Why Not?

"...mais il faut cultiver notre jardin."
-Candide Ou L'Optimisme, Voltaire

School is a menial and dull task that was decided as, once upon a time, a right of passage. Teachers teach because they were taught, parents send their children to school because their parents sent them to school. It is a man-made part of the circle of life. It would be a fallacy to say that education is unimportant, but knowledge is not one-size-fits-all. Every brain is a garden, and the thoughts plants. One child may have trees growing in their garden, while another has flowers. So come, let us cultivate our gardens, and let us do it to our own specific needs.

If we give every child the same amount of dirt, sunlight, and water, then some will grow up big and strong and smart, and society will admire them and say "Oh, how wonderful! We have produced a functioning member of society, therefore our system is working." But there will be others whose brains will wither and imagination and motivation will die, and they will be written off, because let's face it, they were never going to make it anyway, THEY are defective, not this grand institution we have built! CLEARLY.

Mike Rose blossomed from the education he received;

"Education gave me the competence and confidence to independently seek out information and make decisions, to advocate for myself and my parents and those I taught, to probe political issues, to resist simple answers to mess social problems, to assume that I could figure things out and act on what I learned. In this sense, this was the best training I could have gotten for vocation and citizenship" (38).

So, whatever Miracle-Gro he was fed, it did the trick. He seems to feel that education empowered him, and that education is the key to enlightenment

My own chlorophyll was in hyper-drive most of my life. I was a smart kid! Tales of my education and schooling before college are long and sordid. They include thirteen different schools, two different states, two countries, a little home school, some long-lost fluency in Spanish, and even a little sprinkling of being thrown around between grades. My garden was flourishing. I was confident in my self, my opinions, my talents and skills. And then, I came to Dominican.

At Dominican the beautiful flowers of confidence were ripped out at the root and replaced with weeds of self-doubt. A drought that withheld free-thinking killed the trees of independence. I quickly learned that if i couldn't say anything that agreed with the professor, I shouldn't say anything at all.

Don't get me wrong, I can handle being told I'm wrong, or introduced to a different way of thinking, but time and time again I found myself being penalized for having an opinion that went against the grain. One such time that stands out took place in a philosophy class. We were studying Herman Hesse's Siddhartha, which was for me, the umpteenth time. And for the umpteenth time, I hated it. I found Siddhartha to be a self-righteous ass. The final assignment for Siddhartha was a one page reflection on what we learned from the book. This was not an issue for me, and I knew it would take me two and a half seconds to talk about (in a slightly more eloquent manner than above) why I did not care for Siddhartha. My friend on the other hand, was pressed or time, so I offered to write hers for her. One page, not a huge deal.

The paper I wrote that I attached my name to had my point of view: Siddhartha should not be looked at as a role model of any kind. The paper I wrote my friend's name on was exactly the opposite. A few days later we were handed the essays back, and my friend and I compared grades. I noted with pride that her's not a solid A, but when I looked at my own score I saw a B-. Had I deserved the B-, I probably would not have cared a lot, but I looked for marks on the page denoting grammatical errors or other such things. There were none. Feeling confused, I stayed after to speak with the professor. She informed me that my grade was given because it didn't appear that I had given much thought to the topic, and that I had missed the point of the book. I was told that I should re-read the book, so that I might see the real message.

Uh huh.

Needless to say, that made me livid. If ONLY she had known that I wrote the other essay that was worthy of an A! Not a whole lot I could do about it though.... I HAD plagiarized after all, (Which, in a side-note, is not a condonable activity).

The point of this story was to bring to light a common malpractice in schools, that being that the teacher is always right and the student should ingest, and then regurgitate at the appropriate time the "wisdom" that is shoved down out throats.

Rose mentions early on that “It matters a great deal how we collectively talk about education, for that discussion both reflects and, in turn, effects policy decisions about what gets taught and tested, about funding, about what we expect schooling to contribute to our lives” (5).

I disagree. If this were true, stories like mine would not happen as often as they do, and believe me, they do happen. My truth is that we can sit around talking all day about whatever we want, education, peace, whether or not the moon landing was faked, but if our words do not agree with those in power, well sir, ain't nothin' gonna change.

I would love to be an idealist, living in an ideal world. And it is for that reason that I drag myself out of bed every morning after a long sleepless night. It is for that reason that I open my eyes and look for the good in all people. For that reason that I hold on hope, that I believe wholeheartedly in the goodness of humanity.

One day, I know it will all pay off. The blood sweat and tears that went into plowing the fields and planting the seeds. Watering the flowers and trimming the trees. Earth will become Eden one day. But that day is not today, and in my reality, that day is a long way off.

So why school? Because. Or... Why not. Take your pick. I won't judge.

I leave you now with a quote. A quote of beauty, hope and terrifying loneliness.

There is only your own pair of wings and the pathless sky.
Bird, O my bird, listen to me, do not close your wings.


THE END