On Education

My mind has obviously been taken over by Green Day. I was looking over my syllabus for a history class a moment ago, and the readings for tomorrow are pages 1-21... and the first thing that came to mind was "1, 21 guns, lay down your arms, give up the fight..."

Now, on to more serious matters.

I suppose I am not qualified to comment on the U.S. education system. After all, I was homeschooled for a large part of my life, and my perception of the "high school experience" came largely from films like Freaky Friday. Therefore, any anecdotal evidence from my own life can hardly serve to prove my point about an education system in which I did not participate. However, I did ask a friend who attended a public high school, and she agreed with my complaint, so perhaps I am not entirely mistaken.

I have noticed that, in elementary and high school education, learning is reduced to the absorption of information and the subsequent regurgitation at appropriate times. Lessons in math mean learning how to solve equations and how to use equations to solve "real-life" problems, like how tall Janey's sandcastle must be if it is casting a five-foot long shadow across the beach (even though it doesn't really matter, because some rude and insensitive child will probably knock it down anyways). Lessons in history mean remembering people like Pericles and Charlemagne and Winston Churchill, and what important things they did and when they did them. Lessons in grammar mean learning syntax and punctuation, lessons in literature mean reading fat books that you probably won't understand, lessons in science mean learning that stars are made of gas and that insects have skeletons on the outsides of their bodies, and so on and so forth. 

Although I studied all of these subjects, it wasn't until college that I was invited to ponder why I should study them. In college, I was given the opportunity to think about what these subjects really mean as disciplines, and how they can alter the way you think about the world, and how they can teach you to live well. I suppose that college professors are more aware than elementary and high school teachers of the implications of their own field of study. They have had to ask themselves the same question for years: "Why is this discipline so important?" And they have had to find answers in order to justify all the time and effort and finances they invested in graduate school. Still, I very much wish that these kinds of questions would be posed to students at a younger age. I wish that the very first thing any child was taught in school was not the material itself, but how and why the material is important to learn.

You might argue, of course, that children are not ready to grasp abstract concepts. This may be true. I know nothing about educating small children. Perhaps these open-ended questions would blow their little heads clean off their shoulders. But I cannot imagine that it is any more sensible to expect that a creature endowed with reason should accept the fact that he or she must learn about a certain subject "just because," and that he or she should pour most all the time and energy possible into gaining competency in these subjects without knowing the reason why. Grades are empty markers of achievement, and education without the correct motivation and context is an empty pursuit. Ingesting information with no greater purpose than to get a good score on a test is completely useless. Once the test is over, the information is forgotten, and all the time spent learning it becomes time lost. But if you take in the same information with the understanding that knowledge in this area of study is valuable because of how it helps you expand your worldview, the time spent studying was spent well. You may not remember all the information itself, but you will remember how it helped you see the world.

The more you learn how precious knowledge is as a child, the more receptive you will be as an adult. I think that college students complain about classes and homework not because it is hard, but because as children they viewed schoolwork as work without a significant reward. If only they had known that learning is its own reward, they might be more inclined to see higher education as a gift, not a burden.

Shapeless Meanderings

I'm not dead, in case you were wondering.

You probably weren't. But I thought I would reassure you, in case you were.

I've just moved into a dorm room, so my writing life has been a little...nonexistent. You see, I have never moved before. Not once. I've spent my whole life in the same small house. I've never been away from that house for more than two weeks at a time. Now, all of a sudden, I'm living in a small dorm room where the bathroom is shared by the whole floor and the shower curtains don't close all the way. I suppose I must be much more a creature of habit than I thought, because I find this all very disorienting.

I hope, once I settle into some semblance of a routine, that my head will be clearer and I'll be able to write something coherent. I have a few posts queued up, but I don't feel at the moment that I can give them the thought and care that I'd like to. For now, I think I'll just ramble.

There is a tradition at my college in which, the evening before classes begin, all the sophomores, juniors, and seniors organize a surprise parade for the freshmen, to welcome them to their first year. Because nothing is more welcoming than being ambushed by a mob of costumed upperclassmen driving their cars through campus and throwing cold hot dogs at you. Today being the day of this festive affair, I carefully removed myself from campus and walked downtown. I went to an art store and bought a sketch pad, a nice drawing pen, and a black marker. I went to a coffee shop to try them out. I was quite pleased with them. Perhaps I'll post some drawings, if there are ever any that I think are good enough.

I've been working on a little songwriting project when the mood takes me. During the walk back from downtown, I filled in another two stanzas. (Does one call them stanzas in a song?) It will be very hard to practice guitar at school. I don't want to do it in my dorm room, for fear of disturbing others. I tried to play outside the other night, but I was too self-conscious to play very audibly.

