The Highest Learning

Chapter 1-Community College

You have just began a story about love, hate, sex, intimacy, violence, degradation, comedy, offensiveness, science, social issues, and of course, some circa 1990's pop culture references, give or take a few years. This story takes place at Montgomery County Community College, a very average community college in the suburbs of Philadelphia. The people in this story, however, are not very average and neither are their tales.

The students who attend community college run the gambit. Some are right out of high school. There's young stoners who couldn't get into bigger colleges because they fucked around too much in high school. There's also very bright students who may eventually transfer, but didn't have a mommy and daddy who could afford to send them to an expensive, well into the 6 figure tuition, Ivy League university. There's middle aged adults taking classes looking for a 2nd chance at life, by switching careers. There's senior citizens who want to keep their minds active and go for enrichment, but will do nothing career-wise with their education. There's even the rare genius middle school kid whose parents felt that public middle school wasn't enough to challenge the poor kid, so they decided to sacrifice their child's only chance to have a social life in exchange for college level courses. There's also most of the student population, which is everything in between.

The teachers who teach at this institution are extremely diverse, as well. Some are extremely accomplished in their field, having published many papers in respected journals, and are true leaders in their respective subjects. Some couldn't hack it in the "real world" and just took the job because it was the only place where they could get hired. As Jack Black says in the movie, School of Rock, "those who can't do...teach, and those who can't teach...teach gym." Some of the teachers love to teach, and care deeply about their students, almost to a fault. Some are out the door the second their class ends, and wouldn't answer an e-mail, even if the self-proclaimed inventor of the internet, Al Gore, was writing to them. There's also most of the teachers, which is everything in between.

The college is composed of men and women, democrats and republicans. It has people of all creeds, colors, races, and religions. It's a pretty good representation of the community at large and not so different than most community colleges.