Of course you have the freedom to do it only if you find it fun. Anyways, thanks for reading my stuff. I'm gonna zoom out of mythology, and hopefully I will survive schooling unfreedom, eh? Only time will tell. Poof!