It seems I lost all hope for greater things somewhere during my twenty-years spent getting "formally" educated. The truth is I haven't learned shit from textbooks. I've got letters after my name that stand for bull-shit-more-dumb .
From the very first day of school....you get placed inside a box. You are told exactly "what to think".... without any training in "how to think." You are told what is "right" and what is "wrong". If you deviate from these norms - you get labeled a "rule breaker", a "bad seed", a "delinquent." Those are some harsh words to swallow at any age...let alone at a young age.
At some point in life, everyone learns that people's age does not directly correlate with their level of maturity. Before you figure out that nobody actually knows shit in life...you are left to believe what "adults" tell you. You take their words as the truth. And if the words you repeatedly hear are negative...it becomes a real problem. It's expensive undoing all the damage from your childhood ... (especially when most psychiatrists don't even take insurance).
The worst part is that by the time you develop your own opinions...and begin to question what others are saying...it's almost too late. Some Type A anal retentive control freak had labeled you a "disciplinary-dilemma" or "lacking initiative" or even worse "a C-minus student"....what exactly is C-minus anyway? like what the fuck does C-minus indicate??? "Dear (ten-years old) Tommy, you don't qualify for a C...b/c you aren't even "average", but just a smidge below-average. Perhaps you should just cut your losses and give up on this whole school situation."
Anyway....all these labels do more harm than good. They discourage kids from trying. They foster unwarranted hopelessness .... which may persist and become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I think it's a shame that we are told what our own potential is before we are old enough to decide for ourselves. We get assessed on how obedient we are ... how well we follow directions ... and how we perform on exams made for classrooms. When the real world is not a classroom. The kid who got straight As is not any better trained for the real world than the kid with C-minus running down his report card.
The majority of our lives are spent filtering through the nonsense of daily life .... while maintaining some sanity and awareness for what the fuck our purpose is. It is not spent filling in bubbles on a scantron or regurgitating facts on an oral exam. It becomes a challenge to determine which skills will translate into real-world success. And it becomes an even bigger challenge when a kid is positively reinforced for actions that will do him no good later in life. That kid will become delusional about his own capabilities....and will probably end up having a meltdown when his boss tells him something he has never heard before: "you are not good enough". Oh honey, you were never good enough...but don't jump a cliff over it....life goes on.
It is the tenth day of the tenth month ....one of my favorite nights of the year has finally arrived. kol tuv darlings.
ElyVas
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