I often times look back and lament my early student career.

It’s not that I was stupid or I didn’t understand the material, it was more of a feeling of not fitting in with the institution.

High school was probably the worst of the worst. If there was ever a place where I felt that the teachers just punched the “9 to 5” clock, it was this place.

A while ago I started thinking that perhaps it wasn’t me that was broken, but it was the institution itself that was broken, after all, I’ve probably learned more from reading and doing research on my own than I ever did in school.

After reading Paul Graham’s book Hackers and Painters, where he lists the ways in which the American school system is failing, I started to believe the idea more and more.

Recently, I read an online dissertation by John Tayler Gatto on the American public education system and its faults. The article, Against School, is interesting to say the least. I wish I had access to the Internet and this material when I was in school.

Now, I’m not saying that everything Gatto says is right, but it’s certainly an eye opening article that will get you thinking.