Here are the lyrics I have so far. (They aren't great literature, of course, but I'm pleased with them for now :p)

                                                   C                   
                                                   Dear Mariah,
                                                   Dm
                                                   Day comes to an end
                                                   F                    
                                                   I wish we could pretend
                                                   C
                                                   A little longer

                                                  Summer's over
                                                  We never got the chance
                                                  To do the things that we had planned
                                                  When you were stronger

                                                  Sweet Mariah,
                                                  It's time to say goodnight
                                                  And now you need to close your eyes                                                  
                                                  And get some rest, dear

                                                  All your bedsheets
                                                  Are folded up in drawers
                                                  And now they've sanitized the floors
                                                  And you can't sleep here.

                                                                  (chorus)
                                                  Am       F                        C
                                                  I could try to hold your hand,
                                                                          G
                                                  But you won't feel it
                                                  Am               F                   C
                                                  Put all these roses in your lap
                                                                          G
                                                  But you won't see them
                                                  Am              F                      C
                                                  You always hated falling asleep
                                                                 G
                                                  In public places
                                                  Am                      F                                      C
                                                  What would you do if you knew you were surrounded
                                                                 G
                                                  By so many faces
                                           
                                                  Am    F    C
                                                   G
                                                  Around your bed
                                   
                                                   Am   F    C
                                                   G
                                                  Around your bed

That is all I have for now. I hope everyone still in school is coping reasonably with the inescapable reality of impending classes. Goodnight!



                                                 

                                                 


                                                  

In Which I Question All My Life Choices

Hello again.

It's been a while since my last post. I've been struggling with... I suppose you could call it writer's block? Although I think it's something more like writer's existential crisis. I haven't been struggling to come up with ideas; I've been despairing of ever doing these ideas justice.

It all began with a story I planned to write this summer. It was a kind of allegory which I had at first intended to be a poem, but then decided to turn into a dreamlike, Kafka-esque narrative. I began to work on it in the quiet of a mostly abandoned college library. I was actually quite proud of it at the time. It was one of the few times that I have completely lost myself in a story as I wrote. I had a vague outline, but for the most part I allowed events to unfold as they would. I spent two evenings on this story, made more or less pleasing progress, and then set it aside for a while.

A few weeks passed, I think, before I opened that file again. I decided to read over what I had written thus far, so as to enter once more into the atmosphere of the story before writing the ending. I wish that I had never done this. I wish, in fact, that the gods would have struck my computer with a divine virus wiping that file out of existence before I could review it.

I suppose it is only a person with very fragile self-esteem who could find a poorly written story enough reason to question their entire life's meaning. But I did. I spent the next few nights having mild panic attacks as I imagined my future snapping shut in my face.

What bothered me about the story was not so much that it was poorly written. I do not know how to describe it, other than that it was entirely bad. I had tried to make it realistic, and had failed miserably. I had tried to make subtle, witty comments about society, but had ended in sounding whiny, bitter, and painfully obvious. The surreal, subtly creepy events which were supposed to be the story's driving force were barely noticeable. In short, I was not disillusioned after reading it; I was shattered. 

I began to question everything about myself. I viewed my inability to interact with the world through creative writing as a fundamental inability to understand it. I feared that my terrible story was further evidence of the intellectual deficit I have always suspected in myself, which would not only keep me from writing, but would keep me from doing anything of worth. For a short time, I frantically reviewed story and poetry ideas that I'd conceived in the past, trying to console myself, perhaps redeem myself, with a shred of creativity exhibited at some point in my life. I worked on poems, I wrote a story outline, I reviewed a piece of flash fiction I'd written recently. But each time I sat down to write-- in fact, each time I even thought about writing-- I felt a pain as if I were reopening a poorly healing wound. This feeling extended to most other activities. Any interaction I had with others, whether it be through reading, listening to music, or conversation, only brought me a sickening feeling of inadequacy. All I could think to myself was how intelligent, how well-read, how creative, and how thoughtful every other creature on the earth was, and to what pitiful degree I was not any of these things.

Nothing would please me more than to be able to describe how, one night, perhaps under the light of a full moon, some enormous insight pierced through the dark place in my mind, and I suddenly knew that I was not stupid and base, that I had merely been doing something wrong in one particular area of my life which could be easily remedied. I wish that I could tell you how I stumbled upon some quote by a great and celebrated figure which gave me hope, or how someone gave me positive and affirming advice which brought me out of my misery.  But this is not an inspirational story. What really happened was that my bad mood subsided somewhat, I got really into researching vampires, and I've been struggling with the same thoughts on and off on a much less threatening scale. I've still been writing, and have had a few new ideas of late, which has been vaguely comforting. I have also determined that, if I stop writing for fear of writing something "bad", then I will never learn how I can do better.

So that is the long-winded story of my latest existential crisis. In other news, I changed the title of my blog to something more fitting. Also, I have finally replaced the picture of Theda Bara with one of yours truly-- quite a feat for me, because moving pictures from my phone to my computer seemed unimaginably complex. Actually, when I tried to set it as my profile, Google told me that people might not recognize the picture because there didn't seem to be a face in it. Thanks, Google. I like your face, too.