From FRUSTRATED WITH LIFE, "School"

“Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned at school.”

Albert Einstein

SCHOOL Statistic

Gallup Poll (2014): “48% of Americans are ‘completely’ or ‘somewhat satisfied’ with the quality of kindergarten through high school education in the country….”

Chapter 8:
School

School comes down to 5 Ps: performance, peers, parents, pressure, and profs.

Comment #9 laments a 46 on a bio test. Don’t despair! My first physics mid-term exam as a physics major, I got a 17 out of a possible 100. I dejectedly asked the prof, “Is this my grade or my seat number?” Eventually, I got an A.B. and an M.S. in physics. There’s hope.

Peers? #482 despises group projects. Not everyone pulls on the oars. The daughter of #451 is shunned by the popular crowd; looks, manner, clothes? #406 and #321 report on students who did much less and got better grades. Luck triumphs?

Parents are why #127 and #407 are in school at all and perhaps #178, who wants to escape, is there for that reason also.

Pressure: #62 is exhausted. Would-be MD #350 finds math too hard. #132 is not accepted by any grad school and feels the pain of failure. #385 simply “can’t keep up.”

Professors and other strange beasts: Teachers wonder why #422 is in school. Hispanic #462 finds that the teachers assume he is dumb.

And yet, except for the occasional suicide, we all make it through some number of grades in school before we go out into “the real world” and then sometimes wish we were back in school.

Douglas Winslow Cooper, Ph. D.

#9

I got a 46 on my bio test. ugh!!

#30

I go on a diet to lose 20 pounds and put on 10. wtf. kfc dont have low calorie chicken no more?

#32

so mad my so called friend snitched on me today

#62

Im tired...physically and mentally tired and I have lost everything I was which was so awesome. I have been in university for 3 semesters now and assignments keep piling up. I am tired of doing this- I am tired of other people telling me what I should and shouldnt do- Its my life - stay the hell out of it. And why I feel so frustrated is because I never wanted to do this in the freaking first place. No one understands and I feel so tired its not even funny. I just want to go home and get back to who I was. No one understands. Everything just feels so numb. Ugh. I hope this pathetic feeling ends FAST.

#101

I’ve been so frustrated with my practicum. I’m wondering if pediatrics is for me! I love nursing but perhaps I just don’t have the heart for pedi like I thought I did. I’m so frustrated with my shyness as well. Why can’t I just find the confidence in myself so I can be the best nurse for my patients?! Where can I find this confidence? Or better yet... how can overcome this anxiety? :(

#127

i am frustrated with my life ... infact wid my studies i jst want some space some break in my life ... i dun want to hurt my parents btw wat can i do now ... and at dis stage ... now nothing will happen ... i m giving up!

#132

SOO Frustrated!!

I did not get accepted to any of the graduate schools I applied to. And you know every friend and family member keeps asking me what I have heard back from them. And the pain of failure is risen back up to the surface all over again. I can see it in there eyes during my hesitation to answer, the moment they realize I did not get accepted I feel an unrelenting feeling of failure. I have broke my back figuratively while struggling with a persistent learning disability my entire life. And I continue to get rejected. I cannot get a job in my field of study because no one is hiring. I hate my life and the direction it is going in. The only joy I get is from doing martial arts in which I inflict physical pain unto other people.

#178

Im in class 12 now... I dont know what i want.. I dont understand myself.. I dont know where im heading to.. Im all confused..

One thing i want is someone close to my heart..whom i can love, With whom i can share my life, with whom i can share my thoughts and everything.. I never had a girlfriend till date..dont know why.. The first girl i liked never even looked at me.. Now the girl i like is my friend but she likes someone else.. I want that she stays happy with him but at the same time it eats me up.. I enjoy her company, i like her talking, i like her but i know she cant be mine..

Another thing which has come up is my lack of concentration in studies.. I hav brain but it is refusing to accept lessons now.. I hav almost left studies.. Now a pressure to score good marks has build up. Its not just to get admission further but because i wanna study with her(friend).. She is going to a good college which has a high cut off percent seeing my present condition.. I wanna study with her but now its almost impossible for me to score so good.. Even i havn't decided a career for me till now.. N don't know what im gonna do after my boards.. My parents hav much hope from me..but im just going the opposite way.. Dont know what will happen to me, my life.. I wanna escape from all this... :-( but i cant...

#321

Worked my ass off for 2 months for a school project and today was the day of presenting it infront of the judges. The computer crashed twice while presenting and my friend who barely did anything got the prize. Why do people who work hard not get any returns in life?

#350

Thanks for the opportunity to let it out. Am stuck in life, I cant move up and I can't move down. Finished High School two years ago but I don't have any good certificate. Been failing mathematics and its pains me. I want to study medicine but Mathematics dont want me to. Cant pass med entrance exam, cant make up my results. Everybody looks at me with pity, I hate it.

