Scholar-minded
They shouldn't expect so much from them. They shouldn't decree students must balance, when they give them no means to; no means to have a life with any homeostasis in it; no means to develope into real human adults without someone holding their hand halfway through the workday.
So, the idea of the university is to alter the mind. To create in one the sense of curiosity sincerely neglected, nowadays, in secondary education. But, mind you, this is not purely the fault of the student. Teachers are uninformed, uninspiriing, untrained for the subjects they propose to "teach". The classroom is a dull whiteboard and a conglomeration of cheap-ass desks shoddily drawn up into seating charts, so no one can express themselves. Whispering is decreed against. Note-passing is equivalent to drug-dealing. Questions are posed systematicall, signalled by raised hands the teacher hopefully acknowledges.
The average high school student is overloaded with busy-work, while exceptional thinkers are pumelled into the ground out of sheer boredum. The atmosphere is thick, the air heavy, the room overcrowded with useless paper-bound projects so that the mind cannot expand, cannot think, cannot grow.
Then, comes the university; what too often is thought of as the "vocational forum". The student then does what? Chooses a major. Reads some books. Writes a crital essay on them. Is taught to "sell" himself to a market that is always searching for something better than what he and his new degree have to offer.
Students with no real life experience are shuffled off into stockmarket exchanges where calls of "PhD" and "Full time work experience" and "Health benefits" are shouted out from around-about a thousand different auctioneers. Employers tug at one another's hair for the youngest, the brightest, the flashiest. And this is the world we're meant to survive in.
What could be more frustrating than even that?
The crippling, handicapping, dishabilitating of the world's best from the get-go.
There's an assumption, when I enter a university classroom, that I ought to be a "scholar. Yet, I don't even have to be a living, breathing, thinking human being to survive there. I don't have to read the assignments to complete them. I don't have to pay attention to lecutres to pass the tests. I don't have to reason or theorize or do any mental work of my own to get the grades, and with that - the GPA. I must synthesis no tie-ins with any of my own philosophies, make no connections with any of my day-to-day discussions, or even try to bring anything of any value to the classroom or my personal work. I only have to sit in a chair and take up oxygen, only have to heat the room with my body. I only have to be "present" to receieve credit. I only have to show up to pass.
This highly disguised rat-race no longer stimulates my mind.
The most brilliant connections I make now are with outside debates, extra-curricular material that has no real place in any "classroom". Every moment new lines are drawn between a philosphy and a movie, or a central character and a question on life a friend of mine had the other day. Each moment I pass in the monotony of the "classroom" those same connections are being severed between myself and the real world. Only outside of this stifling environment can I forumate any useful ideas. Only outside of this machine can I think for myself.
Then how many of my thoughts go unsaid because they don't "feed" the class discussion? How much wisdom is withheld, passed by, viewed only at an insurmountable distance because of the setting from which I sit? How much knowledge do I fail to obtain because of my studies?
These are the most disheartening questions to have to ask. Yet the answer still stands like a monument before us. If I were not in these classes - I would study more. A self-driven passion would enter into the discussion, and my hope for knowledge would increase tri-fold. For every moment that I pass in university moduels, the stimulation of desire for knowledge fades - slowly at first, then exponentially more rapid, like a virus in my mind. I become lackadaisical, unimpressed, thoughtless while the professor drones on and on about things I might have otherwise had a million counterpoints for. But instead, I sit still in my chair with a pad of paper, and I scawl down notes I'll probably never look at again.
And all the while on my shelf sits piles of books, mounds of knowledge, topics innumerable that I would delve into with a firey passion for understanding, for depth, for truth -- were I not in "class".
This is what has become of the university mind. This is the mass-produced education we're feeding to our future generations, spoonful after spoonful. And this is the future of our society.
God help us.
-RK
So, the idea of the university is to alter the mind. To create in one the sense of curiosity sincerely neglected, nowadays, in secondary education. But, mind you, this is not purely the fault of the student. Teachers are uninformed, uninspiriing, untrained for the subjects they propose to "teach". The classroom is a dull whiteboard and a conglomeration of cheap-ass desks shoddily drawn up into seating charts, so no one can express themselves. Whispering is decreed against. Note-passing is equivalent to drug-dealing. Questions are posed systematicall, signalled by raised hands the teacher hopefully acknowledges.
The average high school student is overloaded with busy-work, while exceptional thinkers are pumelled into the ground out of sheer boredum. The atmosphere is thick, the air heavy, the room overcrowded with useless paper-bound projects so that the mind cannot expand, cannot think, cannot grow.
Then, comes the university; what too often is thought of as the "vocational forum". The student then does what? Chooses a major. Reads some books. Writes a crital essay on them. Is taught to "sell" himself to a market that is always searching for something better than what he and his new degree have to offer.
Students with no real life experience are shuffled off into stockmarket exchanges where calls of "PhD" and "Full time work experience" and "Health benefits" are shouted out from around-about a thousand different auctioneers. Employers tug at one another's hair for the youngest, the brightest, the flashiest. And this is the world we're meant to survive in.
What could be more frustrating than even that?
The crippling, handicapping, dishabilitating of the world's best from the get-go.
There's an assumption, when I enter a university classroom, that I ought to be a "scholar. Yet, I don't even have to be a living, breathing, thinking human being to survive there. I don't have to read the assignments to complete them. I don't have to pay attention to lecutres to pass the tests. I don't have to reason or theorize or do any mental work of my own to get the grades, and with that - the GPA. I must synthesis no tie-ins with any of my own philosophies, make no connections with any of my day-to-day discussions, or even try to bring anything of any value to the classroom or my personal work. I only have to sit in a chair and take up oxygen, only have to heat the room with my body. I only have to be "present" to receieve credit. I only have to show up to pass.
This highly disguised rat-race no longer stimulates my mind.
The most brilliant connections I make now are with outside debates, extra-curricular material that has no real place in any "classroom". Every moment new lines are drawn between a philosphy and a movie, or a central character and a question on life a friend of mine had the other day. Each moment I pass in the monotony of the "classroom" those same connections are being severed between myself and the real world. Only outside of this stifling environment can I forumate any useful ideas. Only outside of this machine can I think for myself.
Then how many of my thoughts go unsaid because they don't "feed" the class discussion? How much wisdom is withheld, passed by, viewed only at an insurmountable distance because of the setting from which I sit? How much knowledge do I fail to obtain because of my studies?
These are the most disheartening questions to have to ask. Yet the answer still stands like a monument before us. If I were not in these classes - I would study more. A self-driven passion would enter into the discussion, and my hope for knowledge would increase tri-fold. For every moment that I pass in university moduels, the stimulation of desire for knowledge fades - slowly at first, then exponentially more rapid, like a virus in my mind. I become lackadaisical, unimpressed, thoughtless while the professor drones on and on about things I might have otherwise had a million counterpoints for. But instead, I sit still in my chair with a pad of paper, and I scawl down notes I'll probably never look at again.
And all the while on my shelf sits piles of books, mounds of knowledge, topics innumerable that I would delve into with a firey passion for understanding, for depth, for truth -- were I not in "class".
This is what has become of the university mind. This is the mass-produced education we're feeding to our future generations, spoonful after spoonful. And this is the future of our society.
God help us.
-RK
1 Thought(s):
Our poor, poor world.
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