Post: #51

Top 3% in high school, natural at maths, total loser though.

Post: #52

What I did not know back then was that most current school is a form of indoctrination to produce a mindless citizen who knows the basic stuff, but then is induced to follow orders top-down. Any kind of rebellion is not tolerated and there actually aspects of the curriculum which are meant to crush the spirit.

I did well in school, because I self-motivated myself. Up to age 17 I had years where I read one book per day. I had almost straight As, went to international chemistry olympics, foreign language olympics, was decorated at my competitive school. My mind worked extremely efficient back then like quicksilver. I think I dropped some 20 points from then -heh. Since I also worked out like hell back then and was one of the best guys in sports, the common teasing of scholar high-performers back then was at a minimum for me. Difficult to pick on a nerd who can crush you I guess. Later at around 17 I became sort of a rebel, did not study as much. I went to study economics, got straight As, but got bored mostly - debated violently against some of my female teachers.

Still even in my own class there was one friend of mine who had a genius-level IQ and later repeated the class, because he was a lazy motherfucker.

Personally I found that academic success may be an indicator of future success if you persevere, study something decent and then reach low to mid-level fields in government or corporations - happened mostly to my disciplined female school mates.

Men are more complicated - you could have super-intelligent bastards, who did not study, but became millionaires by age 22 after starting a tech company (also an acquaintance of mine). Or you could have intelligent, highly disciplined guys who aced school, aced university and then aced it in the corporate world now being on fast track to become international VPs with 5 mio. $ salaries (also a friend). Also I have a friend with even average or sub-average IQ, who was bad at school, but finished 2 trade schools later by sheer willpower. He later worked like a mule 2 demanding jobs, saved cash, bought a running company with his savings & some credit and now runs a mid-size company with 30 employees and does quite well for himself. Other cases I met were super-intelligent dudes who were at the top of their field in mathematics in college, but later became drunks and now work at petrol stations.

I think that it is better to do the most of school and do your best also there. You won't regret learning too much and using discipline in that field too - even if you hate math etc. But ultimately the correlation between real-life success for men is not so great. Especially when they later start a business, it seems that it helped them to think out of the box, since the educational machines does not encourage that - they want serfs from Gamma to Alpha.

Post: #53

Moderately. I did significantly above average and in most of the honors class, but a lot of it was so boring that i ended up caring less....so while I was probably the 90th+ percentile academically, it doesn't compare to my testing performance and actual aptitude.

Post: #54

I was basically the hellraiser yet all my buddies were copying my homework.

I got mostly As whenever I tried and was usually on the honor roll - always got singled out as one of the supposedly gifted kids when I was younger, but I think they couldn't really put their finger on what it was that made me excel at academics because I don't think I really have that high of an IQ. There were always a few kids smarter, but as another poster mentioned, it always kind of blew my mind how dumb the average person turned out to be and most of school didn't really feel like much of a challenge.

As I aged I became a troublemaker and starting in junior high a hardcore partier. I'd get hammered at school sometimes just to fuck around - stoned sometimes too, though that wasn't anything much out of the ordinary where I grew up. Drinking was way too much a part of my identity growing up and that held me back from achieving bigger things, but I had a father in prison and a mother who didn't offer any real kind of guidance. There weren't too many rules in our home.

There was also a dark side with me always flipping out and punching shit. Scared a few teachers, threw a chair at my wrestling coach, and kept beating people up. They finally threatened to expell me if I didn't get therapy. I held it together for a little while after that but then used my good grades as leverage to graduate early so I could help put food on the table. Unfortunately that also meant I ditched out on the most valuable year for football and wrestling, which was definitely a mistake.

People were always surprised as hell when they learned that I was actually a thinker behind the badboy image and even today I'll run into people who will go on and on about how much I've changed. It was nothing I ever hid so I always just tell them they obviously didn't know me very well. I guess I've just softened the edges a lot and it's less ambigious now.

I went to college and even a little university and never finished. Experiences were pretty much the same (except of course that I didn't take the violence or acting out to school anymore, since colleges don't put up with that shit).

