school survival guide

7/31/2019 School Survival Guide

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..: School Survival Guide :..

www.school-survival.net/guide

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Version 1.3

Author: SoulRiser

Contact: guide (AT) school-survival.net

Latest update: 2/April/2007

Latest version can always be found here first:

www.school-survival.net/guide

Other known places you can get a copy:

groups.yahoo.com/group/schoolsurvival/files

If you are hosting this file somewhere and keeping it up to date, let

me know and I'll add your site to this list :)

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ABOUT THIS GUIDE

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This text file is a collection of the content found at www.school-

survival.net - the reason this was done was to give anyone an easy

way to distribute the information on the site. Print it, copy it,

host it on your site, go ahead! Just don't edit the file in any way.

It would be difficult to include every single page on the entire site

in one measly text file, so only the most "important" pages will be

included. What's "important", you might ask? The most informational

or well-written articles, for example. Things submitted by visitors,

like pranks or things like that as well. Basically, sort of like a

condensed version of the site, for easy reference at school or

wherever else you may be. Printers love text files, too ;)

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

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TIP: To jump to any section quickly, copy the section number and the

title, then use the search function in your text reader to jump to

that section. For example, to go straight to the poem called "Used to

be" using Notepad, you'd copy "[2.4.2] Used to be", press CTRL+F (and

paste it into the search box if it's not already in there), and hit

ENTER.


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[1] The WHAT (Introductions)

[1.1] School Survival, the site

[1.2] What "anti-school" really means

[1.3] Alternatives to school

[2] The WHY (Articles & Poetry)

[2.1] Who wouldn't be school phobic?

by Sarah Fitz-Claridge (a psychologist)

[2.2] You're not worthless

by SoulRiser (School Survival's webmistress)

[2.3] Harm in the School System

by Shaun Kerry, M.D. (a social psychiatrist)

[2.4] How public education cripples our kids, and why

by John Taylor Gatto (a teacher)

[2.5] Poetry about school & youth rights

[2.5.1] School Frustrations

by SoulRiser

[2.5.2] Used to be

by SoulRiser

[2.5.3] Our mark in passing

by Spooky Poet

[2.5.4] Take Action

by Badlands17


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[3] The HOW (Guides & Tips)

[3.1] How to Survive School: An Introduction

[3.2] Hate school? Do something!

[3.3] What NOT to do

[3.4] How to Organize a Student Revolution

[3.5] Discipline and punishment

[3.6] 'Zine-making guide

[3.7] School Pranks & Wasting Class Time

[3.8] Disobey and Resist

[3.9] Counterpropaganda

[3.10] Defend your site/blog: Anonymity Guidelines

[4] Other Stuff

[4.1] Spread the word

[4.2] Noteworthy links

[4.3] Credits & Thanks

[4.4] Copyright Info

[4.5] Revision History

[4.6] Viewing Tips

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[1] The WHAT (Introductions)

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First of all, why would anyone hate school so much that they'd make

two sites about it, and then seven years after that, condense all the

info into a really long guide?

Well, that deserves a good explanation, and you're not going to get

one here. You'll get a good explanation by reading the Articles in

this guide, but if you just want it "in a nutshell", here are three

simple reasons:

1. School tries to teach everyone the same thing in the same way.

Everybody's different, but school doesn't cater to that.

2. Way too many teachers out there (not all, of course) like to

enforce their superiority by punishing students for no good reason

whatsoever.

3. "Learning" in school is done by following elaborate "learning

methods", none of which are really much more than ways to trick your

brain into remembering things it otherwise would disregard.

Interested yet? Scroll down to the Articles section for more :)

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[1.1] School Survival, the site

www.school-survival.net

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I started making the site in March 1999. Originally it was basically

just because I was angry with the way my school had changed and I

needed someplace to "get it out of my system". Since then I've been

looking at other anti-school sites and most of them just say "MY

school SUcks!". I wanted my site to be more than just that. I wanted

the site to be the kind of place where people who feel the same as I

did can come to and see that they're not alone. That they're not

"bad" for feeling the way they do.

More at: www.school-survival.net/about/aboutsite.php

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[1.2] What "anti-school" really means

www.school-survival.net/about/anti-school.php

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What anti-school does NOT mean

We are not anti-education. We are not anti-learning. Learning means

to acquire knowledge, and education is basically learning with help

from other people. Those are both good things. Right, now that that's

out of the way, what is "anti-school" all about then?

What anti-school DOES mean


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Lets face a few facts first. How many people remember more than 10%

of the stuff they "learned" at school? I personally don't know of

any, apart from people who later on became school teachers. School

doesn't give students just about ANY choice of what they would like

to learn about, or HOW they would like to learn it. In fact, it's

gotten so bad, that every time someone mentions the word "learn",

people instantly think of "memorize". Just look at all those "memory-

enhancer" things on the market, and "mind-maps" and whatever other

method of memorizing things. Memorizing is NOT the same as learning!

School is about MEMORIZING, not LEARNING anything useful (hey, apart

from basic reading and writing, but they even manage to make that so

awfully boring most kids hate learning about it).

So, in short, "anti-school" means exactly what it says. We are

against school, because school is giving education and learning a bad

reputation.

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[1.3] Alternatives to school

www.school-survival.net/alternatives.php

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If you think kids would not learn ANYTHING if it were not for school,

consider this: If there are going to be schools, they should not be


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run by the government, and should only teach the bare basics like

reading/writing and working with numbers. Current schools accomplish

this in a few years, and then the rest of the time up to 12 years

they force kids to memorize all kinds of drivel most of them will

never use again. In effect, they are wasting people's youth. If kids

can learn the basics on their own or elsewhere, there should be

nothing forcing them to still go to school.

Here are a few short descriptions of some of the more common

alternatives to public schools.

Homeschooling

If you have cool parents, this could work quite well. This is also

often done among different families as a team effort - say your mom

teaches maths and your neighbours' dad teaches history or something.

Unschooling

Basically like homeschooling, except there are no "set" lesson plans.

You learn about whatever interests you, when it interests you.

Usually the hardest idea for parents to swallow :P

Private schools


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Private schools have the potential to be a lot better than public

ones, but sadly a lot of them aren't. The usual complaint is that

everyone is a snobbish rich kid. But still, there may be a GOOD

private school in your area, so look around.

Charter schools

Written by: Happy Camper

An independent studies program. They aren't completely common or

widely available yet but it is definitely worth looking into. It's a

homeschool program for middle schoolers and highschoolers that allow

them to still graduate with a high school diploma. Right now I cover

my US History credit through a sheet of 40 short essay questions,

have a basic english curriculum in which I will be doing various

projects on various books mostly to do with American Literature, and

possibly a few essays, I also have a series of vocab questions to go

through to prepare me for the SAT, any book I read in my free time I

can count down as long as I do a small report on it, I go in to the

public school on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays to cover my

language credit and take a french class with the local public school

kids. I audit a math class which basically means I follow the precalc

curriculum at the local public school without being required to

attend those long tedious lectures (I'm pretty good when it comes to

math, those lectures are just a waste of time) but still coming in

for the tests. Gym and art credits you may ask? I dance and then


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volunteer for theatre projects. Any other conventions I attend such

as a young Writer's convention that I attended not far back, I can

log too. My transcript won't appear as a normal highschool transcript

and I will have to jump through some extra hoops when applying to

colleges. Next year, rather than take classes through the highschool,

I will very likely take my classes through a community college

nearby. This is a perfect fit for me. Under my current condition I

have no problem researching and doing work. I mainly have a problem

going into school and have both social and academic expectations of

me on a daily basis. But I can go into the Charter center and use

those materials there almost as a study hall. I'm accountable to them

so I don't just sit at home and play video games every day without

ever working on my graduation requirements. But yeah. I'm pretty

smart...looking into becoming an author. But the highschool

attendence life just never worked for me. We are invited to the prom

and theatre productions down at the local public school, but I doubt

I'll do either.

