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

	Version 1.2

Author:		SoulRiser
Contact:	guide (AT) school-survival.net

Latest update: 9/June/2006

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 :)


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	ABOUT THIS GUIDE
======================================================================

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


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

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

[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
                by SoulRiser (School Survival's webmistress)
        [2.3] How public education cripples our kids, and why
		by John Taylor Gatto (a teacher)
	[2.4] Poetry about school & youth rights
		[2.4.1] School Frustrations
			  by SoulRiser
		[2.4.2] Used to be
			  by SoulRiser
		[2.4.3] Our mark in passing
			  by Spooky Poet
		[2.4.4] 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] 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)
======================================================================

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

Well, that  deserves a good explanation,  and you're not going  to get
one here.  You'll get a  good explanation  by reading the  Articles in
this guide, but  if you just want  it "in a nutshell",  here are three
simple 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  to
enforce their  superiority by  punishing students  for no  good reason
whatsoever.
3.  "Learning" in  school  is done  by  following elaborate  "learning
methods", none of  which are really much more than  ways to trick your
brain into remembering things it otherwise would disregard.

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


----------------------------------------------------------------------
	[1.1] School Survival, the site
	www.school-survival.net
----------------------------------------------------------------------

I started making  the site in March 1999. Originally  it was basically
just because  I was  angry with the  way my school  had changed  and I
needed someplace  to "get it out of  my system". Since  then I've been
looking  at other  anti-school sites  and most  of them  just say  "MY
school SUcks!". I wanted  my site to be more than  just that. I wanted
the site to be  the kind of place where people who feel  the same as I
did can  come  to and see  that  they're not alone.  That  they're not
"bad" for feeling the way they do.

More at: www.school-survival.net/about/aboutsite.php

----------------------------------------------------------------------
	[1.2] What "anti-school" really means
	www.school-survival.net/about/anti-school.php
----------------------------------------------------------------------

	What anti-school does NOT mean

We are  not anti-education. We  are not anti-learning.  Learning means
to acquire  knowledge, and education  is basically learning  with help
from other people. Those are both  good things. Right, now that that's
out of the way, what is "anti-school" all about then?

	What anti-school DOES mean

Lets face  a few facts first. How  many people remember  more than 10%
of the  stuff they  "learned" at  school? I  personally don't  know of
any, apart  from people  who later on  became school  teachers. School
doesn't give  students just about ANY  choice of what they  would like
to learn  about, or  HOW they would  like to learn  it. In  fact, it's
gotten  so bad, that  every  time someone mentions  the  word "learn",
people instantly think of "memorize".  Just look at all those "memory-
enhancer" things  on the  market, and  "mind-maps" and  whatever other
method of memorizing  things. Memorizing is NOT the  same as learning!
School is about  MEMORIZING, not LEARNING anything  useful (hey, apart
from basic reading  and writing, but they even manage  to make that so
awfully boring most kids hate learning about it).

So,  in  short, "anti-school"  means  exactly  what  it says.  We  are
against school, because school is  giving education and learning a bad
reputation. 

----------------------------------------------------------------------
	[1.3] Alternatives to school
	www.school-survival.net/alternatives.php
----------------------------------------------------------------------

If you think kids would not learn  ANYTHING if it were not for school,
consider this:  If there are going to  be schools, they  should not be
run by  the government,  and should  only teach  the bare  basics like
reading/writing and  working with numbers. Current  schools accomplish
this in  a few years,  and then the  rest of the  time up to  12 years
they force  kids to  memorize all  kinds of drivel  most of  them will
never use again.  In effect, they are wasting people's  youth. If kids
can  learn the  basics  on their  own or  elsewhere,  there should  be
nothing forcing them to still go to school.

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

	Homeschooling
	
If you  have cool parents,  this could work  quite well. This  is also
often done  among different families as a  team effort -  say your mom
teaches 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 public
ones, but  sadly a  lot of  them aren't. The  usual complaint  is that
everyone  is a  snobbish rich  kid.  But still,  there may  be a  GOOD
private school in your area, so look around.

	Charter schools
	Written by: Happy Camper

An  independent  studies program.  They  aren't completely  common  or
widely available yet  but it is definitely worth looking  into. It's a
homeschool program for  middle schoolers and  highschoolers that allow
them 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  various
projects on various  books mostly to do with  American Literature, and
possibly a few essays,  I also have a series of  vocab questions to go
through to prepare me  for the SAT, any book I read in  my free time I
can count down  as long as I do a  small report on it, I go  in to the
public  school  on  Mondays,  Wednesdays,  and  Fridays  to  cover  my
language credit and  take a french class with the  local public school
kids. I audit a math class  which basically means I follow the precalc
curriculum  at  the local  public  school  without being  required  to
attend those long  tedious lectures (I'm pretty good when  it comes to
math, those  lectures are just  a waste of  time) but still  coming in
for the  tests. Gym  and art  credits you  may ask?  I dance  and then
volunteer for  theatre projects. Any  other conventions I  attend such
as a  young Writer's convention  that I attended  not far back,  I can
log too. My transcript won't  appear as a normal highschool transcript
and I  will have  to jump  through some extra  hoops when  applying to
colleges. Next year, rather than  take classes through the highschool,
I  will  very likely  take  my  classes  through a  community  college
nearby. This  is a perfect  fit for me.  Under my current  condition I
have no  problem researching and doing  work. I mainly have  a problem
going into  school and have both  social and academic  expectations of
me on  a daily basis.  But I can  go into  the Charter center  and use
those materials there almost as a  study hall. I'm accountable to them
so I  don't just sit  at home and play  video games every  day without
ever  working on  my  graduation requirements.  But  yeah. I'm  pretty
smart...looking   into  becoming   an  author.   But  the   highschool
attendence life just  never worked for me. We are  invited to the prom
and theatre productions  down at the local public school,  but I doubt
I'll do either.

The magic  of charter schools.  I just  happened to be  surprised they
haven't been brought up yet.  It's that homeschool alternative without
the smock dress conservative stereotype.  I mean...my Mom isn't really
involved 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.org
www.unschooling.com
www.holtgws.com
groups.yahoo.com/group/worldwideunschoolers
home.rmci.net/abell/page7.htm

Homeschooling:

www.learninfreedom.org
homeschooling.about.com
www.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 school
is bad, guides on how to unschool/homeschool and various other things.

The Teenage  Liberation Handbook: How  to Quit  School and Get  a Real
Life and Education, by Grace Llewellyn
The Unprocessed Child: Living  Without School, by Valerie Fitzenreiter
Real  Lives:  Eleven  Teenagers  Who  Don't Go  To  School,  by  Grace
Llewellyn


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

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


======================================================================
	[2] The WHY (Articles & Poetry)
	www.school-survival.net/articles
======================================================================

Kind of  funny how this  worked out. I  chose what  I think are  the 3
best articles to include here, and you  know what? One is written by a
psychologist,  one by  a student,  and one  by a  teacher. Isn't  that
cute? :)

----------------------------------------------------------------------
	[2.1] Who wouldn't be school phobic?
		by Sarah Fitz-Claridge (a psychologist)
----------------------------------------------------------------------

School  phobia is  a dreadful  label for  some children's  perfectly
understandable response  to being  compelled to  go to  school against
their  will.  They are  not  phobic,  any  more than  a  conscientious
objector is  a  coward; they are  refusing   and in  most  cases very
nobly.  Over the  years,  I have  spoken to  many  worried parents  of
school-refusing  children.  The  outrages  these  children  have  been
subjected to  in the name  of education  disgust me. They  have been
saddled with a  pseudo-medical label that  has deliberate connotations
of mental illness  with all the stigma and the implied (and not-so-
implied)  menace  that  goes with  that.  Their  perfectly  reasonable
dissent, and  their  desperately courageous resistance  to  being hurt
and  harmed   has  been   cynically  redefined   as  overdependence,
psychological  instability,   and   immaturity.  They  have   been
psychologically   tortured  under   the   guise   of  psychiatric   or
psychological treatment for a  non-existent ailment. Their parents 
also  demeaned  by  labels  such   as  overprotective    have  been
threatened  with  court  action unless  they  physically  force  their
terrified,  traumatised  children into  school  every day.  Many  such
parents who have  sought my advice have themselves been  in a terrible
state of stress  and trauma. Why don't they just  comply? Because they
know  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  it
consciously. Or  if they do, they  also know the  contradictory idea
that it  is right and important  for children to be  schooled, because
the law,  the psychiatric, psychological, and  educational professions
all say so. They may be nice  people in many respects, but as a result
of their  own parents'  coercion, they  are simply  unable to  see how
damaging 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  suffer
lifelong trauma  as a result) for many  years but then  forces them to
obey every whim of the warders,  takes up their time with mind-numbing
makework, leaving them  almost no time for their own  pursuits, and in
some cases  even force-feeds inmates, and  so on. Thinking  of vicious
tyrants like  Saddam Hussein,  most will be  incensed. They  will rail
against the brutality and immorality of  such a system. Until you tell
them that you were referring to  our own dear school system. Then they
will  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 five
days out of  seven. Super. And I suppose that  the knowledge that they
are to  be locked up for  five days a  week for eleven years  does not
remotely affect  them on  the days  when they  are free?  False. The
psychological  effects of  school  hang like  a  pall over  children's
lives, twisting  their  thinking and stunting  their  intellectual and
psychological growth, whether it is a school day or not.

