School Survival Guide v1-3

8/2/2019 School Survival Guide v1-3

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======================================================================..: School Survival Guide :..www.school-survival.net/guide

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Version 1.3

Author: SoulRiserContact: 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 :)

======================================================================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 easyway 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 beincluded. What's "important", you might ask? The most informationalor well-written articles, for example. Things submitted by visitors,like pranks or things like that as well. Basically, sort of like acondensed version of the site, for easy reference at school orwherever else you may be. Printers love text files, too ;)

======================================================================TABLE OF CONTENTS

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TIP: To jump to any section quickly, copy the section number and thetitle, then use the search function in your text reader to jump tothat section. For example, to go straight to the poem called "Used tobe" using Notepad, you'd copy "[2.4.2] Used to be", press CTRL+F (andpaste it into the search box if it's not already in there), and hitENTER.

[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


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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

[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

======================================================================[1] The WHAT (Introductions)

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First of all, why would anyone hate school so much that they'd maketwo sites about it, and then seven years after that, condense all theinfo into a really long guide?

Well, that deserves a good explanation, and you're not going to getone here. You'll get a good explanation by reading the Articles inthis guide, but if you just want it "in a nutshell", here are threesimple 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 toenforce their superiority by punishing students for no good reasonwhatsoever.3. "Learning" in school is done by following elaborate "learningmethods", none of which are really much more than ways to trick yourbrain into remembering things it otherwise would disregard.

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


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can learn the basics on their own or elsewhere, there should benothing forcing them to still go to school.

Here are a few short descriptions of some of the more commonalternatives to public schools.

Homeschooling

If you have cool parents, this could work quite well. This is alsooften done among different families as a team effort - say your momteaches 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

Private schools have the potential to be a lot better than publicones, but sadly a lot of them aren't. The usual complaint is thateveryone is a snobbish rich kid. But still, there may be a GOODprivate school in your area, so look around.

Charter schoolsWritten by: Happy Camper

An independent studies program. They aren't completely common orwidely available yet but it is definitely worth looking into. It's ahomeschool program for middle schoolers and highschoolers that allowthem 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 variousprojects on various books mostly to do with American Literature, andpossibly a few essays, I also have a series of vocab questions to gothrough to prepare me for the SAT, any book I read in my free time Ican count down as long as I do a small report on it, I go in to thepublic school on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays to cover mylanguage credit and take a french class with the local public schoolkids. I audit a math class which basically means I follow the precalccurriculum at the local public school without being required toattend those long tedious lectures (I'm pretty good when it comes tomath, those lectures are just a waste of time) but still coming infor the tests. Gym and art credits you may ask? I dance and thenvolunteer for theatre projects. Any other conventions I attend suchas a young Writer's convention that I attended not far back, I canlog too. My transcript won't appear as a normal highschool transcriptand I will have to jump through some extra hoops when applying tocolleges. Next year, rather than take classes through the highschool,I will very likely take my classes through a community collegenearby. This is a perfect fit for me. Under my current condition Ihave no problem researching and doing work. I mainly have a problemgoing into school and have both social and academic expectations ofme on a daily basis. But I can go into the Charter center and usethose materials there almost as a study hall. I'm accountable to themso I don't just sit at home and play video games every day without

ever working on my graduation requirements. But yeah. I'm prettysmart...looking into becoming an author. But the highschoolattendence life just never worked for me. We are invited to the prom


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and theatre productions down at the local public school, but I doubtI'll do either.

The magic of charter schools. I just happened to be surprised theyhaven't been brought up yet. It's that homeschool alternative withoutthe smock dress conservative stereotype. I mean...my Mom isn't reallyinvolved in teaching me at all. I just research and teach myself. I

do wish I had this alternative earlier on.

Links

www.school-survival.net/directory/Alternatives

Unschooling:

www.unschooling.orgwww.unschooling.comwww.holtgws.comgroups.yahoo.com/group/worldwideunschoolers

home.rmci.net/abell/page7.htm

Homeschooling:

www.learninfreedom.orghomeschooling.about.comwww.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 schoolis bad, guides on how to unschool/homeschool and various other things.

The Teenage Liberation Handbook: How to Quit School and Get a RealLife and Education, by Grace LlewellynThe Unprocessed Child: Living Without School, by Valerie FitzenreiterReal Lives: Eleven Teenagers Who Don't Go To School, by GraceLlewellyn

Add to this page----------------------------------------------

This is just a very basic little list so far - if you think I've leftout something major, contact me and tell me about it. As always, sitesuggestions for the Directory are very much appreciated.

======================================================================[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 perfectlyunderstandable response to being compelled to go to school againsttheir will. They are not phobic, any more than a conscientiousobjector is a coward; they are refusing and in most cases verynobly. Over the years, I have spoken to many worried parents ofschool-refusing children. The outrages these children have beensubjected to in the name of education disgust me. They have been

saddled with a pseudo-medical label that has deliberate connotationsof mental illness with all the stigma and the implied (and not-so-implied) menace that goes with that. Their perfectly reasonabledissent, and their desperately courageous resistance to being hurtand harmed has been cynically redefined as overdependence,psychological instability, and immaturity. They have beenpsychologically tortured under the guise of psychiatric orpsychological treatment for a non-existent ailment. Their parents also demeaned by labels such as overprotective have beenthreatened with court action unless they physically force theirterrified, traumatised children into school every day. Many suchparents who have sought my advice have themselves been in a terrible

state of stress and trauma. Why don't they just comply? Because theyknow 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 itconsciously. Or if they do, they also know the contradictory ideathat it is right and important for children to be schooled, becausethe law, the psychiatric, psychological, and educational professionsall say so. They may be nice people in many respects, but as a resultof their own parents' coercion, they are simply unable to see howdamaging 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 sufferlifelong trauma as a result) for many years but then forces them toobey every whim of the warders, takes up their time with mind-numbingmakework, leaving them almost no time for their own pursuits, and insome cases even force-feeds inmates, and so on. Thinking of vicioustyrants like Saddam Hussein, most will be incensed. They will railagainst the brutality and immorality of such a system. Until you tellthem that you were referring to our own dear school system. Then theywill 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 fivedays out of seven. Super. And I suppose that the knowledge that theyare to be locked up for five days a week for eleven years does notremotely affect them on the days when they are free? False. Thepsychological effects of school hang like a pall over children'slives, twisting their thinking and stunting their intellectual andpsychological growth, whether it is a school day or not.

How would you feel if you were told today that you must go to schoolfor the next eleven years, that you must attend all the classes Ihave deemed necessary for you, that you must submit to humiliatingprocedures and that you will probably be in fear for your physicalsafety much of the time. But worse, that you will have to put yourown life on hold for eleven years in order to jump through the hoopsthat will be set up for you?