The magic of charter schools. I just happened to be surprised they

haven't been brought up yet. It's that homeschool alternative without

the smock dress conservative stereotype. I mean...my Mom isn't really

involved in teaching me at all. I just research and teach myself. I

do wish I had this alternative earlier on.

Links


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www.school-survival.net/directory/Alternatives

Unschooling:

www.unschooling.org

www.unschooling.com

www.holtgws.com

groups.yahoo.com/group/worldwideunschoolers

home.rmci.net/abell/page7.htm

Homeschooling:

www.learninfreedom.org

homeschooling.about.com

www.kaleidoscapes.com

Books

www.school-survival.net/books

Because many parents are more likely to trust paper than some

internet site, here are some recommended books explaining why school

is bad, guides on how to unschool/homeschool and various other things.


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The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a Real

Life and Education, by Grace Llewellyn

The Unprocessed Child: Living Without School, by Valerie Fitzenreiter

Real Lives: Eleven Teenagers Who Don't Go To School, by Grace

Llewellyn

Add to this page

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This is just a very basic little list so far - if you think I've left

out something major, contact me and tell me about it. As always, site

suggestions for the Directory are very much appreciated.

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[2] The WHY (Articles & Poetry)

www.school-survival.net/articles

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[2.1] Who wouldn't be school phobic?

by Sarah Fitz-Claridge (a psychologist)

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School phobia is a dreadful label for some children's perfectly

understandable response to being compelled to go to school against

their will. They are not phobic, any more than a conscientious

objector is a coward; they are refusing and in most cases very

nobly. Over the years, I have spoken to many worried parents of

school-refusing children. The outrages these children have been

subjected to in the name of education disgust me. They have been

saddled with a pseudo-medical label that has deliberate connotations

of mental illness with all the stigma and the implied (and not-so-

implied) menace that goes with that. Their perfectly reasonable

dissent, and their desperately courageous resistance to being hurt

and harmed has been cynically redefined as overdependence,

psychological instability, and immaturity. They have been

psychologically tortured under the guise of psychiatric or

psychological treatment for a non-existent ailment. Their parents

also demeaned by labels such as overprotective have been

threatened with court action unless they physically force their

terrified, traumatised children into school every day. Many such

parents who have sought my advice have themselves been in a terrible

state of stress and trauma. Why don't they just comply? Because they

know that forcing their child to go so school is immoral,

psychologically harmful, and inimical to their child's education.

Or do they know that? Parents often do not seem to know it

consciously. Or if they do, they also know the contradictory idea


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that it is right and important for children to be schooled, because

the law, the psychiatric, psychological, and educational professions

all say so. They may be nice people in many respects, but as a result

of their own parents' coercion, they are simply unable to see how

damaging and wrong it is to force a child to go to school.

Ask parents what they would think of a system which not only

imprisons innocent people (some of whom are terrified and suffer

lifelong trauma as a result) for many years but then forces them to

obey every whim of the warders, takes up their time with mind-numbing

makework, leaving them almost no time for their own pursuits, and in

some cases even force-feeds inmates, and so on. Thinking of vicious

tyrants like Saddam Hussein, most will be incensed. They will rail

against the brutality and immorality of such a system. Until you tell

them that you were referring to our own dear school system. Then they

will think that you are guilty of hyperbole, and that anyway,

schoolchildren get nights and weekends out, unlike real prisoners.

Oh, well that's all right then! They are only imprisoned for five

days out of seven. Super. And I suppose that the knowledge that they

are to be locked up for five days a week for eleven years does not

remotely affect them on the days when they are free? False. The

psychological effects of school hang like a pall over children's

lives, twisting their thinking and stunting their intellectual and

psychological growth, whether it is a school day or not.


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How would you feel if you were told today that you must go to school

for the next eleven years, that you must attend all the classes I

have deemed necessary for you, that you must submit to humiliating

procedures and that you will probably be in fear for your physical

safety much of the time. But worse, that you will have to put your

own life on hold for eleven years in order to jump through the hoops

that will be set up for you?

Even this comparison fails to capture some of the more destructive

effects of compulsory schooling on children. Childhood is both the

most important and the most vulnerable period of life. Children are

at the beginning of their lives and do not have the inner resources

that you might use to palliate an eleven-year imprisonment.

Furthermore you are not in the position of having an overwhelming

need to please your parents. As adults, most of us have to a

significant extent escaped the need not to disappoint our parents or

invoke their wrath. But children cannot throw off the need for their

parents' love and approval without terrible emotional cost.

Even given that I am free from parental coercion, being forced to go

to school would ruin my life. I should have to give up doing and

thinking about what I want to do and think about, when and where I

want to. Life is all too short and precious to waste doing things we

don't want to do. In spending seven hours a day, five days a week,

doing lessons that are at best only accidentally related to things I


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am interested in, I should be enacting someone else's notion of what

I should do and of who I am. I should have no mental energy left to

spend another seven hours at home thinking about the things I really

want to think about. This would be very debilitating, and would

adversely affect me at weekends too, because all the time, I should

have in mind that on Monday morning, I must be back at school. The

knowledge that there is a time limit that on Monday morning I must

be back at school would make it very difficult to start any major

project or train of thought during weekends and short holidays. (And

that is assuming that there is no homework. I once spent virtually an

entire six-week summer holiday solving 590 sets of simultaneous

equations, only to return to school to find that the teacher, having

had second thoughts about the drudgery of marking the work he had

ordered, exercised his right to choose and claimed to have been

joking. I wasn't laughing.) I used to feel an increasing sense of

dread as the weekend or school holiday wore on. I used to feel

physically sick every Sunday night.

Was I labelled school phobic? No. My mother thought I loved school,

because I did quite well and didn't make a fuss about going. She was

very surprised when, some years ago, I told her that I had loathed

school. As William Blake wrote,

And because I am happy, & dance & sing.

They think they have done me no injury...


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Children whose parents would neither dream of forcing them to go to

school nor of preventing them from going, and who support their

children in anything they want to do, and who do not allow themselves

to be drawn by the school system into a conspiracy against their

children, have a very different experience of school if they do

choose to go. Not having to worry about their parents' approval (for

they will have it anyway), they are free to take their teachers just

as seriously as they deserve. They are free to do what they think

right instead of deferring to authority. They are free to leave.

Sadly, there are very few such children, for most parents cannot

bring themselves to cede this elementary aspect of self-

determination: they wouldn't dream of allowing their children to

leave school just because they want to, or indeed to attend just

because they want to. Some of the children become deeply miserable as

a result; some rebel; some really do go mad in the end. Is this

surprising? I have, if anything, more hope for children who kick and

scream when their parents drag them into school than for children who

respond only inwardly, as I did, for the kickers and screamers are

still fighting; they still have a sense of self; they have not been

successfully crushed and moulded by the system. They are like the

character played by Jack Nicholson in the very important film One

Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. And teachers and parents who calmly

conspire in this despicable treatment of fellow human beings (yes,


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children are human beings too) are like the serenely evil psychiatric

nurse in that film.

