by Caroline McCue ’12

First, I think it is important that you take a moment to remind yourself why you are really here at school. This will help you to attain an attitude of active indifference. Students go to school because they have to, and that is basically where you should stop caring. If you take the following advice to heart, I can guarantee that you will avoid: all real, deep, meaningful learning; enduring friendships based on mutual interests; inspiration and guidance from teachers; and of course, personal growth. All you really have to do in school is show up, mindlessly copy down whatever teachers scribble on the board (it’s usually not even necessary to listen to whatever they’re blabbing on about), and fill out the assignments they give you.

There is no need to actually understand what you learn in school. Remember, what you learn in school is not meant to be relevant to your life. School learning couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the life of a teenager. You must never allow yourself to become truly interested in something you learn about in school. Especially do not allow assignments to spark your creativity. It is sufficient to memorize the information taught just for the next test. Granted, those pesky semester exams may give you a bit of trouble, as they dredge up long-forgotten, useless information that you might vaguely recall from a late night cramming before a test. A brief ode to cramming—such an important and crucial part of success in high school, one might forget how brilliantly simple and effective this method really is. It’s perfect really, as a student, you only need to know information long enough to use it on a test, and then you can promptly forget it! If understanding the material isn’t actually necessary to pass the test, why bother?

On another topic, don’t participate in any meaningful extracurricular activities. They pose a unique danger; though they seem harmless, they actually extend the ideas you learn in classes and let you explore them with others who share those interests. In fact, some students have been known to discover their passions through extracurricular activities! Even if you are doing everything right in your academic classes to avoid caring about what you learn, participation in clubs may undo all that effort. Likewise, sports will teach you teamwork, leadership, hard work and cooperation and give you a family of teammates who care about you. You might even begin to develop some team pride or, dare I say it, school spirit.

Though I’m sure this goes without saying at this point, don’t ask questions in class. You will appear to actually care about the material being taught and you might actually learn something. Besides, as long the teacher gives you what you’ll need to know for the test, there’s no need to learn anything further. If a teacher is calling on people in class for answers, busily pretend to look for something in your backpack. This is usually an effective way to prevent a teacher from calling on you. However, if the teacher unfortunately does happen to pick you, a slow “Ummm…. I don’t know,” accompanied by a blank stare ought to do the trick to encourage the teacher to move on and leave you alone.

You must make an effort to not care about high school. If you don’t remain indifferent to the people, opportunities and ideas you encounter here, you might just find, as I have, that you got a lot out of your four years of high school.

This satire, adapted from an AP English Literature Assignment, is a special to The Warrior.