Even this comparison fails to capture some of the more destructiveeffects of compulsory schooling on children. Childhood is both the


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still fighting; they still have a sense of self; they have not beensuccessfully crushed and moulded by the system. They are like thecharacter played by Jack Nicholson in the very important film OneFlew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. And teachers and parents who calmlyconspire in this despicable treatment of fellow human beings (yes,children are human beings too) are like the serenely evil psychiatricnurse in that film.

So I, as an adult and a psychologist, want to say to any children outthere 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 bearto think about it so they hardly even know how they feel. You are notmad you don't have a Deep Psychological Problem (though you mightdevelop one if you stay in school against your will!); and you arenot bad for wanting to live your life the way you choose, doing whatyou think right that is what everyone should be doing. You are notthe problem: coercion is the problem. Being forced to go to school isthe problem.

Original article and some more links:http://www.fitz-claridge.com/Articles/schoolphobia.html

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

----------------------------------------------------------------------[2.2] You're not worthless

by SoulRiser (School Survival's webmistress)----------------------------------------------------------------------

"Schools have rules that you have to obey. If you disobey, you willbe punished. Respect people higher than you. Don't backchat. Shut up

while a teacher is talking. Stop wasting the teacher's time and doyour work."

Doesn't it make you sick? Don't you just hate it when a teacher makesan example out of a student that got an A for something and asks youwhy you can't achieve the same? Or when a teacher is in a bad moodand snaps at you, then when you defend yourself you get in troublefor "backchatting"? Or when a teacher is talking about something thathas nothing to do with you, and you're trying to tell somethingimportant to a friend, then you are told to shut up and respect theteacher?

You are led to believe that you are a little piece of nothing, andmight as well let people tell you what to do because you're notcapable of making your own decisions. A lot of schools make a list ofall the "top-achievers" to brag with, but a lot of the time thestudents who don't get high marks see it and feel ashamed. If you'reone of those "under-achievers", don't be ashamed, be proud. Why?Because there are plenty of things you can do much better than thoseso-called "top-achievers". Everyone's good at something and bad atsomething else. Find what you're good at, concentrate on it, andlaugh at anyone who tries to tell you you're stupid.

Who are the most important people in schools? Not the principal, notthe 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 gothere - they are forced to go. In most schools, the remainingstudents who haven't run away or committed suicide deserve a medal for


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ENDURANCE! So, considering the fact that us students are the mostimportant (parents being the second most important, they have to payfor our mistreatment), shouldn't we be treated a little more likehumans with our own unique personalities, our own goals and dreams,our own ideas and opinions, instead of being looked down upon as ifwe're nothing more than disobedient, ungrateful brats? I think weshould be.

Written by: SoulRiser

----------------------------------------------------------------------[2.3] Harm in the School System

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

As a social psychiatrist, I examine society much like a doctorexamines a patient. One of the most troubling ailments that Iencounter is our school system, which - without ever realizing it -

harms the majority of our students.

It is my belief that our school system is the most fundamental causeof the social problems that our society faces today. Far from beingexpensive, the solution to this problem would cost no money.

Speaking from a psychiatric perspective, our most critical mentalattributes 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 theseattributes 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 immediatelyafter children begin school. This would suggest that something aboutour school system is in direct conflict with the human psyche. Theacademy-award-winning film American Beauty captures the essence ofsocial dysfunction in today's world, and has the power to portraymany things that cannot equally be expressed through the writtenword. I would urge you to see this film. Note how most of thecharacters in this film suffer from a major personality disorder. Byrestructuring our schools, many such disorders could be prevented. Iwill show you how.

First, we must conquer our obsession with attempting to alignacademic achievement with a time-table. Everyone has a very uniquepersonality, and therefore, learns at a different pace. Some peopleare ready to learn how to read at age 3, while others may be betterto suited to learning how at age 10. In schools, we force subjectmatter down the throats of the students. We neglect to realize,however, that children learn much more quickly and effectively ifthey are receptive and eager to learn the subject matter. Childrencould master the basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic far morequickly, if they were allowed to learn what they wanted to learn whenthey 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


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wanted to.

Classroom education was far from mandatory, yet children stilllearned to read, write, and perform arithmetic. In fact, SenatorKennedy's office once released a paper stating that prior to theimplementation 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 theproblems that plague our schools. The motivation to learn must comefrom within the student. Often, we become so concerned withfulfilling the demands of other people, that we lose track of what wefeel and who we are. I have met or worked with countless individualswho are intellectually well developed, but who have lost touch withtheir inner-self.

As a child, everyone is curious and eager to learn. Before attendingschool and being subjected to this process of coercion, children

manage to learn a complex language (in bilingual families, twolanguages) and a copious amount of things about their environment.There is no reason why such learning could not continue without thenegative effects of rigid institutionalization and standardized testscores, which seem to form the basis of modern-day education. Ratherthan hindering the growth of our children, we must provide anenvironment that will nourish them, and facilitate continuouslearning.

Shaun Kerry, M.D.Diplomate, American Board of Psychiatry and Neurologyhttp://www.school-reform.net/

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

by John Taylor Gatto (a teacher)----------------------------------------------------------------------

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 inboredom. Boredom was everywhere in my world, and if you asked thekids, as I often did, why they felt so bored, they always gave thesame answers: They said the work was stupid, that it made no sense,that they already knew it. They said they wanted to be doingsomething real, not just sitting around. They said teachers didn'tseem to know much about their subjects and clearly weren't interestedin learning more. And the kids were right: their teachers were everybit as bored as they were.

Boredom is the common condition of schoolteachers, and anyone who hasspent time in a teachers' lounge can vouch for the low energy, thewhining, the dispirited attitudes, to be found there. When asked whythey feel bored, the teachers tend to blame the kids, as you mightexpect. Who wouldn't get bored teaching students who are rude andinterested only in grades? If even that. Of course, teachers arethemselves products of the same twelve-year compulsory schoolprograms that so thoroughly bore their students, and as school

personnel they are trapped inside structures even more rigid thanthose 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 wasseven I complained to him of boredom, and he batted me hard on thehead. He told me that I was never to use that term in his presenceagain, that if I was bored it was my fault and no one else's. Theobligation to amuse and instruct myself was entirely my own, andpeople who didn't know that were childish people, to be avoided ifpossible. Certainty not to be trusted. That episode cured me of

boredom forever, and here and there over the years I was able to passon the lesson to some remarkable student. For the most part, however,I found it futile to challenge the official notion that boredom andchildishness were the natural state of affairs in the classroom.Often I had to defy custom, and even bend the law, to help kids breakout of this trap.

The empire struck back, of course; childish adults regularly conflateopposition with disloyalty. I once returned from a medical leave todiscover that all evidence of my having been granted the leave hadbeen purposely destroyed, that my job had been terminated, and that Ino longer possessed even a teaching license. After nine months of

tormented effort I was able to retrieve the license when a schoolsecretary testified to witnessing the plot unfold. In the meantime myfamily suffered more than I care to remember. By the time I finallyretired in 1991, 1 had more than enough reason to think of ourschools-with their long-term, cell-block-style, forced confinement ofboth students and teachers-as virtual factories of childishness. YetI honestly could not see why they had to be that way. My ownexperience had revealed to me what many other teachers must learnalong the way, too, yet keep to themselves for fear of reprisal: ifwe wanted to we could easily and inexpensively jettison the old,stupid structures and help kids take an education rather than merelyreceive a schooling. We could encourage the best qualities ofyouthfulness-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 bygiving each student what autonomy he or she needs in order to take arisk every now and then.

