LOOK, WHAT THE SCHOOLS DID TO YOU

A grounded, brutal exposé on how schooling quietly dismantled your body, instincts, family, rhythm, and reality

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I. INTRODUCTION: YOU THOUGHT SCHOOL PREPARED YOU. IT PREPARED YOU TO OBEY.

They told you:

“School will make you successful.”

“School will make you disciplined.”

“School will prepare you for life.”

But look closely.

What did it actually do?

It made you:

Ignore your hunger, your fatigue, and your body.

Fear mistakes more than lies.

Associate learning with shame and fear.

Depend on someone else’s approval to feel worthy.

Forget your family’s wisdom and mimic strangers.

Memorize facts, forget life.

You didn’t graduate educated.

You graduated obedient, anxious, addicted to instructions, and too exhausted to question any of it.

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II. SCHOOL SEPARATED YOU FROM YOUR BODY

Your body had a rhythm:

Wake with the sun. Move freely. Eat when hungry. Rest when tired. Eliminate when needed.

School said:

“Sit down. Don’t fidget. Raise your hand to pee. Wait until break.”

And so:

You learned to hold your bladder, not your truth.

You learned to suppress sleep, not your screen.

You learned to ignore hunger, not your shame.

Boys laughed at puberty.

Girls hid their periods.

No one asked why your belly hurt every morning before school.

Now you’re an adult who still needs permission to rest.

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III. SCHOOL DISCONNECTED YOU FROM NATURE

The sun rose.

You entered a box.

Windows shut. Soil replaced with blackboard. Seasons ignored. You were told:

Mud is mess.

Trees are a distraction.

Insects are dangerous.

Rain is inconvenient.

Heat is punishment.

Wind is illness.

So now, when you see nature, you post it. You don’t live in it.

Your immunity? Down.

Your circadian rhythm? Broken.

Your vitamin D? Deficient.

And you still think you’re “educated.”

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IV. SCHOOL TRAINED YOU TO SEEK APPROVAL — NOT TRUTH

From Day 1:

The teacher’s face became the sun.

The mark sheet became your mirror.

The rank became your religion.

You stopped asking “why?”

You learned to ask:

“Will this come in the exam?”

Truth was secondary.

Pleasing authority became primary.

So you:

Hid your mistakes.

Faked your understanding.

Memorized what you didn’t feel.

Laughed when others got scolded — to avoid being next.

Now you call it performance.

It was survival.

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V. SCHOOL DESTROYED YOUR CONNECTION TO SKILL AND SELF-SUFFICIENCY

As a child, you could:

Sow seeds.

Clean grain.

Light a fire.

Draw with your hands.

Fix things.

School said:

“Drop the sickle, pick up the pen.”

“Forget the knife, write the date.”

Manual work became shameful.

Intellectual abstraction became the gold standard.

Now you:

Can solve equations but not cook dal.

Can code apps but not grow coriander.

Need a plumber, a cook, a cleaner — just to live.

You became literate. Not capable.

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VI. SCHOOL REPLACED FAMILY WISDOM WITH TEXTBOOK CONFUSION

At home:

Your grandmother told stories that taught morals.

Your grandfather showed you how to repair shoes, patience, and broken chairs.

At school:

Those stories were “non-syllabus.”

That wisdom was “backward.”

You learned to:

Hide your mother’s accent.

Lie about your village.

Laugh at “uneducated” relatives.

Show off your report card, not your relationships.

Now you sit at family gatherings, scrolling silently.

You lost your roots — and don’t even miss them.

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VII. SCHOOL MADE YOU SYSTEM-DEPENDENT, NOT SELF-LED

You were trained to:

Follow bells

Wait for instructions

Fear authority

Obey routine

Avoid risk

Depend on permission

Everything became external:

Assessment

Praise

Discipline

Relevance

Now, you’re an adult:

Afraid to try anything without a course.

Waiting for someone to say “approved.”

Unsure if your ideas matter — unless they’re “certified.”

You don’t think — you submit.

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VIII. SCHOOL CREATED LIFELONG DAMAGE — PHYSICAL, MENTAL, EMOTIONAL

You left school with:

Back pain from wrong posture.

Gut issues from anxiety and bad eating.

Panic before every performance.

A broken sleep cycle.

Zero touch with instinct.

Emotional confusion disguised as “discipline.”

And what did you gain?

A mark sheet

A certificate

A false sense of superiority

You still chase:

Achievement

Validation

Escape

Because school taught you that you’re not okay until someone claps for you.

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IX. CONCLUSION: SCHOOL WAS THE FIRST SYSTEM THAT SUCCESSFULLY COLONIZED YOU

You worry about banks, governments, big tech, and pharma controlling you.

But school already did.

It trained you to:

Obey without knowing why.

Ignore your body.

Distrust your family.

Value grades over integrity.

Conform to nonsense and call it knowledge.

Forget your rhythm and call it time management.

So now:

You work jobs you hate.

Eat food you didn’t grow.

Raise kids who hate learning.

Heal diseases that were planted long ago — in classrooms.

And still call it “education.”

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“WE SAT FOR YEARS. AND CALLED IT GROWTH.”

A poem for every soul who mistook their schooling for an education

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they made you sit.

and sit.

and sit.

for twelve years

you sat.

in steel chairs.

under flickering tube lights.

between concrete walls

that smelled like sweat and white chalk.

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they made you wear

the same clothes

every day

so you'd forget you were different

and start believing you were identical.

they trained you

to raise your hand to pee,

to ask permission to breathe,

to call your hunger “disruption,”

and your joy “overactivity.”

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they called it discipline.

but it was sterilization.

they told you:

“get good marks.”

“don’t make noise.”

“be like the topper.”

but the topper

couldn’t talk to his own parents

without trembling.

he got into IIT

and now he swallows pills to sleep.

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you learned to measure worth

in grades,

not kindness.

you learned to solve problems

that didn’t exist

and ignore the ones

that bled inside you.

you learned about kings

but not about the ache in your chest.

you memorized dates

but never questioned the hunger in your house.

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they put you in a box

so you’d forget

the sun,

the dirt,

the way your grandfather’s hands worked wood

without a ruler.

they made you laugh at your own roots.

they made you ashamed

of your mother’s accent.

they made you believe

that the village was backwards

and that the city would save you.

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now

you scroll at midnight

searching for peace

with your neck bent

like it was in school.

you’re still

chasing praise.

you still need someone to say

“good job.”

you still can’t rest

without guilt.

you still can't feel your breath

without anxiety.

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you got certificates.

but you can’t fix your gut.

you can code.

but you can’t grow your food.

you speak English.

but you don’t understand your own grief.

you sit in air-conditioned offices

and call it success.

but your spine hates you.

your skin begs for sun.

your eyes haven’t seen a real sunrise in years.

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they made you believe

that education was a building.

but it was a cage.

they trained you to think

but not to feel.

to obey

but not to live.

to plan

but never to pause.

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and when you left,

you didn’t walk free.

you just changed uniforms.

from school clothes

to work clothes.

from homework

to deadlines.

from roll number

to employee ID.

you still need approval.

you still fear failure.

you still wait for the bell

to tell you when to stop.

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look at yourself.

you were once

a barefoot, sun-kissed, curious, wild

human child.

now you’re

a credentialed, emotionally malnourished,

screen-fed

machine.

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school didn’t make you.

it unmade you.

then

branded the damage

as progress.

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you weren’t educated.

you were processed.

like milk.

like meat.

like plastic.

packaged.

graded.

delivered.

consumed.

and now you rot

slowly,

politely,

with a smile on your LinkedIn profile.

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