Essay: On Education

Introduction:

It’s fast approaching the end of August, which breeds a strong sense of nostalgia in me. After all, for the past half-decade, the end of summer would mark the beginning of a fresh new year of college. Not so this year. In spite of my best efforts, I managed to graduate this past May. I shall miss the college life. For those of you who don’t know, I was an English major, meaning that I read the works of many a famous philosopher and thinker. Nothing was so much fun to me as poring over the texts of the great wordsmiths: Sir Philip Sydney, William Shakespeare, John Milton, Thomas Argyle. Fun, fun, fun, that was life as a college scholar. And if reading the dusty old works was jovial distraction, analyzing and memorizing was like a weeklong pass to Disney World (that’s the one in Orlando; it’s got the giant golf ball, which is fun on so many levels.)

Granted, like most paths through college, it required much toil and perseverance on my part. But by Jove, that was part of the fun, too! I think a quote from the ancient Greek scholar Euriditus best conceptualizes my joy: “Nothing so satisfying as being tired. Nothing as tiresome as being satisfied.” And while Euriditus went on to hang himself by his own toga one cool autumn afternoon, one cannot doubt the wisdom inherent in his words. Truly, sometimes the labor is its own reward. You say Sisyphus dwells in Hell? I would argue he lives in Heaven.

Others, however, might not be so masochistic. They would take a more “serious” approach to college, meaning they would not attend a school that only had ugly chicks. Unfortunately, the sheer number of these unhappy souls has only grown in recent years. For them, the importance lies not in the journey, but in the destination. And the destination often involves a harem of scantily-clad, not-ugly chicks.

But I didn’t compose this essay for those people (Unless Playboy or Penthouse wish to syndicate this essay. In that case, I composed this essay exactly for those people.) Rather, I wrote it for those who resemble myself a few years back. Fresh out of high school, at the proverbial crossroads regarding which direction in life to take. Standing at the edge of a precipice, staring across the chasm to the opposite side. College stood with wide-open arms. Like many a young high school grad, I spent long hours standing at the outstretched ridge of that cliff, pondering “Dare I jump? Dare I jump into the waiting arms of college? That way holds four-to-six years of intense study, which I’ll have to pay for. Am I ready to make that leap? Would I be better served just getting a fast food job, and smoking weed in my parents’ garage on the weekends…?”
I wrote this essay in hopes of encouraging those “on the ledge” to go ahead and make that jump. It probably won’t kill you. And who knows, you might actually learn something. I also wrote this long-winded piece for those already in college, and those who, like me, are in college no longer.

I’m not saying that as a means of means of broadening my own commercial appeal; sincerely, I reach out to everyone. But I extend the olive branch to young people in particular. Universities nationwide need constant injections of dedicated young people, due to the many criticisms of higher education that have been propounded over the years: That it destroys creativity, that it fosters social inequalities. I disagree vehemently with those points, as you’ll find out soon enough. But this essay is more than just a forum for attacking critics of the college institution.

It’s also a trip down memory lane; I hope fellow graduates will recognize shades of their own experiences. Having said that, the following essay is broken down into three sections. I hope it can be enjoyed, and if someone does enjoy it, God help us all.


First Part: The Round-Square Peg Theory

Certainly, there was more for me to take away from my college experience than a handful of words once scribbled by a living hand. How tragic to end up nothing more than “old wine in new bottles,” as Thomas Hardy put it. As if that could be true! The idea that education bludgeons the individual, beats down the sharp corners of individuality until the “square peg” submits to fitting into the “round hole”—these are lies perpetuated by dirty, lazy hippies, jealous that others will be getting ahead in life.

Who among us has never encountered a hippie? Who could be that lucky? No one I know, that’s for sure. Hippies are like Jehovah’s Witnesses, or people who listen to European dance music turned up way too loud. No matter what isolated corner of this country you move to, there’s always one person like that. They (Hippies) don’t go to school. They work dead end jobs—part-time. And they’re constantly borrowing money, which they have no intention to pay back. What’s their excuse for being lazy wastes of sperm? I’m a musician. I’m a writer. I’m an artist.

And you tell them you go to college, and what’s their response? Hey, I don’t waste my time with college. The best artists never went to school, ‘cause school can’t teach (Thumps chest.) what’s in here. That is the most preposterous, self-congratulatory, self-serving shit I’ve ever heard. As if school is some tyrannical warden, slapping chains on all our wrists. As if their impotence and inability to do anything is a result of embracing freedom. On the contrary, like the original dirty, lazy hippies, these 21st century versions subvert the idea of freedom for selfish purposes. In their unwashed hands, it becomes an excuse for laziness. They wrap their bodies with the American flag, then soil it because they’re too stoned and lazy to get up and use the bathroom.