But we don't do that. And the more I asked why not, and persisted inthinking about the "problem" of schooling as an engineer might, themore I missed the point: What if there is no "problem" with ourschools? What if they are the way they are, so expensively flying inthe face of common sense and long experience in how children learnthings, not because they are doing something wrong but because theyare doing something right? Is it possible that George W. Bushaccidentally spoke the truth when he said we would "leave no childbehind"? Could it be that our schools are designed to make sure notone of them ever really grows up?

Do we really need school? I don't mean education, just forcedschooling: six classes a day, five days a week, nine months a year,for twelve years. Is this deadly routine really necessary? And if so,for what? Don't hide behind reading, writing, and arithmetic as arationale, because 2 million happy homeschoolers have surely put thatbanal justification to rest. Even if they hadn't, a considerablenumber of well-known Americans never went through the twelve-yearwringer 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 productsof a school system, and not one of them was ever "graduated" from asecondary school. Throughout most of American history, kids generally


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didn't go to high school, yet the unschooled rose to be admirals,like Farragut; inventors, like Edison; captains of industry likeCarnegie and Rockefeller; writers, like Melville and Twain andConrad; and even scholars, like Margaret Mead. In fact, until prettyrecently people who reached the age of thirteen weren't looked uponas children at all. Ariel Durant, who co-wrote an enormous, and verygood, multivolume history of the world with her husband, Will, was

happily married at fifteen, and who could reasonably claim that ArielDurant was an uneducated person? Unschooled, perhaps, but notuneducated.

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 anintellectual or a financial sense. And plenty of people throughoutthe world today find a way to educate themselves without resorting toa system of compulsory secondary schools that all too often resembleprisons. Why, then, do Americans confuse education with just such asystem? What exactly is the purpose of our public schools?

Mass schooling of a compulsory nature really got its teeth into theUnited States between 1905 and 1915, though it was conceived of muchearlier and pushed for throughout most of the nineteenth century. Thereason given for this enormous upheaval of family life and culturaltraditions was, roughly speaking, threefold:

1) To make good people. 2) To make good citizens. 3) To make eachperson his or her personal best. These goals are still trotted outtoday on a regular basis, and most of us accept them in one form oranother as a decent definition of public education's mission, howevershort 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 compulsoryschooling's true purpose. We have, for example, the great H. L.Mencken, who wrote in The American Mercury for April 1924 that theaim of public education is not

to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken theirintelligence. ... Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim... is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the samesafe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put downdissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States... andthat is its aim everywhere else.

Because of Mencken's reputation as a satirist, we might be tempted todismiss this passage as a bit of hyperbolic sarcasm. His article,however, goes on to trace the template for our own educational systemback to the now vanished, though never to be forgotten, militarystate of Prussia. And although he was certainly aware of the ironythat we had recently been at war with Germany, the heir to Prussianthought and culture, Mencken was being perfectly serious here. Oureducational system really is Prussian in origin, and that really iscause for concern.

The odd fact of a Prussian provenance for our schools pops up againand again once you know to look for it. William James alluded to itmany times at the turn of the century. Orestes Brownson, the hero of

Christopher Lasch's 1991 book, The True and Only Heaven, was publiclydenouncing the Prussianization of American schools back in the 1840s.Horace Mann's "Seventh Annual Report" to the Massachusetts State


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Board of Education in 1843 is essentially a paean to the land ofFrederick 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 Prussianserved as Washington's aide during the Revolutionary War, and so manyGerman-speaking people had settled here by 1795 that Congressconsidered publishing a German-language edition of the federal laws.

But what shocks is that we should so eagerly have adopted one of thevery worst aspects of Prussian culture: an educational systemdeliberately designed to produce mediocre intellects, to hamstringthe inner life, to deny students appreciable leadership skills, andto ensure docile and incomplete citizens 11 in order to render thepopulace "manageable."

It was from James Bryant Conant-president of Harvard for twentyyears, WWI poison-gas specialist, WWII executive on the atomic-bombproject, high commissioner of the American zone in Germany afterWWII, and truly one of the most influential figures of the twentiethcentury-that I first got wind of the real purposes of American

schooling. Without Conant, we would probably not have the same styleand degree of standardized testing that we enjoy today, nor would webe blessed with gargantuan high schools that warehouse 2,000 to 4,000students at a time, like the famous Columbine High in Littleton,Colorado. Shortly after I retired from teaching I picked up Conant's1959 book-length essay, The Child the Parent and the State, and wasmore than a little intrigued to see him mention in passing that themodern schools we attend were the result of a "revolution" engineeredbetween 1905 and 1930. A revolution? He declines to elaborate, but hedoes direct the curious and the uninformed to Alexander Inglis's 1918book, Principles of Secondary Education, in which "one saw thisrevolution through the eyes of a revolutionary."

Inglis, for whom a lecture in education at Harvard is named, makes itperfectly clear that compulsory schooling on this continent wasintended to be just what it had been for Prussia in the 1820s: afifth column into the burgeoning democratic movement that threatenedto give the peasants and the proletarians a voice at the bargainingtable. Modern, industrialized, compulsory schooling was to make asort of surgical incision into the prospective unity of theseunderclasses. Divide children by subject, by age-grading, by constantrankings on tests, and by many other more subtle means, and it wasunlikely 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 modernschooling into six basic functions, any one of which is enough tocurl the hair of those innocent enough to believe the threetraditional goals listed earlier:

1) The adjustive or adaptive function. Schools are to establish fixedhabits of reaction to authority. This, of course, precludes criticaljudgment completely. It also pretty much destroys the idea thatuseful or interesting material should be taught, because you can'ttest for reflexive obedience until you know whether you can make kidslearn, and do, foolish and boring things.

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

conformity function," because its intention is to make children asalike as possible. People who conform are predictable, and this is ofgreat use to those who wish to harness and manipulate a large labor


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force.

3) The diagnostic and directive function. School is meant todetermine each student's proper social role. This is done by loggingevidence 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 sofar as their destination in the social machine merits - and not onestep further. So much for making kids their personal best.

5) The selective function. This refers not to human choice at all butto Darwin's theory of natural selection as applied to what he called"the favored races." In short, the idea is to help things along byconsciously attempting to improve the breeding stock. Schools aremeant to tag the unfit - with poor grades, remedial placement, andother punishments - clearly enough that their peers will accept themas inferior and effectively bar them from the reproductive

sweepstakes. That's what all those little humiliations from firstgrade onward were intended to do: wash the dirt down the drain.

