Sitting in class is generally assumed to be done for the sake of learning. We sit there and listen to some "teacher" drone on and on about things that we could care less about most of the time in hopes that they will impart some small portion of knowledge to us that will make life that much better for us. And, as any student could tell you, half of us only learn the material taught in the class for long enough to get us through the test (or tests sometimes) and then promptly forget it.

After all, who cares what Hamlet was talking about when he made that whole stupid "to be or not to be" speech, or what kinds of atoms make up a water molecule? Well, obviously people who make it their business to study those kinds of things for a living care, but why should we? Why should a bunch of teenagers be forced to sit in rooms all day long and listen to a bunch of old people, with the occasional younger person thrown in for variety, talking about stuff that we really don't want to know?

These are the kinds of things that I think about during class. The weird thing is, I sit there, not paying even the slightest bit of attention to the teacher in front of me at the time, and if one of those teachers decides to call on me, with the suspicion that I was doing exactly what I really was doing, I can answer his or her question without pause. I barely even hear what the teacher is saying, but I know it anyways, and it always pisses the teachers off.

It pisses them off more that I pass every single test they put in front of me. I do the absolute minimum amount of homework to get the grades that will keep Mom and Dad off my case, and then I ace any test put in front of me. I get good grades, but it's not because of anything that the teachers do special to help me learn, unlike half the other kids who get good grades. And the teachers can't stand it, because I would be able to do it even if they weren't there. I'm just that good.

The teachers call me arrogant and self-centered, though not to my face. I see it as confident. I'm smart, and I know it. I don't let them tell me that I'm not, because I know that I am. I may not know quite as much as they do, but that's just because I'm not as old as they are yet. I'll know more than they do now when I'm their age, and that bothers them, because they won't be able to say that it was all because of them. Of course, it also bothers them that I'm not willing to blindly follow each and every direction they give me, because I know that half the things they say just won't work for me.

I think on my own, and I would think that that would be one of the best things in the world for a student. I would think that the teachers would be overjoyed by that type of student, one who can learn on his own instead of just absorbing the information presented to him, if the teacher is lucky. But instead, because I think on my own and prefer to do it that way, it annoys them.

And so, I continue to sit in class, with the teachers trying to teach me things that I already know. They continue to attempt to impart knowledge to the class, even though they are well aware that half the class won't even remember the subject of whatever this lecture was when asked the next day. They continue to attempt to treat me like one of those other students, and I continue to hate them for it.

It makes me wonder sometimes why I continue in school...