But young people, impressionable young people—we think they’re so cool for some reason! I don’t know how many people will end up reading this essay, but for those who do, let me give you the inside track on the truth:

Most lazy artist types don’t have an artistic bone in their body. They put on a bold front, but there’s a logical reason why they aren’t attending art college. It’s because they aren’t good enough to attend. And I’m sure most of them know it. Put them in an audition, and they’ll piss their pants. Incidentally, another truth is most artistic types take on their lifestyle in order to get chicks. This would make them just as bad as those who go to college just to get chicks, except the latter group at least made the effort to register for college. So really, while both cliques are equally reprehensible, you have to respect the college-bound ones for showing initiative. In order to register, they had to have gotten out of bed at some point. With 21st century hippies, can we really be sure…?

Seriously, if hippies really bought into the “I don’t wanna, like, conform” mentality, why do they sit around all day taking bong hits? If individuality is so important, shouldn’t they be discovering their own individual drugs? If everyone gets high the same three ways, how can anyone getting high call him/herself an individual? While on the subject of getting high, why do druggies refer to it as “experimenting with drugs?” They already know what the drugs are going to do. How can it still be an experiment. Now, if they were injecting a shot of weed killer into their arms, or some mysterious substance syphoned out a crashed meteorite, that would be “experimenting.” Who knows what would happen. Of course, I’m not saying that all hippies should immediately inject themselves with bizarre substances that no one’s injected into their systems before. However, I would certainly respect hippies a lot more if they played “Challengers of the Unknown” with some larger cojones.

Assuming that experimenting with drugs can actually be called “experimenting,” even then, college life excels past dirty hippie life. Unlike dirty hippie life, universities allow intellectual experimentation along with chemical and sexual. That’s three-to-two, in favor of college. And before the Haight-Ashbury crowd brings up Timothy Leary, let me interject: Yes, he was a college professor. Yes, he started the whole “Tune in, drop out” movement. But the man also videotaped his own suicide. Plus, he had so many chemicals addling his brain, he would lose equilibrium while lying down. Whose bright idea was it to elect this guy Lord of the Flies just because he mildly resembled an actual authority? Let me tell you, if the only cooking show on all one-thousand Dishstar channels is hosted by Ed Gein, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good cooking show. It just means he’s already chainsaw massacred Emeril Lagasse and that Cajun guy. Not that I’m saying Timothy Leary was a mass murderer. I’m just saying I don’t want to see a cooking show hosted by Ed Gein.

However, the point of the preceding paragraph was not to firther criticize lazy hippies. It was to defend the university as a breeding ground for creativity. I strongly feel that my personal creativity, the originality of my thought, has only been enhanced by all the professors, all my peers, even the campus museum exhibits which I encountered. Once, I took a creative writing class which specifically taught me to write like John Keats. Never had I felt my creativity so spurred. I still remember the final exam. We had to compose a couplet in the style of his odes. I spent two hours feverishly scribbling, crumpling up paper, scribbling some more, my brain swimming towards some gleam of perfection it recognized in the murk. At length, I produced my couplet. It read as follows:

“Truth is beauty, and beauty truth
That is all there is, and all you need to know.”

When the exam was returned to me, the professor noted how I substituted Keats’ original “ye” from the second line with “you.” She recognized my bold attempt to express the universality of Keats’ original themes, while adapting modern colloqualisms—such as “you”—in order to give the work my own personal spin. Of course, she was the kind of professor who withheld overt complements, lest the student develop a swelled head. But I’ll never forget her final comments,

“Phil,

I’m giving you an ‘A’ because enrollment is down, and the Dean is forcing me to pass everyone competent enough to spell their names. Any complements I give are insincere. I only wrote them so I could sleep at night.”

As much as she tried to keep an impartial attitude, I think it’s pretty clear that I earned her respect.


Second Part: Education’s Role in Social Discrimination

But while I argue the value of a university education, I can empathize with certain criticisms. For example, I agree with the age-old argument that education is simply another means of differentiating between social classes. Amazingly, even recipients of an education have agreed that something of a conspiracy exists. During the Middle Ages, no less than Lord Blaxsmeer the Viable, who had private tutors on all the latest advancements in leeching, said, “There is a difference between an idiot and an uneducated man.” Later, it was discovered that Lord Blaxsmeer really couldn’t tell the difference between the two. This explains why he appointed his court jester to the royal treasury, and often selected his generals based on their capacity to scare fruit. But one cannot doubt the wisdom inherent in his words. What he means is that not all idiots are made alike. All men could be idiots, but those who hold the banner of education, those particular idiots will always be more respected than the more run-of-the-mill idiots. So if society assumes that anyone with a college degree is not an idiot, by contrast, is it assumed than anyone without a degree certainly must be an idiot? Let us consider a beggar named Edgar Whitesmoor, whose observations on the social influence of education were recorded by London scholars who found them scribbled on the back of some important documents. Edgar Whitesmoor had this to say:

“’An these muddled times, ed’cation meens the diff’rence b‘tween sof pillas an hot tee ‘an the par-las, or a bed of nothin’ but ‘ard wooden planks. ‘Tis the thing rich mens keep close to th’mselves, lak a ‘nife ‘er a pis-til. ‘Tis a‘nother we-pon, ‘tis so, t’keep yer hot tee fer yerselves, ‘an nothin’ fer the rest of us.”

It was later revealed that Edgar Whitesmoor flunked out of a drunkard’s college, and often held lengthy conversations with other peoples’ hats. But why was society prejudiced against him? Because he refused to eat bread that wasn’t stale?—Whitesmoor believed sponginess was the work of Satan, and was often accused of Jewish sympathies because he purchased matzo bread instead of the regular kind. Or was the real reason because he didn’t have a college degree? Actually, it turned out to be neither. Shortly after scribbling his barely legible rantings, Edgar Whitesmoor was imprisoned in the Tower for attempting sexual congress with a hat.

Apparently, someone was wearing the hat at the time. He was judged to be clinically insane, and spent two months in the Tower before he was choked to death by a chunk of stale bread. The chunk of stale bread was released ten years later. After crossing over to France, it inspired Victor Hugo to write his famous novel Les Miserables.

Of course, whether or not educational prejudice existed in the 17th century, that doesn’t change the fact that it certainly exists today. However, the chasm is not between those who have college diplomas and those who do not. The man behind the counter of my local donut shop has a degree. Rather, our modern educational social classes are determined by how much one pays for his/her education. The more prestigious the university—and therefore the more expensive the school—the greater the quality of the education, true? Whether it’s true isn’t the point; society believes that it’s true. It no longer even matters the specialization of the degree. A person could have an Ivy League degree in basket weaving. Put that graduate in the same room as someone who just got out of Church Chicken’s Medical College in Redneck, Alabama, and see who the girls flock to. Granted, it could have something to do with the aroma of dead chicken that the second person kept giving off, but it could also have been because he wasn’t an Ivy Leaguer! And how many people out there can call themselves Ivy Leaguers? So many must toil about in community colleges, which have only recently updated their registration processes from carrier pigeons to Internet access.

And honestly, can the quality of a teaching staff be effectively determined by the amount of tuition dollars charged to the student? Those who would say ‘yes’ cite the more experienced instructors populating the pricier campuses. Naturally, instructors who have been in the field longer—who have already composed books and scholarly works, and who are old enough to have met Winston Churchill in person—these persons cost more than teachers who are fresh out of college. But does that mean they are better teachers? Of course it doesn’t. A perfect example: Marlon Brando would require several millions of dollars and a Cayman Island to teach a single semester of acting school. But has anyone seen The Island of Dr. Moreau? Good lord, who wants to learn acting chops from an aging mastodon who wore ice cubes on his head? And yes, I acknowledge that Brando starred in A Streetcar Named Desire, On the Waterfront, and The Godfather. Ronald Reagan used to be the most powerful man in the free world. Anyone go to him for advice on foreign policy anymore?

And what about Jeff Goldblum? UCLA must shell out pretty good for him, which is amazing, since I can’t think of a single decent movie Jeff Goldblum ever starred in. Here is a prime example of the expensive, experienced instructor, who might be more hype than substance. While it’s true that Jeff Goldblum has appeared in numerous films over the years, all that really means is that on numerous occasions, Jeff Goldblum has allowed someone to aim a camera at him. Having someone aim a camera at you does not require anything exceptional on your part. For it to succeed, all that is required is that the person not be invisible.

One could argue that Jeff Goldblum’s real acting talents lie in an ability not to be transparent. Of course, this is a talent shared by just about everyone else in the world. Yet Jeff Goldblum is much in demand on the teachers’ circuit. And of course, only the colleges with deeper pockets, who charge larger amounts of tuition, can afford Jeff Goldblum. Subsequently, these colleges with the deeper troughs become the most selective and competitive acting schools. Applicants increase by leaps and bounds. Aspiring actors all want to attend, because the instuctors are of Jeff Goldblum quality. But since Jeff Goldblum may not even be a decent actor, what really promotes the university is not the quality of the staff. It’s the fact the university can afford expensive staff. Money is mistaken for quality. Even more disturbingly, Jeff Goldblum continues to find work.


