When I was 21, I examined misanthropy. Really. I compared Shakespeare’s Timon (of Athens) to the Old Man on the hill from Fielding’s Tom Jones to Swift’s Gulliver after his fourth voyage.

I had to write a senior thesis to complete my undergraduate work in English, and I simply couldn’t focus on a subject like use-of-light-symbolism-in-so-and-so. I was attracted to bigger issues.

It was fun. There was an easy and elegant conclusion. See, Shakespeare and Fielding created typical embittered hermits, but Gulliver was a scientist, his misanthropy was learned instead of experienced, and his lessons were objective.

Gulliver’s misanthropy was respectable. He wasn’t personally let down by people and his complaints aren’t laced with the sourness of disappointment.

I am similarly disinterested and objective, but my disdain is not aimed at my fellow creatures. I am contemptuous of our primary schools.

Unfair, uncool, uninteresting.

Too time-consuming, too boring, too cruel.

Ineffective.

I wasn’t one of those bright kids who struggled in school. I knew them of course: people like Richard, who is brilliant but has the worst case of attention deficit disorder I’ve ever encountered. He didn’t do well in school, and he blames it for much more than it could have effected. I also knew kids who were excellent at art or music but couldn’t get science or math. They suffered for it, and they blame school for their suffering.

I was one of those bright children who got just about everything fast. I never had to work hard and I wasn’t burdened with homework. In fact I found summer vacations too long; I was always eager for school to begin and then quickly disappointed when it did.

I was the kind of student who excelled at everything except the social sciences, which didn’t interest me and didn’t appear to be sciences. Now that I have life perspective, now that I’ve disconnected the science from it, I am getting interested in history and economics and philosophy.

Like Gulliver, I wasn’t damaged by the enemy. Yet I despise it. I long to improve it.

The short list:

A school day probably shouldn’t exceed four hours. Morning for young kids and late afternoon (3 pm to 7 pm) for teens.

The school year should be continuous with evenly spaced breaks. We’re not an agricultural society any more and instruction doesn’t have to pulse like snake digestion.

Kids should teach kids.

We should be less afraid of subjectivity.

There’s nothing at all wrong with activities like research races, current events quizzes, airball breaks, reading stories while kids do art, adding dance to song, using kickball (everyone can do it!) as the recess team sport.