How would you feel  if you were told today that you  must go to school
for the  next eleven  years, that  you must attend  all the  classes I
have deemed  necessary for  you, that you  must submit  to humiliating
procedures and  that you will  probably be  in fear for  your physical
safety much  of the time.  But worse, that you  will have to  put your
own life on hold  for eleven years in order to  jump through the hoops
that will be set up for you?

Even this  comparison fails  to capture some  of the  more destructive
effects of  compulsory schooling  on children.  Childhood is  both the
most important  and the most vulnerable  period of life.  Children are
at the  beginning of their lives and  do not have  the inner resources
that  you   might  use  to   palliate  an   eleven-year  imprisonment.
Furthermore  you are not  in  the position of  having  an overwhelming
need  to  please your  parents.  As  adults,  most  of  us have  to  a
significant extent escaped  the need not to disappoint  our parents or
invoke their wrath.  But children cannot throw off the  need for their
parents' love and approval without terrible emotional cost.

Even given that  I am free from parental coercion,  being forced to go
to school  would ruin  my life.  I should  have to  give up  doing and
thinking about  what I want  to do and think  about, when and  where I
want to. Life is  all too short and precious to  waste doing things we
don't want  to do. In  spending seven hours a  day, five days  a week,
doing lessons that  are at best only accidentally related  to things I
am interested in,  I should be enacting someone else's  notion of what
I should do  and of who I am.  I should have no mental  energy left to
spend another seven  hours at home thinking about the  things I really
want  to think  about.  This would  be  very  debilitating, and  would
adversely affect  me at weekends too,  because all the time,  I should
have in  mind that on  Monday morning, I must  be back at  school. The
knowledge that there is  a time limit  that on  Monday morning I must
be back at  school  would make  it very difficult to  start any major
project or train  of thought during weekends and  short holidays. (And
that is assuming that there is  no homework. I once spent virtually an
entire  six-week  summer  holiday solving  590  sets  of  simultaneous
equations, only to  return to school to find that  the teacher, having
had second  thoughts about  the drudgery  of marking  the work  he had
ordered,  exercised his  right  to choose  and  claimed  to have  been
joking. I  wasn't laughing.)  I used  to feel  an increasing  sense of
dread  as the  weekend  or school  holiday  wore on.  I  used to  feel
physically sick every Sunday night.

Was I labelled school phobic? No.  My mother thought I loved school,
because I did quite  well and didn't make a fuss  about going. She was
very surprised  when, some years  ago, I told  her that I  had loathed
school. As William Blake wrote,

	And because I am happy, & dance & sing.
	They think they have done me no injury...

Children whose  parents would neither dream  of forcing them to  go to
school  nor of  preventing  them from  going,  and  who support  their
children in anything they want to  do, and who do not allow themselves
to  be drawn  by the  school system  into a  conspiracy against  their
children,  have a  very  different experience  of  school  if they  do
choose to go.  Not having to worry about their  parents' approval (for
they will have  it anyway), they are free to  take their teachers just
as seriously  as they  deserve. They  are free to  do what  they think
right instead of deferring to authority. They are free to leave.

Sadly,  there are  very few  such  children, for  most parents  cannot
bring   themselves   to  cede   this   elementary  aspect   of   self-
determination:  they  wouldn't dream  of  allowing their  children  to
leave  school just  because they  want to,  or indeed  to attend  just
because they want to. Some of  the children become deeply miserable as
a  result; some  rebel; some  really do  go mad  in the  end. Is  this
surprising? I have,  if anything, more hope for children  who kick and
scream when their parents drag them  into school than for children who
respond only  inwardly, as I  did, for  the kickers and  screamers are
still fighting;  they still have a sense  of self; they  have not been
successfully  crushed and moulded  by  the system. They  are  like the
character  played by Jack  Nicholson  in the very  important  film One
Flew  Over the  Cuckoo's Nest.  And  teachers and  parents who  calmly
conspire in  this despicable  treatment of  fellow human  beings (yes,
children are human beings too)  are like the serenely evil psychiatric
nurse in that film.

So I, as an adult and a  psychologist, want to say to any children out
there 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 bear
to think about it so they hardly  even know how they feel. You are not
mad   you don't have a  Deep Psychological Problem (though  you might
develop one  if you stay  in school against  your will!); and  you are
not bad for wanting  to live your life the way  you choose, doing what
you think right   that is what everyone should be  doing. You are not
the problem: coercion is the problem.  Being forced to go to school is
the 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 will
be punished. Respect  people higher than you. Don't  backchat. Shut up
while a  teacher is talking.  Stop wasting  the teacher's time  and do
your work."

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

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

Who are the  most important people in schools? Not  the principal, not
the 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 go
there  -  they are  forced  to  go.  In  most schools,  the  remaining
students who haven't run away or committed suicide deserve a medal for
ENDURANCE!  So, considering the  fact  that us students  are  the most
important (parents being  the second most important, they  have to pay
for  our mistreatment), shouldn't  we  be treated a  little  more like
humans with  our own unique personalities,  our own goals  and dreams,
our own  ideas and opinions, instead of  being looked down  upon as if
we're  nothing more  than disobedient,  ungrateful brats?  I think  we
should be.

Written by: SoulRiser


----------------------------------------------------------------------
	[2.3] 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 in
boredom. Boredom  was everywhere  in my  world, and  if you  asked the
kids, as  I often did,  why they felt so  bored, they always  gave the
same answers:  They said the work was  stupid, that it  made no sense,
that  they  already  knew  it.  They said  they  wanted  to  be  doing
something real,  not just  sitting around.  They said  teachers didn't
seem to know much about  their subjects and clearly weren't interested
in learning more.  And the kids were right: their  teachers were every
bit as bored as they were.

Boredom is the common condition  of schoolteachers, and anyone who has
spent time  in a teachers'  lounge can vouch  for the low  energy, the
whining, the dispirited  attitudes, to be found there.  When asked why
they feel  bored, the teachers  tend to blame  the kids, as  you might
expect.  Who wouldn't get  bored  teaching students who  are  rude and
interested  only in  grades? If  even  that. Of  course, teachers  are
themselves  products   of  the  same  twelve-year   compulsory  school
programs  that  so  thoroughly  bore their  students,  and  as  school
personnel  they are  trapped inside  structures even  more rigid  than
those imposed upon the children. Who, then, is to blame?

We all  are. My grandfather taught me  that. One afternoon  when I was
seven I  complained to him  of boredom, and he  batted me hard  on the
head. He  told me that I  was never to  use that term in  his presence
again, that  if I was  bored it was  my fault  and no one  else's. The
obligation  to amuse  and instruct  myself  was entirely  my own,  and
people who  didn't know that  were childish  people, to be  avoided if
possible.  Certainty not  to  be trusted.  That  episode  cured me  of
boredom forever, and here and there over  the years I was able to pass
on the lesson to some remarkable  student. For the most part, however,
I found  it futile to challenge  the official notion that  boredom and
childishness  were the  natural  state of  affairs  in the  classroom.
Often I had to defy custom, and  even bend the law, to help kids break
out of this trap.

