When the Sun Goes Down

I'm reading my guide to compositional pedagogy (which is a fancy way of saying teaching writing) and the essay I'm reading is talking about critical pedagogy and democracy. In reading it I have become painfully aware of 2 things. Well, maybe more, but 2 right this second.

1 is that I am one of very few students who are in school just because they want to learn. I find that comical because I've gotten by with straight B's and no real dedication to being an overachiever in the classroom. But the book suggests (I think correctly) that students at the university level are in school as consumers and their expected output is a job in their chosen field. I'm having an incredibly hard time making decisions about what I want to do next year in part because I never expected college to necessarily give me the skills I need for one certain job. Partly because I've always planned to go on in my education beyond a BA, but also because I just like school. So I readily accept whatever my professors purport to be imparting upon me in a class because I have no real expectation beyond gaining some kind of knowledge from the past four years.

2 is that I have readily accepted the idea that education was a means to escape without really thinking about what that really means. What do people escape from and where do they escape to? Really education is just another system, an institution that is as flawed as the government and every other man made institution. What are we promising students, especially students that are perceived as repressed or disenfranchised in some way when we tell them education is the answer? Especially when there are so many dissenting examples, examples of people who follow the path and earn degrees and still fail. people who never graduate and are wildly successful. Varying opinions about success and various exposure to success just make it very difficult to truly believe in the so-called power of education.

So maybe I'm finally having that whole freshman year of college sudden disillusionment with the world around me. Or maybe I'm thinking too much.

With love