Kids are hardwired to love learning, they will never stop asking questions and exploring the world.
Schools quash that curious spirit. They put kids in a boring, prison-like, highly regimented environment that seeks to teach discipline and obedience to the status quo. Don't think, accept your role in the capitalist machine. If you are bullied, no one will help you, but if you fail to complete work you will be punished. Most of all, get used to not owning most of your time.
Take note of this and try to rekindle your child-like curiousity and love of learning. Ask yourself, do you still have questions about the universe you forgot to ask as a child? Read about the planets, the stars, microbes, machines. But most importantly, do it at your own pace and do it because you still have questions. Not to pass some test, but for you.
I agree, and I think it's also intended to selectively reward a very specific kind of worker bee that can put up with that environment and punish those that can't.
Of course, such intentions are only there for the poors in public schools or charter schools that are inflicted upon the poor. Rich kid schools select for different attributes, or just let the failson coast.
Indeed, the ones that resist or make any attempt to rebel against that shitty system gets shoved into the carceral system.
I was in an uncanny valley of gifted kids and high-behavior students. Like I would be failing my classes, but they were advanced classes. Or I would sleep through a month of classes but then I’d get a decent score on the tests. If they’d moved me back down I would have just stopped coming. But that is what it is