There are some lessons not worth teaching. A big one for me is learning to ask for help. There's value to that, but not when it's being taught by dumbasses.
My freshman year of High School, I had to go on this class retreat and one of those activities was called the "forest maze" where they blindfold you and tell you to follow a series of ropes tied to some trees. From the beginning I couldn't understand how that was a maze, but I wasn't at school, so I wasn't complaining...yet. And the whole time you are blindfolded they tell you to ask if you need any help with the maze. In reality, the "maze" was rope tied to a circle of trees. The only way out was by asking for help. It was fascinating in a nihilist sort of way, blind and going nowhere, but I don't think the people in charge looked at it that way.
This "brilliant" activity rewarded both those too lazy to complete the simple task of asking for help when told to and, of course, those too stupid to hold onto a rope. I, as would be expected, lasted a very long time in this "maze" because 1) I did not need help (beyond being saved from misguided educators) and 2) I took my teacher's word that it was a maze (not a half-assed riddle) and that we were in the middle of a trust exercise. Eventually, they gave up on the last few people left. I wasn't one of them because one of the people already eliminated (or did they win, I honestly don't know) came up to me and spilled the beans. In my mind, that handful of people still playing toward the end were admirable in their own way. They played the game right. They didn't ask for help because they didn't need it. It's following a fucking rope and if they really needed actual help, nothing was stopping them from taking off the blindfold.
God! What a waste of fucking time.
It's a good thing that I lasted toward the end though. I'm not sure how long I'd last if I had to see the "aw, shucks" reactions of people learning their "lesson". I thought it was dumb as shit then and 10 years later, I still do. If only I knew then how to express it.
I asked for help pretty quickly, but that's only b/c I hate dumb group activities like that, I felt like a goddamn idiot with them making me blind folded and holding on to a rope, and couldn't care less if I figured it out or not. So, I asked to get it over with. Also, I did it on 9/11.
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