Embittered Entrapment

I really enjoyed Katie Wilkie's blog post here about if her badges motivated students or not. Like she points out, a lot of people in this world tend to be apathetic towards learning. Learning is no longer about discovering the best self; it's tied only to grades and school and class. The idea of self-directed learning is something of a lost art. Laziness has been perpetuated, in my humble opinion, by schools and programs that see students as test scores and results. Gone are the days of classicist education (unless you go to Cambridge) where you'd gather together to LEARN rather than merely pass a class or get a degree.

Like Katie said,

For students who are required to do a certain amount of work for a grade, doing other separate work NOT for a grade probably feels either like an unwise use of time or pointless.

Ah, yes. Learning isn't about knowledge, it's about the letter you get for it. The percentage it matters. The grade it will get you. A teacher can offer an amazing opportunity to go and do something, but the only way the professor gets anyone to show is if there's extra credit in the mix. No longer is experience or learning enough. We want grades, grades, grades.

But I'm a perpetrator too. I am infamously lazy. Well, usually. I coast through classes and have an average GPA and average college experience to prove for it. The sad thing is I wasn't always this way. I used to love learning--I used to be a self-teacher. See, once upon a time...I was homeschooled.

I know, I know. Let's here the jokes now; trust me, it's nothing new. But let's get the stereotypes out of the way, because I promise you it's nothing like the overall-wearing, socially awkward, nerd-in-glasses-sitting-at-a-desk-and-listening-to-her-mom-lecture type. I didn't have overbearing, overzealous parents who didn't let me watch TV or read popular fiction. I wasn't trapped on a farm in the middle of nowhere believing that guns were man's best friend. Then again, I wasn't traipsing around outside, never studying, just playing games in the playgrounds by the school to taunt all the other kids.

My mom pulled me out of school right before I started 6th grade. I had just moved from Texas to Utah the year before and, let me tell you, the school system is different. I was years ahead of my peers in Utah. And so I was bored. And restless. And not learning anything. Hence the homeschooling. But it was based on a program known as TJYE: Thomas Jefferson Youth Education (please don't look it up; it kind of went crazy a few years back).

It was a classical education dependent of self-directed learning mostly based in classic works. Thus began four years spent studying Shakespeare, Elliot, Austen, Tennyson, Homer. But it wasn't just English. I was in the company of Aristotle, Newton, Curie, Rousseau. And it wasn't because someone was lording over me with a textbook telling me what to do and read. It was because I, as a little twelve year old girl, found all of it engaging, and I willfully woke up every morning, got out of bed and dressed, and sat down to study whatever it was I wanted that day.

Looking back, it was an amazing experience. A couple years into it, I joined a co-op of like-minded people (that would be homeschoolers--I know, actually getting together to interact) who took classes together like Economics, Philosophy, History, Politics. I was writing blue book essays, creating powerpoints, organizing projects--all things that made college feel familiar. I'm not joking. It was a really great time, and I owe SO MUCH of who I am to it.

But then things changed. My mom had to go to work and I went to high school.

Throw together a sentence with "high school" and "valuable learning" and, let me tell you, you've got a good joke right there.

Too far? Well, let me tell you that, for me, high school didn't work. It really nearly destroyed me. Not because of anti-sociality or bullying or high stress or anything like that. I just lost all motivation. Somehow, someway, that conveyor belt form of education killed the magic of learning for me. I realized very quickly that what I learned didn't matter as much as how I proved the teacher right. Whether that meant bending to a writing style, filling out endless forms of busywork, or being just as lazy and (might I say it?) dumb as they were, I did it. Since there was nothing challenging to interact with, I gave up on challenging myself. I became a coaster. A really talented, resentful little coaster. I'm pretty good at it. And I carried it to college.

So Katie's post--about motivation and extra miles--really struck a nerve. Because, no, I'm not some super genius who graduated college a decade early, nor am I some anti-social freak cringing every time someone walks by. I'm just average. I fit in, I blend in, I do the work. But I have nothing to show for it...except grades. A good ole GPA I can carry with me.

"See!" I can clamor endlessly. "See! I really am smart. This paper says so!"

Ah, the joys of higher education.

Maybe I sound resentful. But I know it's my fault. I let the man win. I let the system beat me. I gave up caring. I mean, maybe not completely--some subjects still elicit a sense of excitement and hard work from me. But, let me tell you, those GE requirements--all those classes? Already forgotten. Completely. Which is a shame. And I can't really say what could change to make it different. But I was just thinking about it, and thought I'd share. Life is hard for the extra-milers, but maybe the extended view makes it worth it. Maybe Miley Cyrus had it right:

"It's not about how fast you get there, it's not about what's waiting on the other side....it's the climb."