The empire struck back, of  course; childish adults regularly conflate
opposition with  disloyalty. I once returned  from a medical  leave to
discover that  all evidence of  my having  been granted the  leave had
been purposely destroyed, that my job  had been terminated, and that I
no  longer possessed even  a  teaching license. After  nine  months of
tormented effort  I was  able to  retrieve the  license when  a school
secretary testified to witnessing the  plot unfold. In the meantime my
family suffered  more than I care to  remember. By the  time I finally
retired  in 1991,  1  had more  than  enough reason  to  think of  our
schools-with their long-term,  cell-block-style, forced confinement of
both students and  teachers-as virtual factories  of childishness. Yet
I  honestly  could not  see  why  they had  to  be  that way.  My  own
experience  had revealed to  me  what many other  teachers  must learn
along the  way, too, yet keep to  themselves for fear  of reprisal: if
we  wanted to  we could  easily  and inexpensively  jettison the  old,
stupid structures and  help kids take an education  rather than merely
receive  a  schooling.  We  could  encourage  the  best  qualities  of
youthfulness-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  by
giving each student what  autonomy he or she needs in  order to take a
risk every now and then.

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

Do  we  really  need  school?  I don't  mean  education,  just  forced
schooling: 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 a
rationale, because 2 million happy  homeschoolers have surely put that
banal  justification to  rest.  Even if  they  hadn't, a  considerable
number  of well-known  Americans  never went  through the  twelve-year
wringer 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 products
of a school  system, and not one  of them was ever  "graduated" from a
secondary school. Throughout most  of American history, kids generally
didn't go  to high  school, yet  the unschooled  rose to  be admirals,
like  Farragut;  inventors, like  Edison;  captains of  industry  like
Carnegie  and  Rockefeller;  writers,  like  Melville  and  Twain  and
Conrad; and even  scholars, like Margaret Mead. In  fact, until pretty
recently people  who reached the age  of thirteen weren't  looked upon
as children at  all. Ariel Durant, who co-wrote an  enormous, and very
good, multivolume  history of  the world with  her husband,  Will, was
happily married at fifteen, and  who could reasonably claim that Ariel
Durant  was  an  uneducated   person?  Unschooled,  perhaps,  but  not
uneducated.

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

Mass schooling  of a compulsory nature  really got its teeth  into the
United States between  1905 and 1915, though it was  conceived of much
earlier and pushed for throughout  most of the nineteenth century. The
reason given  for this enormous upheaval  of family life  and cultural
traditions was, roughly speaking, threefold:

1) To  make good  people. 2) To  make good citizens.  3) To  make each
person his  or her personal  best. These  goals are still  trotted out
today on a  regular basis, and most of  us accept them in  one form or
another as a decent definition  of public education's mission, however
short 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   compulsory
schooling's  true purpose.  We  have, for  example,  the  great H.  L.
Mencken, who  wrote in The  American Mercury  for April 1924  that the
aim of public education is not

to  fill the  young of  the species  with knowledge  and awaken  their
intelligence. ...  Nothing could  be further from  the truth.  The aim
... is  simply to reduce as many  individuals as possible  to the same
safe level, to  breed and train a standardized citizenry,  to put down
dissent and originality.  That is its aim in the  United States... and
that is its aim everywhere else.

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

The odd  fact of a Prussian provenance  for our schools  pops up again
and again once  you know to look  for it. William James  alluded to it
many times at  the turn of the century. Orestes  Brownson, the hero of
Christopher Lasch's 1991 book, The  True and Only Heaven, was publicly
denouncing the Prussianization of American  schools back in the 1840s.
Horace  Mann's  "Seventh Annual  Report"  to the  Massachusetts  State
Board of  Education  in 1843 is  essentially  a paean to  the  land of
Frederick 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  Prussian
served as Washington's aide during  the Revolutionary War, and so many
German-speaking  people  had  settled   here  by  1795  that  Congress
considered publishing a  German-language edition of  the federal laws.
But what shocks is  that we should so eagerly have  adopted one of the
very  worst  aspects  of   Prussian  culture:  an  educational  system
deliberately  designed to  produce mediocre  intellects, to  hamstring
the inner  life, to deny  students appreciable leadership  skills, and
to ensure  docile and incomplete  citizens 11  in order to  render the
populace "manageable."

It  was  from James  Bryant  Conant-president  of Harvard  for  twenty
years, WWI  poison-gas specialist, WWII  executive on  the atomic-bomb
project,  high commissioner  of  the American  zone  in Germany  after
WWII, and truly  one of the most influential figures  of the twentieth
century-that  I  first got  wind  of  the  real purposes  of  American
schooling. Without Conant,  we would probably not have  the same style
and degree of  standardized testing that we enjoy today,  nor would we
be blessed with gargantuan high  schools that warehouse 2,000 to 4,000
students  at a  time, like  the  famous Columbine  High in  Littleton,
Colorado. Shortly after  I retired from teaching I  picked up Conant's
1959 book-length  essay, The Child the  Parent and the State,  and was
more than  a little intrigued to see  him mention in  passing that the
modern schools we attend were  the result of a "revolution" engineered
between 1905 and 1930. A revolution?  He declines to elaborate, but he
does direct the curious and  the uninformed to Alexander Inglis's 1918
book,  Principles  of Secondary  Education,  in  which "one  saw  this
revolution through the eyes of a revolutionary."

Inglis, for whom a lecture in  education at Harvard is named, makes it
perfectly  clear  that  compulsory schooling  on  this  continent  was
intended to  be just  what it  had been  for Prussia  in the  1820s: a
fifth column into  the burgeoning democratic  movement that threatened
to give  the peasants and the  proletarians a voice at  the bargaining
table.  Modern, industrialized,  compulsory  schooling was  to make  a
sort  of  surgical  incision  into  the  prospective  unity  of  these
underclasses. Divide children by  subject, by age-grading, by constant
rankings on  tests, and by  many other more  subtle means, and  it was
unlikely 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  modern
schooling into  six basic  functions, any  one of  which is  enough to
curl  the  hair  of  those  innocent   enough  to  believe  the  three
traditional goals listed earlier:

1) The adjustive or adaptive  function. Schools are to establish fixed
habits of reaction  to authority. This, of  course, precludes critical
judgment  completely.  It also  pretty  much  destroys the  idea  that
useful or  interesting material  should be  taught, because  you can't
test for reflexive obedience until you  know whether you can make kids
learn, 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 as
alike as possible. People who conform  are predictable, and this is of
great use  to those who wish to  harness and manipulate  a large labor
force.

3)  The  diagnostic  and  directive   function.  School  is  meant  to
determine each student's  proper social role. This is  done by logging
evidence 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 so
far as  their destination in the social  machine merits -  and not one
step further. So much for making kids their personal best.

5) The selective function. This refers  not to human choice at all but
to Darwin's theory  of natural selection as applied to  what he called
"the favored  races." In short,  the idea is  to help things  along by
consciously  attempting to  improve  the breeding  stock. Schools  are
meant to  tag the unfit  - with  poor grades, remedial  placement, and
other punishments -  clearly enough that their peers  will accept them
as   inferior  and  effectively   bar   them  from  the   reproductive
sweepstakes.  That's what  all  those little  humiliations from  first
grade onward were intended to do: wash the dirt down the drain.

6) The  propaedeutic function.  The societal  system implied  by these
rules will require an elite group  of caretakers. To that end, a small
fraction  of the  kids  will  quietly be  taught  how  to manage  this
continuing  project,  how  to  watch over  and  control  a  population
deliberately dumbed down  and declawed in order  that government might
proceed unchallenged  and corporations might  never want  for obedient
labor.

