Part I
Mama (translated by me, and I edited her answer because she has too many examples and metaphors, side note: she got offended at the end)
Do you like going to school?
Yes, I enjoy going to school a lot. School offers the chance for people to learn and find their interest. Without the basics, the most fundamental knowledge, is hard for someone to build up (learn more). Even you are learning something that you find it useless, is still worth to learn it because school is all about finding and understanding your own strength and weakness.
So do grades matter? Would you do better without grades?
No, grades give you something to look forward to. Without them, you don't know how well you did which you do not know your strength and weakness at that subject.
So will you learn something that is not going to help you (now)?
No, I won’t. But because you guys (me, my brother, my sister) are still young, you should give a try for everything. If you see people playing piano, maybe you should try to play it too. If you find out that you don’t like it, then go on to find the next thing that you like. Until you find your own strength and interest, build on from there.
So if you don’t have to work, you will learn something new?
Of course, people have to keep increasing their knowledge. Learn something that you like, make yourself worth it. Even is something that might not help you to get a job, just keep learning to improve yourself.
If you have enough money to travel, enjoy life, will you choose not to go to school and not be able to work?
Of course not! Life is not all about money and enjoying life by not doing anything. Even you do have a lot of money, without knowledge, you can’t even communicate with others in the right tone. Such as drinking wine, other than drinking it, you know nothing about it because you don’t have knowledge other than wealth. Now a day a lot of adults still goes to school to graduate from college. Why’s that? Because life is all about making yourself worth more, and to achieve the sense of pride among the others.
But school doesn’t teach you that, school often times teach people things that they are not interested, and we are force to learn something that might not even help us.
Well, learn them. The basic is important; you might not like it because it is difficult for you. But sometimes these fundamental things are the way to start learning something more difficult, there’s always a way to make things interested to you. If you really don’t like it at last, then move to something that you find it interesting.
Okay, I know the basics are important. But why you choose to let your kids [us] to go to school? Or if you have us again now, will you still send us to school or just home schooling us?
Of course school! School is like a community, just like when you having projects and teachers put you in groups, others ideas are important. You might not have that much voice if you are learning at home. School allows you to meet people and learn how to work with others. Also those people are all there to learn, so you can compare yourself with the others and see your own strength and weakness better. In other words, school allows you to understand yourself better by having interactions with your surroundings.
Well, we can meet people in the society also. Such as going to super markets and shop with you, we can learn math that way. We also interact with the bigger group that we will end up when we graduate. Why not this choice? Do you think parents are busy working, that’s why they send their kids to school to let other adults to teach them?
My mom got offended, mumbling and left my room. :(
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Cousin from China (translated by me)
Still on your mid winter vacation celebrating Chinese New Year?
Yes.
When does school start again?
Tomorrow.
Oh, how long was the break?
1 month.
Do you wish to have a longer break?
A little.
So are you looking forward to your first day again?
Yes, just hope teachers don’t give us a lot of stress.
What kind of stress?
They always want us to be the best (test, grades), first place.
Compare with who?
The other classes that are in the same grade as us.
So what if you guys fail the mission?
They will give us a lot of homework.
Until you guys get to first place? Do teachers encourage their students frequently?
Yes, they tell us to work hard and get first place next time.
So what happens when you guys got it?
Not much. Normal.
Will other classes look up to your guys when you guys got first place?
No.
Do teachers’ salaries increase?
Yes, when our test average is above the city’s average.
Wow, do you think you will do better without grades?
I don’t think so.
So grades motivate you to go to school?
Yes.
Aren’t learning is more important than grades?
Well, in china that is not the case. All schools look at grades to accept students. If your grade is bad, then you can’t get into good school, then your future is being ruined.
So what about no homework? Would you prefer that and do you know what homework is for?
Is nice to not have homework. Teachers told us that school is to help us review back the things that we learned on that day.
So is it worth it to review all the things that you have learned? Were they really that helpful?
Errr…I don’t know.
Do you think the stuff that you learned at school might not help you in your daily life?
Some does some doesn’t.
Do you know why you have to learn something that might not even help you in the future?
To expand from different areas, offering choices to allow you to choose what you want to be later on.
Okay, last question. Can you describe your school routine?
Get up, breakfast, morning reading, class start, class end, lunch, class start, class end, dinner, shower, class start, class end, sleep.
Okay, thanks and good luck on your first day of school.
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My friend who goes to Baruch College Campus High School (who does not really want to do this interview, and don’t want to put too much thoughts in it)
I would say I enjoy school because I meet and I learn. Through communicating and learning, I learned stuff that is not taught in books.
Do you think school size matters? (Population, circumstance, school size, etc.) If it does, in what ways?
Of course it matters because it affects how a student behaves, learns, and grows.
Without grades, do you think you will learn better regardless of the school surroundings?
To some circumstances, it does not because grades motivate you to work harder to get a higher grade to satisfy yourself. However, to some people who do not care about grades, obviously, it is not going to affect how they learn.
If you have enough money to just enjoy life, but cannot go to school, work, will you choose still choose to go to school?
Yes because money does not equal to knowledge in this case.
What do you think school is trying to get out of students?
To be educated. To be learned.
So being smart is important?
Being smart is not important, being knowledgeable is important.
Do you like the title “student”?
Yes, because being a student means you are not out there yet. You don’t have to work; all you have to care about is school in general. Also sometimes you get privilege like discounts when buying supplies, going to movie…etc.
Do you often feel stress going to school?
Yes, because I don’t get to sleep as much as I want. Also people at school always compare each others’ grades and teacher always tell us that grade is important because that’s what your future is all about. Although you know bad grade is not the end of the world, there is the stress like the mission to go to school is to get high grade. Homework is the biggest thing that bothers me because it takes off a lot of my time, and I am very bad at time management. So I felt like school took a lot of my time to prevent me to do something else in life because of homework.
