
The standard misconception of equating a typical high school experience with post-schooling success is an exercise in flawed logic. When a student feels unmotivated by the offered curriculum, it should be the duty of his counselor to help him seek new avenues of expression and education. This is not merely a hypothetical situation; I feel constrained and disappointed by the education afforded to me at Ukiah High School. Budget cuts have forced teachers and faculty out of jobs, extinguishing morale throughout our campus. The first subjects killed were art and music, followed by closing the library. The library, a cornerstone of education, crushed under the heel of oppressive budgetary constraints. High school is quickly becoming a failed institution, its welcome long overstayed. Any subject not deemed “important” by advocates of worldwide neo-Con consumerist brainwashing is murdered in cold blood, its corpse shoved into a rolled-up carpet and tossed into the Russian river. It’s this greed and pretentiousness that pressures children forced through the tunnel of standardized education into growing up and becoming retail parasites, accountants, the walking dead. This is not my destiny.

Surrounded by the disenfranchised youth I wander, losing my sanity in the ever-thickening crowds of angry teenagers. Amidst hundreds of hostile strangers, an increasingly high gang population, racist cowboys and hostile, insecure jocks eager to prove to their twirpy girlfriends that picking on somebody is tantamount to proving their manhood in a Roman gladiatorial ring, I stand alone. The library is no longer open, a former sanctum of the intelligentsia, a pillar of free-thought and monument to our right of openly distributed information, is hardly recognizable after merciless dismemberment by fascists seeking to control the flow of information. We, as high school students, are taught by so-called community leaders that questioning authority is unpatriotic, that learning anything not governed by a school board is off-limits. I scream unto the darkness, I shed my own blood as armor, I fashion a sword from my own bone and use it to fight this evil propaganda.

Scan through your high school yearbook and randomly select a handful of your peers. How many of them led successful, personally fulfilling lives? Compare your selections to the following list I’ve assembled: George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Edison, the Wright brothers. The members of this group excelled in their respective fields of study by following their passions to the fullest extent possible. In order to do this, they were home-schooled. Of course, the education system back then wasn’t as sophisticated or complex as it is now, which is why Independent Study is the best possible option. I will reap the benefits of a high school education at my own accelerated pace, while still challenging myself by using my time to its fullest extent, still under the supervision and guidance of a teacher. I will be attending several college classes, learning valuable life skills, strengthening my education, my creativity, and my individuality. 