That, unfortunately, is  the purpose of mandatory  public education in
this country.  And lest you take Inglis  for an isolated  crank with a
rather  too cynical  take on  the educational  enterprise, you  should
know  that he  was hardly  alone  in championing  these ideas.  Conant
himself, building on  the ideas of Horace Mann  and others, campaigned
tirelessly  for an  American  school system  designed  along the  same
lines.  Men like George  Peabody,  who funded the  cause  of mandatory
schooling throughout  the South, surely  understood that  the Prussian
system was  useful in creating  not only  a harmless electorate  and a
servile labor force but also a  virtual herd of mindless consumers. In
time  a  great number  of  industrial  titans  came to  recognize  the
enormous profits  to be  had by  cultivating and  tending just  such a
herd  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 conception
of  a grand  warfare between  the classes  to see  that it  is in  the
interest of complex management, economic  or political, to dumb people
down, to  demoralize them,  to divide  them from  one another,  and to
discard them if  they don't conform. Class may  frame the proposition,
as when Woodrow  Wilson, then president of  Princeton University, said
the  following to the  New  York City School  Teachers  Association in
1909: "We want  one class of persons to have  a liberal education, and
we  want another  class  of  persons, a  very  much  larger class,  of
necessity,  in every society,  to  forgo the privileges  of  a liberal
education  and fit  themselves  to perform  specific difficult  manual
tasks." But  the motives  behind the  disgusting decisions  that bring
about these ends need not be  class-based at all. They can stem purely
from fear,  or from the  by now  familiar belief that  "efficiency" is
the paramount  virtue, rather than  love, liberty, laughter,  or hope.
Above all, they can stem from simple greed.

There were  vast fortunes to be made,  after all, in  an economy based
on  mass  production and  organized  to  favor the  large  corporation
rather  than  the  small  business  or   the  family  farm.  But  mass
production  required  mass  consumption,  and   at  the  turn  of  the
twentieth  century most  Americans  considered it  both unnatural  and
unwise to  buy things they  didn't actually need.  Mandatory schooling
was a godsend on  that count. School didn't have to  train kids in any
direct  sense to think  they  should consume nonstop,  because  it did
something even  better: it encouraged  them not  to think at  all. And
that  left them  sitting  ducks for  another  great  invention of  the
modern era - marketing.

Now, you  needn't have studied  marketing to  know that there  are two
groups of  people who  can always  be convinced  to consume  more than
they need to: addicts and children.  School has done a pretty good job
of turning  our children into addicts,  but it has done  a spectacular
job  of  turning  our  children  into  children.  Again,  this  is  no
accident. Theorists from Plato to Rousseau  to our own Dr. Inglis knew
that if children could be  cloistered with other children, stripped of
responsibility  and  independence,  encouraged  to  develop  only  the
trivializing emotions of  greed, envy, jealousy, and  fear, they would
grow older but  never truly grow up.  In the 1934 edition  of his once
well-known  book Public  Education in  the United  States, Ellwood  P.
Cubberley  detailed and  praised the  way the  strategy of  successive
school enlargements  had extended childhood by  two to six  years, and
forced  schooling  was  at  that  point still  quite  new.  This  same
Cubberley  -  who  was  dean  of Stanford's  School  of  Education,  a
textbook  editor  at   Houghton  Mifflin,  and   Conant's  friend  and
correspondent  at Harvard  - had  written  the following  in the  1922
edition of  his book  Public School  Administration: "Our  schools are
... factories  in which the raw  products (children) are to  be shaped
and fashioned .... And  it is the business of the  school to build its
pupils according to the specifications laid down."

It's   perfectly   obvious  from   our   society  today   what   those
specifications were.  Maturity has  by now  been banished  from nearly
every aspect of our lives. Easy  divorce laws have removed the need to
work at  relationships; easy  credit has removed  the need  for fiscal
self-control;  easy entertainment  has removed  the need  to learn  to
entertain  oneself;  easy  answers  have   removed  the  need  to  ask
questions. We  have become  a nation of  children, happy  to surrender
our judgments and  our wills to political  exhortations and commercial
blandishments that  would  insult actual adults.  We  buy televisions,
and  then  we  buy  the  things we  see  on  the  television.  We  buy
computers, 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 apart
too soon we buy  another pair. We drive SUVs and  believe the lie that
they constitute a kind of  life insurance, even when we're upside-down
in them.  And, worst of  all, we don't bat  an eye when  Ari Fleischer
tells us  to "be  careful what  you say," even  if we  remember having
been told  somewhere back in  school that America  is the land  of the
free. We  simply buy  that one  too. Our  schooling, as  intended, has
seen to it.

Now for  the good news.  Once you  understand the logic  behind modern
schooling,  its tricks  and traps  are  fairly easy  to avoid.  School
trains children  to be employees and  consumers; teach your own  to be
leaders and adventurers.  School trains children  to obey reflexively;
teach your  own to think  critically and  independently. Well-schooled
kids have  a low threshold  for boredom; help  your own to  develop an
inner life so  that they'll never be  bored. Urge them to  take on the
serious  material,  the  grown-up material,  in  history,  literature,
philosophy,  music,   art,  economics,  theology   -  all   the  stuff
schoolteachers know  well enough  to avoid.  Challenge your  kids with
plenty of solitude so that they  can learn to enjoy their own company,
to conduct  inner dialogues. Well-schooled  people are  conditioned to
dread being  alone, and they  seek constant companionship  through the
TV,  the computer,  the cell  phone, and  through shallow  friendships
quickly acquired  and quickly abandoned.  Your children should  have a
more 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 the
habits  and  attitudes  that   corporate  society  demands.  Mandatory
education serves  children only incidentally;  its real purpose  is to
turn  them into servants.  Don't  let your own  have  their childhoods
extended, not even for a day.  If David Farragut could take command of
a  captured British  warship as  a  pre-teen, if  Thomas Edison  could
publish  a broadsheet  at the  age of  twelve, if  Ben Franklin  could
apprentice himself  to a  printer at  the same  age (then  put himself
through  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 that
genius is  as common as dirt. We  suppress our genius  only because we
haven't yet  figured out how  to manage  a population of  educated men
and women.  The solution, I  think, is  simple and glorious.  Let them
manage themselves.

Written by: John Taylor Gatto


----------------------------------------------------------------------
	[2.4] Poetry about school & youth rights
	www.school-survival.net/poetry
----------------------------------------------------------------------

		[2.4.1] School Frustrations
			  by SoulRiser
	--------------------------------------------------------------

Schools don't educate
they teach us to fear
and surrender to fate

Schools make learning dull
memorizing details is simply no fun

Of course it's all indirect
it's hidden so well that
no-one would suspect
that it's here and it's there
look around, it's not fair

You turn to the class
and ask a question

I would gladly reply
if I were so inclined

But something else is on my mind
learning of a different kind

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

I speak with a friend
and I'm punished for that
when I try to defend
I'm thrown out for backchat

Respect is something
that you have to earn
but you yell, demand
and give none in return

Written by: SoulRiser


		[2.4.2] Used to be
			  by SoulRiser
	--------------------------------------------------------------

This is a poem I wrote about my school.

--------

There used to be respect here
when it wasn't in demand
excellence in atmosphere
kindness all around
but advertising those facts
wouldn't work in this town

emphasizing other things
removing many choices
one by one they disappear
silencing our voices

you protect yourself from open minds
as you shrug the blame away
took a chance with one of a kind
and then lied to save your name

you started by ignoring
and slowly grew to greed
now all the good has fallen
because of one bad seed.

Written by: SoulRiser


		[2.4.3] Our mark in passing
			  by Spooky Poet
	--------------------------------------------------------------

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 yet
recieved no guidance,  counseling or consideration  for the particular
challenges that  Gifted students face. The  attitude was that  of "You
are Gifted, thus  you should excel with minimal effort  in all of your
classes." Yeah, okay.  I would if I  wasn't so damn bored  by the lack
of challenge  that I stop paying  attention long enough to  lose track
of the lesson.

Our Mark In Passing December 5, 1989

Look  at  us, sitting  in  rows  organized  and  lined up.  Our  seats
identical. Only our faces and clothes  are different and they can even
make our clothes the  same if they decide to. Eight times  a day we go
to the  same places we  were the day  before. The teacher  checks each
day 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 rounded
individuals."  Sure, we'll  be well  rounded, every  corner will  have
been smoothed  over, So that our rough  edges will not  catch, snag or
irritate the Walls  as we are processed through  this building. Heaven
forbid 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 with
society the  way we made  you to fit,  don't make waves,  don't change
things, or  we will have failed in  our attempt of  programming you as
we taught." But  we will not come out as  individuals, our rough edges
and corners made us different, and  so in smoothing them over they rub
out and cover up our identities. All  that lost so that the System can
process us through without wearing out.  Yet some of us are hard, like
diamonds, we cannot be smoothed and  the Walls bleed with change where
we have been pushed through. The  wound will heal but there will still
be the scar, we will have made our mark in passing.