So I, as an adult and a psychologist, want to say to any children out

there who hate school: you are not alone. Most people hate it too,

but usually they don't feel entitled to say so, and many can't bear

to think about it so they hardly even know how they feel. You are not

mad you don't have a Deep Psychological Problem (though you might

develop one if you stay in school against your will!); and you are

not bad for wanting to live your life the way you choose, doing what

you think right that is what everyone should be doing. You are not

the problem: coercion is the problem. Being forced to go to school is

the problem.

Original article and some more links:

http://www.fitz-claridge.com/Articles/schoolphobia.html

Written by: Sarah Fitz-Claridge (a real psychologist)

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[2.2] You're not worthless

by SoulRiser (School Survival's webmistress)

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"Schools have rules that you have to obey. If you disobey, you will

be punished. Respect people higher than you. Don't backchat. Shut up

while a teacher is talking. Stop wasting the teacher's time and do

your work."

Doesn't it make you sick? Don't you just hate it when a teacher makes

an example out of a student that got an A for something and asks you

why you can't achieve the same? Or when a teacher is in a bad mood

and snaps at you, then when you defend yourself you get in trouble

for "backchatting"? Or when a teacher is talking about something that

has nothing to do with you, and you're trying to tell something

important to a friend, then you are told to shut up and respect the

teacher?

You are led to believe that you are a little piece of nothing, and

might as well let people tell you what to do because you're not

capable of making your own decisions. A lot of schools make a list of

all the "top-achievers" to brag with, but a lot of the time the

students who don't get high marks see it and feel ashamed. If you're

one of those "under-achievers", don't be ashamed, be proud. Why?

Because there are plenty of things you can do much better than those

so-called "top-achievers". Everyone's good at something and bad at

something else. Find what you're good at, concentrate on it, and

laugh at anyone who tries to tell you you're stupid.


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Who are the most important people in schools? Not the principal, not

the teachers... the students are. Not their parents, them. They are

the ones who have to go there every day. They don't get paid to go

there - they are forced to go. In most schools, the remaining

students who haven't run away or committed suicide deserve a medal for

ENDURANCE! So, considering the fact that us students are the most

important (parents being the second most important, they have to pay

for our mistreatment), shouldn't we be treated a little more like

humans with our own unique personalities, our own goals and dreams,

our own ideas and opinions, instead of being looked down upon as if

we're nothing more than disobedient, ungrateful brats? I think we

should be.

Written by: SoulRiser

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[2.3] Harm in the School System

by Shaun Kerry, M.D. (a social psychiatrist)

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As a social psychiatrist, I examine society much like a doctor

examines a patient. One of the most troubling ailments that I

encounter is our school system, which - without ever realizing it -

harms the majority of our students.


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It is my belief that our school system is the most fundamental cause

of the social problems that our society faces today. Far from being

expensive, the solution to this problem would cost no money.

Speaking from a psychiatric perspective, our most critical mental

attributes involve emotions, judgment, a sense of priority, empathy,

conscience, interpersonal relations, self-esteem, identity,

independence, the ability to concentrate, and a number of other whole-

brain functions that defy description. I will lump all of these

attributes under the term 'mindfulness'. Reading comprehension level,

mathematical ability, and standardized test scores are much further

down the priority list.

There is a sharp jump in the incidence of mental illness immediately

after children begin school. This would suggest that something about

our school system is in direct conflict with the human psyche. The

academy-award-winning film American Beauty captures the essence of

social dysfunction in today's world, and has the power to portray

many things that cannot equally be expressed through the written

word. I would urge you to see this film. Note how most of the

characters in this film suffer from a major personality disorder. By

restructuring our schools, many such disorders could be prevented. I

will show you how.


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First, we must conquer our obsession with attempting to align

academic achievement with a time-table. Everyone has a very unique

personality, and therefore, learns at a different pace. Some people

are ready to learn how to read at age 3, while others may be better

to suited to learning how at age 10. In schools, we force subject

matter down the throats of the students. We neglect to realize,

however, that children learn much more quickly and effectively if

they are receptive and eager to learn the subject matter. Children

could master the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic far more

quickly, if they were allowed to learn what they wanted to learn when

they wanted to learn it.

Prior to about 1850, schooling as we presently understand the term -

wasn't considered critical to the development of young minds.

Granted, some children did attend schools, but only as often as they

wanted to.

Classroom education was far from mandatory, yet children still

learned to read, write, and perform arithmetic. In fact, Senator

Kennedy's office once released a paper stating that prior to the

implementation of compulsory education, the literacy rate was 98%.

Afterwards, the figure never exceeded 91%.

Forcing people to learn has no value, and is extremely harmful.

Tests, grades, busywork, and competition are at the core of the


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problems that plague our schools. The motivation to learn must come

from within the student. Often, we become so concerned with

fulfilling the demands of other people, that we lose track of what we

feel and who we are. I have met or worked with countless individuals

who are intellectually well developed, but who have lost touch with

their inner-self.

As a child, everyone is curious and eager to learn. Before attending

school and being subjected to this process of coercion, children

manage to learn a complex language (in bilingual families, two

languages) and a copious amount of things about their environment.

There is no reason why such learning could not continue without the

negative effects of rigid institutionalization and standardized test

scores, which seem to form the basis of modern-day education. Rather

than hindering the growth of our children, we must provide an

environment that will nourish them, and facilitate continuous

learning.

Shaun Kerry, M.D.

Diplomate, American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology

http://www.school-reform.net/

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[2.4] How public education cripples our kids, and why


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by John Taylor Gatto (a teacher)

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I taught for thirty years in some of the worst schools in Manhattan,

and in some of the best, and during that time I became an expert in

boredom. Boredom was everywhere in my world, and if you asked the

kids, as I often did, why they felt so bored, they always gave the

same answers: They said the work was stupid, that it made no sense,

that they already knew it. They said they wanted to be doing

something real, not just sitting around. They said teachers didn't

seem to know much about their subjects and clearly weren't interested

in learning more. And the kids were right: their teachers were every

bit as bored as they were.

Boredom is the common condition of schoolteachers, and anyone who has

spent time in a teachers' lounge can vouch for the low energy, the

whining, the dispirited attitudes, to be found there. When asked why

they feel bored, the teachers tend to blame the kids, as you might

expect. Who wouldn't get bored teaching students who are rude and

interested only in grades? If even that. Of course, teachers are

themselves products of the same twelve-year compulsory school

programs that so thoroughly bore their students, and as school

personnel they are trapped inside structures even more rigid than

those imposed upon the children. Who, then, is to blame?


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We all are. My grandfather taught me that. One afternoon when I was

seven I complained to him of boredom, and he batted me hard on the

head. He told me that I was never to use that term in his presence

again, that if I was bored it was my fault and no one else's. The

obligation to amuse and instruct myself was entirely my own, and

people who didn't know that were childish people, to be avoided if

possible. Certainty not to be trusted. That episode cured me of

boredom forever, and here and there over the years I was able to pass

on the lesson to some remarkable student. For the most part, however,

I found it futile to challenge the official notion that boredom and

childishness were the natural state of affairs in the classroom.

Often I had to defy custom, and even bend the law, to help kids break

out of this trap.

