Thursday, February 27, 2014
School Is Just Not For Everyone [GRADE THIS ONE]
"Why do I even go to school anymore?"
"Because it keeps you out of trouble."
I don't think I can argue with my mom on this one, but the fact that if I weren't still regularly going to school for 9 hours a day I'd probably be getting in a lot more trouble may be the only reason I can justify high school nowadays. As I look forward to wrapping up my tenure in the American public education system in the next couple of months, I've been thinking a lot about the highs and lows I've experienced in education over the last 12 years, and if there were other ways I could've been spending that time. While it may partially be the senioritis talking, I've come to the conclusion that school really just isn't for everybody.
This isn't to say that I haven't experienced a ridiculous amount of learning, about people, about the world, about curriculum, during my time in school; calling these last 12 years anything less than positive would discredit some of the amazing teachers and classmates I've met. With that in mind though, and as I look ahead to the next stage of education where I'll have more control over what kind of environment I'm in, I can't help but wonder about supplements or alternatives to traditional schooling that would be as or more beneficial.
Again, I can attribute some of my feelings toward school right now to the fact that I'm three months from high school graduation and senioritis is in full effect, but the thought of annotating a novel or delving into some math problems repulses me right now. So what else could I have been or will I be doing in lieu of school? I suppose that hinges partly on how I view school; some people choose a path that sets them up with an entirely different set of skills, but is still considered school. Trade and vocational schools seem much more specific, like an avenue for people who know their purpose and just need the tools to attain it. Had I known from an early age that I was destined to become a welder, maybe a vocational schooling would've been right up my alley, but I definitely have to give credit to the school system I've been in for narrowing my interests over the last 12 years, because there is no way I would've been able to make that sort of career decision at an early stage in my life (I can't even make it now).
There are plenty of credible defenses for traditional schooling, and why certain aspects of it can be beneficial throughout a person's entire life. Liberal arts educations in particular have a lot going for them in terms of how they can help people appreciate culture, and non-career aspects of life, but this is looked at in comparison to a sort of education that has people studying scientific experiments in labs. What if someone's education was only focused on culture? Wouldn't they have a huge appreciation for life then? This raises other questions about being able to contribute to the world, and how people should use their education as a foundation for bettering the world.
I can't help but feel the need to set myself apart from the rest of the scholastic community, an urge that according to Killer Mike could help me become something more than just a factory worker for the rest of my life. I guess I have to give credit to the fact that he said "try to learn stuff outside of school as well as in school," meaning that you probably shouldn't just have one or the other (school or no school). I still think traditional school isn't meant for everybody, but I guess just realizing that in the first place might be enough to set me apart slightly from the rest. After all, I've only got three more months to kill until pretty much all of my learning can be done outside of school, so until then I'll just be happy that I've determined that I don't belong in academia, and plan for how I'll continue learning stuff once I'm free from its shackles.
"Because it keeps you out of trouble."
I don't think I can argue with my mom on this one, but the fact that if I weren't still regularly going to school for 9 hours a day I'd probably be getting in a lot more trouble may be the only reason I can justify high school nowadays. As I look forward to wrapping up my tenure in the American public education system in the next couple of months, I've been thinking a lot about the highs and lows I've experienced in education over the last 12 years, and if there were other ways I could've been spending that time. While it may partially be the senioritis talking, I've come to the conclusion that school really just isn't for everybody.
This isn't to say that I haven't experienced a ridiculous amount of learning, about people, about the world, about curriculum, during my time in school; calling these last 12 years anything less than positive would discredit some of the amazing teachers and classmates I've met. With that in mind though, and as I look ahead to the next stage of education where I'll have more control over what kind of environment I'm in, I can't help but wonder about supplements or alternatives to traditional schooling that would be as or more beneficial.
