This started as a comment on Scott's post about Government class... but it kept getting longer and longer and earned itself a post.

I love it when teachers pause after I ask, "what's the point?" or "why do we need to know this?"

I think it's funny and ironic when people think I'm so smart. Especially when it's people whose grades are higher than mine and they value their grades so much. They care so much. Too much. My grades seriously aren't as high as theirs. But they think I'm smart because I ask questions. So, because I ask questions they automatically think I am "so smart." Why? They don't ask questions. But they don't miss points on tests. I think it's not that I'm smart. It's that I'm curious. The rest of the world needs to be curious. Don't invest your entire life and all your energy into perfect grades.
Learn a skill, enjoy something. Find something you care about.
Research something you care about.
Research something you don't care about.
Go spend an hour reading about the presidential candidates, discover whose policies you most agree with. I don't care who.
Form your own opinion, don't repeat your parents' or friends' opinions.
Go learn an instrument. Learn to read music, while you're at it.
Learn about a country's culture. If you like the culture, learn its language. Find a way to get there.
Explore.
Go walk around a park.
Get lost.
Drive to nowhere, and don't be in a hurry to get there.
Stop at stop signs for a few seconds. It shows you're not in a hurry like the rest of humanity.
Slow down.
Listen to a band you've never heard, and don't turn it off after 15 seconds. Give them a whole album's worth of listening.
Listen to your favorite band's whole discography.
Go camping. It's snowing? So what?
Read a book in a genre you never thought you'd ever approach.
Actually read the Bible--don't just accept it's right cause you're parents probably accepted it was right because theirs probably did. You don't have to read the whole thing, but flip through it. Or maybe you won't like what it says. That's ok, too.
Spend a week off the computer except for homework. (It's hard.)
Write. You don't have to write about anything. Write about nothing. I do it all the time. I'm doing it now!
Be curious. Ask "why?" Why do you like this band? Why do you dislike a certain food? Why does your mom say you can't do something you want to do? Why does she want you to do something hard? Why don't you want to do it? Why do we do what we do? Why is "everyone else is doing it" a good excuse? Why do we act as we do? Why aren't we friends anymore? Why not be friends? Why am I here? Why don't I say hi to that cool girl I met once? Why don't I say hi to everyone? Why don't I like dances? Why don't you and I just watch a movie and relax? Why is everyone in such a rush? Why does it matter if someone disagrees with you?
Why?
Why not?