6) The propaedeutic function. The societal system implied by theserules will require an elite group of caretakers. To that end, a smallfraction of the kids will quietly be taught how to manage thiscontinuing project, how to watch over and control a populationdeliberately dumbed down and declawed in order that government mightproceed unchallenged and corporations might never want for obedientlabor.

That, unfortunately, is the purpose of mandatory public education inthis country. And lest you take Inglis for an isolated crank with a

rather too cynical take on the educational enterprise, you shouldknow that he was hardly alone in championing these ideas. Conanthimself, building on the ideas of Horace Mann and others, campaignedtirelessly for an American school system designed along the samelines. Men like George Peabody, who funded the cause of mandatoryschooling throughout the South, surely understood that the Prussiansystem was useful in creating not only a harmless electorate and aservile labor force but also a virtual herd of mindless consumers. Intime a great number of industrial titans came to recognize theenormous profits to be had by cultivating and tending just such aherd via public education, among them Andrew Carnegie and John D.Rockefeller.

There you have it. Now you know. We don't need Karl Marx's conceptionof a grand warfare between the classes to see that it is in theinterest of complex management, economic or political, to dumb peopledown, to demoralize them, to divide them from one another, and todiscard them if they don't conform. Class may frame the proposition,as when Woodrow Wilson, then president of Princeton University, saidthe following to the New York City School Teachers Association in1909: "We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, andwe want another class of persons, a very much larger class, ofnecessity, in every society, to forgo the privileges of a liberaleducation and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manualtasks." But the motives behind the disgusting decisions that bring

about these ends need not be class-based at all. They can stem purelyfrom fear, or from the by now familiar belief that "efficiency" isthe paramount virtue, rather than love, liberty, laughter, or hope.


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Above all, they can stem from simple greed.

There were vast fortunes to be made, after all, in an economy basedon mass production and organized to favor the large corporationrather than the small business or the family farm. But massproduction required mass consumption, and at the turn of thetwentieth century most Americans considered it both unnatural and

unwise to buy things they didn't actually need. Mandatory schoolingwas a godsend on that count. School didn't have to train kids in anydirect sense to think they should consume nonstop, because it didsomething even better: it encouraged them not to think at all. Andthat left them sitting ducks for another great invention of themodern era - marketing.

Now, you needn't have studied marketing to know that there are twogroups of people who can always be convinced to consume more thanthey need to: addicts and children. School has done a pretty good jobof turning our children into addicts, but it has done a spectacularjob of turning our children into children. Again, this is no

accident. Theorists from Plato to Rousseau to our own Dr. Inglis knewthat if children could be cloistered with other children, stripped ofresponsibility and independence, encouraged to develop only thetrivializing emotions of greed, envy, jealousy, and fear, they wouldgrow older but never truly grow up. In the 1934 edition of his oncewell-known book Public Education in the United States, Ellwood P.Cubberley detailed and praised the way the strategy of successiveschool enlargements had extended childhood by two to six years, andforced schooling was at that point still quite new. This sameCubberley - who was dean of Stanford's School of Education, atextbook editor at Houghton Mifflin, and Conant's friend andcorrespondent at Harvard - had written the following in the 1922edition of his book Public School Administration: "Our schools are

... factories in which the raw products (children) are to be shapedand fashioned .... And it is the business of the school to build itspupils according to the specifications laid down."

It's perfectly obvious from our society today what thosespecifications were. Maturity has by now been banished from nearlyevery aspect of our lives. Easy divorce laws have removed the need towork at relationships; easy credit has removed the need for fiscalself-control; easy entertainment has removed the need to learn toentertain oneself; easy answers have removed the need to askquestions. We have become a nation of children, happy to surrenderour judgments and our wills to political exhortations and commercialblandishments that would insult actual adults. We buy televisions,and then we buy the things we see on the television. We buycomputers, 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 aparttoo soon we buy another pair. We drive SUVs and believe the lie thatthey constitute a kind of life insurance, even when we're upside-downin them. And, worst of all, we don't bat an eye when Ari Fleischertells us to "be careful what you say," even if we remember havingbeen told somewhere back in school that America is the land of thefree. We simply buy that one too. Our schooling, as intended, hasseen to it.

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

schooling, its tricks and traps are fairly easy to avoid. Schooltrains children to be employees and consumers; teach your own to beleaders and adventurers. School trains children to obey reflexively;


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teach your own to think critically and independently. Well-schooledkids have a low threshold for boredom; help your own to develop aninner life so that they'll never be bored. Urge them to take on theserious material, the grown-up material, in history, literature,philosophy, music, art, economics, theology - all the stuffschoolteachers know well enough to avoid. Challenge your kids withplenty of solitude so that they can learn to enjoy their own company,

to conduct inner dialogues. Well-schooled people are conditioned todread being alone, and they seek constant companionship through theTV, the computer, the cell phone, and through shallow friendshipsquickly acquired and quickly abandoned. Your children should have amore 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 thehabits and attitudes that corporate society demands. Mandatoryeducation serves children only incidentally; its real purpose is toturn them into servants. Don't let your own have their childhoodsextended, not even for a day. If David Farragut could take command of

a captured British warship as a pre-teen, if Thomas Edison couldpublish a broadsheet at the age of twelve, if Ben Franklin couldapprentice himself to a printer at the same age (then put himselfthrough 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 thatgenius is as common as dirt. We suppress our genius only because wehaven't yet figured out how to manage a population of educated menand women. The solution, I think, is simple and glorious. Let themmanage themselves.

Written by: John Taylor Gatto

----------------------------------------------------------------------[2.5] Poetry about school & youth rightswww.school-survival.net/poetry

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

[2.5.1] School Frustrationsby SoulRiser

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Schools don't educatethey teach us to fearand surrender to fate

Schools make learning dullmemorizing details is simply no fun

Of course it's all indirectit's hidden so well thatno-one would suspectthat it's here and it's therelook around, it's not fair

You turn to the classand ask a question

I would gladly replyif I were so inclined


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But something else is on my mindlearning of a different kind

The things that mean the most to meare good and pure and true and free

I speak with a friendand I'm punished for thatwhen I try to defendI'm thrown out for backchat

Respect is somethingthat you have to earnbut you yell, demandand give none in return


[2.5.2] Used to beby SoulRiser

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This is a poem I wrote about my school.

--------

There used to be respect herewhen it wasn't in demandexcellence in atmospherekindness all around

but advertising those factswouldn't work in this town

emphasizing other thingsremoving many choicesone by one they disappearsilencing our voices

you protect yourself from open mindsas you shrug the blame awaytook a chance with one of a kindand then lied to save your name

you started by ignoringand slowly grew to greednow all the good has fallenbecause of one bad seed.


[2.5.3] Our mark in passingby Spooky Poet

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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 yetrecieved no guidance, counseling or consideration for the particular


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challenges that Gifted students face. The attitude was that of "Youare Gifted, thus you should excel with minimal effort in all of yourclasses." Yeah, okay. I would if I wasn't so damn bored by the lackof challenge that I stop paying attention long enough to lose trackof the lesson.