Again, I can attribute some of my feelings toward school right now to the fact that I'm three months from high school graduation and senioritis is in full effect, but the thought of annotating a novel or delving into some math problems repulses me right now. So what else could I have been or will I be doing in lieu of school? I suppose that hinges partly on how I view school; some people choose a path that sets them up with an entirely different set of skills, but is still considered school. Trade and vocational schools seem much more specific, like an avenue for people who know their purpose and just need the tools to attain it. Had I known from an early age that I was destined to become a welder, maybe a vocational schooling would've been right up my alley, but I definitely have to give credit to the school system I've been in for narrowing my interests over the last 12 years, because there is no way I would've been able to make that sort of career decision at an early stage in my life (I can't even make it now).
There are plenty of credible defenses for traditional schooling, and why certain aspects of it can be beneficial throughout a person's entire life. Liberal arts educations in particular have a lot going for them in terms of how they can help people appreciate culture, and non-career aspects of life, but this is looked at in comparison to a sort of education that has people studying scientific experiments in labs. What if someone's education was only focused on culture? Wouldn't they have a huge appreciation for life then? This raises other questions about being able to contribute to the world, and how people should use their education as a foundation for bettering the world.
I can't help but feel the need to set myself apart from the rest of the scholastic community, an urge that according to Killer Mike could help me become something more than just a factory worker for the rest of my life. I guess I have to give credit to the fact that he said "try to learn stuff outside of school as well as in school," meaning that you probably shouldn't just have one or the other (school or no school). I still think traditional school isn't meant for everybody, but I guess just realizing that in the first place might be enough to set me apart slightly from the rest. After all, I've only got three more months to kill until pretty much all of my learning can be done outside of school, so until then I'll just be happy that I've determined that I don't belong in academia, and plan for how I'll continue learning stuff once I'm free from its shackles.
Friday, February 7, 2014
This Is Not a One-Handed World
This past week has been one of the most physically challenging of my life. Quick backstory: about a week ago I cut the edge of my middle finger on my right hand with a router while working on a personal woodworking project. This is a router, for those of you that don't know, here is essentially how I was using it, and as far as the injury goes, I won't include a picture but I essentially tore away every layer of skin on my finger and narrowly avoiding hitting the bone. Long story short, it wasn't pretty and my hand has been in a splint for the past week to help it heal, giving me effectively one functional hand to live with.
It's been difficult, to say the least, adjusting to one-handed living, with some of the easiest parts of my day (taking a shower for example) quickly becoming some of the most challenging and dreadful. I vow to never take my two functioning hands for granted ever again once I can get this splint off completely, but I've definitely gained a lot of insight and appreciation for the challenges a lot of other handicapped people deal with daily. I'm lucky in the sense that eventually my finger will heal and I'll be able to live normally again, but unfortunately some people don't have that same luxury. In fact, tens of millions of people live with a physical functioning disability that affects their daily life, and that's only statistics gathered for the United States. I think it's safe to say more of our world is handicapped than we realize, but have we constructed a world where people can live with relatively the same amount of ease regardless of physical ability?
The past few days have taught me that the answer to the question is a resounding no. We may fool ourselves into thinking that anyone with a disability has the means to live normally, but while there may be an element of truth in that notion, as a general rule, the world doesn't take too kindly to handicaps. There used to be a show that ran on TLC called Little People, Big World that profiled a family of six, three of which have dwarfism, a medical condition characterized by abnormally low or slow growth. The point of the show was to highlight how people four feet tall could adapt to a world that's been built by and for much taller people and live a relatively normal life; while this was accomplished to some extent, what I remember about the show is how much of a struggle they seemed to go through to convince the rest of the world that they weren't struggling. If that doesn't make any sense, essentially the problem I've observed is that although it's possible to appear normal and modify the life of a handicapped person so that it doesn't stand out as different from anyone else, the amount of work that goes into appearing normal or trying to live normally is a testament to how not normal such a life is.
