Why Do I Need English 3? What Good Is Transcendentalism Going to Do Me? I'm Going to Be a Sanitation Engineer.

I had the joy of substituting the other day in an English class, for an English teacher whose work I respect.  I love what she has her students reading and what she has them doing.  Her classes are fun.  For me, anyway.

Maybe not so much for some of her students.  There are a few who are willing to give enough of their energy and effort to try to understand what she is doing and where she is taking them.  Others, not so much.

I read in a recent article about the gap between Asian students and American students.  The strange thing was, this gap doesn't really seem to become apparent until middle school and high school.  Before then, the scores are comparable.  And almost anyone who observes a high school class can probably tell you why.

They don't care.  Not all of them have become apathetic, of course.  There are many who are still invested in their education.  But many are not.  And I have a take on how this came to be.

In current education, the value is not placed on education.  It is placed on what education can bring.  And I don't mean enlightenment or understanding.  I mean a job.  I mean money.

How many times have you told someone on the verge of quitting school or a teenage child not doing well in school that they'll end up flipping burgers?  All the discussions I hear when it comes to education that are aimed at students are geared toward future income.  As if that is all that education can bring.  Not to mention that we are becoming a society of degree holders who can't find a job.

We don't tell kids in elementary that they are going to end up flipping burgers.  We try to make learning fun.  And they learn because, well, because people like to learn.  We like to know stuff about stuff.  But then when these same kids get a little older, we dangle this carrot of success and threaten with the whip of failure, and learning becomes secondary to succeeding.  It is under these conditions that apathy is born.

So one of those students asked me the titular question when I asked why he wasn't doing his assignment.  There were actually a few students involved in the discussion.  I found myself going down the whole job road/ college road without even considering an alternative argument.

I forgot to bring up the other benefits of education.  Just like most people.  Shame on me.

I forgot that being aware of your surroundings, and understanding things around you help you exist in this world.  That education can assist in developing compassion.  That education is crucial to personal development, particularly in small communities in which a broad array of experiences and ideologies do not readily offer themselves.

So why English 3?  Why learn about the Transcendentalists?  Because they were all about learning the place of the individual in society.  This is important stuff.  We, as Americans, value our individuality.  It is one of the tenets on which our country was founded.  And while the Transcendentalists may have taken the idea to extremes, it is only when individuals take ideas to the extremes that we can learn the full potential of those ideas.  You don't have to agree with them.  But you should think about what they said.  At the very least, you should know what they said.  And you should know how what they said affects everything around you.  Music.  Ideas.  Art.  Culture.



Everyone should have their own version of Walden.  A place, an activity, a retreat to ponder the value of their existence beyond how they relate to society in a monetary way.

So when you grow up, you want to be a sanitation engineer?  A cosmetologist?  Those are worthwhile undertakings.  But it is impossible to be only a sanitation engineer, simply a cosmetologist.  You will also be a citizen.  There are obligations that come with that.  Responsibilities.  Privileges.  Know what they are.

You may be a husband.  A wife.  A father.  A mother.  You will definitely be a person, and a member of society.  Be a good one.  Understand what a good member of society is, beyond what you see around you.  There is so much more to know.

I believe in education as a means of personal development.  I believe that reading, writing, and the study of the world around us can help us achieve a potential beyond the merely monetary.  I don't believe that education is only to be found in the classroom, or in a book, but I do believe that studying the thoughts of others will enhance the experiences that we encounter every day.

Sour Mood

I'm cranky.  I didn't sleep well last night.  I made poor nutritional choices today (pie and cookies for lunch).  I worked hard in the yard and Griswolding my house and then cutting some branches off a tree at Mom and Dad's.

I put up the Christmas tree.  I hate that tree.  It's a cheap Wal-mart tree.  It sheds.  We used to get a real tree, but we stopped getting them because they shed.  Now I have an artificial tree that sheds.  I put on the lights.

The kids were supposed to hang ornaments.  They were goofing around, trying to juggle them.  They kept getting distracted.  I had to force them off their computers to take part.  Then the dog took a crap in the living room behind the couch.  At that point, I lost it.  Then my wife banished me up here.

She knows me.

She knows I'm tired.  She knows I've had too much sugar.  She knows the kids are being especially annoying.

Do other people get like this?  I see happy pictures on Facebook, and happy descriptions of trimming the tree.  I think I like literature with a darker tint because it helps me realize that yes, this does happen to other people.

The good news is that I will snap out of this.  I will be happier tomorrow, after a good night's sleep, after this sugar processes through my system.

When I'm in this kind of mood, Bukowski it probably best for me.  There was a guy who understood how the world could crap down the back of your neck sometimes.  He could see that, as much as we wish for the opposite to be true, Norman Rockwell moments are rare and brief.

This was the guy who wrote:

"It was true that I didn’t have much ambition, but there ought to be a place for people without ambition, I mean a better place than the one usually reserved. How in the hell could a man enjoy being awakened at 6:30 a.m. by an alarm clock, leap out of bed, dress, force-feed, shit, piss, brush teeth and hair, and fight traffic to get to a place where essentially you made lots of money for somebody else and were asked to be grateful for the opportunity to do so?" 

I can completely identify with this idea.

He said much more.  I think I enjoyed Bukowski more when I was younger, when I needed the reassurance more that the world can be that way.  And that it was okay.  That it could be that way, but that it wasn't important.  There is an Eastern philosophy feel to his work.  He was in the world, very much in the world physically, but somehow he managed to keep himself at a certain level of remove from the world intellectually.  He was certainly an active participant emotionally as well, but had an awareness that kept him at a level of sanity, even at his most insane.  He was able to reflect.

The quote of his that most perfectly expresses this duality of intellect and emotion:

 "Sometimes you climb out of bed in the morning and you think, I'm not going to make it, but you laugh inside — remembering all the times you've felt that way."

I feel better.  Thank you, Hank.  His friends called him Hank, not Charles, which is the name he wrote under.  Thanks, Hank, for reminding me that even though I'm not perfect, no one is, or should wish to be.  We all have our moments.  And we all live through them.  Maybe my wife will let me come back downstairs now.