Our Mark In Passing December 5, 1989

Look at us, sitting in rows organized and lined up. Our seatsidentical. Only our faces and clothes are different and they can evenmake our clothes the same if they decide to. Eight times a day we goto the same places we were the day before. The teacher checks eachday 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 roundedindividuals." Sure, we'll be well rounded, every corner will havebeen smoothed over, So that our rough edges will not catch, snag orirritate the Walls as we are processed through this building. Heavenforbid 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 withsociety the way we made you to fit, don't make waves, don't changethings, or we will have failed in our attempt of programming you aswe taught." But we will not come out as individuals, our rough edgesand corners made us different, and so in smoothing them over they rubout and cover up our identities. All that lost so that the System canprocess us through without wearing out. Yet some of us are hard, likediamonds, we cannot be smoothed and the Walls bleed with change wherewe have been pushed through. The wound will heal but there will stillbe the scar, we will have made our mark in passing.

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 Iwrote this poem. It was a friend that pointed out the possiblesymbology of that after she read the poem.

[2.5.4] Take Actionby Badlands17

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Theyre just like other peopleBut now, theyre the steepleOf a tower of arbitrary hateOf youre just going to have to waitThe amount of time you are on this EarthDoes not indicate your intellect and worthYoung man; dont waitFight the fight; set things straightIf you believe in yourselfYou can fight the ice shelfIts projecting out to youAnd saying this is what you have to doFight back; say You dont control my life

The opportunities are rifeRife without youI want to be through


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But then you rememberYou are simply a stray emberIn 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 wouldrather be somewhere else. These young people often actually love tolearn - the problem is that few subjects offered at school areinteresting to them, or the way in which it is presented is just

horribly boring.

Before I go on, it is possible to legally get out of school, and getyour education in other ways, through homeschooling or unschooling(if your parents will let you). Since this article is more focused onhow to survive school if you can't get out, more information aboutthose 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 theythinking when they designed a school that would teach everyone thesame 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 preferto do things your own way, that's a GOOD thing. Those kids whofunction best when told what to do every second of their lives willprobably be working for you someday.

What about those people who assume that just because they did well inschool or even liked it, that everyone should be capable of the sameresults? Don't worry about them. You can't expect everyone tounderstand you, just as they can't expect everyone to react to schoolthe way they did. You could try to reason with them, but some peoplejust won't change their minds no matter what, so don't lose sleepover them.

2) You're not the only one.

Lots of young people hate school. Lots of older people still hateschool. Does that mean people who hate school are doomed to "flipburgers the rest of their lives"? Nope. Just because someone hatesschool doesn't mean they hate learning - in fact, often people hateschool precisely BECAUSE they love learning - school is so boring itgives learning a bad name.

Some people who won the Nobel Prize hated school:

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


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innocent people so horrible as a school."Albert Einstein said, "Education is what remains after one hasforgotten 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 isoften done by following elaborate "learning methods", none of whichare really much more than ways to trick your brain into rememberingthings it otherwise would disregard. Some people actually remembersome of this information later in their lives - especially if theyhappen 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 everythingthey ever learned at school - including the skills needed forreading, 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 andtry something else, don't despair! There is some fun to be had inschool. If you already have a good circle of friends there, you'reoff to a good start. If not, whatever you do, don't change yourselfto "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'sthat "school is what you make of it". This is true. If you don't wantit to be boring, bring something interesting to do. Just don't makeit too obvious or it might get confiscated for being a "distractionfrom your education". Make a "mission" for yourself to achieve inschool - this could be anything you choose, or a good cause - likefinding 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.

If homework and tests are taking up time that you could spend doingthings that actually interest you, there are ways around it. If yourparents aren't too fussy about your marks, you could just do the bareminimum required to pass. If, on the other hand, they want "nothingbut the best", maybe you should try reasoning with them. Tell themhow school makes you feel. Explain to them that you'd learn a lotmore if things weren't forced on you. It's bad enough having theteachers down your throat about all sorts of things, but having yourparents on your back as well is like being attacked from all sideswith no escape. If you can't get a word in, try writing it down andhaving 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 itlook 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 surviveschool with your sanity intact, and it's a luxury not many youngpeople have. Put as much effort into reasoning with your parents asyou possibly can, and only after all else fails should you considerother ways of getting good marks that don't involve working so hard,like finding a friend and helping each other finish the work offquicker.

Hopefully this article has helped you in some way, or at leastcheered 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 evenhelp out some other people along the way. Good luck.

HELPFUL LINKSwww.school-survival.net/articles - More articles about schoolwww.school-survival.net/alternatives.php - Alternatives to school(homeschooling, unschooling, etc.)

learninfreedom.org/Nobel_hates_school.html - More Nobel Prize winnerswho 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 whowant to change things seem to be more focused on "reforming" theschools - and they don't seem to realise that all their effortstrying to change schools aren't letting the young people know thatthere are people out there who actually care about them. From theunhappy kids' point of view, everyone just keeps telling them to"sweat it out" and that it's "for their own good". Who would want tolive in a world where nobody cares or understands?

So, for the most part, the #1 priority is reaching out to kids whoare 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: EmieThis is one of my favorite sites. When I first found this site

last year, I was frustrated and upset with the homework I wassupposed to be doing. I randomly typed something into the searchengine, like "school is bad" or something like that, and this sitecame up. Once I started to read this site, espescially the Opinionssection, I was completely amazed. This site was the first thing I hadever seen that expressed my feelings for school completely. It seemedsometimes like what I was reading was what I'd been feeling foryears, but couldn't put into words myself. Just knowing other peoplefelt the way I did was a great feeling. Thanks for making such agreat site, having a site like this really makes a difference topeople! ^_^

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


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you yell, they'll just have an excuse to say you're immature. Staycalm while they yell :)* Don't pick on every teacher just because they're a teacher, benice 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'vefound. Or print copies of the School Survival Guide and distributethat. Or use the print link on any page on this site, and pass thataround.

Protest whenever someone gets suspended or expelled for somethingdress code related, or for having a nailclipper or some other so-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 whatthey think of various rules and other things at your school, andforward the results to the principal.

Give your school a report card! Grade the various aspects of it, likehow much respect students get, the excitement level of classes, smellof the bathrooms, etc. Print lots of copies and give them to peopleor stick them on the bulletin boards and stuff. Get students to signit 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 thatdon't count for anything. Get together and have lots of students justleave those tests blank. If asked why you're leaving it blank,explain your frustrations with the current school system placing somuch weight on tests and grades and numbers. You could fill in yourreasons for leaving it blank on your answer sheet itself, if you like.

Join up with other student groups and protesters, and work togetherwith them. If you're in the US, you should almost definitely join orstart a NYRA (Youth Rights) chapter as well.www.youthrights.org

If you have a school newspaper, try to get involved. Then have alittle column or something with students opinions on various schoolissues.

Make a list of all the closed-minded teachers and a separate list ofgood teachers, and give copies of both lists to new students to warnthem.

