Why School? Second Reflection

Gerard Cabarse

9-6-11

Thinking for Change

Why School?

When I was younger, I was told by my friends that I was “book smart.” This meant that I knew what I learned in my books, but I wasn’t going to be able to survive on the streets because I wasn’t “street smart.” This seems like a strange conversation for a group of kids in the 8^th grade to have. Granted, chances are that we had no clue what we were talking about at the time, but Rose’s look at “hand work” vs. “brain work” had reminded me of that conversation I had a long time ago.

Nowadays, society has been conditioned to think that if a person doesn’t go to college, they won’t be successful. We’re all bred with the idea that to be successful in life, we go to college, graduate with a degree, find a career, and then make money. On the other hand, if you don’t go to college, you end up being a bum and living off minimum wage. This stereotype is not the basis on determining how intelligent someone is. This creates a wall that segregates “smart and successful” from “uneducated and hopeless.”

Learning and education is not as black and white as using your brain or using your hands. It is an experience for the whole. You cannot separate your brain from your hands. An office worker will punch numbers in a calculator and write down his figures with his hands just as a painter will visualize his work before even toughing his canvas. Everyone learns as an entire person, not just specific parts. The myth that people who do more brain work are more successful than their hand working counterparts is an illusion.

This illusion, however, is being upheld by the modern school system. Students today are being conditioned to learning more and more information, rather than towards a specific calling. Students are given books and expected to know each bit of information inside of them. Rose (p. 82) states, “It is the academic curriculum, not the vocational, that has gotten identified as the place where intelligence is manifest.” He’s saying that by working on learning more information and becoming more educated, more people will think you’re smarter than someone who learned a specific vocation. By learning more from school, you are automatically deemed smart. But learning is not only possible through school. Everyone is learning everyday from everything. Learning is a process that never ends and can come from any source.

I wanted this to show in my “Wake Up!” project. I wanted to convey the idea that we are constantly learning from the outside world. I also wanted to show that I had learned with my entire body and all of my senses. Everything I learned has made me who I am today. Outside of my silhouette, I used black and white pictures of everything that has affected me in my life growing up. Pictures of album covers, pictures of sports players, bands, and other people are scattered among the background in black and white. Inside my shadow, I put pictures of myself growing up and some of me today with everyone who has personally touched my life in one way or another. I had learned from them not only with my brain or hands, but through the experiences I have shared with them which have shaped me to become the person that I am.

If I could travel back in time to meet myself during that conversation with my friends about “book smarts” and “street smarts,” I’d tell them that the difference wouldn’t matter (along with winning lottery ticket numbers and Superbowl winners). The most important thing was to keep learning regardless of the source. Through learning, we make our way to understanding the world around us and how to live in a way that is unique to ourselves.