what education?

sitting in an overstuffed chair, pontificating about one’s preferred view of reality, suggesting that we are all philosophers, strikes me as an odd way to claim that you know what you are doing, let alone know who you are. yet, every year, institutions spit out more pontificators, more myopic dreamers, and dump thousands of them on the western world to fester, rot, and decay. those who somehow rise above the intellectual wasteland, or who are the sons and daughters of privilege, succeed entering such an imperfect world. the system that once reigned before the turn of the century was less corrupted, or felt less corrupted, because some of us did make it through the maze, and did actually use our diplomas as a means of gaining access to a system that was closed without the printed paper document.

all that has changed. now, the result of a college education is sometimes like a game of Russian roulette. it does not help that so many older, but less wiser adults, as if pining for their college years, insist that “a college education” is necessary to gain any kind of economic freedom in this life. brainwashed by this lie…that one must be liberally educated, weighed down with a load of debt to achieve it… an increasing number of ill-prepared, lacking any idea of who they are, rush off to a university to work for that $150,000 (or more) document of printed paper.

not everyone can be an X-Ray Technician. or a professor. or a veterinarian. eager lemmings chasing their peers down a slippery slope and off the edge is not a recipe for success. leave it to a senseless and perverse generation to hide the truth about supply and demand  from their students. keep them  dumbed down. God forbid that one would graduate and come back and take one of THEIR jobs. it is unthinkable. let them major in Gender Studies and end up working at Family Dollar for $8.50 an hour. that’s the thinking. i would know, i heard it many times in the past.

but i am no longer a part of their world. my contact comes mainly from those i know who are entering the college world. and i find that world has so drastically evolved into a system that disables the learner, and leaves he or she so tied to debt that it does break some beyond  the point of making it in this life.

and because of this, i will no longer recommend the old school route for the majority. sure, i know there will be some who still succeed, in spite of the cost involved, and the time and effort. but it is  more important for the student, graduating high school, to have gut-level  reality experiences that educate him or her. experiences where they work, where they take the initiative, where they develop compassion and character. real education.

Stalking the not-so-wild turkey

a long, long time ago in a state of mind far, far away, things were different. people were different. even animals were different. and some of it was good. people knew to throw out expired food, smart people did not converse using infantile slang like “bae” or “vacay,” and the pope was not as left-wing as your dumbest presidential candidate.

yes, there were still clowns, and yes, many of them were in politics, but the woods were not filled with scary clowns during election cycles.

other cycles, like menstrual cycles, and motor cycles, were not wildly popular with those who did not have to mess with them.

back then, you could order a mess of beans, or go foraging for a mess of wild onions armed with your STALKING THE WILD ASPARAGUS. you might entertain romantic ideas about a creature in the woods, without being relegated to a fake news channel.

but you might be relegated to other things….like being picked last when it came to choose players for dodge ball, an aggressive sport Snowflakes would not survive during the long wintry process of choosing sides.

choosing to procrastinate in school was much easier then. the “ubiquitous they” did not inflict students with multiple remedial classes when they forgot to do their homework, lost their essay in the lawnmower, or simply decided to be an anarchist for a six weeks grading period.

still, not everything within that period was peachy keen. if you were ugly, you were told you were ugly, and to what extent. if you were pretty, every last single guy in school wanted to shove anonymous love notes into your locker (from a “secret admirer”) because as a young man it was not as painful a process to imagine yourself waking up to that face every morning.

but, there were only so many pretty girls…and someone…usually a nice guy like you…was left with the turkeys. not wild turkeys, mind you, but the kind of turkeys only a turkey could look at every morning. and you knew that if you married that turkey, you would wake up every morning to…ugly.

and hormones being what they were…back in the day before video games took away the testosterone…even a turkey had a hope, as long as she did not stumble and fall while trying to balance her weight as she clucked forward.

so the boy who was always picked last ended up being chosen last in the turkey trot of high school life, despite his efforts to avoid the tournament completely and claim celibacy and a longing for the monkhood, ended up face to face with a not-so-wild bird who teetered and tottered. Feeling sorry for the bird, the boy, feeling like a pinball wizard, decided to take a walk on the not-so-wild side.

alas, the poor hormones, completely befuddled, failed to see the truth right before their eyes. and before taming them, the boy overshot his pinball and tilted the game. the turkey saw that she was indeed ugly, but she had a great personality. unlike  the other turkeys that fought gravitational pull, she stopped eating everything in sight, became the face every boy wanted to wake up to, and ended up a beautiful princess.

so…the boy went back to the back yards in search of chickory, the woods in search or morels, and the old barn yard…in search of the wild asparagus.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

another day

colored lights….must be Christmas…movie spotlight…a church band singing “Here I am to Worship”…”Go Tell It On The Mountain”…and an angel on stage…backpacks hugging corners and edges of the common corridors…a circle of children smiling and praying…jackets hanging on command post hooks behind a desk…Please Use Other Door- used and open…gingerbread cookies as hard as cement…the aroma of freshly buttered popcorn luring visitors down the hall…rotting spinach in Michelle Obama’s lunch program decorating discarded trays…”Gingers Rule” according to a dry erase board message…musty nineteenth century books sandwiched like Oreos between twentieth century trash beneath a cathedral ceiling…low tech, high tech, no tech, Star Trek in a salmon colored bookcase, in a room deep in the basement, opposite “the Hobbit Hole-” a twentieth century relic of faulty construction…the winter sun dancing upon blue-tinted glass, flirting with sculptured figures deep below the sidewalk…as the day lingers, till evening’s shadow clothes the mountainsides with a blanket of soon coming sleep, when the world between the mountains passes through another phase, and no creatures stir within the brick-sided building beneath the stars of a suddenly stinky sky…a sign is coming from the southeast- as winter wakes again…and tomorrow the children may wake to a world white with snow…

Terry Fox

Here in the mountains, in a classroom… no sound but the sniffles, a few dry eyes…and inspiration.

I have taught students for years, and I have rarely found a better example of a man pursuing his dreams like the story of Terry Fox. I was in Canada that year as he ran through Ontario, but I never saw him in person.

Each year I encourage students to realize their dreams and to pursue them, especially those that the world decries as “impossible.” It never fails to amaze me how powerful the simple story and ESPN video of Terry Fox is to my students. And each time I see the video again, I am renewed. For I remember my dreams, and the passion it will take to continue, focused, running the race…with faith.