An Open Letter to Students Returning to School

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In which John Green gives advice to students returning to school for summer break, discusses the reasons public education exists, and celebrates the landing of the Mars rover Curiosity, among many great things that have happened to humans since we began to invest in public education.

We did not make this game or anything, but when we saw it, we contacted the people who were making it and they showed it to us, and we just think it looks like a really cool card game. (And if they raise enough money, they're releasing a nerdfighter-specific expansion pack, which would be--while we're on the topic of 2007 vlogbrothers terminology--pretty jokes.)

HERE ARE A LOT OF LINKS TO NERDFIGHTASTIC THINGS:

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*standing outside the school gate on the first day of school, fists clenched on the straps of my backpack. takes a deep breath and mutters*

I'm doing this for John Green.

GermaeAnne
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"I want you to make me drugs." - John Green

sharpe
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"The whole pleasure of being human is in being stupid, but learning to be less stupid togheter."
-John Green (the same guy that wrote Fault In Our Stars)

MrKubano
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"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education"
High school education might be a good idea but it indeed is executed to kill rather than promote curiosity and critical thinking.

PolishHero
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Yesterday, I graduated from high school as valedictorian of my class. I just wanted to say thank you to John for this video because it literally got me through high school. I remember seeing this video for the first time before I started my freshman year and I promised myself that I would not take for granted the educational opportunity right before me. Every year after that, I came back to this video the day before school started to remind myself why I need to do well and apply myself. This video was a huge inspiration to me and a big part of my motivation to become less stupid. So thanks, John.

ThatErikaChick
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I think this video is awesome and I agree, but when teachers (or usually more accurately, the curriculum) don't even allow you to study the things you are passionate about and would do best with, that's when we become disillusioned with school. I've found that I became more interested in things like math and physics after I was allowed to explore the things I cared about and had to teach them to myself because I started to care. For these reasons I'm a big advocate of more personalized styles of education than are currently used.

conjecturemm
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crash course is seriously one of the best things on the internet ever.

FishCakeIce
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"The French do speak English, but the pretend not to." That make me laugh because it's so true. I don't know about French people, but I know French people in Maine and Quebec with refuse to speak English to you, and they may refuse to speak to you in French if you tried to speak to them in English first.

PandaA
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"French people pretends not to speak english" touché John

lauthesun
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This is my favorite video of yours. What's crazy is that I actually believe most of this, but like you said in your TED talk, my school doesn't. The problem is I am learning in a place that doesn't value learning. And it hurts.
I couldn't thank you enough for all your wonderful videos. I'm not going to claim that I am actively learning all the time, reading Calculus textbooks for fun, or trying to find a cure for cancer. But your videos make my life a lot better. I might have dropped out by now if not for you and a select few teachers. I know you must get this a lot, but THANK YOU. For helping yourself, but also helping me in ways you'll never know.

zoephillips
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It's so easy to agree with this and get pumped but I can't help but question how the kids in poorer, corrupt school systems feel. Kids whose learning environments impair their educational experience. Kids who don't have AC when it's hot or heat when it's cold, kids who don't have textbooks, desks, passionate teachers, or varied curriculum.
I love John, I do, and I get what he was trying to accomplish, and it's so easy to watch this and feel motivated as an affluent student in a well funded school system, but I feel this glosses over very prevalent issues for other students out there who aren't quite so fortunate.

hosly
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Neil deGrasse Tyson once called the Mayans dumb because they never invented the wheel.

I learned in not one but TWO anthropology courses that the wheel would have been a worthless invention in South America because alpacas and llamas just can't really pull large loads or carts or hoes or anything; at most, a llama can carry enough weight that you can easily put it on packs. Europeans had horses, which can pull a cart (especially if you breed them to be big and tough and get multiple horses pulling one cart), so it makes sense to make a wheel.

Neil deGrasse Tyson can be dumb, too.

GodofReapers
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Kids hate school in great part because of the way the system makes us teachers behave in every aspect of our role as instructors. We can't teach in any organic way, and they can't learn at their own pace, according to their own style. And that was the case a few years ago when we were actually trying to address that and now with high-pressure standardized tests along with politically-motivated standardized curriculum, public school teachers can't address individual learning styles even if we want to.

But worse, our evaluations as professionals are focused away from what happens between teachers and students in the classroom. Last year, three-quarters of my evaluation fell into other "domains" and even Domain Two, which includes teacher-student interaction and to a minuscule extent, actual student learning, still tallied plenty of other things like how well I followed the grammatical rules laid out concerning how the objective of the day was written on the board (I kid you not. A teacher must write their objective using a very strict grammatical construction and choosing from a limited list of vocabulary words, otherwise he or she "fails" that part of the evaluation even if his/her objective is more understandable and engaging for students to read). Evaluating teachers this way sends the message that the system cares a lot more about how well we push along our paperwork and how high we can get students to score on tests than actual teaching and learning and teachers respond accordingly.

I'm all for compulsory public education that's free to the student. Society would be far worse off without it. Besides the spread of ignorance and the loss of opportunities, child labor would return and wages for all would drop precipitously. But last year was my last year. After years of public school teaching I just had to leave the system. I still teach, but in a learning cooperative for self-directed learners.

I hope someday the public system will come to its senses, but I'm not holding my breath. And in the meantime, my heart goes out to all those kids who dread going back to school and hope someday they'll see their teachers dreaded it too and didn't want to do to them what the system now makes them do.

EyeLean
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I have no issues with the schooling part of school, it is the other human beings who I am supposedly meant to like simply because we are the same age.

atalantasawdon
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Who cares about increased life expectancy and stuff? We got pizza delivery now!

ctennyson
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MY TEACHER SHOWED THIS IN SCHOOL AND I ALMOST SCREAMED

amelia
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"at no cost to you"

*nervously laughs in private school*

highoninfinity
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After having one of the most amazing teachers I'm afraid I'll ever have, I understand why people aren't excited about learning. A lot of teachers don't understand how to make what they're teaching exciting to students. There's a set curriculum that they can't stray from. 

Hive_Atlas
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This video made me cry. In my 15 or so years of education, I couldn't help but feel the lack of existential meaning for it all. We are such a small part of what makes up the universe. So how could my learning Trigonometry possibly matter in the progression of time and space? But John reminded me that we are important to each other. We live on this earth for a short period of time, and maybe it's only to say to the rest of this universe, "Look what we accomplished in the small time that we were here." And that, to me, seems important enough to at least try to learn why in the hell sine, cosine, and tangent are important.

SunRhe
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Hey John, If you see this, can you guys do an update on your open letter for students for these students and teachers returning to school through distance learning? We are all facing so many challenges this year because of the Covid pandemic and my middle school students really love your open letter but I think it would be interesting to see what you think for distance learning. We could talk about the challenges of using google classroom for the first time, both for students and for teachers. The challenges of teaching elective classes like art or music that are an integral part of education. Digital citizenship is really important right now as zoom meetings and google meeting are being disrupted by the bored malcontents. There are a lot of issues that need to be addressed. P.S. I love your videos and have used the Crash Course many times.

josephonks