The empire struck back, of course; childish adults regularly conflate

opposition with disloyalty. I once returned from a medical leave to

discover that all evidence of my having been granted the leave had

been purposely destroyed, that my job had been terminated, and that I

no longer possessed even a teaching license. After nine months of

tormented effort I was able to retrieve the license when a school

secretary testified to witnessing the plot unfold. In the meantime my

family suffered more than I care to remember. By the time I finally

retired in 1991, 1 had more than enough reason to think of our

schools-with their long-term, cell-block-style, forced confinement of

both students and teachers-as virtual factories of childishness. Yet


26/91

I honestly could not see why they had to be that way. My own

experience had revealed to me what many other teachers must learn

along the way, too, yet keep to themselves for fear of reprisal: if

we wanted to we could easily and inexpensively jettison the old,

stupid structures and help kids take an education rather than merely

receive a schooling. We could encourage the best qualities of

youthfulness-curiosity, adventure, resilience, the capacity for

surprising insightsimply by being more flexible about time, texts,

and tests, by introducing kids to truly competent adults, and by

giving each student what autonomy he or she needs in order to take a

risk every now and then.

But we don't do that. And the more I asked why not, and persisted in

thinking about the "problem" of schooling as an engineer might, the

more I missed the point: What if there is no "problem" with our

schools? What if they are the way they are, so expensively flying in

the face of common sense and long experience in how children learn

things, not because they are doing something wrong but because they

are doing something right? Is it possible that George W. Bush

accidentally spoke the truth when he said we would "leave no child

behind"? Could it be that our schools are designed to make sure not

one of them ever really grows up?

Do we really need school? I don't mean education, just forced

schooling: six classes a day, five days a week, nine months a year,


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for twelve years. Is this deadly routine really necessary? And if so,

for what? Don't hide behind reading, writing, and arithmetic as a

rationale, because 2 million happy homeschoolers have surely put that

banal justification to rest. Even if they hadn't, a considerable

number of well-known Americans never went through the twelve-year

wringer our kids currently go through, and they turned out all right.

George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham

Lincoln? Someone taught them, to be sure, but they were not products

of a school system, and not one of them was ever "graduated" from a

secondary school. Throughout most of American history, kids generally

didn't go to high school, yet the unschooled rose to be admirals,

like Farragut; inventors, like Edison; captains of industry like

Carnegie and Rockefeller; writers, like Melville and Twain and

Conrad; and even scholars, like Margaret Mead. In fact, until pretty

recently people who reached the age of thirteen weren't looked upon

as children at all. Ariel Durant, who co-wrote an enormous, and very

good, multivolume history of the world with her husband, Will, was

happily married at fifteen, and who could reasonably claim that Ariel

Durant was an uneducated person? Unschooled, perhaps, but not

uneducated.

We have been taught (that is, schooled) in this country to think of

"success" as synonymous with, or at least dependent upon,

"schooling," but historically that isn't true in either an

intellectual or a financial sense. And plenty of people throughout


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the world today find a way to educate themselves without resorting to

a system of compulsory secondary schools that all too often resemble

prisons. Why, then, do Americans confuse education with just such a

system? What exactly is the purpose of our public schools?

Mass schooling of a compulsory nature really got its teeth into the

United States between 1905 and 1915, though it was conceived of much

earlier and pushed for throughout most of the nineteenth century. The

reason given for this enormous upheaval of family life and cultural

traditions was, roughly speaking, threefold:

1) To make good people. 2) To make good citizens. 3) To make each

person his or her personal best. These goals are still trotted out

today on a regular basis, and most of us accept them in one form or

another as a decent definition of public education's mission, however

short schools actually fall in achieving them. But we are dead wrong.

Compounding our error is the fact that the national literature holds

numerous and surprisingly consistent statements of compulsory

schooling's true purpose. We have, for example, the great H. L.

Mencken, who wrote in The American Mercury for April 1924 that the

aim of public education is not

to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their

intelligence. ... Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim

... is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same


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safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down

dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States... and

that is its aim everywhere else.

Because of Mencken's reputation as a satirist, we might be tempted to

dismiss this passage as a bit of hyperbolic sarcasm. His article,

however, goes on to trace the template for our own educational system

back to the now vanished, though never to be forgotten, military

state of Prussia. And although he was certainly aware of the irony

that we had recently been at war with Germany, the heir to Prussian

thought and culture, Mencken was being perfectly serious here. Our

educational system really is Prussian in origin, and that really is

cause for concern.

The odd fact of a Prussian provenance for our schools pops up again

and again once you know to look for it. William James alluded to it

many times at the turn of the century. Orestes Brownson, the hero of

Christopher Lasch's 1991 book, The True and Only Heaven, was publicly

denouncing the Prussianization of American schools back in the 1840s.

Horace Mann's "Seventh Annual Report" to the Massachusetts State

Board of Education in 1843 is essentially a paean to the land of

Frederick the Great and a call for its schooling to be brought here.

That Prussian culture loomed large in America is hardly surprising,

given our early association with that utopian state. A Prussian

served as Washington's aide during the Revolutionary War, and so many


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German-speaking people had settled here by 1795 that Congress

considered publishing a German-language edition of the federal laws.

But what shocks is that we should so eagerly have adopted one of the

very worst aspects of Prussian culture: an educational system

deliberately designed to produce mediocre intellects, to hamstring

the inner life, to deny students appreciable leadership skills, and

to ensure docile and incomplete citizens 11 in order to render the

populace "manageable."

It was from James Bryant Conant-president of Harvard for twenty

years, WWI poison-gas specialist, WWII executive on the atomic-bomb

project, high commissioner of the American zone in Germany after

WWII, and truly one of the most influential figures of the twentieth

century-that I first got wind of the real purposes of American

schooling. Without Conant, we would probably not have the same style

and degree of standardized testing that we enjoy today, nor would we

be blessed with gargantuan high schools that warehouse 2,000 to 4,000

students at a time, like the famous Columbine High in Littleton,

Colorado. Shortly after I retired from teaching I picked up Conant's

1959 book-length essay, The Child the Parent and the State, and was

more than a little intrigued to see him mention in passing that the

modern schools we attend were the result of a "revolution" engineered

between 1905 and 1930. A revolution? He declines to elaborate, but he

does direct the curious and the uninformed to Alexander Inglis's 1918

book, Principles of Secondary Education, in which "one saw this


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revolution through the eyes of a revolutionary."

Inglis, for whom a lecture in education at Harvard is named, makes it

perfectly clear that compulsory schooling on this continent was

intended to be just what it had been for Prussia in the 1820s: a

fifth column into the burgeoning democratic movement that threatened

to give the peasants and the proletarians a voice at the bargaining

table. Modern, industrialized, compulsory schooling was to make a

sort of surgical incision into the prospective unity of these

underclasses. Divide children by subject, by age-grading, by constant

rankings on tests, and by many other more subtle means, and it was

unlikely that the ignorant mass of mankind, separated in childhood,

would ever re-integrate into a dangerous whole.

Inglis breaks down the purpose - the actual purpose - of modern

schooling into six basic functions, any one of which is enough to

curl the hair of those innocent enough to believe the three

traditional goals listed earlier:

1) The adjustive or adaptive function. Schools are to establish fixed

habits of reaction to authority. This, of course, precludes critical

judgment completely. It also pretty much destroys the idea that

useful or interesting material should be taught, because you can't

test for reflexive obedience until you know whether you can make kids

learn, and do, foolish and boring things.


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2) The integrating function. This might well be called "the

conformity function," because its intention is to make children as

alike as possible. People who conform are predictable, and this is of

great use to those who wish to harness and manipulate a large labor

force.