Spooky Poet

spookypoet@angelfire.com

Note:  I had  a  habit of  walking  down the  hallways  with my  hands
"clawing" the  painted cinderblock  walls of my  school well  before I
wrote  this poem.  It  was  a friend  that  pointed  out the  possible
symbology of that after she read the poem.


		[2.4.4] Take Action
			  by Badlands17
	--------------------------------------------------------------

Theyre just like other people
But now, theyre the steeple
Of a tower of arbitrary hate
Of youre just going to have to wait
The amount of time you are on this Earth
Does not indicate your intellect and worth
Young man; dont wait
Fight the fight; set things straight
If you believe in yourself
You can fight the ice shelf
Its projecting out to you
And saying this is what you have to do
Fight back; say You dont control my life
The opportunities are rife
Rife without you
I want to be through
But then you remember
You are simply a stray ember
In 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  would
rather be  somewhere else. These young  people often actually  love to
learn  - the  problem  is  that few  subjects  offered  at school  are
interesting 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 get
your education  in  other ways, through  homeschooling  or unschooling
(if your parents will let you).  Since this article is more focused on
how to  survive school if  you can't  get out, more  information about
those 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 they
thinking when  they designed  a school that  would teach  everyone the
same 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 prefer
to  do things  your  own way,  that's  a GOOD  thing.  Those kids  who
function best  when told what to do  every second of  their lives will
probably be working for you someday.

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

2) You're not the only one.

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

Some people who won the Nobel Prize hated school:

George  Bernard Shaw said,  "There  is nothing on  earth  intended for
innocent people so horrible as a school."
Albert  Einstein  said,  "Education  is what  remains  after  one  has
forgotten 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 is
often done  by following elaborate  "learning methods", none  of which
are really  much more than ways  to trick your brain  into remembering
things it  otherwise  would disregard. Some  people  actually remember
some of  this information later  in their  lives - especially  if they
happen 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 everything
they  ever  learned  at  school  - including  the  skills  needed  for
reading, 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 and
try something  else, don't  despair! There  is some fun  to be  had in
school. If  you already have  a good  circle of friends  there, you're
off to  a good start. If not,  whatever you do,  don't change yourself
to "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's
that "school is what you make of  it". This is true. If you don't want
it to  be boring, bring something  interesting to do. Just  don't make
it too  obvious or it might  get confiscated for being  a "distraction
from  your education". Make  a  "mission" for yourself  to  achieve in
school -  this could be  anything you choose, or  a good cause  - like
finding 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 doing
things that actually  interest you, there are ways around  it. If your
parents aren't too fussy about your  marks, you could just do the bare
minimum required  to pass. If, on  the other hand, they  want "nothing
but the  best", maybe you  should try  reasoning with them.  Tell them
how school  makes you  feel. Explain  to them that  you'd learn  a lot
more  if things  weren't forced  on you.  It's bad  enough having  the
teachers down your  throat about all sorts of things,  but having your
parents on  your back as  well is like  being attacked from  all sides
with no escape.  If you can't get a  word in, try writing  it down and
having  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 it
look 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 survive
school  with your  sanity intact,  and it's  a luxury  not many  young
people have.  Put as much effort  into reasoning with your  parents as
you possibly  can, and only after  all else fails should  you consider
other ways of  getting good marks that don't involve  working so hard,
like  finding a  friend and  helping each  other finish  the work  off
quicker.

Hopefully  this article  has  helped  you in  some  way,  or at  least
cheered  you up  a bit.  Don't ever  give up  - school  may seem  like
prison or  even hell, but  it won't last  forever. Maybe you  can even
help out some other people along the way. Good luck.

HELPFUL LINKS
www.school-survival.net/articles   -   More  articles   about   school
www.school-survival.net/alternatives.php  -   Alternatives  to  school
(homeschooling, unschooling, etc.)
learninfreedom.org/Nobel_hates_school.html - More  Nobel Prize winners
who 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 who
want  to change  things seem  to be  more focused  on "reforming"  the
schools  - and  they  don't seem  to realise  that  all their  efforts
trying to  change schools  aren't letting the  young people  know that
there are  people out  there who  actually care  about them.  From the
unhappy  kids' point  of view,  everyone  just keeps  telling them  to
"sweat it out" and  that it's "for their own good".  Who would want to
live in a world where nobody cares or understands?

So, for  the most part,  the #1 priority is  reaching out to  kids who
are  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: Emie
     This is  one of my favorite sites.  When I first  found this site
last  year,  I was  frustrated  and  upset  with  the homework  I  was
supposed  to be  doing. I  randomly  typed something  into the  search
engine, like  "school is bad"  or something  like that, and  this site
came up.  Once I started to  read this site, espescially  the Opinions
section, I was completely amazed. This  site was the first thing I had
ever seen that expressed my  feelings for school completely. It seemed
sometimes  like what  I  was reading  was what  I'd  been feeling  for
years, but couldn't  put into words myself. Just  knowing other people
felt the  way I  did was  a great  feeling. Thanks  for making  such a
great  site, having  a site  like this  really makes  a difference  to
people! ^_^ 

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
you yell,  they'll just have  an excuse  to say you're  immature. Stay
calm while they yell :)
* Don't pick on every teacher just because  they're a teacher, be
nice 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've
found. Or  print copies  of the School  Survival Guide  and distribute
that. Or use  the print link on any  page on this site,  and pass that
around.

Protest  whenever someone  gets  suspended or  expelled for  something
dress 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 what
they  think of  various rules  and other  things at  your school,  and
forward the results to the principal.

Give your school a report card!  Grade the various aspects of it, like
how much respect students get,  the excitement level of classes, smell
of the  bathrooms, etc. Print lots of  copies and give  them to people
or stick them  on the bulletin boards and stuff.  Get students to sign
it 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 that
don't count for anything. Get together  and have lots of students just
leave  those  tests blank.  If  asked  why  you're leaving  it  blank,
explain your  frustrations with the  current school system  placing so
much weight  on tests and grades and  numbers. You could  fill in your
reasons for leaving it blank on your answer sheet itself, if you like.

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

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

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

Every time you  have to do a  speech or some presentation,  try to put
an anti-school  message in  it. I  did this often  enough that  my one
teacher got  all annoyed one time after  a speech about  school and he
said "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
to fit with it  and say those instead. If everyone  in the class would
be saying different words all at the  same time, it will have quite an
effect. If  you come  up with  a good alternative  pledge and  want to
share it with the  world, post it on the forums. Also,  if you have to
sing 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 immediately
judging what they say. If you can communicate, you can work together.

Print  out  the How  to  be  a Good  Teacher  guide,  and give  it  to
teachers... or  just leave it  where they will find  it :) ...  Or, if
you're a  teacher and you're reading  this page, I'd  highly recommend
checking  out the  guide, maybe  you could  pick up  a tip  or two  ;)
www.school-survival.net/kit/How_to_be_a_good_teacher.php

	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 made
about  school. Every  now  and then,  someone  gets really  frustrated
about school and  posts about it on whichever forum  they happen to be
on. This is a good time to  reply to them, assure them there's nothing
wrong with hating  school, let them know about  some alternatives, and
maybe 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 want
to get a  rule changed, but you'd  be surprised how much  more you can
influence  than rules.  If your  protest  doesn't get  through to  the
administration, that's  okay,  because more than  likely  your protest
accomplished something a  lot more important: you  demonstrated to the
other students that they don't have  to take school sitting down, that
they can have  their say no matter what, and  that working together to
get something done isn't impossible.

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

To  make this  whole  spread-the-word campaign  more interesting,  you
could form clubs.  For example, a 'RATS Club'.  Basically, once you've
reached out to a few people who  hate school, why not ask them to help
you 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 will
be  a lot  more effective  as well.  For added  effect, make  t-shirts
stating your cause as well.  

