Indeed, school is very, very playable. Here's one anecdote from my personal experience:
One of high school English teachers was notoriously hard on guys. It was generally understood that she considered them goof-offs and slackers, and didn't give good grades to guys even for really hard work. I was at a disadvantage in that class even before I walked in the door.
So rather than fight an uphill battle due to my gender, I spent an extra hour on the first report (a paper on Romeo and Juliet) and carefully drew hearts and a large rose in colored pencil on the cover page. I then proceeded to behave a smidge more effeminately than my natural self whenever speaking to her, and breezed through that year while my male classmates struggled, with my teacher convinced I was a persecuted homosexual.
I'm not convinced it was helpful in the long term, because the work I avoided in that class didn't do me any favors. I've never done particularly well in English classes since, despite my love of reading and an over-sized vocabulary. But it certainly did give me an appreciation for the malleability of rules and systems when they are administered by imperfect humans.
One of high school English teachers was notoriously hard on guys. It was generally understood that she considered them goof-offs and slackers, and didn't give good grades to guys even for really hard work. I was at a disadvantage in that class even before I walked in the door.
So rather than fight an uphill battle due to my gender, I spent an extra hour on the first report (a paper on Romeo and Juliet) and carefully drew hearts and a large rose in colored pencil on the cover page. I then proceeded to behave a smidge more effeminately than my natural self whenever speaking to her, and breezed through that year while my male classmates struggled, with my teacher convinced I was a persecuted homosexual.
I'm not convinced it was helpful in the long term, because the work I avoided in that class didn't do me any favors. I've never done particularly well in English classes since, despite my love of reading and an over-sized vocabulary. But it certainly did give me an appreciation for the malleability of rules and systems when they are administered by imperfect humans.