3) The diagnostic and directive function. School is meant to

determine each student's proper social role. This is done by logging

evidence mathematically and anecdotally on cumulative records. As in

"your permanent record." Yes, you do have one.

4) The differentiating function. Once their social role has been

"diagnosed," children are to be sorted by role and trained only so

far as their destination in the social machine merits - and not one

step further. So much for making kids their personal best.

5) The selective function. This refers not to human choice at all but

to Darwin's theory of natural selection as applied to what he called

"the favored races." In short, the idea is to help things along by

consciously attempting to improve the breeding stock. Schools are

meant to tag the unfit - with poor grades, remedial placement, and

other punishments - clearly enough that their peers will accept them

as inferior and effectively bar them from the reproductive

sweepstakes. That's what all those little humiliations from first


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grade onward were intended to do: wash the dirt down the drain.

6) The propaedeutic function. The societal system implied by these

rules will require an elite group of caretakers. To that end, a small

fraction of the kids will quietly be taught how to manage this

continuing project, how to watch over and control a population

deliberately dumbed down and declawed in order that government might

proceed unchallenged and corporations might never want for obedient

labor.

That, unfortunately, is the purpose of mandatory public education in

this country. And lest you take Inglis for an isolated crank with a

rather too cynical take on the educational enterprise, you should

know that he was hardly alone in championing these ideas. Conant

himself, building on the ideas of Horace Mann and others, campaigned

tirelessly for an American school system designed along the same

lines. Men like George Peabody, who funded the cause of mandatory

schooling throughout the South, surely understood that the Prussian

system was useful in creating not only a harmless electorate and a

servile labor force but also a virtual herd of mindless consumers. In

time a great number of industrial titans came to recognize the

enormous profits to be had by cultivating and tending just such a

herd via public education, among them Andrew Carnegie and John D.

Rockefeller.


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There you have it. Now you know. We don't need Karl Marx's conception

of a grand warfare between the classes to see that it is in the

interest of complex management, economic or political, to dumb people

down, to demoralize them, to divide them from one another, and to

discard them if they don't conform. Class may frame the proposition,

as when Woodrow Wilson, then president of Princeton University, said

the following to the New York City School Teachers Association in

1909: "We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and

we want another class of persons, a very much larger class, of

necessity, in every society, to forgo the privileges of a liberal

education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual

tasks." But the motives behind the disgusting decisions that bring

about these ends need not be class-based at all. They can stem purely

from fear, or from the by now familiar belief that "efficiency" is

the paramount virtue, rather than love, liberty, laughter, or hope.

Above all, they can stem from simple greed.

There were vast fortunes to be made, after all, in an economy based

on mass production and organized to favor the large corporation

rather than the small business or the family farm. But mass

production required mass consumption, and at the turn of the

twentieth century most Americans considered it both unnatural and

unwise to buy things they didn't actually need. Mandatory schooling

was a godsend on that count. School didn't have to train kids in any

direct sense to think they should consume nonstop, because it did


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something even better: it encouraged them not to think at all. And

that left them sitting ducks for another great invention of the

modern era - marketing.

Now, you needn't have studied marketing to know that there are two

groups of people who can always be convinced to consume more than

they need to: addicts and children. School has done a pretty good job

of turning our children into addicts, but it has done a spectacular

job of turning our children into children. Again, this is no

accident. Theorists from Plato to Rousseau to our own Dr. Inglis knew

that if children could be cloistered with other children, stripped of

responsibility and independence, encouraged to develop only the

trivializing emotions of greed, envy, jealousy, and fear, they would

grow older but never truly grow up. In the 1934 edition of his once

well-known book Public Education in the United States, Ellwood P.

Cubberley detailed and praised the way the strategy of successive

school enlargements had extended childhood by two to six years, and

forced schooling was at that point still quite new. This same

Cubberley - who was dean of Stanford's School of Education, a

textbook editor at Houghton Mifflin, and Conant's friend and

correspondent at Harvard - had written the following in the 1922

edition of his book Public School Administration: "Our schools are

... factories in which the raw products (children) are to be shaped

and fashioned .... And it is the business of the school to build its

pupils according to the specifications laid down."


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It's perfectly obvious from our society today what those

specifications were. Maturity has by now been banished from nearly

every aspect of our lives. Easy divorce laws have removed the need to

work at relationships; easy credit has removed the need for fiscal

self-control; easy entertainment has removed the need to learn to

entertain oneself; easy answers have removed the need to ask

questions. We have become a nation of children, happy to surrender

our judgments and our wills to political exhortations and commercial

blandishments that would insult actual adults. We buy televisions,

and then we buy the things we see on the television. We buy

computers, and then we buy the things we see on the computer. We buy

$150 sneakers whether we need them or not, and when they fall apart

too soon we buy another pair. We drive SUVs and believe the lie that

they constitute a kind of life insurance, even when we're upside-down

in them. And, worst of all, we don't bat an eye when Ari Fleischer

tells us to "be careful what you say," even if we remember having

been told somewhere back in school that America is the land of the

free. We simply buy that one too. Our schooling, as intended, has

seen to it.

Now for the good news. Once you understand the logic behind modern

schooling, its tricks and traps are fairly easy to avoid. School

trains children to be employees and consumers; teach your own to be

leaders and adventurers. School trains children to obey reflexively;


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teach your own to think critically and independently. Well-schooled

kids have a low threshold for boredom; help your own to develop an

inner life so that they'll never be bored. Urge them to take on the

serious material, the grown-up material, in history, literature,

philosophy, music, art, economics, theology - all the stuff

schoolteachers know well enough to avoid. Challenge your kids with

plenty of solitude so that they can learn to enjoy their own company,

to conduct inner dialogues. Well-schooled people are conditioned to

dread being alone, and they seek constant companionship through the

TV, the computer, the cell phone, and through shallow friendships

quickly acquired and quickly abandoned. Your children should have a

more meaningful life, and they can.

First, though, we must wake up to what our schools really are:

laboratories of experimentation on young minds, drill centers for the

habits and attitudes that corporate society demands. Mandatory

education serves children only incidentally; its real purpose is to

turn them into servants. Don't let your own have their childhoods

extended, not even for a day. If David Farragut could take command of

a captured British warship as a pre-teen, if Thomas Edison could

publish a broadsheet at the age of twelve, if Ben Franklin could

apprentice himself to a printer at the same age (then put himself

through a course of study that would choke a Yale senior today),

there's no telling what your own kids could do. After a long life,

and thirty years in the public school trenches, I've concluded that


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genius is as common as dirt. We suppress our genius only because we

haven't yet figured out how to manage a population of educated men

and women. The solution, I think, is simple and glorious. Let them

manage themselves.

Written by: John Taylor Gatto

----------------------------------------------------------------------

[2.5] Poetry about school & youth rights

www.school-survival.net/poetry

----------------------------------------------------------------------

[2.5.1] School Frustrations

by SoulRiser

--------------------------------------------------------------

Schools don't educate

they teach us to fear

and surrender to fate

Schools make learning dull

memorizing details is simply no fun

Of course it's all indirect


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it's hidden so well that

no-one would suspect

that it's here and it's there

look around, it's not fair

You turn to the class

and ask a question

I would gladly reply

if I were so inclined

But something else is on my mind

learning of a different kind

The things that mean the most to me

are good and pure and true and free

I speak with a friend

and I'm punished for that

when I try to defend

I'm thrown out for backchat

Respect is something

that you have to earn

but you yell, demand


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and give none in return


[2.5.2] Used to be

by SoulRiser

--------------------------------------------------------------

This is a poem I wrote about my school.

