Hello everyone! This might get a little sappy and you will probably learn how much of a wimp I am, but why the heck not. Also, you’ll learn what kind of privileged person I am. I mean I get to go to school, and yet I am still complaining.
I want to be in love with school again. I loved that feeling of learning something new when I was little. I loved homework when I was little. Then it all kinda changed.
In middle school we started to learn about college debt. I felt threatened by the debt. I thought that getting around ten thousand dollars in debt was the same as getting a hundred thousand. I wanted to be able to get a full ride scholarship somehow. Its what the teacher was telling us to do and I believed him.
I used to cry if I could not complete something in elementary school but in middle school I put more pressure on myself. I would cry if I didn’t understand something in sixth grade, but as a freshman I don’t care anymore if I don’t understand, I just care about my grade.
It sucks and feels unescapable. Teachers expect it at this point(students only caring about grades). Some spend more time explaining how to get an A than the topic itself. No longer do teachers say, you will need this when you are an adult. They say, this will be on the test.
After living in this mindset for a while I try to escape sometimes. Today I tried to escape. These last couple days going to school has been really hard and I really needed something to hold onto, to keep loving to learn. We were given a structure to write an essay with. The topic was “Does a tollarent government have more or less power than an intolerant one?” For a long time I had thought, both have power it just shifts who controls the power, but now I changed my mind. Tolerant governments have more power. I wanted to write the essay in a more story like form just how I kinda worked it through my head.
A government starts out with seeds. A intolerant government will give out a few seeds to those who they deem responsible. It would be the same type of people and they would give the people strict rules on how to deal with the seeds. They all end up with the same vegetable and while there could be a lot of it there aren’t many ideas flowing around.
Meanwhile a tolerant government would give the seeds to everyone and tell them to plant whatever they want to. They wouldn’t ask for the fruits or plants back when they are fully grown but by simply having respect and power over a bunch of people who have a lot of plants (these plants represent individual minds and seeds represent education or… propaganda… depending on how they are used) they have more power over trade and can invent more things. Sure these people can use their power to rebel against their government but if the government is truly tolerant (Other than for crimes of violence, like killing) than rebelling would be less likely.
I get it better that way and I feel like many of my fellow students would too. I understand that this essay will be written to die(I mean just not be read by anyone but the teacher then get recycled) but why can’t I at least learn something from it.
As soon as I proposed writing this essay in this way my teacher very nicely shot me down but it reminded me of the fact that I couldn’t argue with that. I can’t argue with teachers because as a student a few of my rights are revoked including the first amendment. So now I have to waste time writing an essay that will die instead of spending it writing something that will live. That others might read. I know that my metaphor wasn’t perfect and I have no idea how to smash it into the structure but I would have liked to try. Then at least I would have failed doing something I enjoyed.
I shouldn’t blame the teacher though. After all they are amazing super heroes at this point because a lot of them are going without pay to protest. And they are just overall there to help kids learn. I guess the method of having more flexible teachers for opportunities to learn would be to not have even more budget cuts increasing our class sizes to 45 students so that teachers can give students individual care.
Or you know giving schools enough money to hire enough teachers to get class sizes down to 30 students. 25 would be great because then I could feel like my teacher actually cared but 30 is fine too.
I just realized that means elementary school class sizes are going to increase to 35, I wonder how soon it will get to 40. 40 kids aged 5 years old spells certain doom.
Also, I’m not perfect either. I won’t go out of my way to write this essay. In fact I am so unmotivated to write the one that she wants me to write that I am doing this instead but I needed to let loose some bottled up emotions. I just want school to be about learning again. Instead of just getting into college.
Well, again I am super grateful for going to school and being able to be there. I also have clean water and a lot of really nice things such as I have no younger siblings to take care of, my chores are pretty basic, and I have a lot of freedoms.
I just want to love to go to school.
I love to learn. I just want school to be synonymous with learning again.
Books are life! 