You sat on the corner of my bed and you smoked with the ghosts in the back of my head...
In talking to some of my senior friends and examining my own thoughts on education this past week, I realized something.
School is rather like prison.
And no, I am not referring to dorm life or the sub-par food. I am referring to the fact that people who have been in prison for years, or decades even, lose the ability to function in any society besides life in jail. They get out and almost immediately commit another crime because they cannot fathom life in the real world. Is it really that different than the way our educational system is designed?
We start school when we are between the ages of 5 and 6 (sometimes earlier with the advent of DK and pre-school), and for those of us that go to college, we spend the next 18 to 20 years in school. Elementary school prepares us for middle school prepares us for high school pretends to prepare us for college, which basically prepares you to cultivate the ability to wear pajamas to absolutely any occasion and take exams hungover (I am speaking in generalities now, as well as being rather bitter. Don't take it personally).
After spending 4/5 of our lives in an educational institution, they give us a slip of paper and expect us to be able to go forth and prosper. How do we do that when the only life we know is school? Sure, some of us have jobs while we go to college, but does that prepare us for the hunt for a career in a deficient economy and a 40 hour work week? Does the ability to choose our own schedule so that we don't have to be conscious before noon prepare us for the drudgery of a 9-5?
So what do we do after that slip of paper is handed to us?
Some people are able to function in the real world. And some of us put ourselves right back into prison. Ah, graduate school. It is true that getting a masters or doctorate is the only way to get certain jobs. But it is also true that it's just putting off our entrance into the big bad real world.
I've always planned to go to graduate school. I love to learn. I love to be amazed at the crazy shit that happens daily in this world. But I'm wondering now, am I also afraid to become a real person?