My Experience with the Public School System

When I was in the second grade my teacher asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I had recently got my first computer a Nintendo Entertainment System and the game Super Mario Bros. So I told her I wanted to make video games. She told me that meant I wanted to be a computer programmer. I didn't really know what she meant but that stuck with me in the back of my mind as I was growing up.

When I was around the 9th grade I had gotten a hold of a copy of VB3 because I wanted to make my own punters that was really popular at the time. So I made my first program in VB3 drawing out forms and typing in code that I read off of webpages and other .BAS files that I downloaded. I eventually made a anti-punter that when someone tried to punt you it would block their punt and punt them offline. This was my first experience with programming and it changed my life.

When I was in the tenth grade I was introduced to alcohol and marijuana. When I first tried it felt so satisfying I decided this was the stuff for me and it began my trip on drug addiction. It also opened my mind and gave me some clues to this great mystery I was experiencing on why I was treated so poorly in public schools.

The public school I went to had this "dress code" where a guy's hair could not be below his ears. They enforced this dress code on me at a time when I was into heavy metal music and wanted nothing more than to just grow my hair out. I lost all faith in the school system because of their sexist actions against my need to have my hair be natural as it was intended to be. They forced me to cut my hair and I finally decided I was not going to cut it all the while I had been learning to program in C++ and moved far away from there low level states of mind.

I had been experimenting with LSD and it totally changed my whole perception on life. I saw my self as a animal in the mirror a simple monkey. This went against everything they had taught me about being some special kind of being called a human. I loved coding and kept building my knowledge by writing software that I was supposed to have no ability to write according to the school.

Eventually I got feed up with them harassing me all the time trying to make me cut my hair. I told the school official that I didn't give a fuck what he said anymore and to go fuck himself. So I was expelled and had to go to a trailer on the outside of the schools property because I was just trying to grow my hair. The school system didn't care about me. I already knew Win32 API at the time and was writing programs off the top of my head. So I took a test and got my high school equivalency at age 17 and started Jr. College at the start of the next semester.

By the time I reached Jr. College I was already writing video games and was becoming very good at C++. The school didn't have a sexist dress code and I really liked going there however I never finished. I went off on my own learning spree and bought a lot of books and taught myself everything I know. The school system tried to stifle me for trying to be who I wanted to be.

I think public schools that try to train their children to be mindless zombies working endlessly in conformity to be totally backwards and negative. I love learning just not being harassed and forced to conform to some type of standard that I believe is against my beliefs. I still to this day have nightmares that I am back in the horrible position being oppressed by school officials trying to make me conform to some negative standard that is unrealistic. So I decided to teach myself what I always wanted to learn since second grade. That is to be a programmer. I am very successful at programming now and know a lot of different languages. C++ has stayed my favorite over the years but I am constantly learning new things by reading and teaching myself what the school system decided I was unable to learn.

I hope this blog post will show a little light on the topic of school and how it is impossible to keep a good programmer down through intimidation.

Keep coding my friends,

-Jared Bruni