Since you said homework is your biggest stress. What time do you prefer going to school?
It doesn’t really matter to me. I just think school is really getting on my way. If I can just go to school and learn, maybe small amount of homework that could be done in a short amount of time, then the time when school starts does not really matter. But because they gave a lot of homework and I am not very good at self control and time management, then I am screwed. I really rather go to school for another 2 hour than having homework to do at home.
So what do you prefer, what will be helpful for you?
I think school should have a study period between classes so student can join together and digest what they have learned other than going to physics, then math without even really digesting the material that the teacher gave. Also be able to do their homework at school other during that period will be helpful and I think student can learn better that way too. I personally prefer the moment I exit school should not be doing school work, just like people who work in companies can just leave and go home and have their free time to do whatever they want other than still bringing the work from office back to home to do them.
Okay, so what advice will you give to your kids about school?
I will tell them to manage their time WELL, and school is important.
Thanks.
If there are no grades, will I do better at school? Why or why not?
No, I don’t think I will do better at school because the standard of “doing well” are created by school, and without grades there will not be anything to allow me to know where I am at. Since I am present, there to learn, commit to it, then I will prefer to know how well I did, like my mom said to know my strength and weakness.
Did school really teach me how to make good choices in life?
I will say yes, school is part of my cultural map and just like Plinko. It really did lead me to be who I am today since throughout my life time until now I am at school most of the time. In terms of making choices, I think school did give me some great advice, but in order for me to take that advice and still having to decide for myself, it seems school did direct me to make GOOD choices, but did not really teach me how to make the right choice. At the end, I am still the one who has to make the choice although I am aware the materials that school has offer has limited some of them. (ex. Telling you that candy is sweet, so everybody pick candy, but what flavors of the candy you will pick is still up to you. They are all good candies, but not necessary the right one for you)
If I get to make one difference about school, what will that be?
I will add more subjects/ choices for students to choose. Overall school structure is acceptable in my own opinion, but the choices/course that is given is limited. If there are more choices for students to choose what they want to learn, then students will be more motivated and interested. Also before going to college to major at certain things, students can try out different things to find their interest. I know there are art high schools, but I think all schools in general should offer more choices for students to choose other than categorize the student in different areas.
How does school make me feel overall?
Miserable! To be honest, I never really enjoy going to school, but I like learning. Not only there is certain amount of stress, it often makes people feel that they are in prison. There are schedules to do certain things, and you have to behave in certain ways. Being formatted. All these trainings that school offers train you to be fit. Then go on and try to figure things out in the bigger picture, and perhaps able to have a good life. But why everything has to be so miserable? Why many things that people do often seems to be a force other than doing out of people’s own will? Why can’t things be happier since everybody just wants to be happy? My own thinking was, these imperfect systems only fulfill “some people”, and others are there to suffer. Not really fighting for freedom, but just want to go to school with a happy face every morning. I know school is not the only thing that makes me unhappy, but school was the majority. Why can’t I learn with a smile?
What is my motivation going to school?
To level up. For now at SOF, is to finish what I have to finish and move on. Looking forward to a life that I need to schedule it by myself more and see if I could be happier that way. Although I know the game is not created by me.
For all these interviews except the one that I interview myself, I did not really come up with particular questions to ask the person because I think that will disturb the overall conversation. So in order to keep with the flow, I decided to ask one question that relates to that person since I know them, then ask follow up questions to get them thinking about their experience at school and to see if they really think about why they are at school. What I found out after all the interviews were that people aren't really thinking about their experience at school and they do not want to think about them. Many people just go with the flow, and they do not really question themselves why they are at school? Therefore, when I asked them many think I am a little weird and do not understand why I am doing this (assignment#40) at school.
Going to school seems to be something that is natural to most people just like eating everyday and I wonder why people do not question themselves about going to school or people should not even be questioning such questions seems it is supernatural. Like my mom, she kept saying school helps you to understand yourself better in terms of strength and weakness, but she is unable to have an answer that satisfies me to make me think school is really the right thing to do. To me, it really seems my parents do not know why they send their kids to school. They do know going to school is to make their kids learn in certain ways, so they can live their life. BUT they do not know why they make such choice for their kids. Like my mom, she got offended and avoids answering this question. They just know is the right thing to do, but don't know why and don't really want to put much thought into school other than pushing their kids to go.
I also realized that people actually enjoy going to school other than the system(whatever that can be) that is bothering them or do not fit them particularly. This shows people do like to learn new things of any sort, but they do not like to be shaped in certain ways which what most school do. Like my sister, she enjoyed learning the materials that school has provides, but she HATES homework. She thinks homework prevents her to do many things since she has lots of after school programs to join every day. By the time she got home were already 7, after some rest she has to start doing her homework. If she decided to have some of her own time doing something that she wants to do, maybe video games, face book, cooking, TV...etc., then she would not be able to get her work done which it makes her hate school because of the system. (Sometimes teachers do not even hand back the homework or mention it which makes you wonder what happens to my work?) It seems school gives student some sort of stress and pressure that make us dislike school but at the same time wanting us to learn the materials well. If going to school is to be knowledgeable and be fit in the society, why we have to learn in certain way if that’s not even be the best way to help us learn? Why school has to make everything so miserable, and so little of happiness and joy? My prediction about this was that because we don't really have a say about how school works or should be structure since the day we go to school, we develop a habit or an image of "school", something that is already being set up, and you shouldn't change it other than just deal with it. Thus, we don't question why and just treat it as a supernatural thing to do in life and we shouldn't question why because that really helps us, somehow.
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