Passage into my life. GCSE = General Certificate of Secondary Education, just to say in advance...
Most of my schooling is useless. I have my English, my Maths, the two "must get" qualifications. I also have my ALAN, or Adult Literacy and Numeracy, which is more or less a second monument to English/Maths. Now I'm waiting for results, from both my Skill Force (Two GCSE's) and ICT (One), which'll equate to 6 GCSE's at level C and above, including ones that are very, very useful for the future. I have 11 exams over May and June, and I'll be honest, I'm going to fail most of them. Why I anticipate this? I never revise, I barely pay attention, and I simply don't care. As I said, I'm at what I need and I haven't started my finals properly - the only ones I intend to give my all, are science which'll get me to 8 GCSE's assuming everything goes to plan.
Now, on the anticipation again... two years. Two years. I have wasted most of my lessons that were set in stone. Why? I don't enjoy these lessons, I can't be motivated to learn, because I do not like to work academically, and it doesn't help that all of this "how do you learn best" and "we want to support learning" stuff isn't ideal to some of these teachers either. I have recently found that using my laptop to type out information is incredibly ideal - I get my work done faster, more efficiently, more understandable because my handwriting is junk, and overall? It's so much better for me! But no, some teachers disagree. Even if I offer to sit within their sight so they KNOW I'm not on games, it's a no. No matter how much I argue that it's my preferred way of learning, no. I know it's a bit of a jump forward, and I admire the attempts that these teachers make, but really - most of them can't do their job. Again on motivation, I'm commonly bullied and talked down in my school, despite the fact I tower over a lot of people, and I generally get negatively emotional easily. I tell a teacher, it's either "just ignore them", "do you know who they are?" or some other stupid excuse... well sorry, but if you can't keep a student motivated, their learning efficiency is decreased, and chances are that student will also suffer in the future based on it. I'd like to point out that ignoring a problem does not solve it - maybe if you done your job and undertaken a duty that you have been charged with, I'll be more motivated around you, I'll be glad to thank you, I'll respect you more... and for the other? I'm not going to ask them their names, take out a notepad and write them down for you, and I'm sure they won't be willing to tell me either.
Now, with some things, I understand why they're in school. I'm kind of intrigued by the look on life, "Ruled by numbers - every step you take, how many times your heart beats per minute, how many years old you are..." and I think you get the picture there. There's numbers involved in everything, and mathematics can serve you well, in general. With language skills? They can, too. Looking back, I'm actually a little disappointed that I didn't choose French as an option over History, as that would be greatly more useful to me than knowing who killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914.
More or less emphasising my view on the teachers I have, though... I had times where I would just say "I give up." on subjects. My History teacher was telling me that I couldn't do such a thing and REFUSED to take me off the course. 6 months later? She asks me why I'm so demotivated in class, and eventually says "Do you even care about History?". I say "no", I'm not going to lie - but then? She rants to me how I've wasted two years of my life studying it then, and she's going to talk to the achievement manager of the school to get me removed. Oh, and it'll cost me money to do so. Refuse to bring me out except for when I'm already in, and then have a go at me, even insisting on removing me and THEN telling me about the price of being withdrawn? Nice going, congratulations, you now have negative respect from me.
I have also had arguments. With the headteacher. About school rules. "You can't eat outside"... why? I've been doing it for 3 years in the exact same spot. "You were lucky"... For 3 years? Are you honestly that far from the knowledge I eat outside then? You're a bit of a joker of a headteacher, I don't know who I should criticise, the person above you or you yourself. "Can I see some paperwork or written evidence?"... I didn't recieve any, just a "Just follow the rule" - I am not following an inexistant rule, that you can't back up and you have the head teacher AND a deputy head to put me down with. Well you know what? It's not working. There's also me getting refused food, for wearing my hat indoors. I didn't take it off at all, because... it was stupid. I was going back outside the minute I had picked up a sausage roll. Great, deny a student food hmm? Perhaps I should starve myself for sinning against the school, oh no, a hat! I have also had it from other teachers... "You can't wear a leather jacket"... there were two people just walk past wear the exact same type of clothing. Yeah, thanks for your ignorance. That happened twice, second time with a denim jacket.
To finish, mum's opinion is "Just do it" now, and she is just plain irritated with my school to the point that, as opposed to my "viva la revolution" attitude, she gives in.
TL;DR? Teachers are incapable of doing their job, the way things are set out is stupid, how they deal with things is incomprehensable idiocy, and I am prepared to not back down because they make rules up against me. I feel sorry for the other students, then again, a lot of them get away with their laughs, but it's usually those ones that are the problem to me.