How do I stop going to school?
I'm a child and I want to be left behind
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Dear Shaun,
My parents say I have to go to school. It is summer and I am having fun. I am 11 years old and don’t want to go to school this fall. My parents say it is the law and that me and them can get in big trouble if I don’t. They could even go to jail. How do I stop going to school and have fun instead?
-Elton M., age 11
Dear Elton M., age 11,
This question poses an existential threat to the premise of this column. If I tell you to go to school, that is bad advice for you yet generally good for you on the whole. If I tell you to not go to school and teach you how, that is also bad advice. The thing that is really tripping me up is your age. If you were a teenaged person, I’d just say that you’re practically an adult and you should just make your own decisions. School is not for everyone. School doesn’t always fit or adapt to the child in question. So despite George W. Bush’s best efforts, a child gets left behind.
I’m going to give you advice on both aspects. This is the unbelievable circumstance of our being, and ultimately the problem with the premise of my writing: no matter what I tell you and no matter what you decide, it is most likely bad advice and most likely the wrong decision for you. You may not want to go to school, but you’ve just enrolled in the School of the Hard Knocks, kid.
Choice #1: Don’t go to school. Be the truant that your heart is screaming at you to be. Skip. They can’t truly force you. Just leave. Do everything in your heart. Fill your days laying about, staring at the clouds thinking of what could happen next. You don’t need school. The way they’re trying to get you to keep going it seems more like school needs you. If that’s the case, keep being wanted. No one likes someone who is so thirsty. The heart wants what it can’t have. And in this case, school is a reply guy and you’re a C-List celebrity. Sure, you’re more available than most, but that doesn’t mean they have to relentlessly contact you. Chill, right?
Some will say you’re immature because you’re only 11. But you are light-years ahead of most adults in your life. They still don’t know what they want, they just kept going forward and stumbled into what their life is currently. You, on the other hand, know what it is you want. It’s a simple plan, but it is locked in.
The key is what you do with this superpower that you have. What do you do with the knowledge that school isn’t for you? How can you move forward in a world that wants to hold you back? Can you convince everyone else that you’re okay? Or do you even need to? Are you okay to be lonely at times? Solitary? Most around you may reject your life’s plan and scaffolding. Are you fine to push forward regardless? The choice is yours.
Choice #2: Go to school. I know you don’t want to hear this but this is the best bad advice I can give you. This is going to make you miserable. You’re going to hate waking up everyday, you’re going to sulk and stamp your feet. Each morning will be a fresh hell. There is nothing worse than being forced to do the thing that you least want to do.
You’re going to reluctantly learn, you’re going to be forced into social groups, and you’ll learn to be miserable solely on your own while surrounded by those who tolerate your very existence. Day in and day out you’ll be traversing the monotony. You’ll be seeking an out, wanting for something that is not the thing in front of you. You’ll go to school and then you’ll go to school and then you’ll go to school. Then the day will come when you won’t have to go to school. What will you do then? Your purpose in life, up until this point, has been hating the idea of school and attending it. Now, you’re out. What is it now?
Did you plan for this moment? Sure, you pined for this moment. You marked off each day. But did you think about how you’d fill your days? Video games, yeah. Going out to eat, sure. But what about the human instinct of purpose? Where will you live? How will you earn money? Who will acknowledge you? How will you engage with the world put before you? If hating the institution is all you had, what do you do when it’s gone? Don’t just chase the car and catch it, dog.
NEWS
Tonight I am at Koto in Salem. It’s a great venue right in their downtown that has supported comedy and punk for years and if you’re around there you should come hang out.
Saturday night WOOtenanny Productions will be putting on a stand-up comedy fundraiser for City Councilor At-Large candidate Cayden Davis at Hunchback Gallery. We’ve got three great comedians for you, Shelby Lecuyer, Cam Ohh, and Will Smalley. It should be great time, for a great new voice in our city.
