School

In second grade I was told, "We're gonna try you in the advanced math class." I sat in a chair and was handed the same assignment as the other students who had been in the advanced class for a year. The teacher walked around and watched everybody. Thirty minutes later, they told me never mind.
In sixth grade, the "graduating" sixth grade classes were told to write their life goals. My goal was to beat Michael Johnson's 200 and 400 meter track records. My teacher said that couldn't happen, "because black people have an extra muscle in their legs that makes them run faster." Curious the accuracy of that statement, at that point I wondered, "Well, why'd you ask me to set a goal?"
In 8th grade, my class had an extended lesson in Poetry. By the end, I received the "Poet Who Didn't Know It" award. I thought to myself, "I thought I was poetic enough. Jokes are just easier to get by on. They didn't know it." The following week we moved onto a different lesson and poetry was never discussed again.
In high school, my English teacher assigned a project to write a poem in the shape of something. A Concrete Poem. Students in my class wrote love poems in the shapes of hearts, Christian poems in the shapes of lower-case T's, biographical poems in the shape of their hands, so forth. I wrote a poem about a man walking down a narrowing hallway with a ceiling that angled lower and lower as he moved forward. By the end, after the verses and lines illustrated him crouching, crawling, and snaking on his stomach, he was finally, "Alone." I put "Alone" on its own page. I was given a C. After discussing the grade, my teacher told me she understood, and the grade would remain.
However, my creative writing teacher in high school told me "She's an idiot." She also told me that the other boy in my creative writing class, whom I thought was onto something with his writing; she said he didn't know poetry, he only used big words. She taught me a lot.
I had another teacher I would hang with after school and discuss life and politics and social matters for hours after the bell rang. We still get together on occasion and have long, winding conversations over coffee.
These two teachers gave me most of what I got out of my 20-year school career.
So, was it worth it? I met a lot of people and the whole experience led me to where I am today. I must say, though, there's a lot of riffraff - not the kids disinterested in school, not the "hoodlums", not the trouble makers - but there's a lot of riffraff teachers to get through to find any worth a damn.
How important is school? Don't ask me. I have no faith in it.