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then I didn’t know what education was. I didn’t know what it did for people, didn’t
do for people, and how much power it had. I just went to school every day
because my mother and father said I had to. I knew education as going to a building
where I sat in a room and learn fun little things until I got to go to recess
and play. Teachers back then in 1st 2nd grade taught us
all we needed to know at that time of age. They taught us all but one thing;
what education was. I am choosing a long memory for my memoir. My journey
through school until I realized what education was.
Of
course we were taught that education was very important and the foundation of
an American in this country blah blah blah. But I was young and more concerned
with the funny faces my friend was making across the room. Meaning they taught
me this but I was way too young for it to sink in. I was not yet exposed to
educations awards and consequences. I didn’t know what it could or couldn’t do.
It just was what it was and went to school because I had to! It was as simple
as that. It felt like almost every day that my parents told me how important
school was to me. It was everyone 3 feet taller than me that told me this all
the time. I would always wonder why they pushed this one thing on me so hard
and frequently. Why is this thing I dread every morning so significant to my
life? I hated homework I hated big projects I hated reading and I hated waking
up at the crack of dawn every day. Why couldn’t recess or cartoon be that
important to my life? I would wonder why, but never sat down and really tried
to figure it out. I was young I didn’t care enough to do that.
5th
and 6th grade come along and I end up in a charter school. Charter
schools are known for being a little more rigorous than public schools, just my
luck. I did fairly well in all my classes but it was definitely a lot harder
than 3rd and 4th grade. It was like I went from riding my
bike in the park to downhill the great pyramids. So this is why this whole
education thing was so important. Because it was so hard! Now I know that’s not
the real reason why but at the time that was what I was going with. I was
getting closer to figuring out why exactly this was all so important. As I got
older I got wiser; I listening more carefully. I started to understand why my
parents push me as hard as they still do.
I began to see education as the stepping stone that all these adults perceived
it as, the outlet of success. I saw the awards of a good education. I saw what
it offered people and their families. I saw what my family wanted for me and my
future! As I fast forward to 8th grade graduation, I saw
accomplishment. I felt awarded for the first time in 8 years of academic
effort. And my parents told me it was only going to get better from here.
It was
this time of my life where the meaning of education clicked into my brain. High
school was no joke. Homework every day, projects every other week, quizzes
every Friday and exams every month! It was exhausting. I hated it! I felt grown
enough to make my own decisions yet I was directed around like a child. It was extremely
frustrating. On top of the amount of work high school piled on me, my parents
began to push me even harder. It was time to start looking for colleges.
Another thing they told emphasized on importance. Why was college so important?
I didn’t get it. Now I had to figure out what I wanted to do in life and go to
another school that offered that. Sounds easy enough but of course it wasn’t at
all. I started just giving up. I still did not understand why education was so
important to my life. That’s when I saw not the awards of education, but the
consequences. Long talks with my very close teachers helped me realize this.
They started telling me their own personal stories of how education played a
big part in their lives. They told me stories of how not having an education
can virtually break someone. Feeling the wrath of their experiences put me into
perspective. I realized that it was so important because without it life would
be extremely difficult with almost no purpose. I felt like I finally knew after
all these years. The real reason why education was so important!
I was
wrong. Coming into college here at BCC really showed me why education was
important. It’s not about the awards and consequences you receive because of
education. It was about to pure act of learning! Every day you should learn
something new. It was about how we as a species just furthering our education
to the point where we can’t anymore. Learning is such a beautiful thing and we
should not waste it. There is no better feeling you get after learning
something you didn’t already know. Educating ourselves will prevent future
mistakes as well. There are so many things that education offers and so many
different reasons why it is so important to me. The financial awards and stability
in life are just extra.
I feel your memior is really descriptive and you painted a picture of how you evolved from hating school, to the point were you took school as an adult and knowing why education is so important to your future. I feel that after reading your memoir i understand your point exactly. Good Writing!
ReplyDeleteYou certainly tackle quite a large chunk of experience here, with an interesting angle of vision and some effective detail. I'd say the main idea here is your attempt (through many years) to understand the purpose and value of education. It's a HUGE topic to try to cover in a few pages. It's complicated by the sort of roller-coaster feeling here, where you go from hating/not understanding, to thinking you understand, then back to hating, and so forth for several cycles. Because you cover so much territory, you don't have the space/time to really develop any of these recognitions, to *show* what experiences created these changing view of education.
ReplyDeleteYou do have some nice detail here. I esp. like the specifics that bring me back to particular ages--like the funny faces around the room in elementary school. In other places I'd like to see more detail, and to make room for those details, you may want to think about narrowing the timeline here, or writing about twenty pages--:)
Here are some places where I feel the hankering for more detail: with the charter schools, I don't understand how you came to this, "I started to understand why my parents push me as hard as they still do. I began to see education as the stepping stone that all these adults perceived it as, the outlet of success."; this part in high school also seems not as well-developed as it might be, "That’s when I saw not the awards of education, but the consequences. Long talks with my very close teachers helped me realize this. They started telling me their own personal stories of how education played a big part in their lives."; finally at BCC I'm not sure what bought you to the realization "It was about to pure act of learning!"
In terms of usage, you seem to have a few fragments and run-ons, but most could be seen as a stylistic choice (just want to make sure you can recognize them, and understand that in a more formal piece of writing they would probably not be desirable).
I'm anxious to see a next draft--there's lots going on here worth exploring a little more!