You can download some designs here:
www.school-survival.net/store

Or order ready-printed shirts, caps, mugs etc. here:
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 page
will tell you how.

	Break Stuff and Hurt People
----------------------------------------------

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

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 to
unite  with your  peers  and build  a culture  of  resistance at  your
school. It  is a way to temporarily  turn your school  upside down and
put  the  students  in  charge  for a  change.  It  is  also  valuable
organizing training  for when the real  revolution comes. And  if done
right, it  can  have a big  enough  impact that actual  change  in the
system is made.

Probably the  first comment youll have  is something like  that will
never happen at my  school. At least thats what I  was saying at the
beginning of my  senior year of high school. I  never thought we would
be able to get away with half  the stuff we pulled off. Our school was
so boring,  mundane, uninteresting.  By the  end of  the year,  we had
published an underground  newspaper distributed in  several local high
schools,  had  formed a  network  of  radical student  activists,  and
organized a student walkout of hundreds  of kids in protest of the war
in Iraq.

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

Before we go any further, your  movement must be _about_ something. If
its just  for the hell of it,  you should stop  reading now because
you will  fail miserably regardless. So  you need a cause  behind your
movement? No!  You need a  movement behind your  cause! If you  do not
have a  clear message,  you will  be quickly  written off  as mindless
teenage  rebellion. By  having  a purpose  for  the  action, you  gain
legitimacy  among faculty  and  conservative students  and reduce  the
risk  of discipline  from the  authorities. So  make this  meaningful.
Remember:  this is a  forum  for you to  express  your dissatisfaction
with the  status quo.  Believe me, every  school has  something unfair
about it -  dress code, censorship, abusive  administrators, pledge of
allegiance, etc. If you play your  cards right, something may even get
done about it.

Right. So now  that you have selected  a few issues to  raise a ruckus
about, the first thing you must  do before you develop grandoise plans
for student  revolution is  to start talking  to people.  Gather their
thoughts about these issues. Try to  get them all riled up and wanting
to take  action. While  many people  have their  personal differences,
almost everyone  if you talk  to them long  enough will agree  on some
fundamental  principles   that  things   are  incredibly   unfair  and
something should be done about it.

You will quickly  discover that one of the first  things that you must
overcome is  any personal inhibitions  you might have  towards people.
Do NOT be  shy or self-restrained. Dont  be afraid to go  up to total
strangers  in a  friendly way  and  start sharing  all these  personal
experiences. Reach  out to people  of different  cultural backgrounds.
Dont  let social  cliques and  popularity contests  keep the  student
body divided -  believe me, everyone can unite around  the common idea
that 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 and
put  them  up around  school  announcing  when,  where, and  why.  Get
everyone you  can together in  one room  to make some  decisions about
what can be done about the  issue in question. Have everyone go around
the  room   and  introduce   themselves.  Make   sure  no   one  feels
uncomfortable or  left out. I  also recommend  that you read  up about
how to organize  a meeting based on the  directly democratic concensus
process  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 will
be forced to  consider your actions with more  legitimacy, and provide
you with  school resources,  rooms, announcements  on the  PA, putting
posters  up around  school,  etc. However,  you  are  bound by  school
regulations,  which may  tie your  hands  from any  fun or  rebellious
activities.  Of  course,  that  does  not   mean  that  you  can  work
independent of the  organizationIt entirely depends on  the context of
your  school.  Gather  as   much  information  about  school  policies
regarding  student  organizations and  discuss  this choice  with  the
other group members.

Now that you have an activist  scene growing at your school, its time
to  release   some  publications.   Consider  making   an  underground
newsletter 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 of
this  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 to
students,  raise a  ruckus!  Stand near  the  doors  in the  cafeteria
handing out your  propaganda while shouting stuff! Make  a scene! Blow
bubbles and  fill the halls with  laughter! Get hundreds of  copies to
your friends  so that they  can distribute  them to their  friends and
their friends, etc.  Make sure every single student has  access to it.
And  promote discussion  - bring  up the  debate in  your classes,  at
lunch tables,  with strangers in the lunch  line, etc. By  now, it has
entered the  popular consciousness, the  seeds have been  planted, you
have a strong activist scene, and the time is ripe for an action.

What  you should  do depends  entirely  on the  context your  movement
takes place in. Try to coincide  your action with a particular date of
significance(in  response  to  a  controversial  policy  made  by  the
government or your  school administration, anti-war  protest in nearby
cities,  etc).  If possible,  look  at  your local  independent  media
center(indymedia.org)  to  see if  there  are other  student  activist
groups planning any actions - and  try to coordinate your actions with
theirs. Some things  to consider might be a student  walkout, a sit-in
in your school, a march to join  up with a larger protest downtown, or
in  some situations,  a simple  teach-in  to just  discuss the  issues
might  be  appropriate.  However,  in  order to  have  any  degree  of
success, you  must find a way  to bring all the  unfocused meaningless
rebellion 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,  bulletin
boards.  Make quarter  page flyers  explaining where,  when, and  why.
Make a  website, advertise  it in  the official  school paper.  If you
can, try  to get it  on the school  announcements. Make it  exciting -
hype it up! Make it the  topic of everyones discussion. Tell everyone
you see  - even people  you dont know.  Do not  be afraid to  talk to
people you  dont know  - get  used to presenting  your movement  in a
quick two minute discussion, and _dont be shy_!

Handling the local  press is an important factor to  consider. A press
release should be drafted explaining  what, who, where, when, and why.
It should  be short  and concise,  yet still keep  all the  points you
want to  make intact.  Stick to  a few key  phrases that  are repeated
everywhere - signs,  buttons, leaflets, etc. Around a  week before the
event, send press releases to  all the local newspapers and television
networks.  Try to  invite  reporters to  take  pictures and  interview
people. At  the least, get  some of your  own people to  take pictures
and document the event. We were  able to make it on network television
and several other newspapers.

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

There  is a  certain high  one can  get from  organizing a  successful
action. If done right, the protest  can be a liberating experience for
you  and your  comrades beyond  anything  else(even sex  and the  best
drugs). 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  school
board  to leave  their  comments. Depending  on  the  success of  your
action, they may be forced to  issue a statement or change policies if
you have built  a solid movement with serious  argument that pressures
the power that be.

-------

Youre probably  wondering why this  guide appeared in  this magazine.
Its not  about hacking.  However, it is  about building  movements of
people  to accomplish  something  in real  life -  a  quality that  is
lacking  in  computers  and   computer  users.  In  this  increasingly
oppressive  world, people  need  to work  with  others  and fight  for
social justice.  All too often  hackers consider themselves  elite and
above it all  in the compute realm, but when  presented with injustice
in  the  realm world,  they  simply  submit themselves  to  dominating
forces. 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 punish
students who  break those rules, to  discourage others from  doing the
same. This can  be exploited - they  can't single out more  than a few
students at a  time. Imagine half the school getting  suspended on the
same day (or even in the same week) - it's just not possible.

The  more  students  who  work  together  in  a  walkout/protest/civil
disobedience, the less  possible it is to punish them.  As soon as you
have  a large  number of  students doing  something, you  can see  how
little power the school administration  really has over students. When
they can't  punish students,  they're pretty  powerless. Every  time a
protest happens, the  administration feels threatened,  and it becomes
clearer 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, they
can easily  try to threaten students  by telling them  protesters will
be 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 of
this works, then no threat can scare them off.

The  school administration  can  however punish  the  organizers of  a
walkout/protest,   in  the   hopes  of   discouraging  students   from
organizing such  things in future.  But they  can only punish  them if
they know  who  they are. If  they  don't know who  is  passing around
leaflets  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 way
it'll be harder to track down and  punish them, and also will make the
whole protest  more democratic. Another idea  is to have  someone help
in your  protest that is out of  school, and just  pretend that he/she
is  the organizer.  If  the organizer  does get  in  trouble, and  the
administration threatens to expel them,  call a lawyer or contact some
other  community/student group.  If  the  school administration  knows
it'll  be  a  lot  of  hassle and  trouble  to  go  through  with  the
expulsion, they might change their minds.

Here's  a quote  from one  of  the articles  in the  Tales of  Protest
section,  showing  how   well  people  can  work   together  to  avoid
punishment:
'One officer shouted "Who is responsible  for this?", I raised my hand
and 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 by
one 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 are
getting trampled.