Why does it all matter though? Like I said, eventually I should (hopefully...) heal up just fine and not have to try to make my life normal, because it will be naturally. The takeaway should be that if we care at all about empathy and really allowing everyone to live with equal ease, we need to be much more observant and honest with how people with disabilities live. Opening a bag of chips or using a pair of scissors have been harder this past week than ever before in my life, but for some people that level of difficulty is the norm. Are fully capable people responsible for constructing equality amongst the disabled and the rest of the world? I'm going to stray slightly from the Devil's Advocate nature of this blog and let personal experience takeover; yes they absolutely are responsible, and if we're going to keep telling ourselves that we live in a land of opportunity and equality, we need to regularly check with the entire population and take the necessary measures to make sure that's true.
It's been difficult, to say the least, adjusting to one-handed living, with some of the easiest parts of my day (taking a shower for example) quickly becoming some of the most challenging and dreadful. I vow to never take my two functioning hands for granted ever again once I can get this splint off completely, but I've definitely gained a lot of insight and appreciation for the challenges a lot of other handicapped people deal with daily. I'm lucky in the sense that eventually my finger will heal and I'll be able to live normally again, but unfortunately some people don't have that same luxury. In fact, tens of millions of people live with a physical functioning disability that affects their daily life, and that's only statistics gathered for the United States. I think it's safe to say more of our world is handicapped than we realize, but have we constructed a world where people can live with relatively the same amount of ease regardless of physical ability?
The past few days have taught me that the answer to the question is a resounding no. We may fool ourselves into thinking that anyone with a disability has the means to live normally, but while there may be an element of truth in that notion, as a general rule, the world doesn't take too kindly to handicaps. There used to be a show that ran on TLC called Little People, Big World that profiled a family of six, three of which have dwarfism, a medical condition characterized by abnormally low or slow growth. The point of the show was to highlight how people four feet tall could adapt to a world that's been built by and for much taller people and live a relatively normal life; while this was accomplished to some extent, what I remember about the show is how much of a struggle they seemed to go through to convince the rest of the world that they weren't struggling. If that doesn't make any sense, essentially the problem I've observed is that although it's possible to appear normal and modify the life of a handicapped person so that it doesn't stand out as different from anyone else, the amount of work that goes into appearing normal or trying to live normally is a testament to how not normal such a life is.
Why does it all matter though? Like I said, eventually I should (hopefully...) heal up just fine and not have to try to make my life normal, because it will be naturally. The takeaway should be that if we care at all about empathy and really allowing everyone to live with equal ease, we need to be much more observant and honest with how people with disabilities live. Opening a bag of chips or using a pair of scissors have been harder this past week than ever before in my life, but for some people that level of difficulty is the norm. Are fully capable people responsible for constructing equality amongst the disabled and the rest of the world? I'm going to stray slightly from the Devil's Advocate nature of this blog and let personal experience takeover; yes they absolutely are responsible, and if we're going to keep telling ourselves that we live in a land of opportunity and equality, we need to regularly check with the entire population and take the necessary measures to make sure that's true.
Thursday, February 6, 2014
The Super Bowl: What's Your Excuse?
The Super Bowl is consistently one of the most watched televised events of every year, with this past Super Bowl setting a record for viewership around the world. Did you watch it? If you did, what's your excuse? Are you really that dedicated to pinnacle of American Football, or are there other factors that dictate how you spent your las Sunday night, and how you'll probably feel compelled to spend at least one February Sunday night a year for the rest of your life.
When we break it down, there's really not that much inherently exciting about watching the Super Bowl on TV, at least not more so than any other televised football game. Odds are your "home team" or the team you tend to root for throughout the year wasn't even playing, and if you happened to be a die hard fan of one of the two teams that made it this year, there's still a 50/50 shot that your team suffered an embarrassing 35 point loss. So why'd you (or anyone else capable of being easily apathetic) turn your attention to the season finale of the NFL? The underlying point here is that there's a little more at play than athletic enthusiasm and fan loyalty to what seems to be a natural inclination to feel compelled to watch what could easily be any other meaningless football game.