--------

There used to be respect here

when it wasn't in demand

excellence in atmosphere

kindness all around

but advertising those facts

wouldn't work in this town

emphasizing other things

removing many choices

one by one they disappear

silencing our voices


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you protect yourself from open minds

as you shrug the blame away

took a chance with one of a kind

and then lied to save your name

you started by ignoring

and slowly grew to greed

now all the good has fallen

because of one bad seed.


[2.5.3] Our mark in passing

by Spooky Poet

--------------------------------------------------------------

This is a poem I wrote while still in Public School about... well,

public school. I was in my school's "gifted and talented" program yet

recieved no guidance, counseling or consideration for the particular

challenges that Gifted students face. The attitude was that of "You

are Gifted, thus you should excel with minimal effort in all of your

classes." Yeah, okay. I would if I wasn't so damn bored by the lack

of challenge that I stop paying attention long enough to lose track

of the lesson.


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Our Mark In Passing December 5, 1989

Look at us, sitting in rows organized and lined up. Our seats

identical. Only our faces and clothes are different and they can even

make our clothes the same if they decide to. Eight times a day we go

to the same places we were the day before. The teacher checks each

day to be sure you're in the same seat you were in the day before.

And to think, this place is supposed to teach us to be "well rounded

individuals." Sure, we'll be well rounded, every corner will have

been smoothed over, So that our rough edges will not catch, snag or

irritate the Walls as we are processed through this building. Heaven

forbid we make a mark on the instituion as we pass. "Say "thankyou"

to all the teachers, even the ones you hate and say only happy things

to the parents when you graduate, then smile and go away. Fit in with

society the way we made you to fit, don't make waves, don't change

things, or we will have failed in our attempt of programming you as

we taught." But we will not come out as individuals, our rough edges

and corners made us different, and so in smoothing them over they rub

out and cover up our identities. All that lost so that the System can

process us through without wearing out. Yet some of us are hard, like

diamonds, we cannot be smoothed and the Walls bleed with change where

we have been pushed through. The wound will heal but there will still

be the scar, we will have made our mark in passing.


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Spooky Poet

[email protected]

Note: I had a habit of walking down the hallways with my hands

"clawing" the painted cinderblock walls of my school well before I

wrote this poem. It was a friend that pointed out the possible

symbology of that after she read the poem.

[2.5.4] Take Action

by Badlands17

--------------------------------------------------------------

Theyre just like other people

But now, theyre the steeple

Of a tower of arbitrary hate

Of youre just going to have to wait

The amount of time you are on this Earth

Does not indicate your intellect and worth

Young man; dont wait

Fight the fight; set things straight

If you believe in yourself

You can fight the ice shelf

Its projecting out to you


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And saying this is what you have to do

Fight back; say You dont control my life

The opportunities are rife

Rife without you

I want to be through

But then you remember

You are simply a stray ember

In the big fire theyre burning you in

Written by: Badlands17

======================================================================

[3] The HOW (Guides & Tips)

======================================================================

----------------------------------------------------------------------

[3.1] How to Survive School: An Introduction

----------------------------------------------------------------------

This article is aimed at young people who hate school and would

rather be somewhere else. These young people often actually love to

learn - the problem is that few subjects offered at school are

interesting to them, or the way in which it is presented is just

horribly boring.


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Before I go on, it is possible to legally get out of school, and get

your education in other ways, through homeschooling or unschooling

(if your parents will let you). Since this article is more focused on

how to survive school if you can't get out, more information about

those options will be listed at the bottom of this article.

Here are five vital points that will help you keep your sanity:

1) Just because they like it, doesn't mean you have to.

Everybody's different. People like different things, people do things

in different ways. Why should school be an exception? What were they

thinking when they designed a school that would teach everyone the

same stuff in the same way? Did they really think that would work?

Fact is, it doesn't work. Not for everyone, at least. If you prefer

to do things your own way, that's a GOOD thing. Those kids who

function best when told what to do every second of their lives will

probably be working for you someday.

What about those people who assume that just because they did well in

school or even liked it, that everyone should be capable of the same

results? Don't worry about them. You can't expect everyone to

understand you, just as they can't expect everyone to react to school

the way they did. You could try to reason with them, but some people


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just won't change their minds no matter what, so don't lose sleep

over them.

2) You're not the only one.

Lots of young people hate school. Lots of older people still hate

school. Does that mean people who hate school are doomed to "flip

burgers the rest of their lives"? Nope. Just because someone hates

school doesn't mean they hate learning - in fact, often people hate

school precisely BECAUSE they love learning - school is so boring it

gives learning a bad name.

Some people who won the Nobel Prize hated school:

George Bernard Shaw said, "There is nothing on earth intended for

innocent people so horrible as a school."

Albert Einstein said, "Education is what remains after one has

forgotten everything he learned in school."

3) How educational is school really?

You listen to a lesson, you do some exercises, you are given a test.

In order to pass the test, you must memorize information - this is

often done by following elaborate "learning methods", none of which

are really much more than ways to trick your brain into remembering


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things it otherwise would disregard. Some people actually remember

some of this information later in their lives - especially if they

happen to go into a career that's somehow related to it. Most people,

on the other hand, don't remember much more than 20% of everything

they ever learned at school - including the skills needed for

reading, writing and working with numbers.

4) What's the point, then?

If you're stuck in school, and your parents won't let you get out and

try something else, don't despair! There is some fun to be had in

school. If you already have a good circle of friends there, you're

off to a good start. If not, whatever you do, don't change yourself

to "fit in" with any crowd so that they'll let you hang out with them.

If there's one thing people who like school are right about, it's

that "school is what you make of it". This is true. If you don't want

it to be boring, bring something interesting to do. Just don't make

it too obvious or it might get confiscated for being a "distraction

from your education". Make a "mission" for yourself to achieve in

school - this could be anything you choose, or a good cause - like

finding all the young people in your school who can't stand it, and

handing them a printed copy of this article.

5) Getting your life back.


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If homework and tests are taking up time that you could spend doing

things that actually interest you, there are ways around it. If your

parents aren't too fussy about your marks, you could just do the bare

minimum required to pass. If, on the other hand, they want "nothing

but the best", maybe you should try reasoning with them. Tell them

how school makes you feel. Explain to them that you'd learn a lot

more if things weren't forced on you. It's bad enough having the

teachers down your throat about all sorts of things, but having your

parents on your back as well is like being attacked from all sides

with no escape. If you can't get a word in, try writing it down and

having them read it when you're not in the same room with them.

Either way, try not to show your anger, or at least don't make it

look like you're angry with them. Most people take that the wrong way.

Having your parents on your side is really the best way to survive

school with your sanity intact, and it's a luxury not many young

people have. Put as much effort into reasoning with your parents as

you possibly can, and only after all else fails should you consider

other ways of getting good marks that don't involve working so hard,

like finding a friend and helping each other finish the work off

quicker.

Hopefully this article has helped you in some way, or at least

cheered you up a bit. Don't ever give up - school may seem like


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prison or even hell, but it won't last forever. Maybe you can even

help out some other people along the way. Good luck.