Third Part: Syphilis Wrecked My Mind… but I still got into community college.

During the summer of ’99, I went driving around my home state of Florida. I was killing time between college semesters, trying to find something to fire up the literary faculties of my brain. In a small town somewhere between Ft. Myers and Daytona Beach, I alighted unto a moderate college campus. There, shaded beneath a row of leafy sable palms, I found a young man by the name of Jorge cradling his guitar. He sang songs from his makeshift stage, the expansive lawns of the main administration building. One song had a refrain I’ll never forget:

“I would have gone to Julliard / But syphilis wrecked my mind.”

The only thing more tableau-like than the tableau itself was the tableau hidden underneath the original tableau. To wit, young man with big dreams but stuck in a small school. Big fish in a little fishtank. Studebaker in a land of Hot Wheels. I don’t know if Jorge ever made it to Julliard. But speaking as an ex-college student who went from a tiny swampwater college in the ass-end of Miami, to the big stage and exorbitant tuitions of New York University, I can say “Believe you me, Jorge. You’ve got nothing in life worth regretting.” Well, except for contracting syphilis. And those four grams of pot they busted you with that same afternoon. And now that I think about it, your guitar playing wasn’t really that exceptional. You might have wanted to concentrate your energies into a different artistic venture, but I guess it’s too late now.

However, in spite of all the things Jorge did which he could regret, the one thing which he should never regret was attending his local community college. Again, while many private and large state campuses offer more quantitatively—that is, more professors who can teach a particular subject, and post-bacalaureate courses during actual daytime hours—by no means are private schools superior qualitatively. On purely qualitative terms, the education from any one school is equal to that of any other. It is society’s fault that we see any difference. Society has programmed the majority of us to only pay attention to the name at the top of the degree. For our society, like most societies, places almost superstitious value on history and tradition. We value “old wine” re-served in “new bottles.” Why is this? I don’t know. Perhaps we fear failure.
Perhaps we fear change. Or perhaps, in our minds, the clearest way to gauge our own successes is by comparing them to those of our fathers, and their fathers. We recognize a path which has served our predecessor well, and so—either directly, or in a more subtle way—we follow that same path. So our father was a doctor; then let us become a doctor. Our father chose a practical way of life; let us choose a practical way as well. Our father attended the prestigious Harvard Law… so nothing short of the same college will be acceptable? No no no, this cannot be. I believe there is a certain nobility inherent in tradition. It may benefit someone who hasn’t the slightest clue what direction to take in life, to put on the lemming outfit. But reverance for the institutions of our forefathers should never overshadow the opportunity to blaze an original trail in life. The American poet Robert Frost put it best: “I took the road less travelled by / And that has made all the difference.” So to those who missed out on the bigger schools, I say “Take the road less travelled by.” Enroll in colleges no one’s ever heard of. Don’t worry what your Ivy Leaguer parents might say. If the school doesn’t have any Division A sports teams, you could become a star quarterback by default. That will certainly make them proud! And you’ll still get an education, not to mention the most exciting 4-to-6 years of your life. One cannot put a price on that. And if you could, it would be simply immeasurable. So in light of that, I say to you, Mr. Student Loan Officer, cut me some slack on my Staffords! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, I WAS ONLY AN ENGLISH MAJOR!!!

In conclusion:

It was my intention to appeal to those uninitiated into the college life, as well as those currently embroiled in it. Or those like me, finished with it, and wondering if it was all worth the trouble. To the first, I hope I have convinced you to ignore your lazy hippie friends, and to give higher education a shot. You can always join the armed services later. To those of the second group, I hope you will turn a more critical eye towards your role in the educational system, as well as its role in the larger scheme of things. Ask what your college can do for you. Then ask, Could any other college do the exact same thing? Finally, to my fellow bachelors and bachelorettes, I commend you on a long day’s journey into night completed. But if you still occasionally wonder whether the last five years would’ve been better spent working your way up the intricate employment ladder that is your local Dairy Queen—Hey, what do you want me to tell you? If you still don’t know what you managed to get out of college, I advise you to do exactly what I did: Sit down and do some off-the-cuff writing about your experiences. Don’t tell me you didn’t learn anything. Instead, show me everything you don’t think you learned. You don’t even need to submit a 10-page paper; sometimes, we can sum up everything education has given us in a few simple lines. I know I definitely can:

What College Has Given Me
-an original poem composed by Phil ‘x’

Education is to be educated /
And to be educated an education /
That is all there is / And all ye need to know.

The value of that, to me, is immeasurable.