My junior high years were hell, and school was largely responsible for that.
I was stuck in a large, experimental classroom situation where they did “team teaching”. It was three teachers; one math, one English, and one Social Studies. I guess the idea was to lighten the workload for the teachers or make it more efficient for the teachers to teach more kids per period. I was in the back of the classroom, where I couldn’t hear a thing and couldn’t see the board, and actually ended up in resource because my grades were so bad.
They ruined me for college during those years.
I finally did graduate from college after putting in a lot of effort on my own and ended up with a 3.3 in meteorology, from the kid for whom school ruined math. I did it all on my own. No thanks to THEM.
I’ve got one of those type of stories too.
They were opening a new Vocational School (1976) and wanted students. They played it big time, told us that we were guaranteed a job and life would be beautiful if we went. I was well on my way to college in 10th grade. 3.95 grade average. But my art teacher told me I had talent so I tested and was accepted to “Commercial Art”.
A year and a half later, when jobs in that profession were few and far between, they told me I didn’t have the talent and should go into “copywriting”. I had enough credits to graduate in January, so I bailed, got a job and went to community college in the fall.
ONE girl got a job in commercial art (classes of 20 for five years). The school is now a Night student training center. They saw my grades, they knew I could have gone to college, but they were selling the school.