ink blots ≫ journal

drabbles

There has just been so much lately.

Of a lot of things.

Social pressures that returned with the opening of school doors, stress from the combined weight of eight classes on this conventional American high school "stage"—a temporary time with irreversible effects—a show of how many colors we can boast and how brightly we can make each of them shine.

Some of mine have grown dull, and in all honesty it is partially my fault but the other party to blame is the construct of my nation and its "guided path" that pushes you forward until suddenly the hand rails are gone, your safety is off, the redo button has disappeared and there are no hands reaching out to hold yours: the only instructions given to you are simple.

"Figure out what you want to be."

Of course, as everything is in life, this is complicated. A process that takes months, years, decades even to decide. It can change. It usually does. But now as I enter my third year along this rugged trek to decipher these unrecognizable patterns and codes that reside upon my path I have come to realize that the system I have travelled through for eleven years of my life is not set out to improve my life; instead it is set out to make me regurgitate facts and go through the motions until I am "college ready" and "prepared".

As I began working in my math class that centers solely on a new way of teaching the subject my eyes were opened to how severely textbook everything my school system does as it "educates" us. We are fed information we will never retain because from our bright-eyed days in kindergarten up to our current year we have been guided and then subsequently abandoned—the system gives us facts and no real life applications.

We find ourselves asking "why, why do I need to know this" and most teachers will have no valid answer other than "you'll use it as an adult--you'll see", when in reality a majority of us won't use the quadratic formula or need to know the balance of protons and neutrons in an atom; but if these topics were approached differently and taught in a way that was applicable to us, even in the most mundane ways, it would begin to make sense as to why we need it.

There are few classes that I find myself using in my everyday life, and most of the others the information has been long forgotten. I find myself questioning the fundamental purpose of these things, and wondering if there's any way it will be practical.

(Old, recently published 10/11/19)