The Problem with School

Woes of School

It would be easy to pass this prose as a lazy youthful moaning regarding the structures of society and success. However, I urge you not to dismiss so easily the thoughts I present here. “Every boy hates school; it’s nothing new.” On this, we can agree; many sons have a distaste for the education system. They despise waking up at the crack of dawn to stand outside through wind, rain, and snow in some states. With a loathing, boys trudge from class to class, expected to sit for hours until they can finally leave the confines of the building to be home. The difference between my experience and most schoolboys is that I was home-educated. This means I did not have to wake at the crack of dawn most days; I did not have to wait for a school bell to free me from the droning of school.

Being home-educated, I had a more considerable opportunity to adjust the schedule to the time of day that best suited me. The truth is that I was still at the liberty of my teacher, be it mother, father, or a co-op teacher; their timeline was mine, their availability must be mine whether I desired it or not. It would seem, I was blessed by my schooling situation. It is undoubtedly true that in the end, it was a help to my life trajectory, but it was not a help to my educational advancement. I nearly failed all of my classes in high school, and it wasn’t because I couldn’t understand the material.

My Trajectory

A little about the life trajectory I referenced. Since my struggle through middle and high school, I have accomplished both an undergraduate and graduate degree. Over eleven years of being in the workforce, I have held three leadership roles in three organizations. I served in the role of director for two youth-centered programs and as an assistant manager of an educational fitness program. All but one of these roles has ended because of my choice to move on. The one which ended before I intended to move was instigated by a directional change the leadership was pursuing in organizational scope and vision.

I have been very proud to work hard and serve to the utmost of my ability at any job or volunteer position I have taken over the years of my life. Work is not something I take lightly, nor is the commitment to a task. Worry was often heard from my parents about my lack of achievement in education compared to my brother’s. I was the hardest one to teach. The state of my work and achievements is crucial since it would suggest that my struggle in school was not due to laziness or a lack of smarts and wit but rather a lack of purpose.

Show Don’t Tell

The cause of my school struggle was not because I could not understand the material being presented but instead because I could not understand the relevance to the material and system being used. Neither could my teachers. Since those entrusted with my education could not give a reason for its significance, I simply concluded that it was purposeless. I was headstrong and not about to waste away a day focusing on something that had no purpose. Their ability to express the benefits of education was not for lack of attempting either; they frequently touted that one will not learn to read or write without education and therefore will not attain a job. Valid. But that only explained why read and writing were of use to me. Even at that point, it did not explain the reason for making me read all the stories and books that failed to fascinate me.

What I needed was practical application. Instead of telling me about the types of earth, take me there, and show me. Let me smell the difference in the minerals sent; let me touch it and feel the way it resists my hands and feet. Don’t tell me a tree can be used for wood to build with for shelter against the seasons; bring me to a felled tree and show me how to turn it from a pillar that will soon rot on the forest floor into useable lumber that can be shaped into a structure. Instead of telling me animals grow in different ways, bring me to a pond in spring and show me the tadpoles that will become frogs, and let me chase them in the water around my feet. Help me find a tree with a nest of eggs to watch for baby birds to hatch in the coming days.

Rather than telling me one can find their way by looking at the stars, take me out to the woods and teach me how to see a constellation that can bring me back to basecamp. You can show me the book and pictures of clouds and how to predict a fierce storm, or you could take me outside as the storm approaches and show me the green hue of the clouds in the calm before the storm. I had no need for head knowledge because it could never be applied to the world around me. I had no use for mathematics because it wasn’t able to be used in my day-to-day interactions. I learned to tell time by a numberless clock that chirped the song of twelve different birds because I could go into the yard and listen for the birds and spot them by their singing.

What I needed all those years was practical, even logical application, something I could use. Admittedly, my family and those who know me well would not always paint me as one who is the most logical in the family. I would likely be painted as the whimsical second born who finds creative ways to travel the world and live without ever committing to a full-time job. Honestly, they’d be correct, mostly. I make choices that seem as though they are on a whim, but what people often fail to ask is when I began thinking about or searching for an opportunity to accomplish the whimsical action.

A recent example of this would be about a month ago. I was north of the city I live in by a 50-minute drive. I attended a once-monthly meeting that tends to take most of the morning and often goes on into the early to mid-afternoon. After the meeting, I remembered how far north I was and wondered how close one of my favorite cities to visit was from my location. The meeting location was only a 15-minute drive southeast. It was an opportunity that should not be wasted. With the rest of my afternoon open, I decided to visit this city which brings me so much joy. I spent the rest of the afternoon walking the riverside, reading a book, resting at the most lovely coffee shop on the primary furrow way, and even took a jaunt across the walking bridge.

It was a spur of the moment decision, but what I don’t talk about when telling the story of my adventure, it that I had been longing since last summer to return to this city, but I had not been able to find a day that would allow me time to sit along the river for more than an hour with the near two hours of travel a round trip would take. So though I did not plan the journey more than moments before taking it, I had waited eight months, eyeing the calendar for an opportunity to go. The fact is, I may act suddenly on occasion, but I would not see the moment had I not already been thinking and looking for it.

Inspiration

Why are my habits at all brought up as a point, you may ask? Because I think logically and practically, even if my actions do not openly show the amount of thought and processing that has occurred. I long to experience the world, not only on a mental stratosphere but also on a physical, emotional, and spiritual plane. I struggled with learning in school and even today while tutoring young scholars because the purpose is void of application. I once asked, what is the point? The answers that returned did not apply well to my situation.

This post all began because I was reminded of the silliness that we often call education by a student’s question, “When am I ever going to use this”? I could give him only two answers, “Probably not in your adult life” and “Likely in college.” He wants to become a sportswriter, not an economist. He tells me he is stupid because he can not recall elements of schooling that do not apply readily to his current life. When I assure him of his brilliance, he points to the test score that his father berates him over. Yet, this youth can recite statistics about sports, the athletes that perform in them, and tell detailed stories about the events of a game.

One could say he is a boy; of course, he knows the sports stats. To which, I would assure you not all boys or men know such details. I happen to have never been interested and don’t see myself ever becoming interested in the topic. Even when I attempt to play my family in the yearly fantasy football leagues, I look at enough to decide who to put in or trade, and then the information is gone. If my life truly depended on it, I would probably be able to get close to recalling something, but that would be the only circumstance in which the numbers would be drudged up from the deep recesses of my brain’s memory bank.

Conclusion

The fact is neither the students I am called on to work alongside, nor myself are slow at learning or dumb in the head. We are fascinated with and find purpose in things that have functional relevance to the lives we lead. I am not saying that education is without meaning; if I believed that, I would not have attained a master’s degree. I am saying that the system we used to educate ourselves and now use to teach the youth of the next generations is outdated and could be of tremendous success, at least here in the US. It is time to reevaluate the purpose of our education system and seek a formate that better serves our young people.