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

Paper 'Zines:

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

Step 2: Layout
You can use whatever software you  happen to have, Microsoft Word will
do. Publisher  is better for  making the  layout precise by  page, but
use  whatever you  have. Unlike  the content  in step  1, your  layout
isn't that important. For your first  issue, you shouldn't try to make
your '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
You're gonna need  a printer for this one. Print  in high quality, and
make a double-sided page (page 2 on  the back of page 1). Then, run to
the nearest  place that  can make  photocopies. Ask  them to  make the
copies 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 can
walk around with a pack of issues  and hand it out to random people in
the 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. You
could also put a copy on  students' cars in the parking lot, depending
on how  your school  is set  up. Either way,  as long  as distributing
your  'zine doesn't  cause  much disruption  of  normal classes,  they
can't stop you from continuing. 


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

These are  harmless  pranks that you  can  use to waste  some  time in
class, get  out early, or cause  some confusion among  teachers. There
will  be nothing  listed  here that  involves making  a  huge mess  or
breaking 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 words
Submitted by Andy
Whenever a  teacher  says a big  word,  ALWAYS ask what  it  means. Go
further and ask  where the word originated from, stray  off the topic,
etc.

Computer problems
Submitted by Sarah
If  you're working  on  a computer,  make  it crash  or  reset it  and
complain there's something wrong with  it. Then the teacher could take
a while to fix it, maybe they call a technician.

Computer problems II
Submitted by NoThaut
In computer  class, unplug your mouse  and keyboard from  the computer
and say the computer froze. It'll baffle your teacher.

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

Copying notes
Submitted by Pedro
If you have to  copy notes from the overhead or  the board, pretend it
is  taking  you a  long  time.  when  the  teacher asks  if  everyones
finished copying them,  say no. then, if they erase  the notes or take
the notes  off the overhead, complain  that you didn't  finish copying
them. usually the  teacher will let you borrow their  personal copy of
the  notes. if  you 'forget  to  return them'  it will  mess up  their
classes for the  rest of the day, which  is nice if you  have a friend
in the same class before or after you.

Crying in class
Submitted by libby
Completely skip  a project then get  hysterical and cry about  it. The
teacher will  have to  deal with your  emotional problems  before they
can  do anything  else. Or  you could  say you  just broke  up with  a
girl/boyfriend and cry about that.

Dress code protest
Submitted by The School Stoppers Textbook
If your  school still has a dress  code protest it  having everyone do
something disruptive that does not  violate the code. For example, dye
your hair green with food coloring.

Epidemics
Submitted by The School Stoppers Textbook
Have giant coughing or sneezing epidemics in class or study hall.

Fake school
Submitted by The School Stoppers Textbook
Set up  a fake school and  hire away the  lousy teachers -- or  put up
notices  inviting the  entire  school  to a  going  away  party for  a
teacher who isn't really leaving.

Forward in time
Submitted by old hand
If you  can get  to class before  the teacher, grab  the clock  in the
room and  set the  hand forward  10 minutes.  You should  have someone
stand  outside the  door and  make  a lot  of  noise if  they see  the
teacher coming.

Free choice reports
Submitted by The School Stoppers Textbook
Use  your  'free choice'  book  reports,  term  papers, etc.  to  read
revolutionary literature  and further the  political education  of you
and your class.

Gay marriage
Submitted by j3
If  you have  a teacher  whom  you know  to  have a  problem with  gay
people, raise  your hand and ask  'what is wrong with  gay marriages',
causing a class discussion.

Information service
Submitted by The School Stoppers Textbook
Start  an  information  service  to  get  new  students  opinions  and
warnings about the teachers and administrators before enrollment day.

Look stuff up
Submitted by Jen
Ask a  question that the teacher won't  know the answer  to, then when
they don't  answer, insist that  you want  to know, and  maybe they'll
look it up or something.

Lost bag
Submitted by libby
Pretend 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 look
for it. Then stay away as long as you like.

Lost contact lens
Submitted by the monkey
When there  is a  sub and  as usual  dont want  to do  jacksquat, have
someone raise  your (or a  friend's) hand and  say you or  your friend
lost a contact lens. The sub SHOULD  agree and have the class help you
find it.  All you got  to do is  pretend to  look. Before you  know it
class is over.

Newspaper stands
Submitted by SoulRiser
If you have  a newspaper stand in your school:  When nobody's looking,
insert lots of underground papers or stuff printed from this site.

Notices
Submitted by SoulRiser
Collect school notices (stuff that gets  sent to teachers with info on
meetings, etc). Make  your own ones that look  similar, and distribute
it to  teachers. Like tell certain  teachers you hate that  times have
changed and that  they don't have a class (when  they do). They either
won't show up,  or will get confused  and go ask, which  will make the
principal  confused,  which  will make  everyone  confused....  There,
you've  successfully confused  everyone. Feel  proud :)  You can  take
this further and  make notices saying there's no school  on a specific
day for whatever reason.

Phone the teacher
Submitted by Shaft
If 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's
urgent. If you're a  good talker you can keep him/her  busy for a long
time.

Questions, questions...
Submitted by SoulRiser
While the  teacher's talking, ask a  question on something  he/she was
talking  about 5  minutes  ago. He  can't  get  angry, because  you're
participating in class, except you will  set him back. The rest of the
class will  be free  while he  re-explains the  stuff.... If  you work
together, you could  have people take turns doing this  sort of thing,
eventually  the  whole period  will  be  gone.  This works  best  with
teachers that have a habit of straying off the point ;-)

Recycled essays
Submitted by The School Stoppers Textbook
Save your book reports and essays.  Give them to other students to use
next year or re-use them yourself with different teachers.

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

Teacher evaluation
Submitted by The School Stoppers Textbook
If your school won't have a  teacher evaluation make up some forms and
do 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  SoulRiser
Start wailing in the halls - get lots  of other people to do it too at
the same  time for  the best  effect. (If this  doesn't make  sense to
you, search for info on "The Wailing Wall" in Israel).

The mystery
Submitted by The School Stoppers Textbook
Leave  notes and hints  that  'Tuesday's the day'.  (Or  anything else
that sounds mysterious enough)

The rumour mill
Submitted by The School Stoppers Textbook
Periodically  have  students go  to  the  office  to have  some  rumor
confirmed or denied.

Ungaurded paper
Submitted by The School Stoppers Textbook
Teachers  often  leave  gradebooks,  conduct  sheets,  and  attendance
records unguarded. Take every chance to help yourself.

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

Your pants are wet
Submitted by The School Stoppers Textbook
If  you've got  the nerve  piss  in your  pants while  giving an  oral
report. 



There used  to be other things  like glueing the teacher's  coffee cup
to the  desk,  or putting slimy  stuff  on doorknobs on  this  page as
well, 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 will
then  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 stuff
that gets  submitted is something like  "glue this shut" or  "put poop
on  the doorknob",  or  even potentially  lethal  things like  leaving
bunsen  burners on in  the  science class (blowing  up  classrooms can
kill 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  up
toilets - I'm tired of getting emails about that kind of thing)


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

WARNING: As far as it goes  with ignorant teachers, doing these things
could get  you labelled as "ungrateful",  "disobedient", "rebellious",
"spiteful"  and other  things  like that.  So  it's up  to  you.   And
another thing: remember  the saying "stupidity  shouts loudest", which
means that  if you do  a couple of stupid  things along the  way (like
hurt  somebody  or scream  at  them),  then  people  have a  habit  of
remembering 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.
What  if they  start shouting  at  you? That  just goes  to show  that
they're immature  and can't handle  critiscism. Don't get  angry back,
cause the more polite and peaceful  you are, the less reason they have
to 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 own
opinion and  that it's  your right  to do so.  Tell them  that there's
nothing wrong  with having  your own  opinion and  tell them  that you
understand  fully that  they may  disagree  with you.  Tell them  it's
their right  to disagree. But tell  them that since you  respect their
opinion, they should try to respect yours too.

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

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

After  you've done  a  few of  these things,  the  average teacher  is
likely to  call you spiteful  sooner or  later. If that  happens, tell
them you  don't like  being called  spiteful, and  that it  hurts your
feelings. Say  you  never intended any  of  the things you  did  to be
spiteful, and  that you did it to  try to help  the teacher understand
you better.

