In middle age I think many look back somewhat fondly on their school days. The experiences change considerably between elementary school, high school and college and some many have not enjoyed some of these years but for me I remember all of them fondly.
As I read my first quotation lamenting about learning about nature inside of four walls instead of outside I’m reminded that I always wanted a desk near the window and some of my best memories are simply looking out those windows wishing school would be over and I could be outside having fun. Funny that I have good memories of school but the best are thinking about not being in class.
If I think back and sum up the experiences I would say elementary school was enjoying being a kid while trying to fit in the social order. I was athletic but only in the upper middle in the social structure. I never had a girlfriend, I did have a bully in second grade and I was above average but only by a little with my studies. My understanding of the world and my place in it was made for me. I was a catholic, attended catholic school, church and the majority of my friends were catholic as well. I grew up in Columbus, Ohio and in elementary school was familiar with Grandview and Hillard and that was it.
I attended a catholic high school as well. The transition was pretty easy as I knew many of my classmates already having participated in sports. All of the teams we played fed into that high school so I had ready made friends. I remember being a little intimidated as the class size went from 26 to 126 and I was among what seemed to me as adults which we called seniors. It was best to avoid them for the most part except a few that I had known for a long time.
My freshman year was much of the same in terms of having my life dictated to me but the geographic area expanded from Grandview and Hillard to include the West Side. My sophomore year I did experiment with taking a little control of my life and did so by quitting wrestling and hanging around a non-sports type of crowd. Looking back I think on one hand I wish I would have kept wrestling which would have gotten me to the state tournament my senior year. On the other hand I’m glad to have had the experience of not being consumed by sports for just one year.
College was the time when I really began to think for myself. It was studying overseas which really broadened my horizons and flipped the switch from learning because I was required to do so, to enjoying it and wanting to learn for my own benefit. This desire to learn has been strong ever since and is the reason I read and then write these types of posts. I like to record them because I’ve learned that time makes the memory fade and so by recording my life, books or even thoughts I can simply pull up a post and remember.
Here are my highlights from Lapham’s Quarterly – Education.
A few years from the threshold of the school, the grass is springing, the flowers are blooming; insects hum against the classroom windowpanes; but the pupils are studying natural history out of books!
We as a species have neglected and abused nature for too long. We now spend our lives in front of screens, inside four walls. Perhaps it is no surprise our species have polluted the planet and it seems are unable to stop. In the 90s companies started bottling and selling water which was a very strange idea for the time. I remember thinking what will they do next, bottle air? Well, that might just well be the case someday as I’ve been paying very close attention to air quality ever since the huge California forest fires. Pollution in general is out of control but what millions of people don’t realize is they are breathing in poison in many of the major cities. This translates to disease and an early death. Yet we go about our lives paying very little attention to it because that death isn’t immediate enough for us to think too much about it and there really isn’t anything we can do anyway. To stop putting smoke in the air would mean to stop driving cars, flying in airplanes, manufacture products etc. We’re in a system that we cannot break and measures taken only produce a tiny dent in the overall problem.
With global warming we’re starting to see the effects in a big way and I’m not talking about some far away glacier melting which people don’t think too much about. The heat is getting unbearable in places that were already hot. They will keep getting hotter and we’ll have millions of people in major crises. But as it happens slowly it just is never urgent enough for the world to take major action. Even if politicians wanted to there isn’t much they can do unless they want to hurt their economies. So here we are, humans slowly baking ourselves to death.
‘What the Negro needs, therefore, of the world and civilization, he must largely teach himself,” W.E.B Du Bois wrote in 1910 (Atlanta, page 49), calling for a “college-bred community” of Black Americans. Almost sixty years later, Black students at the University of California, Berkeley, reached a similar conclusion, demanding that the university create a Black studies program to ease their racial isolation (Berkeley, CA, page 144). “We can no longer prostitute our minds to the vain and irrelevant intellectual pursuits of Western society while our community lies in ruin,” the students’ proposal declared. “This would amount to intellectual shuffling, and we are determined to shuffle no more.”
Recent news has shown an attack on these minority studies programs. White people just don’t want to feel bad about the past so the solution is for the white governors (Republicans) to just ban the truth. The facts are that minorities were not included to a large extent in education, history, culture and so on. Therefore, the solution was to create minority studies programs to try and correct this error. However, since the majority – whites – often treated minorities not very well Republicans have latched on to another manufactured issue to create anger and thus help keep them in power. What sad state of affairs!
A graver thing than all the rest: our unfortunate children do not always enjoy the few hours of free recreation necessary to their physical development. Behold them, hardly out of the classroom, hurrying toward the house where they will again sit till evening bent over tasks, three-quarters of which are perfectly useless. It often happens that between the morning and afternoon classes, they do not even have time to eat their meal as they should. Instead we make them learn lessons on the necessity of physical exercise and the hygiene of digestion.