Every time you have to do a speech or some presentation, try to putan anti-school message in it. I did this often enough that my oneteacher got all annoyed one time after a speech about school and hesaid "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


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to fit with it and say those instead. If everyone in the class wouldbe saying different words all at the same time, it will have quite aneffect. If you come up with a good alternative pledge and want toshare it with the world, post it on the forums. Also, if you have tosing or say your school's anthem, you can do the same with that.

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

Print out the How to be a Good Teacher guide, and give it toteachers... or just leave it where they will find it :) ... Or, ifyou're a teacher and you're reading this page, I'd highly recommendchecking 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 wherethey are going. The same goes for guerilla disobedience.

If you want to do something to screw up school, print out and carryin a binder copies of laws, court cases, school newspapers, commiteemeeting minutes, policies, budgets, etc. that can help you shakethings up. Also remember to read them, and summarize if they are long.

This way if you see a teacher screwing up, you can tell authoritiesexactly 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 madeabout school. Every now and then, someone gets really frustratedabout school and posts about it on whichever forum they happen to beon. This is a good time to reply to them, assure them there's nothingwrong with hating school, let them know about some alternatives, andmaybe 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 wantto get a rule changed, but you'd be surprised how much more you caninfluence than rules. If your protest doesn't get through to theadministration, that's okay, because more than likely your protestaccomplished something a lot more important: you demonstrated to theother students that they don't have to take school sitting down, that

they can have their say no matter what, and that working together toget something done isn't impossible.


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Making it more interesting----------------------------------------------

To make this whole spread-the-word campaign more interesting, youcould form clubs. For example, a 'RATS Club'. Basically, once you'vereached out to a few people who hate school, why not ask them to helpyou 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 willbe a lot more effective as well. For added effect, make t-shirtsstating 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----------------------------------------------------------------------

If you've ever wanted to know how to make a movement fail, this pagewill tell you how.

Break Stuff and Hurt People

Nothing ruins your credibility like breaking stuff and hurtingpeople. It doesn't matter which of the two you do, either one willruin 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 theirattention by messing stuff up. If you think the teachers are your"enemy" and this is "war" and that breaking stuff will make themrespect you, you're wrong. They will fear you and hate you. When wasthe last time you had any genuine respect for someone you hated? Whenwas the last time you wanted to listen to their ideas and work withthem?

Don't feed the stereotype.

----------------------------------------------------------------------[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 tounite with your peers and build a culture of resistance at yourschool. It is a way to temporarily turn your school upside down andput the students in charge for a change. It is also valuableorganizing training for when the real revolution comes. And if doneright, it can have a big enough impact that actual change in thesystem is made.

Probably the first comment youll have is something like that willnever happen at my school. At least thats what I was saying at thebeginning of my senior year of high school. I never thought we would


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be able to get away with half the stuff we pulled off. Our school wasso boring, mundane, uninteresting. By the end of the year, we hadpublished an underground newspaper distributed in several local highschools, had formed a network of radical student activists, andorganized a student walkout of hundreds of kids in protest of the warin Iraq.

There is absolutely no reason why you cannot accomplish the same, orbetter. The ultimate achievement would be a student strike, sit-in,or walkout. But before the fun stuff comes a lot of movementbuilding. Set your sights high, but take practical approaches to yourgoals.

Before we go any further, your movement must be _about_ something. Ifits just for the hell of it, you should stop reading now becauseyou will fail miserably regardless. So you need a cause behind yourmovement? No! You need a movement behind your cause! If you do nothave a clear message, you will be quickly written off as mindlessteenage rebellion. By having a purpose for the action, you gain

legitimacy among faculty and conservative students and reduce therisk of discipline from the authorities. So make this meaningful.Remember: this is a forum for you to express your dissatisfactionwith the status quo. Believe me, every school has something unfairabout it - dress code, censorship, abusive administrators, pledge ofallegiance, etc. If you play your cards right, something may even getdone about it.

Right. So now that you have selected a few issues to raise a ruckusabout, the first thing you must do before you develop grandoise plansfor student revolution is to start talking to people. Gather theirthoughts about these issues. Try to get them all riled up and wantingto take action. While many people have their personal differences,

almost everyone if you talk to them long enough will agree on somefundamental principles that things are incredibly unfair andsomething should be done about it.

You will quickly discover that one of the first things that you mustovercome is any personal inhibitions you might have towards people.Do NOT be shy or self-restrained. Dont be afraid to go up to totalstrangers in a friendly way and start sharing all these personalexperiences. Reach out to people of different cultural backgrounds.Dont let social cliques and popularity contests keep the studentbody divided - believe me, everyone can unite around the common ideathat 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 andput them up around school announcing when, where, and why. Geteveryone you can together in one room to make some decisions aboutwhat can be done about the issue in question. Have everyone go aroundthe room and introduce themselves. Make sure no one feelsuncomfortable or left out. I also recommend that you read up abouthow to organize a meeting based on the directly democratic concensusprocess 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 willbe forced to consider your actions with more legitimacy, and provide


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you with school resources, rooms, announcements on the PA, puttingposters up around school, etc. However, you are bound by schoolregulations, which may tie your hands from any fun or rebelliousactivities. Of course, that does not mean that you can workindependent of the organizationIt entirely depends on the context ofyour school. Gather as much information about school policiesregarding student organizations and discuss this choice with the

other group members.

Now that you have an activist scene growing at your school, its timeto release some publications. Consider making an undergroundnewsletter 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 ofthis 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 tostudents, raise a ruckus! Stand near the doors in the cafeteriahanding out your propaganda while shouting stuff! Make a scene! Blow

bubbles and fill the halls with laughter! Get hundreds of copies toyour friends so that they can distribute them to their friends andtheir friends, etc. Make sure every single student has access to it.And promote discussion - bring up the debate in your classes, atlunch tables, with strangers in the lunch line, etc. By now, it hasentered the popular consciousness, the seeds have been planted, youhave a strong activist scene, and the time is ripe for an action.

What you should do depends entirely on the context your movementtakes place in. Try to coincide your action with a particular date ofsignificance(in response to a controversial policy made by thegovernment or your school administration, anti-war protest in nearbycities, etc). If possible, look at your local independent media

center(indymedia.org) to see if there are other student activistgroups planning any actions - and try to coordinate your actions withtheirs. Some things to consider might be a student walkout, a sit-inin your school, a march to join up with a larger protest downtown, orin some situations, a simple teach-in to just discuss the issuesmight be appropriate. However, in order to have any degree ofsuccess, you must find a way to bring all the unfocused meaninglessrebellion 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, bulletinboards. Make quarter page flyers explaining where, when, and why.Make a website, advertise it in the official school paper. If youcan, try to get it on the school announcements. Make it exciting -hype it up! Make it the topic of everyones discussion. Tell everyoneyou see - even people you dont know. Do not be afraid to talk topeople you dont know - get used to presenting your movement in aquick two minute discussion, and _dont be shy_!