I ended up teaching myself the skills I use in my business. I don't think I'll ever need a degree, but I will probably self-study or attend school off and on periodically throughout my life. I just like to learn.

When people find out what I do they immediately ask about the degree, and then they seem bewildered or skeptical when I explain I didn't study for this. So it seems to me that people don't quite understand how possible it is to forge your own way through life. It could be that I just take my strenghts for granted too, I guess.

Post: #55

I was lazy at school, but I was used to read a lot outside of school from an early age and I think it saved my ass.

The general culture I acquired by myself, out of the School system, served me better than most of the "knowledge" imposed in school.

Post: #56

I always got top marks on standardized tests at my school, and usually top marks in classes, when I wasn't suspended or in jail.

Never studied, but I read constantly in my spare time, so most high school shit was really just review. I didn't really understand learning in school when I left.

When I was 16 I drove 2000 miles across the country to go to Woodstock '99 with my 15 year old buddy. Seeing what happened there, especially being around for the massive fires and riots at the end, really fucked my trying to fit in with normal people.

I spent most of my time in side economies, spending a lot time with guys with rapsheets. I never really had a plan, since I always thought I'd end up in prison.

Ended up dropping out when they wouldn't let me play football (American style) anymore after getting in trouble yet again, and went to college with a GED at 17. Graduated with two worthless degrees.

If I could do it over again, I'd just take vocational classes like HVAC stuff or welding in high school instead of all the AP math and science shit.

Post: #57

Neither my interests nor talents fit in with almost anything my high school had to offer. So the short answer here is "No, I was not a good student," although I could be when I was engaged.

Men tend to be wildly idiosyncratic and obsessive. In the working world, this is great because it often translates to innovation.

But in school, where you're expected to learn a little about a lot of things, it's maddening if you know what you want to do but it's not offered as part of the curriculum.

I can see this being a bigger problem now for boys, since they have access to the Internet. Like me with the library, they probably sit home and learn a lot about a specific subject but then are expected to do trivial crap when they get to school -- and the knowledge they've accrued is not valued there.

For some, I think it's better in England, where they learn the basics and start a trade at 16 or 17. Maybe this wouldn't work for everyone, but it would have for me.

Anyway, what I wanted to be was a writer focusing on arts and culture. This did not wash at my semi-rural suburban high school and I was either discouraged or flunked outright for my ideas. But when I submitted those ideas in college papers, they got top marks and I eventually got the job I wanted because of that. So high school doesn't work for everyone.

I did, however, like being around the girls.

Post: #58

No... I barely did enough to pass. Mainly it was just lack of effort. Although I did start getting high before school and history was my first block and I ended up with a A that semester. I was just all high AF and thought theses wars and the way Murica came to be was the most interesting thing ever....

Hated Algebra, had this one fat lady teacher I couldn't stand and I just started drawing smiley faces and cakes on my test and not doing any of the problems and then taking a nap. I eventually got kicked out with a grade of 18 out of 100. Next year I had a different math teacher for the same subject and got a C+

Gym was cool and I was a beast at lunch...

Post: #59

Seems like there's an incredibly common trend here..

Men go to school
Men realise there's nothing of value for them there, while their actual interests and talents are systematically quashed
Men consistently face "disciplinary action" for failing to fall in line with the irrefutable standard curriculum
Men graduate school with passable marks due to their intrinsic intelligence, but mostly out of spite for their shitty teachers
Men get to college and go one of two ways
- finally enter into the field they loved as a child but realise college itself is a total joke
- continue on a path of "this is what I'm supposed to do in life" but grow weary of the poisonous environment they find themselves in
Men at this point are convinced there's something seriously wrong with society
Men look for other like minded men
Men find rvf and confirm their suspicions about the intrinsically destructive nature of the supposedly necessary overarching institutions
Men forgo traditional paths to success and forge their own, doing something they actually love, the way they want, rather than enslaving themselves into a system that actively hates them

Regardless of the destructive measures in place to ensure all boys grow up to be women, the real men are the ones that stay true to their own dreams and desires - these are the men that become truly great

I see a bright future for the members of rvf. It might be an uphill battle through stormy weather, but the mountain peaks above the rain clouds and the view is just incredible from up there