You are the kind of person for which school, especially schools like the one you attended, least fails. But that kind of person is one which least needs school. I’m confident you could have had much of the same experience doing anything with a group of similarly intelligent people.
In my experience, this is diametrically false. The idea that any intelligent person is able to thrive academically, and make progress in the acquisition of academic knowledge, etc., in the absence of the sort of structure that school imposes, couldn’t be more wrong.
You’re not a member of the set “basically everyone”
Are the other three thousand people I went to school with also not a member of the set “basically everyone”? What about all the people who just didn’t make the cutoff for the entrance exam, or who could’ve made it in, but declined to apply or to accept, for other reasons[1], though they would’ve done as well as I did—are they also not members of the set “basically everyone”? Are you going to claim that most of them were more like Zvi than like me? But I’ve spoken with enough of my former classmates to make that claim unbelievable. Or do you simply exclude everyone above, say, +1.5 SD of intelligence, from “basically everyone”?
If your claim is “everyone with your aptitudes and mindset is irrelevant; we will happily harm you and your kind to benefit the rest”, well, I suppose that’s honest, in its own way. It also makes you my enemy, of course. Was it your intention to proclaim exactly this?
[1] Such as the long commute via public transport—not at all a trivial concern for the parents of a 12-year-old in New York City (especially a girl).
In my experience, this is diametrically false. The idea that any intelligent person is able to thrive academically, and make progress in the acquisition of academic knowledge, etc., in the absence of the sort of structure that school imposes, couldn’t be more wrong.
Are the other three thousand people I went to school with also not a member of the set “basically everyone”? What about all the people who just didn’t make the cutoff for the entrance exam, or who could’ve made it in, but declined to apply or to accept, for other reasons[1], though they would’ve done as well as I did—are they also not members of the set “basically everyone”? Are you going to claim that most of them were more like Zvi than like me? But I’ve spoken with enough of my former classmates to make that claim unbelievable. Or do you simply exclude everyone above, say, +1.5 SD of intelligence, from “basically everyone”?
If your claim is “everyone with your aptitudes and mindset is irrelevant; we will happily harm you and your kind to benefit the rest”, well, I suppose that’s honest, in its own way. It also makes you my enemy, of course. Was it your intention to proclaim exactly this?
[1] Such as the long commute via public transport—not at all a trivial concern for the parents of a 12-year-old in New York City (especially a girl).