Handling the local press is an important factor to consider. A pressrelease should be drafted explaining what, who, where, when, and why.It should be short and concise, yet still keep all the points youwant to make intact. Stick to a few key phrases that are repeatedeverywhere - signs, buttons, leaflets, etc. Around a week before theevent, send press releases to all the local newspapers and television

networks. Try to invite reporters to take pictures and interviewpeople. At the least, get some of your own people to take picturesand document the event. We were able to make it on network television


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and several other newspapers.

The protest itself is a blank canvas for you to draw on. Have ideasfor activities ready. Dont be afraid of creating a ruckus - buteverything you do must have an obvious purpose. Keep things light-hearted and energetic. Dont sit still for a second - dull momentsare 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 lotsof random shit to hand out. Consider graffiti to add some life toyour area. Make it lively, entertaining, and interesting - yet stillhave a very clear, concise point which you are able to back up. Whenpeople start leaving, they should be filled with the spirit ofactivism, having made contacts with other activists, and lookingforward to or organizing their own future actions. People should beenergized and empowered after the action, not disenchanted and dulled.

There is a certain high one can get from organizing a successfulaction. If done right, the protest can be a liberating experience for

you and your comrades beyond anything else(even sex and the bestdrugs). 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 schoolboard to leave their comments. Depending on the success of youraction, they may be forced to issue a statement or change policies ifyou have built a solid movement with serious argument that pressuresthe power that be.

-------

Youre probably wondering why this guide appeared in this magazine.Its not about hacking. However, it is about building movements ofpeople to accomplish something in real life - a quality that islacking in computers and computer users. In this increasinglyoppressive world, people need to work with others and fight forsocial justice. All too often hackers consider themselves elite andabove it all in the compute realm, but when presented with injusticein the realm world, they simply submit themselves to dominatingforces. No more. Resistance is fertile!

by Jeremy Hammond of hackthissite.org

----------------------------------------------------------------------[3.5] Discipline and punishment

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

Schools need rules to control students. They single out and punishstudents who break those rules, to discourage others from doing thesame. This can be exploited - they can't single out more than a fewstudents at a time. Imagine half the school getting suspended on thesame day (or even in the same week) - it's just not possible.

The more students who work together in a walkout/protest/civildisobedience, the less possible it is to punish them. As soon as you

have a large number of students doing something, you can see howlittle power the school administration really has over students. Whenthey can't punish students, they're pretty powerless. Every time a


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protest happens, the administration feels threatened, and it becomesclearer that students actually have power OVER the administration,but only if they work together.

As soon as the administration knows a protest is being planned, theycan easily try to threaten students by telling them protesters willbe suspended or punished in another way, but they know that will be

impossible. They just hope to discourage students from taking part.The best way around this is to make sure students know how all ofthis works, then no threat can scare them off.

The school administration can however punish the organizers of awalkout/protest, in the hopes of discouraging students fromorganizing such things in future. But they can only punish them ifthey know who they are. If they don't know who is passing aroundleaflets and sticking up posters, they can't do anything to them.Another way around it is to simply not have one person known as"organizer" - let a big bunch of students be the organizers, that wayit'll be harder to track down and punish them, and also will make the

whole protest more democratic. Another idea is to have someone helpin your protest that is out of school, and just pretend that he/sheis the organizer. If the organizer does get in trouble, and theadministration threatens to expel them, call a lawyer or contact someother community/student group. If the school administration knowsit'll be a lot of hassle and trouble to go through with theexpulsion, they might change their minds.

Here's a quote from one of the articles in the Tales of Protestsection, showing how well people can work together to avoidpunishment:'One officer shouted "Who is responsible for this?", I raised my handand shouted back from the middle if the 30- 40 person crowd, "I am".

Lucky me I had picked some really good protesters. The rest one byone raised their hand and shouted the same thing.'

If all else fails, make a noise! Start petitions, have more protests,make sure everybody knows how student's rights to free speech aregetting trampled.

----------------------------------------------------------------------[3.6] 'Zine-making guide

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Paper 'Zines:

Step 1: Write your stuffThis is the most important part. If your content isn't interesting,nobody will care how cool your 'zine may look. Make sure your 'zinemakes people think and opens their eyes.

Step 2: LayoutYou can use whatever software you happen to have, Microsoft Word willdo. Publisher is better for making the layout precise by page, butuse whatever you have. Unlike the content in step 1, your layoutisn't that important. For your first issue, you shouldn't try to makeyour 'zine too long, generally 1 or 2 pages is enough for the first

one. If you want to have more, put it in issue 2.

Step 3: Printing


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You're gonna need a printer for this one. Print in high quality, andmake a double-sided page (page 2 on the back of page 1). Then, run tothe nearest place that can make photocopies. Ask them to make thecopies also double-sided, so that it will work out cheaper and easier(no lost pages or staples).

Step 4: Distribution

This depends on your school. If you're just starting out, you canwalk around with a pack of issues and hand it out to random people inthe hallways. If you get to class early, put one on each desk (again,that depends on your teacher). You could put a pack in a good place,like in the front of the school, or on a table in a hallway. Youcould also put a copy on students' cars in the parking lot, dependingon how your school is set up. Either way, as long as distributingyour 'zine doesn't cause much disruption of normal classes, theycan't stop you from continuing.

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[3.7] School Pranks & Wasting Class Time----------------------------------------------------------------------

These are harmless pranks that you can use to waste some time inclass, get out early, or cause some confusion among teachers. Therewill be nothing listed here that involves making a huge mess orbreaking stuff - because who has to clean that up? The janitor/cleaner,and what did they ever do to you? Have some morals people, honestly,give the poor cleaners a break :P

Big wordsSubmitted by Andy

Whenever a teacher says a big word, ALWAYS ask what it means. Gofurther and ask where the word originated from, stray off the topic,etc.

Computer problemsSubmitted by SarahIf you're working on a computer, make it crash or reset it andcomplain there's something wrong with it. Then the teacher could takea while to fix it, maybe they call a technician.

Computer problems IISubmitted by NoThautIn computer class, unplug your mouse and keyboard from the computerand say the computer froze. It'll baffle your teacher.

Consumer reportSubmitted by The School Stoppers TextbookWrite a 'consumer report' on the 'education' you've been consuming.Distribute it to parents at school functions.

Copying notesSubmitted by PedroIf you have to copy notes from the overhead or the board, pretend itis taking you a long time. when the teacher asks if everyonesfinished copying them, say no. then, if they erase the notes or take

the notes off the overhead, complain that you didn't finish copyingthem. usually the teacher will let you borrow their personal copy ofthe notes. if you 'forget to return them' it will mess up their


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classes for the rest of the day, which is nice if you have a friendin the same class before or after you.

Crying in classSubmitted by libbyCompletely skip a project then get hysterical and cry about it. Theteacher will have to deal with your emotional problems before they

can do anything else. Or you could say you just broke up with agirl/boyfriend and cry about that.