Nor let us forget the question of examinations, that plague of all teaching. In reality the children do not study; they prepare for examinations. – Francisco Ferrer – From the manifesto of the International League for the Rational Education of Children
I am a fan of less homework. The kids are in class most of the day, let them have a study session there and get it done. But as the world has become more competitive the solution is to pile more studies on the kids sacrificing their childhoods which, in rich countries, they should be enjoying. The current model is to take up their entire childhoods with schoolwork so they can pass examinations in order to obtain a job which will take up their adulthoods and then to die. We have so much wealth in the world that we could lessen all of this and enjoy life more but that isn’t how the world works. In our capitalist society the goal is to get as much money as possible, consume as much money as possible and become as powerful as possible then die. This is unfortunate.
A vocation, an ardent and exclusive passion for something in which there is no prospect of money, the consciousness of being able to do something better than others, and being able to love this thing more than anything else – this is the only, the unique way in which a rich child can completely escape being conditioned by money, so that he is free if its claims, so that he feels neither the pride nor the shame of wealth when he is with others. He will not even be conscious of what clothes he is wearing, or of the clothes around him, and tomorrow he will be equal to any privation, because the one hunger and thirst within him will be his own passion that will have devoured everything futile and provisional and divested him of every habit learned in childhood, and which alone will rule his spirit. A vocation is man’s one true wealth and salvation – Natalia Ginzburg, from The Little Virtues.
In fact, the entire hue and cry against CRT is not about ending division; it is about preserving it. – From “Want to Know More About Critical Race Theory?” an article from the Washington Monthly
Indeed. I’m reminded about a documentary which interviewed the founder of the Crips gang in LA. He had wanted to join the Boy Scouts and was refused for his color. Therefore, he started his own club which became one of the biggest African American gangs in Los Angeles. Those that say racism isn’t in the DNA of this country are deluding themselves. One simply need look to the Civil War, to the African American divisions in the US Army during World War II, the signs that said “Whites Only” before the civil right’s movement and so on. African Americans especially have been oppressed for most of Americas history and CRT simply puts a spotlight on it through an academic perspective. The backlash against it is a certain segment of people saying “No, there was no oppression.” Of course there was! Face it and move on. The way to fix a huge gaping wound is not to pretend it isn’t there.
The path to university was rather a long one, and by no means a bed of roses. You had to spend five to six hours a day sitting on the wooden school bench for five years of elementary school and eight of grammar school. In your free time you did homework, and in addition you had to master the subjects required for “general culture” outside school: the living languages of French, English, and Italian, classical Greek and Latin – that is to say, five languages in all as well as geometry, physics, and the other school subjects. It was more than too much, leaving almost no time for physical exercise, sporting activities, walking, and above all none for lighthearted amusements. – Stefan Zweig from The World of Yesterday.
Another example of schoolwork and “progress” being prioritized while sacrificing enjoyment of childhood. In a wealthy country this should be a basic right. Detractors will point to kids working on farms or in factories before school attendance became law. Those were the times and they built the foundations for the wealth countries enjoy now. But it seems society in general will never reach the goal of taking a rest and enjoying what has been achieved. Humans always want more and so life is a never ending grind until you succeed at the game and opt out.
But the legend is that eating of the fruit of knowledge is not consonant with dwelling in paradise. Therefore, men’s children have to be banished from their paradise into a realm of death, dominated by the decency of a tailoring department.
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One of the rules of religion: don’t learn anything outside of what we teach you. Learning things is bad and will take you to hell.
Thus the greatest of educations for which we came prepared is neglected, and we are made to lose our world to find a bagful of information instead. We rob the child of his earth to teach him geography, of language to teach him grammar. His hunger is for the epic, but he is supplied with chronicles of fact and dates. He was born in the human world but is banished into the world of living gramophones, to expiate for the original sin of being born in ignorance. Child nature protests against such calamity with all its power of suffering, subdued at last into silence by punishment. – Rabindranath Tagore, from “My School.”
“Power unlimited once, now changed to a childish display of empty splendor, are the images with which Rome impresses one’s imagination” – Hester Lynch Piozzi – from a letter she write in 1785.
Harsh criticism of Rome. All empires come and go and then you’re left with a lot of statues to former greatness.
