It's Just School

It’s just school.

This is a letter to all of the young people around me who are still studying. I promise you, your worth is not measured by the grade on that paper. You are not “better” because you were accepted into a post-secondary institution. The prestige of your school and your area of study does not correlate to your earnings, your abilities, or your happiness. I have been told countless times by adults who supposedly knew better than me that education is the key. They are not completely wrong. But, they are only partly right.

What once was a free pass, a stamp of approval, an umbrella in the storm: EDUCATION, has become a competition-thriving, mental health denying, rat-race for a title. The rhetoric I've always known goes something like this: this is the difficult path you must walk in order to be seen as respectable, intelligent, an expert in your field. This is what you must do to put those little letters after your name that mean 'I know something, therefore, I have something to offer'. When I was studying, I became so immersed in the culture of 'achieving', I lost sight of the original purpose of education. Why did I apply for post-secondary school in the first place?

All I ever wanted was to know just a little bit more. I love to learn. I always have. The key to unlocking potential and affording opportunity is challenged by the tidal wave of comparison, overwhelming expectation, and judgement. Why does learning feel like a burden? I think it started when the subjects I love and how much I truly understand them were reduced to fifty questions selected at random on the topic to which I was introduced six weeks prior. And my own assessment of what I could possibly achieve in life was measured by the grade on that test in the course I paid thousands to attend. We had competitions, willingly or not I'm still unsure, about who could stay awake the longest. Who could get through the material the fastest? Who was willing to get up earliest to save a table in the library where we would all sit down and force ourselves to focus? We all had to be there, right? The thousands of zombies during the month of finals, sneaking forbidden food onto quiet floors, staring blankly at our blue screens, greasy hair pulled into lopsided buns and scarves wrapped around us. We were all meant to be here, memorizing facts and dates and theories. We were all meant to breathe the stale air of still concentration and wonder what would happen if we failed this one? What would happen if we dropped out entirely? What would we tell our families when we visited over winter break?

Then on test day (of which there was always more than one), after sitting on a plastic chair for two hours, methodically applying logic to the mixed up questions, after putting the pencil down and stretching cramped fingers, slowly releasing the stress of shoving as much information into our brains as strained eyes and pulsing temples would allow, dreaming of a soft pillow and recovering the sleep sacrificed in preparation for that single test I thought,

Do I care to learn this anymore?

What's the point?

Those moments of doubt made me question and continue to question, the purpose of a lot of things in my life. Maybe to defy expectations is to take a different path than the one I had planned. Maybe education has nothing to do with what everyone else thinks. Maybe I only need to care to learn. Maybe that's enough. It isn’t as though I learned nothing in my school career, no. I did walk away with two big lessons. The first lesson: how to fail. I mean, really truly, fail. I failed when everyone expected me to succeed. (When I expected me to succeed most of all). I failed courses I loved and others I hated. I failed so much I'm surprised they let me continue to study. The second lesson: humility. I was good at school and then I wasn’t. A fundamental aspect of my identity throughout my life was wrenched from me. The thing I had always counted on to carry me through and keep me safe tilted the other direction in the balance of life. But, even after it was over, I was okay.

The entire time, it was just school.

You'll be okay.

It’s just school.