For Your Consideration

An excerpt from "Meeting the Living God" written by veteran Catholic educator William J. O'Malley.....I may have an arsenal of explosive tirades regarding Catholic private education pent up inside of me, but I saw merit in this excerpt and simmered down.....for the moment:

"The bulk of the data you ingest and disgorge during your schooling - in the strictly utilitarian sense - will be absolutely useless in your later life. You will never need to bring any of it to bear on any problem of daily living or working. It's as if, when you enter grade school, they set you to jumping overs sticks. Then, after eight years, if you haven't caused too many problems, they give you a ticket to another place where, for four more years, you jump over different colored sticks. If you survive that, they give you a ticket to still another place, where for four more years you jump over sticks that are even higher and of different shapes. At the end of that, they give you a final ticket to go out and get a job - which has nothing whatever to do with jumping sticks. Funny huh?

And one catch: The longer you jump the more expensive it becomes. If all success really demands is discipline, drive and determination - and if you already have those, it might be the most utilitarian choice to ask your parent for the $80,000 they're going to pay for even more schooling to set you up in business. But, of course, you'd have to have the three Ds....and I don't know any graduate school that teaches those. Certainly few, if any, high schools do. Most reward much less noble qualities....

...I will try with equal hubris to strip down the educational enterprise to its basic truths...

1. Make students genuinely aware and curious

2. Teach them to be humble and honest before evidence

3. Teach them to reason - logically, thoroughly, honestly

4. Teach them to care about one another

5. Teach them to stand up and be counted

....And most of all it should teach you that learning can never cease, that once one stops learning, he or she begins to die as a human being...That is the price of being fully alive as a human being. You have to pay the piper. But, oh, how beautiful the music!"

Hmmmmmmmmm...........The question remains as to when one determines this "educational enterprise" completed; truths found or at least communicated. Valid, yes, is the fact that the piper must be paid to play the music, but what of it when the music is already being played? What if I am the piper?! Shall I pay myself?

The American educational process, not that I have any other experience to compare it with, excels in producing brilliant "jumpers" - to continue with O'Malley's metaphor. And yet, in the end, all this system ends up with are those who know how to jump the various tediums of bureaucracy - in the work place, at school, waiting in line at the drive thru. True again, yes, the style and flair of these so called jumps of feat may be done so in accord with the current fashions of the "educational enterprise" - a distraction from what truly constitutes education, experience - but when does the race end? After all, it's just a game.

No one can pay the piper to play music. Good grief, I have met more ignorant, oblivious individuals knowing not nor caring as to what even constitutes music - a microcosm of life itself. No. You can merely tell, merely implore the piper to play and they may do so, but real music is sacred and rare. The thing is, though, at the end of the day I am going to get the same piece of paper (diploma, paycheck, thank you card, etc.) as the drummer - not to insult those of you out there but, truth, Mr. Drummer doesn't know how to be a piper; they only accompany. Have you been to a solo drum concert?

I digress, nonetheless. Well, I could most likely ramble on for days upon end, as I do in my head incessantly, about the shortcomings of this "enterprise" but my next class beckons and so I must rush off and pretend to be mediocre (if you are, if you aren't) - because it really doesn't matter if you're brilliant or not.....apparently everyone pays the piper but no one can become him...or expects it of you.....