Maybe it's the blatant materialistic pissing contest that's put on display every time there's a break in the football action; the beloved commercials that are always captivating and exciting until you actually watch them. Are they effective? Using myself as a gauge, not any more so than commercials aired over the course of the rest of the year. Are they entertaining? This is also subjective, but by and large, not really. Does that stop companies from paying seven figure sums for a 30 second opportunity to fail at connecting with 100 million viewers? Oh no. Not at all. But maybe these ads work on you, and they're your justification for conforming your Sunday night to the pressure of American pop and TV culture, sacrificing yourself to four hours of Fox telecast.
Maybe you're just a party animal. Maybe you capitalize on the fact that some people you know like football enough to throw a party and invite you. You know what a party means right? Borderline dangerous consumption of alcohol and junk food. I suppose that could just make you a glutton. Nonetheless, perhaps your gravitation towards the Super Bowl revolves around your inherent desire for some pizza, rather than an appreciation for competition and sportsmanship.
Don't get me wrong, I say all this not because I have any vehement dislike for the Super Bowl, I'd describe myself as pretty passive towards the event in its entirety. I watched it this year, as I do pretty much every year, but I couldn't help but ask myself why I was glued to the TV set last Sunday, because for all intents and purposes as soon as my Fantasy team doesn't look promising I don't really care about football, and I tend to never spend my Sunday nights watching TV. Surely there must've been some other factors at play for me, and I couldn't help but think that I wasn't the only one watching that wasn't exactly a die-hard football enthusiast. No matter your motivation, it can't be that bad to devote one Sunday a year to pay homage to a cornerstone of American culture. I just know that for me the facade of actually being interested only works for so long, and if there were two Super Bowls a year, I'd probably take a pass on one of them.
When we break it down, there's really not that much inherently exciting about watching the Super Bowl on TV, at least not more so than any other televised football game. Odds are your "home team" or the team you tend to root for throughout the year wasn't even playing, and if you happened to be a die hard fan of one of the two teams that made it this year, there's still a 50/50 shot that your team suffered an embarrassing 35 point loss. So why'd you (or anyone else capable of being easily apathetic) turn your attention to the season finale of the NFL? The underlying point here is that there's a little more at play than athletic enthusiasm and fan loyalty to what seems to be a natural inclination to feel compelled to watch what could easily be any other meaningless football game.
Maybe it's the blatant materialistic pissing contest that's put on display every time there's a break in the football action; the beloved commercials that are always captivating and exciting until you actually watch them. Are they effective? Using myself as a gauge, not any more so than commercials aired over the course of the rest of the year. Are they entertaining? This is also subjective, but by and large, not really. Does that stop companies from paying seven figure sums for a 30 second opportunity to fail at connecting with 100 million viewers? Oh no. Not at all. But maybe these ads work on you, and they're your justification for conforming your Sunday night to the pressure of American pop and TV culture, sacrificing yourself to four hours of Fox telecast.
Maybe you're just a party animal. Maybe you capitalize on the fact that some people you know like football enough to throw a party and invite you. You know what a party means right? Borderline dangerous consumption of alcohol and junk food. I suppose that could just make you a glutton. Nonetheless, perhaps your gravitation towards the Super Bowl revolves around your inherent desire for some pizza, rather than an appreciation for competition and sportsmanship.
Don't get me wrong, I say all this not because I have any vehement dislike for the Super Bowl, I'd describe myself as pretty passive towards the event in its entirety. I watched it this year, as I do pretty much every year, but I couldn't help but ask myself why I was glued to the TV set last Sunday, because for all intents and purposes as soon as my Fantasy team doesn't look promising I don't really care about football, and I tend to never spend my Sunday nights watching TV. Surely there must've been some other factors at play for me, and I couldn't help but think that I wasn't the only one watching that wasn't exactly a die-hard football enthusiast. No matter your motivation, it can't be that bad to devote one Sunday a year to pay homage to a cornerstone of American culture. I just know that for me the facade of actually being interested only works for so long, and if there were two Super Bowls a year, I'd probably take a pass on one of them.
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