If  you haven't shouted  at  anyone, said any  swearwords,  or punched
anyone  in the  face, nobody  can  get you  in any  trouble since  you
haven't really broken any  rules. If you get a lot  of students to all
do this sort of thing, school might just become more fun... 


----------------------------------------------------------------------
	[3.9] Defend your site/blog: Anonymity Guidelines
	defendyoursites.tripod.com
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Below are basic pointers on how  to keep your identity hidden from the
people who view  your website. This will ensure that  your school -and
anyone else- cannot punish you for your opinion.

	Introduction and Links

NOTE:  YOU NEED  NOT  GET  RID  OF YOUR  CURRENT  BLOG TO  UTILIZE  AN
ANONYMOUS ONE.  As long as  you do not  mention that you  operate BOTH
blogs  on your  blog (or  mention your  anonymous one  in public)  you
should  be  clear. Use  your  current  one  for everyday  stuff,  like
family, friends, and  life. Your anonymous one is  recommended only to
provide  you a  chance  to voice  your opinions  that  your school  is
likely to crack down on.

Can you truly be anonymous online?

The answer is simple: it depends on who you ask.

In our  opinion, the guidelines laid out  on this site  in addition to
the resources provided will make you  extremely hard to track down, if
not impossible.  If you are serious  about making a  blog untraceable,
we recommend  that you  follow ALL THE  GUIDELINES. This  will provide
the utmost protection for you and your opinions. 

	Links

anoniblog.pbwiki.com/Resources
www.stayinvisible.com
tor.eff.org
www.digitalcybersoft.com/ProxyList

Visit  our  downloads  section  for  additional  anonymity  resources.
defendyoursites.tripod.com/id27.html

	Anonymity Guidelines

1) Do  not  post ANYTHING on  your  blog/site under your  name.  Use a
unique screename. Make  sure that your screename is not  a nickname or
anything  that  you are  called  often,  or  that you  are  previously
associated with.

2) Do  not mention the  names of your  friends anywhere on  your site.
Use  their  screename  or  another name.  Same  rule  with  screenames
mentioned above applies here.

3)  Do not  post  pictures of  yourself  or your  friends.  This is  a
surefire way to be identified.

4) If you do not want to follow 1-3, make your 
myspace/livejournal/etc profile  private, and only allow  your trusted
friends in. Do not give out your  site's URL to anyone other than your
trusted friends.

5) Utilize  a proxy or the Tor  Anonymizer when working  on your site.
This  should thwart most  or  all attempts to  locate  the site/blog's
publisher's IP address.

6) Sites  such as blogger.com and  livejournal allow you to  be pretty
anonymous, but Myspace is pretty open, and as such is not recommended.

7) Never sign  up for a blog or  site with your real  name. Sites such
as myspace  are searchable for  names of  profiles' users, and  one of
these searches can  be the death of even the  most carefully protected
profile.

8)  Do not  ever talk  about  your blog  to anyone  except your  close
friends, and  make  sure to do  this  in private where  you  cannot be
overheard.

9) Don't work  on your blog or website  at school; work on  it at home
where  there's  little  chance  of school  monitoring  software  or  a
teacher looking over your shoulder. 


======================================================================
	[4] OTHER STUFF
======================================================================

Stuff that doesn't fit in any of the other sections.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
	[4.1] Spread the word
	www.school-survival.net/support.php
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Distribute  this  guide  anywhere and  everywhere - share  it on a p2p
network,  upload  it to  public  FTP  servers, post  it  on  sites you
frequently visit, print it and pass it around, etc.


	Banners
----------------------------------------------

www.school-survival.net/link_us.php

Put any of the  banners from this page on your site.  Your site can be
about anything. In fact, it's good  if people looking for all sorts of
other things like games or music  find a School Survival banner there.
A text link will do fine too :D


	Other stuff
----------------------------------------------

* If you post on forums a lot, put a link to www.school-survival.net
in your signature.
* If you find an interesting news  article on another site, post it in
School Survival's news section.
* If  you find a  great site also  about school,  add it to  the Anti-
School Directory.  Mostly I email  the owners  of sites and  tell them
that  their  site  is  in  the  ASD,   and  ask  them  to  link  back.
* Print or  write www.school-survival.net on a lot of  small pieces of
paper, and  shove them inside random  library books (hey, it's  a free
bookmark).
* Order something from  the store and wear it a  lot (this isn't about
the money,  just about spreading  the word  - you could  also download
the  logo's and  designs from  this  page and  print them  yourself.).


----------------------------------------------------------------------
	[4.2] Noteworthy links
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Links in no particular order whatsoever :)

www.youthrights.org
www.youthrights.net
www.misled-youth.org
www.scared-of-school.tk
www.johntaylorgatto.com
www.fitz-claridge.com
www.learninfreedom.org
soulriser.blogspot.com
kfchildren.blogspot.com
www.buildresources.org
www.nospank.net
www.protest.net
www.socialpacifists.org
www.teenliberty.org
www.freechild.org
www.soundout.org
www.zerointelligence.net
www.gnn.tv
www.indymedia.org
www.wiretapmag.org
www.aprod.org
www.thememoryhole.org
defendyoursites.tripod.com


----------------------------------------------------------------------
	[4.3] Credits & Thanks
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Thank you's go out to...

MikEms for all his support and love :D

Master of Reality  for giving me space on his  hosting account for the
site :)

lifeischeese for being generally indispensable :P

Rebelnerd,  Ayliana,   bungalow,   modest   mouse,  freak-of-nature13,
Toucanman,  retardhick, xcriteria,  Doc  Johnson, and  all  the  other
forum regulars & moderators for  sticking around even  when everything
kept going wrong :)

Happy Camper for providing info on Charter Schools in the Alternatives
section.

Tengu  for  permission  to include  his  Anonymity Guidelines in  this
guide (defendyoursites.tripod.com).

Everyone else  who has ever posted  anything anywhere on the  site, or
sent me  any sort of  feedback. All of you  kept the site  going since
1999. (Yes, even the hate mail. Muhahahahaha!)

A windy  day for (somehow)  giving me the  idea to  put this all  in a
guide.

GameFAQs.com and  everyone who has a  guide hosted there, for  all the
good info over the years, but  also partly for the inspiration to make
a guide about something totally different like school :P

Everyone  in Clan oGk for being the most  awesome friends anyone could
ever ask for :)


----------------------------------------------------------------------
	[4.4] Copyright Info
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Copy  it, print  it, host  it on  your site,  I don't  mind. In  fact,
please  distribute this  as much  as  you can,  as long  as you  don't
change or remove any parts of it ;)

As for specific articles,  you can use them in your  own 'zines or put
them on  your site, as  long as you include  credit to the  author (if
the author's  name isn't listed with  the article, then  assume author
name to be SoulRiser), and you link  to their site (in most cases this
will be www.school-survival.net).


----------------------------------------------------------------------
	[4.5] Revision History
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Version 1.2 (9/June/2006):
	Sections added:
	[3.2] Hate school? Do something!
        [3.3] What NOT to do
        Those replace the RATS Mission page and the RATS Clubs guide.
        'What you can do to help' renamed to 'Spread the word'.
        Changed the order of things in the  Introductions section, and
        removed  the stuff about RATS  (because it is  now merged with
        School Survival).
        Added info on Charter Schools (written by Happy Camper)
	Added [3.9] Defend your site/blog: Anonymity Guidelines
	from defendyoursites.tripod.com

Version 1.1 (20/May/2006):
	Added the 'anti-school explanation' to the 'about' section.
	Updated the 'What you can do to help' section a bit.

Version 1.0 (05/May/2006):
	Started the  guide... version 1.0 is a total of 99kb  of pure 
	text... scary, yet cute... considering the  site  was started
	in 1999 :)


----------------------------------------------------------------------
	[4.6] Viewing Tips
----------------------------------------------------------------------

This text file  is best viewed with a monospace  font, like Courier. A
web browser  will do just fine. Basically,  if the line  of numbers is
aligned with the  line of hyphens below it, everything  else should be
fine as well:

1234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890
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