Wednesday, September 8, 2010

The Schooling

Here I am.

I am sitting in my dorm room, the same room I dwelt in last year with the same roommate that I lived with last year. Were this the only aspect to my life, things would be swell, for I have no problem living in Stavig with Chelsea. We get along well.

I was looking through some quotes on school, hoping to find some push or inspiration to keep me going strong throughout the year.

Let me not advise this to anyone thinking the same.

I was amazed at how many quotes great people had said about school and what a waste the formal education portion of it was (note: not the socializing part, and I agree, I think teaching social skills via groups at a young age is incredibly important).

The biggest kicker of a quote is one that I have heard many times before and merely never stopped to think about: "Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school."

Albert Einstein.

Please don't misunderstand me. I understand that there are some people that truly love schooling and going to classes and doing homework and learning. I was one of those people from the Kindergarten age up through my freshman year of college. Then something clicked and I realized that I was learning just as much outside of school with my personal interactions than I ever did in those previous 13 years of schooling.

It's beyond me that I will have spent 17 years of my life in a school by the time I have graduated college with my B.A. I will be 23. And suddenly I will be acceptable to society as an adult? Suddenly I will know how to make all the right decisions and I won't have to worry about money?

I hate to point this out, but I will proceed anyway: I've been making the "right" decision since junior high. I haven't stepped one toe out of the responsible pathway since then.

Which is probably why taking a break and going traveling for a year sounds so impressive and desirable right now. Will it occur? Probably not, though I will be taking a trip again next summer for a bit greater length of time (more on that later, I feel).

So for anyone out there that may stumble across this public journal, do you regret your education? How far did you go with the formal education process?