Arguably the greatest history and IB teachers in the Mojave Desert, Mr. Cassady and Dr. Reti, have very different classes.

I remember one day, I walked into Mr. Cassady’s class, and he had the projector on, ready for us to take notes. There were so many notes to take that pencils were writing and cameras flaring at speeds up to Mach 2. Come to think of it, that was every day… somehow, we were perpetually “behind” in our note-taking despite taking two chapters worth of notes every day. “Come on guys, we’re really behind,” says Mr. Cassady, all the while scrolling through slides like nobody’s business and forcing students to copy faster than humanly possible.

We did play cards in his class sometimes, and for that I actually feel bad because I lost the match. I mean, Mr. Cassady was pretty mad too, but come on, I should have won.

Top that off with the countless historical documents that Mr. Cassady says we are “definitely going to want to keep in the back of our minds for the test.” The upside is that his students almost never have homework.

Dr. Reti’s class, on the other hand, provides a slower and more lax learning experience. In fact, we get through about one chapter per month. He also piles homework on his students like you would pile cargo on a horse.

These assignments do a good job of preparing his students for college, however, since they are so ambiguous. “Write me an essay,” says Dr. Reti, with no further direction. So I wrote my essay about how “Whenever Sonic beats Eggman in the final level, Eggman always outruns him and gets to his giant robot before Sonic catches him, beating Sonic’s average running speed of 767.269 miles per hour, the speed of sound, meaning that Dr. Eggman is actually the fastest thing alive.” But Dr. Reti did not want to hear it and so he gave me an F. “It was an interesting essay” says Dr. Reti, “but not what I wanted,” So, until the day I develop the ability to read minds, I will not pass Dr. Reti’s class.

“Dr. Reti, how long does the essay need to be?” inquires a young, passionate, and bold student. Dr. Reti then responds, “Hmm…I would say around 300 to 1600 words, just a few pages.” So that tall, dark, and handsome student writes a 300 word essay, and Dr. Reti tells him that the essay is too short.

I remember one day fooling around in his class because students always need some way to have fun in class. What we did was make random grunts and shouts from videogames every time Dr. Reti would turn around. We drove him nuts by shouting “AGH” and “Yoshi” and “Hallo, it’s-a me, Mario”, and for that I feel some slight remorse. Actually I do not. I do not feel any remorse because it was hilarious.

This is the problem with modern education: nothing. We focus too much on the problem that is not there and that in itself becomes a problem. This was such a valuable experience for me – I gained absolutely nothing from it.