Both of my DS’s see/saw HS as a ‘necessary’ evil. A lot has to do with the teachers at the public hs. They had certain areas they loved either because of a passion or because of the teacher but they were few and far between. They do what has to be done to get the grades but when they’ve truly applied themselves they’ve shocked themselves at what they can do. Now that he’s in college and past the gen eds DS1 loves most of his classes (and as a mechanical eng. major they aren’t easy) and he doesn’t complain about the time spent like he would about an English paper.