The cloakroom pegs are empty now, And locked the classroom door, The hollow desks are dim with dust, And slow across the floor A sunbeam creeps between the chairs Till the sun shines no more. Who did their hair before this glass? Who scratched "Elaine loves Jill" One drowsy summer sewing-class With scissors on the sill? Who practiced this piano Whose notes are now so still? Ah, notices are taken down, And scorebooks stowed away, And seniors grow tomorrow From the juniors today, And even swimming groups can fade, Games mistresses turn gray. - Philip Larkin, from Collected Poems. Beautiful poem. It makes me think of the dilapidated and abandoned elementary school where we held our grammar school basketball practice. Our own school did not have a basketball court so we would walk fifteen minutes to the school where my grandparents studied. We were only allowed to go down the stairs to the court but sometimes would sneak to the upper levels where the classrooms were that hadn't been used in 40 years. Time passes quickly and I wondered what happened to those students who learned there. What were their lives like? Now I am 46 and I wonder what happened to some of my own classmates. Before long we will be passing away too just like all of the students in that abandoned elementary school with only faint traces of our existence there.
“Our guardian angels weep when we don’t tell the truth, Audre. I want a note from your mother tomorrow telling me that you are sorry for lying to the baby Jesus.” – Audre Lorde, from Zami: A New Spelling of My Name
From the time I first studied overseas twenty years ago until know I’m confronted with more examples of just how absurd religion can be. What does this even mean? The student in fact did not tell a lie but even if she did who is this baby Jesus? When he supposedly ascended into the sky he was 33! (or 32 I don’t remember). A good part of Christianity is made up nonsense such as the above.
It also reminds me of a time I was also accused of lying by my second grade teacher who was a complete witch. We were changing for gym class in the bathroom and I was telling my buddy a story. He was looking at me and didn’t look where he was lowering his shirt which was right in the toilet. He was shocked and told the teacher I did it. She believed him, took me in the hall way and repeatedly slamming her palm on the wall told me to quit lying. I was terrified and it is a memory I’ll always have. What a bitch!
By the early twentieth century, a new generation of academic historians had emerged who researched the American past by looking at primary sources. They wrote with a commitment to uncovering the truth, unlike nineteenth-century historians of the United States, whose work was openly nationalistic and triumphal. From this generation came the imperial historians and the progressive historians. The imperial historians were conservative Anglophiles who challenged the good-vs.-evil narrative of America’s founding by studying Britain’s administration of the colonies before the American Revolution. They concluded that the colonists had been treated fairly by Britain and had little cause to declare independence. Meanwhile, the progressive historians focused on the importance of class conflict in American history. Their exemplar, Charles A. Beard, famously argued in 1913 that the founders at the Constitutional Convention voted according to their personal economic interests. Though this view later fell out of favor, his claim shocked many at the time because it reduced the deified founder to crass politicians and treated the Convention as a counterrevolution.
Don’t tell this to current Republicans especially! Patriotism is treated like a sport team as many people don’t want truth, they want to waive flags and yell how much they love their country. It is good to love your country but it is also good (and even more important) to accept the truth. But just like in any country the positives are amplified and the negatives mostly ignored. This is the way of the world and it is unfortunate especially when both can be had. Realize and call out the mistakes which would create a healthier love and pride for country. Simply yelling, waving flags and telling those that don’t agree with you to leave the place isn’t very healthy at all is it.
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Moreover, their work seemed to be antithetical to what many adults had learned in school. Simple, good-vs.-evil narratives of national origins were effective at promoting the conservative form of celebratory patriotism, while the more complex picture of the past uncovered by academic historians seemed to lend itself to a liberal form of critical patriotism. – Michael D. Hattem, A Means to an End
Well, look at that, I’ve highlighted something I just spoke about in my comment above. Many people don’t want complexity, they want good versus bad and that is all they have the capacity for. George W. Bush knew this when he waged war of “Good versus Evil.” An entire country was invaded on a lie. Were those weapons of mass destruction – which was the reason given for the war – found? No? Well, are we still good and those other guys evil? OK, works for me, let’s move on. Go America!
It was precisely the liberatory capacity of education that quickly drove conservative policy maker and pundits to oppose publicly funded, free higher education. The radical potential of public higher education had proved dangerous because it could be harnessed to social movements capable of challenging the systems of oppression that support the status quo. To fulfill the promise of education as human capital, education had to be chained to its economic role and divorced from its revolutionary possibilities. A key leader of this effort was economist Milton Friedman.
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Almost immediately upon becoming governor of California, Reagan campaigned to impose tuition and fees on the state’s previously free university system, a thinly veiled punishment for student activism. Guided by Freeman’s free-market ideology, Reagan recast free tuition, up until then a beloved public benefit, as an unfair public entitlement that forced taxpayers to fund the reading habits of communists, gays and bra-burning peaceniks.