#385

School eh....high school. Tough and got GCSEs in 2 years, great :I just feel so deprived if energy and sleep and teachers are really not great- feel like I have to win them over for them to like me. Living in a house with at least 1 fight with 1 person n the family is a distraction, friendships are tough, and teenage life can be soooooo complicated yet so simple and boring. Homework doesn’t make sense to me like it used to and I know studies are hard, but I feel I can’t keep up, you know? Like I’m lagging behind and I feel so pressured it’s not great. Hope it gets better, good luck to u all with similar problems xx

#406

i have studied for 3 years.but i could not get any good institutes for my advanced studies.despite of my hard work i didnt get a crack.but the guy who had spent less time reading and much time goofing around got his crack at it.why life is so unfair?i get so frustrated looking at my mom and dad’s disappointed face..i dont know what to do and how to get out of it..

#407

Currently doing my MS in Statistics and most of my friends from school and college are working and earning big bucks. I got into MS due to my mom’s persuasion otherwise I would not have continued studying after my Bachelors and would be working like my friends now. But bcoz I got into the MS program I need to finish it well-I have brains(I was 7th in my Bachelors) but somehow I can’t get my brain to concentrate on my MS studies. What can I do to get my concentration levels back and finish my MS on a good note with good grades. Your suggestions will be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

#422

I graduated high school with a diploma, and enrolled into a local community college soon after. I graduated with my associate’s degree in 2 in a half years and transferred to a four year. I flunked out my first semester and I am pretty depressed. I wasted a lot of money, on housing and it seems that I will not be reinstated with a federal grant. I feel like I ruined my only chances of getting an education. I come from a poor broken family home, and everyday I relive how much of a disappointment I am. Even my teachers (during my first term) questioned why I was in school and the major I am. As if I’m stupid and should give up.

#444

Im so frustrated with school. All of the projects we get are so pointless and a waste of money and they are not even fun. This one project I have is 215 points and it’s a biome no one has heard about, and its just ridiculous! Not many people even know what a biome is! So its like why waste my money on something no one cares about? Then thinking about collage too, and the whole education system. It’s just broken and none of the teachers even really care. Sure there maybe a few teachers who are passionate about teaching their students but the majority could care less. It just doesn’t make any sense, teachers should just not have students pour money into a pointless little project more than likely won’t even use in the future. Such a waste.

#451

I’m sick and tired of having to pick up the pieces of my 12 year old daughter when her "friends" turn their backs and ignore her for the "popular crowd". It makes her feel crummy, Unworthy, isolated and meaningless. She is a good person who gives all her love to these kids just to have them turn and break her heart. I hate these kids. I really do.

#460

I am studying at Bgmea university of fashion technology.it is 4 th fay of my class i feel cry for my studying pressure it seems very dificult for me to take lots of pressure

#462

I’m 15 years old and I’m in the 10th grade. Throughout my experience in school I’ve already been a great student, until I started high school. Highschool has been really hard on me and I honestly don’t know what to do. I went from going to a school that has 200 students in total to going to a school that has almost 2000 students. Apart from that I am Having a hard time with my math and science class. I have a tutor and she has helped somewhat but I still don’t get the grades I need. My school is very bias and the way things go around there is that if you don’t do good on a test then your basically a failure at life, there is a large amount of white, Asian students, I’m Hispanic and sometimes I feel as though the teachers let their own racial blind spots affect the way they teach me. Sometimes my teachers don’t think I have the capacity of doing well, I feel annoyed because I really want to go to college but both my freshman and sophomore year has been really hard on me and I’ve lost all of my motivation. I honestly don’t know what else to do!!!!!!

#480

MY bloody internet is slow as fuck it takes 5 mins to load 1 site. I can't open the school website.... When it actually loaded in about 5-10 mins, I click on the link and it just says the page has become unresponsive. After waiting for about 30 mins in total to get to that fucking link. I don't even know I hate this shit.

#482

I am soooo fucking furious that for this fucking school projet I fucking have to handle everything because no one seems to give a fuck. and some ppl want to get over it but we end up doing the work twice. It fucking kills me i Fucking cant deal with group projects anymore. I Fucking despise group projects everyone can fucking go to hell.

Recommended Books

A. Duckworth (2016)
Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

C.S. Dweck (2006)
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success

M.C. Ricci (2013)
Mindsets in the Classroom: Building a Culture of Success and Student Achievement in Schools

Excerpted from Guzman and Cooper (2017), FRUSTRATED WITH LIFE? YOU ARE NOT ALONE! based on years of blog entries at http://FrustratedWithLife.com. The book is available in paperback at amazon.com.

Would-be authors are invited to see my site WriteYourBookWithMe.com.