Dress code protestSubmitted by The School Stoppers TextbookIf your school still has a dress code protest it having everyone dosomething disruptive that does not violate the code. For example, dyeyour hair green with food coloring.

EpidemicsSubmitted by The School Stoppers TextbookHave giant coughing or sneezing epidemics in class or study hall.

Forward in timeSubmitted by old handIf you can get to class before the teacher, grab the clock in theroom and set the hand forward 10 minutes. You should have someonestand outside the door and make a lot of noise if they see theteacher coming.

Free choice reportsSubmitted by The School Stoppers TextbookUse your 'free choice' book reports, term papers, etc. to readrevolutionary literature and further the political education of youand your class.

Gay marriageSubmitted by j3If you have a teacher whom you know to have a problem with gaypeople, raise your hand and ask 'what is wrong with gay marriages',causing a class discussion.

Information serviceSubmitted by The School Stoppers TextbookStart an information service to get new students opinions andwarnings about the teachers and administrators before enrollment day.

Look stuff upSubmitted by JenAsk a question that the teacher won't know the answer to, then whenthey don't answer, insist that you want to know, and maybe they'lllook it up or something.

Lost bagSubmitted by libbyPretend you lost your school bag/backpack or say someone stole it.Say you can't do anything without it, get the teacher to let you lookfor it. Then stay away as long as you like.

Lost contact lens

Submitted by the monkeyWhen there is a sub and as usual dont want to do jacksquat, havesomeone raise your (or a friend's) hand and say you or your friend


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lost a contact lens. The sub SHOULD agree and have the class help youfind it. All you got to do is pretend to look. Before you know itclass is over.

Newspaper standsSubmitted by SoulRiserIf you have a newspaper stand in your school: When nobody's looking,

insert lots of underground papers or stuff printed from this site.

NoticesSubmitted by SoulRiserCollect school notices (stuff that gets sent to teachers with info onmeetings, etc). Make your own ones that look similar, and distributeit to teachers. Like tell certain teachers you hate that times havechanged and that they don't have a class (when they do). They eitherwon't show up, or will get confused and go ask, which will make theprincipal confused, which will make everyone confused.... There,you've successfully confused everyone. Feel proud :) You can takethis further and make notices saying there's no school on a specific

day for whatever reason.

Phone the teacherSubmitted by ShaftIf you can get access to a phone at school (or nearby), before class,phone school and ask to speak to the teacher you have next. Say it'surgent. If you're a good talker you can keep him/her busy for a longtime.

Questions, questions...Submitted by SoulRiserWhile the teacher's talking, ask a question on something he/she wastalking about 5 minutes ago. He can't get angry, because you're

participating in class, except you will set him back. The rest of theclass will be free while he re-explains the stuff.... If you worktogether, you could have people take turns doing this sort of thing,eventually the whole period will be gone. This works best withteachers that have a habit of straying off the point ;-)

Recycled essaysSubmitted by The School Stoppers TextbookSave your book reports and essays. Give them to other students to usenext year or re-use them yourself with different teachers.

Subject canceledSubmitted by AnonymousWrite on the board something like "[subject] canceled", replacing[subject] with a subject that you have later on. If the kids thinkthe teacher wrote it they won't show up for class and you might getthe period off. Its best to do it with a class at the end of the day.

Teacher evaluationSubmitted by The School Stoppers TextbookIf your school won't have a teacher evaluation make up some forms anddo it yourself. Compile the result and publicize them to students,faculty, school board, and community.

The Wailing Hall

Submitted by The School Stoppers Textbook, added to by SoulRiserStart wailing in the halls - get lots of other people to do it too atthe same time for the best effect. (If this doesn't make sense to


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you, search for info on "The Wailing Wall" in Israel).

The mysterySubmitted by The School Stoppers TextbookLeave notes and hints that 'Tuesday's the day'. (Or anything elsethat sounds mysterious enough)

The rumour millSubmitted by The School Stoppers TextbookPeriodically have students go to the office to have some rumorconfirmed or denied.

What's the point?Submitted by SoulRiserIf you hate a subject, moan a lot and ask questions like "what is thepoint to this?" or "I'm never gonna use this in life". Depending onthe teacher, you could start a long discussion from that, and let theothers do the talking while you can peacefully daydream...

Your pants are wetSubmitted by The School Stoppers TextbookIf you've got the nerve piss in your pants while giving an oralreport.

There used to be other things like glueing the teacher's coffee cupto the desk, or putting slimy stuff on doorknobs on this page aswell, but I removed those. Things like that may waste a bit of time(like, 5 seconds), but are likely to piss the teacher off, who willthen be less likely to tolerate less irritating things afterward,like the stuff on this page. Don't bother to try and submit ideas

like that, because I won't add them... seriously, 99% of the stuffthat gets submitted is something like "glue this shut" or "put poopon the doorknob", or even potentially lethal things like leavingbunsen burners on in the science class (blowing up classrooms cankill people, don't even think about it).

Got any other ideas how to waste time?Then go to www.school-survival.net/kit/pranks and submit it :)(Please: no glueing locks, dead fish, skunks, poop or blowing uptoilets - I'm tired of getting emails about that kind of thing)

----------------------------------------------------------------------[3.8] Disobey and Resist

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WARNING: As far as it goes with ignorant teachers, doing these thingscould get you labelled as "ungrateful", "disobedient", "rebellious","spiteful" and other things like that. So it's up to you. Andanother thing: remember the saying "stupidity shouts loudest", whichmeans that if you do a couple of stupid things along the way (likehurt somebody or scream at them), then people have a habit ofremembering that more easily than anything else. So.. now you know.On with it then...

Backchat your teachers. Every time you disagree with what they say,tell them. But you know how teachers are, so be as polite as you can.


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What if they start shouting at you? That just goes to show thatthey're immature and can't handle critiscism. Don't get angry back,cause the more polite and peaceful you are, the less reason they haveto get angry, which just makes them more frustrated. Isn't this fun?:)

Every time a teacher tells you to stop "backchatting", kindly explain

to them that you're not backchatting, you're only voicing your ownopinion and that it's your right to do so. Tell them that there'snothing wrong with having your own opinion and tell them that youunderstand fully that they may disagree with you. Tell them it'stheir right to disagree. But tell them that since you respect theiropinion, they should try to respect yours too.

Every time a teacher tells you to do something, and if they say it ina forceful kind of way, do it, but before you do, kindly ask them totry to remember to say "please" next time. And then you'll probablyneed to explain the "backchatting" part to them again. Oh well.

When a teacher says you're ungrateful, and starts telling you aboutall the good things teachers do for you... let them finish, and thentell them about all the bad things they do to you. After that, tellthem you can understand that nobody is perfect and everyone makesmistakes, and apologise for not telling them sooner, and say you hopethat they can change it.

After you've done a few of these things, the average teacher islikely to call you spiteful sooner or later. If that happens, tellthem you don't like being called spiteful, and that it hur

Documents

School Survival Guide v1-3