HELPFUL LINKS

www.school-survival.net/articles - More articles about school

www.school-survival.net/alternatives.php - Alternatives to school

(homeschooling, unschooling, etc.)

learninfreedom.org/Nobel_hates_school.html - More Nobel Prize winners

who hated school

Copyright 2006 SoulRiser, webmistress of www.school-survival.net

----------------------------------------------------------------------

[3.2] Hate school? Do something!

www.school-survival.net/mission

----------------------------------------------------------------------

This section is still a bit unfinished. Expect more soon :)

Since this site's focus is more on helping kids who hate school,

that's what the focus of this section is as well. Most people who

want to change things seem to be more focused on "reforming" the

schools - and they don't seem to realise that all their efforts

trying to change schools aren't letting the young people know that


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there are people out there who actually care about them. From the

unhappy kids' point of view, everyone just keeps telling them to

"sweat it out" and that it's "for their own good". Who would want to

live in a world where nobody cares or understands?

So, for the most part, the #1 priority is reaching out to kids who

are unhappy in school, explaining that doing well in school isn't

some miracle guarantee that the rest of their lives will be peachy,

and that there are alternatives to going to a "prison" every day to

"learn".

This is one of the guestbook posts on School Survival:

From: Emie

This is one of my favorite sites. When I first found this site

last year, I was frustrated and upset with the homework I was

supposed to be doing. I randomly typed something into the search

engine, like "school is bad" or something like that, and this site

came up. Once I started to read this site, espescially the Opinions

section, I was completely amazed. This site was the first thing I had

ever seen that expressed my feelings for school completely. It seemed

sometimes like what I was reading was what I'd been feeling for

years, but couldn't put into words myself. Just knowing other people

felt the way I did was a great feeling. Thanks for making such a

great site, having a site like this really makes a difference to


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people! ^_^

That's why reaching out to kids who hate school is the #1 priority.

Things you can do to help

----------------------------------------------

Guidelines

* Try not to yell at a teacher, no matter how angry you are. If

you yell, they'll just have an excuse to say you're immature. Stay

calm while they yell :)

* Don't pick on every teacher just because they're a teacher, be

nice to the nice teachers.

* Don't break stuff or hurt people. Scroll down for reasons why.

Now, onto the stuff you can do:

Start your own underground 'zine, or distribute other ones you've

found. Or print copies of the School Survival Guide and distribute

that. Or use the print link on any page on this site, and pass that

around.

Protest whenever someone gets suspended or expelled for something

dress code related, or for having a nailclipper or some other so-


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called "weapon", and also for doing a school website, making a 'zine,

or exercising their free speech in any way.

More info: defendyoursites.tripod.com

Be sure to let your nice teachers know that you appreciate them.

Have a student survey run every once in a while, asking them what

they think of various rules and other things at your school, and

forward the results to the principal.

Give your school a report card! Grade the various aspects of it, like

how much respect students get, the excitement level of classes, smell

of the bathrooms, etc. Print lots of copies and give them to people

or stick them on the bulletin boards and stuff. Get students to sign

it too if you like (and make photocopies then).

Have some fun, waste some time, play a prank or two.

Refuse to take a test. This works best for standardized tests that

don't count for anything. Get together and have lots of students just

leave those tests blank. If asked why you're leaving it blank,

explain your frustrations with the current school system placing so

much weight on tests and grades and numbers. You could fill in your

reasons for leaving it blank on your answer sheet itself, if you like.


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Join up with other student groups and protesters, and work together

with them. If you're in the US, you should almost definitely join or

start a NYRA (Youth Rights) chapter as well.

www.youthrights.org

If you have a school newspaper, try to get involved. Then have a

little column or something with students opinions on various school

issues.

Make a list of all the closed-minded teachers and a separate list of

good teachers, and give copies of both lists to new students to warn

them.

Every time you have to do a speech or some presentation, try to put

an anti-school message in it. I did this often enough that my one

teacher got all annoyed one time after a speech about school and he

said "My word, would you stop talking about school in everything you

do?!" :)

If you have to say the pledge, get creative, make up your own words

to fit with it and say those instead. If everyone in the class would

be saying different words all at the same time, it will have quite an

effect. If you come up with a good alternative pledge and want to

share it with the world, post it on the forums. Also, if you have to

sing or say your school's anthem, you can do the same with that.


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If you're a parent, encourage your kids to talk to you about stuff.

The best way to do that is to listen to them without immediately

judging what they say. If you can communicate, you can work together.

Print out the How to be a Good Teacher guide, and give it to

teachers... or just leave it where they will find it :) ... Or, if

you're a teacher and you're reading this page, I'd highly recommend

checking out the guide, maybe you could pick up a tip or two ;)

www.school-survival.net/kit/How_to_be_a_good_teacher.php

Tips

----------------------------------------------

Kirby wrote:

Before going into battle, only an idiot would fail to find out where

they are going. The same goes for guerilla disobedience.

If you want to do something to screw up school, print out and carry

in a binder copies of laws, court cases, school newspapers, commitee

meeting minutes, policies, budgets, etc. that can help you shake

things up. Also remember to read them, and summarize if they are long.


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This way if you see a teacher screwing up, you can tell authorities

exactly what they did, and they can't give you any excuses either :D

Things you can do online

----------------------------------------------

Helping people isn't limited to the "real world" :)

Forums

If you often visit forums, search them for any posts people have made

about school. Every now and then, someone gets really frustrated

about school and posts about it on whichever forum they happen to be

on. This is a good time to reply to them, assure them there's nothing

wrong with hating school, let them know about some alternatives, and

maybe paste a few quotes or links to articles.

How this all fits together

----------------------------------------------

Protesting unfair things at school is all fine and dandy if you want

to get a rule changed, but you'd be surprised how much more you can

influence than rules. If your protest doesn't get through to the

administration, that's okay, because more than likely your protest


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accomplished something a lot more important: you demonstrated to the

other students that they don't have to take school sitting down, that

they can have their say no matter what, and that working together to

get something done isn't impossible.

Making it more interesting

----------------------------------------------

To make this whole spread-the-word campaign more interesting, you

could form clubs. For example, a 'RATS Club'. Basically, once you've

reached out to a few people who hate school, why not ask them to help

you reach out to more? Every idea further up on this page will be a

lot more fun if lots of people do it together, not to mention it will

be a lot more effective as well. For added effect, make t-shirts

stating your cause as well.

You can download some designs here:

www.school-survival.net/store

Or order ready-printed shirts, caps, mugs etc. here:

www.cafepress.com/schoolsurvival

----------------------------------------------------------------------

[3.3] What NOT to do

www.school-survival.net/mission/dont.php


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----------------------------------------------------------------------

If you've ever wanted to know how to make a movement fail, this page

will tell you how.

Break Stuff and Hurt People

Nothing ruins your credibility like breaking stuff and hurting

people. It doesn't matter which of the two you do, either one will

ruin everything. Even if you do ten thousand good deeds afterwards,

people will never forget the damage you caused.

Breaking stuff and hurting people gets teachers pissed off at you,

and there's no way they'll take your ideas seriously if you get their

attention by messing stuff up. If you think the teachers are your

"enemy" and this is "war" and that breaking stuff will make them

respect you, you're wrong. They will fear you and hate you. When was

the last time you had any genuine respect for someone you hated? When

was the last time you wanted to listen to their ideas and work with

them?

Don't feed the stereotype.

