Educate Yourself

I came across a video a while back. It was shared by a guy I knew several years ago. The video features an angry young man who was voicing his disappointment about the education he received in school. During his rap (for that is how many youth choose to express themselves these days) he went on to denounce the educational institution and its teachers for filling up his mind with useless information instead of teaching him more important life skills. He decried and derided the wonders of the world around him that he was taught, things like how the cells, which are the building blocks of life, work, or the properties of light that allow us to see and live. He claims that the literary works of Shakespeare and the lessons of history are trivial. He laments the lack of knowledge in the law, finances, and how to get a job. I found his educational tirade, to be honest, annoying. At the time I was not sure what exactly was irking me so much, but I felt I needed to know more about this young man and what message he was trying to share.

I noticed that the video ended rather abruptly, so I went on YouTube to see if there wasn't a full length video available. Well, I did, and he goes on to rant about how the school system had failed him. At the end of his video, he gave a very poignant message: "Don't stay in school!". Yup, that was one very angry young man. To an extent, I get where he is coming from. He wants his learning to be relevant. He wants to learn the skills in life that are necessary to be successful in life. He wants to learn things that will be useful. However, and this is the main aspect of my writing today, he seemed to be willing to place the blame on every person involved in the system except for the most important one. You see, he believed that the school, his teachers, the parents, and everyone else at fault for this, but never once did he consider the most important source of failure in his anger. He didn't look at himself.

I have been teaching for 15 years now. I have literally had the pleasure of seeing thousands of students come and go in my classroom. I would regularly have students ask the universal question: "Why do I have to learn this stuff?", although sometimes they used stronger words for "stuff". Now, as a teacher, I will happily claim that not everything that we teach in school is going to be applicable in the day-to-day life of our students. I will also admit that there are important skills and knowledge that we do not teach in school, but I would suggest that such deficiencies are small. I also feel that different school systems will have different curriculum, and it may well be that this young man went to a school system that had many problems in that department. Having said all that, if I had the opportunity to sit down with this chap, I would ask him a few pointed questions.

First, I would ask him what he feels is the role of the education system and schools is. By the sound of things, I suppose he would say that the school is to teach him everything that he would ever need in life. I would follow up by asking what those things were. He would likely give me the list of things he rapped about. I would counter with how he knew he would need those things. It sounds like he didn't know what he needed until after he was done with school. So I would then suggest that perhaps it is not the school's job to anticipate what every single student is ever going to need and then teach that student exactly what was needed. It is a herculean task at best. Instead, perhaps, I would offer that the job of an educational system is not to give students exactly what they think they will need, but instead to teach them how to give themselves what they will need. The job of a school is to teach you one important skill that will prepare you for your whole life and all of its challenges. My job, as a teacher, is to teach my students how to learn. 

Now, this may be where some teachers and school systems fall short. I would agree that there is likely those within my profession who will disagree with me on this. Just hear me out for a moment. While this may seem like a simple task, it is by no means simple. To teach someone else to learn is going to take years. It is going to take failures. It is going to take work. Most importantly, it is going to take the student buying in to the idea. I remember a student I had many years ago in Saskatchewan. At the time I was teaching in a small rural school where everybody had to take chemistry and biology. I was the teacher of those classes. This particular young lady stayed behind after the first class and asked if I had a minute. She went on to explain to me that she did not like chemistry and biology. She did not need the courses for what she wanted to to, which was to become an architect. Like this young man, she did not want to waste her time with things that were going to be useless to her in the future. She then looked at me, waiting for me to say something. I could tell that she was of a strong spirit, and one who would not take kindly to the general platitudes that teachers give to students. I thought about it for a moment. I then carefully chose my next words.

"So what are you going to do about the situation?" I asked her. 

She seemed a bit surprised by this response. I went on to explain to her that in this situation, I could not lobby to ask her to be taken out of the course. If I did that with her, then other students would likely line up and demand that they also be allowed to do something else. Even if I thought that she could do some distance learning program, the principal would not allow it, and the principal had the final say. I told her that I appreciated her honesty and hoped that she would be equally appreciative of my position, so again, I asked her what she was going to do about it. I elaborated by suggesting she look for how to make the best out of this situation. 

She thought about it for a moment, and then gave me this reply:

"I guess I could just work really hard, get as high a mark as I can to help me get scholarships, and then not worry about having to take these courses again."

I was only a second year teacher, and it would take me a few more years teaching before I would realize how profound her response was, although I did feel that her answer was about as excellent as one could get. I told her I liked her answer and that I would be here to help her in any way that I could. She thanked me (but to be honest, I think she may have been a bit disappointed at the time), and went on her way. 

Over the next couple years I did my best to teach her biology and chemistry. While she was not at the top of her class, she was consistently in the 80s and 90s. Her demeanor in class changed over the two years I taught her. She showed a lot of growth and aptitude for the material. For the very last unit exam of Biology 30 I asked that class an open-ended question: "what was the most important thing that you learned in biology these last two years". After the test, I read each one and shared them with the class. many of them were about things like genetics, organ systems, or ecology. Several were humorous. A few were just straightforward and brief. Hers, however, I didn't share, but I did ask her to stay afterwards. I told her that I didn't read hers out loud to the class because it was my favourite. She had written that the most important thing she had learned was that she could actually come to enjoy biology and chemistry, and that despite her poor attitude in the beginning she appreciated my patience and enthusiasm that allowed her to come to love biology and chemistry. She learned that she could enjoy learning about things that she didn't necessarily need to know, and that she could be good at it. I told her that because of this experience she was going to be successful at anything she put her mind to doing in the future. Part of learning is to open our minds to things that we hadn't considered being important, to discover that to learn about more than just what we think we will need can bring fulfillment.

Going back to the angry young man in the video that prompted this blog entry, I would ask him why he didn't choose to pursue the knowledge in the areas that he wanted to know. If learning how to pay taxes was so important, did he ask anybody to teach him that? If he wanted to learn parenting skills, did he sit at home and expect someone to come along to show him the way? If he wanted to learn about taking care of himself, did he ask someone to help him? Or did he expect the world to cater to his desires? I have noticed that in today's world many of us (not just young people) are accustomed to having everything that we want as close to instantaneous as possible. We seem to feel more entitled for what we want and need and are less willing to put forth any effort in getting what we desire. I felt that this young man felt cheated by the system, but what did he do to fix it? As far as I could tell, he dyed his hair, learned how to rap, and made a YouTube video to whine about his problems. Part of learning means that we learn how to take responsibility for our future. It means we are ultimately responsible for our education. If the system fails us, then we need to actively seek out the knowledge and training that we desire. We don't sit at our pity party and expect the world to give us everything we want.

I couldn't help but find it ironic that he was rapping about how useless Shakespeare's classics were. Right there was one of the most striking examples of how out of touch this young man was. Shakespeare was a master of using rhyming and rhythm to convey messages and commentary about the world around him. This young man was using the current evolution of Shakespeare's way of communicating to complain about having to learn Shakespeare. Part of learning is to know where we have been. We learn of history to learn of past mistakes. We learn of past ideas and approaches to appreciate how far we have come.

I hope that if I ever get the chance to talk to this young fellow about his angst that he will keep an open mind. I hope that he will listen to what I have to say. I hope he will see that I do not entirely disagree with him, but that in a large way he is mostly angry with himself. Too often I have had to tell students that if they think they deserve the best things in life, they must also be willing to give the best of themselves. And most importantly, I hope he chooses to change his final message from "Don't stay in school" to "educate yourself".