This is a huge step back. The conservatives have recast something very positive – public education for all – to something negative with a word that many people aren’t sophisticated enough to explain – Socialism. The fight continues with the dismantling of neighborhood public schools where “white flight” was a big factor in the demise. But we don’t want to talk about CRT now do we! Instead we’ll call any public benefit “socialism.” The ideological fight continues and most will have their opinions given to them through their favorite propaganda channel with the current fad being “angertainment.”
I remember Reagan as President but I was too young to have any opinions. He seemed like a nice guy and someone to look up to as a young child. But now that I see what his policies did I’m against him. And what do the conservatives do? They put him on a pedestal as some sort of conservative superhero, which I guess in their eyes he is. I’ve been thinking about the root of all this and the conclusion I come to is we are a nation of mixed people, or as Hitler said, a “mongrel nation.” Contrast this with Japan where they are one tribe and have no problems with public education, healthcare and acting as one for the benefit of their own. We in America cannot do this as the current philosophy is the “individual over everything else,” even to the point where things get worse for all! The truth is if we were a homogeneous nation I’m sure we would have universal education and healthcare. It would suddenly be a non-issue. Humans are a tribal species and this has remained constant throughout our existence.
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Universities invest in marketing departments, flashy student centers, and winning athletic teams to secure brand loyalty, paying customers and revenue streams. If these tactics happen also to yield scholars, democrats, or simply future workers, that’s fine. – Eleni Schirmer – A Speculative Endeavor.
My own school Ohio State is known for the football team which brings in an awesome amount of money. Ask anyone and I guarantee football will be referenced over any other department at the university.
Maybe parents will be a little afraid of what their kids learn in school. Knowledge can lead to dissent, setting students on a path to leave a religion, a party, or a country. So be it.
Learn, but only learn what I want you to learn and go no further. The fruit of knowledge is bad and you’ll go to hell.
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The current horde of book banners and goons at education board meetings (not a new thing in this country) could be seen as evidence of how education fails, thanks to teachers dutifully following instructions and are fully avoiding the touchy political matters that lie at the heart of any serious study of literature and history.
The world is a confusing place for students these days. They see and hear about things but teachers have a leash on them as parents are now something to be feared. My first born is old enough to know about these things and my solution is to have him come out on the porch swing with me and have a chat. I’ve traveled and learned enough to tell him what the actual truth is and have my own travels and education to thank for that. Unfortunately many parents get their information from propaganda and “angertainment” these days. They are no longer able to discern fact from lies. For an easy example one need look no farther than Trump’s claim the 2020 election was “fraudulent and stolen.” What a mess.
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Perhaps some adults are frightened not of what student will learn about themselves but of what they’ll learn about their parents and older generations. — Ian Altman – Misdirectives
No doubt. Older generations didn’t treat others unlike them very kindly. The reason given is “those were the times,” and as pithy as it sounds I believe this to be true. Would any of us be able to call out the racism that occurred as wrong if we were born during the 40’s? We are products of our environments and if I had been born during the slavery era as the son of a plantation owner I highly doubt I’d inherently know slavery was wrong. Even if I did I doubt I’d be in a position to let my thoughts be known. Look at what is going on today with vilifying transgender and gay people. Now I am able to call this out but that is due to my travels, studies and upbringing. Look at all of those in our country who think otherwise. How sad.
In 2003 about one-third of American babies between six months and two years old had watched a video from the Baby Einstein series, which promised exposure to culture, poetry, music, and foreign languages. A 2007 study reported that babies who watched the videos performed “10 percent lower on language skills” than babies who didn’t. Soon afterward, Disney spent about $100 million offering refunds to anyone who bought the videos between 2004 and 2009.
If either presidential candidate were to make the mistake of exposing the educational system to the rigors of “revolutionary change,” who would thank him for his trouble? Not the politicians, who depend for their safety in office upon an uninformed electorate, apathetic and disinclined to vote, unable to remember its history or name its civil rights. Not the marketers of the gross domestic product, who depend upon the eager and uncritical consumption of junk merchandise in every available color and size. Not the ringmaster of the national media circus, who play to the lowest common denominator of credulous applause. Not the seller of sexual fantasy, the proprietors of gambling casinos, the composers of financial fraud, the dealers in cosmetics and New Age religion. The consumer society rest on the great economic truth proclaimed by P.T. Barnum (the one about a sucker being born every minute), and the country’s reserves of ignorance constitute a natural resource as precious as the Mississippi River or the long-lost herds of buffalo. As a nation we now spend upwards of a trillion dollars a year on liquor, pornography, and drugs, and the cold war against the American intellect yields a higher rate of return than the old arrangement with the Russians. Unless obliged to make a campaign or a commencement speech, who in his right mind would want to kill the geese that lay the golden eggs? – Lewis H. Lapham – School Bells