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[3.4] How to Organize a Student Revolution

by Jeremy Hammond of hackthissite.org

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Student walkouts are a powerful act of protest. It can be a way to

unite with your peers and build a culture of resistance at your

school. It is a way to temporarily turn your school upside down and

put the students in charge for a change. It is also valuable

organizing training for when the real revolution comes. And if done

right, it can have a big enough impact that actual change in the

system is made.

Probably the first comment youll have is something like that will

never happen at my school. At least thats what I was saying at the

beginning of my senior year of high school. I never thought we would

be able to get away with half the stuff we pulled off. Our school was

so boring, mundane, uninteresting. By the end of the year, we had

published an underground newspaper distributed in several local high

schools, had formed a network of radical student activists, and

organized a student walkout of hundreds of kids in protest of the war

in Iraq.

There is absolutely no reason why you cannot accomplish the same, or

better. The ultimate achievement would be a student strike, sit-in,

or walkout. But before the fun stuff comes a lot of movement


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building. Set your sights high, but take practical approaches to your

goals.

Before we go any further, your movement must be _about_ something. If

its just for the hell ofit, you should stop reading now because

you will fail miserably regardless. So you need a cause behind your

movement? No! You need a movement behind your cause! If you do not

have a clear message, you will be quickly written off as mindless

teenage rebellion. By having a purpose for the action, you gain

legitimacy among faculty and conservative students and reduce the

risk of discipline from the authorities. So make this meaningful.

Remember: this is a forum for you to express your dissatisfaction

with the status quo. Believe me, every school has something unfair

about it - dress code, censorship, abusive administrators, pledge of

allegiance, etc. If you play your cards right, something may even get

done about it.

Right. So now that you have selected a few issues to raise a ruckus

about, the first thing you must do before you develop grandoise plans

for student revolution is to start talking to people. Gather their

thoughts about these issues. Try to get them all riled up and wanting

to take action. While many people have their personal differences,

almost everyone if you talk to them long enough will agree on some

fundamental principles that things are incredibly unfair and

something should be done about it.


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You will quickly discover that one of the first things that you must

overcome is any personal inhibitions you might have towards people.

Do NOT be shy or self-restrained. Dont be afraid to go up to total

strangers in a friendly way and start sharing all these personal

experiences. Reach out to people of different cultural backgrounds.

Dont let social cliques and popularity contests keep the student

body divided - believe me, everyone can unite around the common idea

that school is a big waste of time.

Once you get a band of students who want to do something about it,

you should call a general meeting. Make little flyers and posters and

put them up around school announcing when, where, and why. Get

everyone you can together in one room to make some decisions about

what can be done about the issue in question. Have everyone go around

the room and introduce themselves. Make sure no one feels

uncomfortable or left out. I also recommend that you read up about

how to organize a meeting based on the directly democratic concensus

process where everyone is equal to share ideas on an anti-

authoritarian basis.

Whether you want to organize an official student group or remain

unofficial is up to you. There are advantages and disadvantages.

While being an official student organization, the administration will

be forced to consider your actions with more legitimacy, and provide


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you with school resources, rooms, announcements on the PA, putting

posters up around school, etc. However, you are bound by school

regulations, which may tie your hands from any fun or rebellious

activities. Of course, that does not mean that you can work

independent of the organizationIt entirely depends on the context of

your school. Gather as much information about school policies

regarding student organizations and discuss this choice with the

other group members.

Now that you have an activist scene growing at your school, its time

to release some publications. Consider making an underground

newsletter to bring your message to the people. Or just make half-

page leaflets. Make the content quick, concise, but most importantly,

INTERESTING! No one wants to read a dry, intellectual analysis of

this old dudes interpretation of whatever. Boredom is counter-

revolutionary. Your movement needs to be fun, enjoyable and exciting,

or no one will want to participate. And when you distribute it to

students, raise a ruckus! Stand near the doors in the cafeteria

handing out your propaganda while shouting stuff! Make a scene! Blow

bubbles and fill the halls with laughter! Get hundreds of copies to

your friends so that they can distribute them to their friends and

their friends, etc. Make sure every single student has access to it.

And promote discussion - bring up the debate in your classes, at

lunch tables, with strangers in the lunch line, etc. By now, it has

entered the popular consciousness, the seeds have been planted, you


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have a strong activist scene, and the time is ripe for an action.

What you should do depends entirely on the context your movement

takes place in. Try to coincide your action with a particular date of

significance(in response to a controversial policy made by the

government or your school administration, anti-war protest in nearby

cities, etc). If possible, look at your local independent media

center(indymedia.org) to see if there are other student activist

groups planning any actions - and try to coordinate your actions with

theirs. Some things to consider might be a student walkout, a sit-in

in your school, a march to join up with a larger protest downtown, or

in some situations, a simple teach-in to just discuss the issues

might be appropriate. However, in order to have any degree of

success, you must find a way to bring all the unfocused meaningless

rebellion into organized rebellion with a purpose.

Weeks before the event, you should prepare some outreach propaganda.

Tape posters up on the walls, in restrooms, classrooms, bulletin

boards. Make quarter page flyers explaining where, when, and why.

Make a website, advertise it in the official school paper. If you

can, try to get it on the school announcements. Make it exciting -

hype it up! Make it the topic of everyones discussion. Tell everyone

you see - even people you dont know. Do not be afraid to talk to

people you dont know - get used to presenting your movement in a

quick two minute discussion, and _dont be shy_!


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Handling the local press is an important factor to consider. A press

release should be drafted explaining what, who, where, when, and why.

It should be short and concise, yet still keep all the points you

want to make intact. Stick to a few key phrases that are repeated

everywhere - signs, buttons, leaflets, etc. Around a week before the

event, send press releases to all the local newspapers and television

networks. Try to invite reporters to take pictures and interview

people. At the least, get some of your own people to take pictures

and document the event. We were able to make it on network television

and several other newspapers.

The protest itself is a blank canvas for you to draw on. Have ideas

for activities ready. Dont be afraid of creating a ruckus - but

everything you do must have an obvious purpose. Keep things light-

hearted and energetic. Dont sit still for a second - dull moments

are killer, and people will lose interest. Bring fun things to the

protest itself. Make drums out of buckets. Make flags and signs.

Bring people to play instruments. Get a dance circle going. Have lots

of random shit to hand out. Consider graffiti to add some life to

your area. Make it lively, entertaining, and interesting - yet still

have a very clear, concise point which you are able to back up. When

people start leaving, they should be filled with the spirit of

activism, having made contacts with other activists, and looking

forward to or organizing their own future actions. People should be


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energized and empowered after the action, not disenchanted and dulled.

There is a certain high one can get from organizing a successful

action. If done right, the protest can be a liberating experience for

you and your comrades beyond anything else(even sex and the best

drugs). If you are lucky enough to achieve the ecstasy of the moment,

you know you have been doing something right.

After the action, you should prepare a communique about the events,

and call upon other members and their parents to call the school

board to leave their comments. Depending on the success of your

action, they may be forced to issue a statement or change policies if

you have built a solid movement with serious argument that pressures

the power that be.

-------

Youre probably wondering why this guide appeared in this magazine.

Its not about hacking. However, it is about building movements of

people to accomplish something in real life - a quality that is

lacking in computers and computer users. In this increasingly

oppressive world, people need to work with others and fight for

social justice. All too often hackers consider themselves elite and

above it all in the compute realm, but when presented with injustice

in the realm world, they simply submit themselves to dominating


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forces. No more. Resistance is fertile!

by Jeremy Hammond of hackthissite.org

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school survival guide

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