Loud Rant on Education

Isaiah 21:6 - "... let him declare what he seeth ..."

As most of you good, faithful readers are already aware, I am currently having a quarter-life crisis pertaining to my major and eventual employment. For one thing, I'm not sure if I really like the English major as is currently presented to me, and for another thing, I'm not sure what I want to do with it after I graduate.

The main reason why I'm questioning my personal enjoyment of the English major is my six-credit-hour English class, which I have found to be rather boring and irrelevant to my interests. As such, I've struggled a bit more grades-wise than I've liked, which, in turn, has only piqued my disinterest. 

It's a vicious cycle. I'm bored, so I don't apply myself as much, which means I suffer more stress, which means I end up being even more disillusioned with the class.

And if I can get up on my soap box here, I think that's why I hate it when people tell me to 'Love to Learn!' in the context of a formalized education. 

For those of you having a hard time recognizing what letters these sticky notes have been distributed to form, the full statement reads, 'Love to Learn!' Quite. I will point out, I was impressed with the creativity and devotion demonstrated by whoever took the time to slap these sticky notes up, so nice work, stranger!

I have treasured learning something in every class I've ever taken. What annoys me is the standardization of it all, the useless memorization of disconnected facts that no professional would be expected to know off the top of their heads without years of specialized professional training, if even they ever have to know them off the top of their head and can't just look the dang facts up. 

My point is, I would continually have fun learning in even the most irrelevant subject if I wasn't expected to regurgitate every inane trivia question like a full-fledged professor with tenure. It is these expectations that explain the rising statistics of stress and depression among college students, who struggle to enjoy the journey when the enjoyment is sucked away by a series of statistics declaring their worth in the form of impersonal percentiles. As Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes once said, "I got 75% of the answers correct, and in today's society, doing something 75% right is outstanding! If government and industry were 75% competent, we'd be ecstatic! I won't stand for this artificial standard of performance!"

I mean, I get plenty stressed because of schoolwork, but I don't get stressed about learning. I love going on Wikipedia and mindlessly looking up random articles about the US-Korean War of 1871. I love studying the art of genre and its influence and effect on modern culture. I study my scriptures daily without any needling or prying from deadlines or gradebooks. When you shove me into the constraints of a classroom, however, things are different, and the pleasure I receive from making my own way is slaughtered by a Frankenstein made of tuition, test scores, and GPAs wielding the twin swords of unrealistic expectations and narrowness of thought.

Of course, I know some of you reading this actually like everything I've described in regards to standardization. I've known individuals who, quite sincerely, declare, "I like tests and GPAs!" I'm not saying such an attitude is impossible. However, people do not abruptly descend into ecstasy when their teacher declares a pop quiz. The statistics stand.

As it is, since the system won't change, I'm again finding reason to change myself. I was going to talk about that particular concept more today,* but before I could get to it, I got distracted by my own opinions.* 

So, while you wait for my follow-up, thank you for reading my rant! See you tomorrow!

*The original title of this post was going to be something like, Adversity: Changed Perspective. I will point out that my perspective on the opinions I've expressed above has never changed. Rather, my approach to dealing with my present frustrations has changed. I plan to write another blog post sometime in the next little while about this concept, with the below picture serving as the centerpiece.