5/23/24 — EDUCATION | ESSAY

But I am not on a ship, seemingly, to nowhere. I am, of course, in college; conditioned to trust the trajectory of its course: that sundry nineteen twenties manufacturing processes are of the most fundamental histories a college freshman can embark on…

The following is based on a journal entry I wrote a few months before withdrawing from college. It is embellished to highlight the central thesis and to enhance clarity for the reader:

It occurs to me that these people are restless, and then it occurs to me that I am one of them. We are all sharing the same issues. I am distracted by them while trying to study —

They can’t help but snack. The people to the vending machine keep coming. The university has a sweet tooth today: I’ve only seen one person purchase anything other than sugar.

The girl from math 1332, for example, is sitting in front of a white wall. I think she is doing chemistry. I know that she is very diligent, but today she frustrates. At her table are two packs of cookies vended from the same machine. In a moment she will stretch, grumble, and then leave. I’m not sure that she enjoys her work. I know that I don’t enjoy mine. I’m not even certain that it’s meant to be enjoyed, but we have accepted that. We have recognized the more urgent need to neo-subsist¹.

For a moment, I am perceiving the whole of us, this random sample of humanity, this college campus, as similarly content; but there is always someone at the vending machine. I have seen one for every two minutes I have been here. Someone’s credit card continually fails them, 

“this [insert appropriate profanity here] is [an alternative version this time] me off.” 

We are not content. We are, in fact, lying to ourselves. A little people watching, I guess, is all it takes to evidence the fact…

It is apparent now: everywhere I look people are exchanging occupational contentment for short term gratification. I should also be studying, but why should I lend myself to that same desperation — where the desire for gratification, however insubstantial, abounds? This time I have resisted a futile shoveling into the void. This time I have become aware: I am avoiding the vending machine because I am avoiding the psychological strain of neo-subsistence. The correlation is obvious.

But correlation, of course, does not always equal causation. I should still be studying. However much one hates the activity and copes with it is irrelevant to the more fundamental issue: a lack of self discipline. The cause of that much, is my own volition. “But I love to study,” is the natural retort. I can’t help but identify the gap in my own logic. I can’t help but defend myself as the contention for a lack of intentionality floats into view…

I love to study when it is done intentionally: when there is an important question that requires genuine and thorough answer. My interests are never congruent in this light — that always used to bother me; recently, however, I understand that a learned life is liberal, not disciplinary — so that my education has more utility than prestige. The application of history, for example, is understanding the context of the contemporary moment you are living in.

It occurs to me that I don’t even understand the context of the unit I am studying, much less my own. The organic point from which I am itching to explore: prehistory; classical antiquity; even the middle ages, were taught before I cared to understand, if they were taught at all. If they were, it likely occurred in the sixth grade — a curricular moment far removed from my own.

So I am sitting in a university library with a hoard of textbook pages due to be read that night, and I am earnestly considering reviewing the sixth grade curriculum on European feudal societies instead — so as to uncover the origin of a social stratification that progressed wildly into the working class movements of my subject: the American nineteen twenties. But that is ridiculous. So I am sitting in a university library, instead, wondering who prioritized the hours of my day to the memorization of trivial nineteen twenties manufacturing processes as I am continually distracted by hangry vending machine frequenters and the origin of vending machines themselves.

I am thinking about how many years I have spent romanticizing this very moment:

The one in which I am a collegiate academic? The one in which I am intellectually enlightened? No, the one in which I am sitting adjacent to the relentless purchasing of hot fries, funyuns, etc. and losing my mind. I am thinking, “how did I get here?” I am thinking, “can we at least start over this time — at the beginning?” “is that not inherent to the idea of a fresh (as in freshman) start?” 

I am suddenly accusing myself of being ungrateful: higher education is a privilege, of course, not a right, and many people haven’t the means to enjoy it. I am going down the list of perceived retorts: the value of a curriculum is in its rigor, of course, not its rudiment. I am convincing myself to be patient, that the scope of academia will eventually come into view, but I am also thinking: If you were on a ship to seemingly nowhere. If it seemed, after all, that its crew had no plan. If you were worried about perishing in a state where up could have easily been down, and east, west, without your ever having discerned the difference, wouldn’t you have, at least, afforded the warrant to take its steering into your own hands? But I am not on a ship, seemingly, to nowhere. I am, of course, in college; conditioned to trust the trajectory of its course: that sundry nineteen twenties manufacturing processes are of the most fundamental histories a college freshman can embark on…

Still, I am tempted by the thought experiment: I am convinced that in this state of disorientation, where up might as well be down and everyone’s natural academic compasses have been demagnetized, each has warranted an attempt at higher education’s ship wheel. And I am earnestly considering whether any of us would actually come to similar curricular revelations as the institutions accredited to guide our learning. When considering the fundament of history, at least, I am convinced that I would not. If our range of conclusions ended up varied, I wonder, how would we reconcile the differences?

I have had various insights into this logic before. I have, after all, conceded to the route of political science so as to pursue reform — in the educational facet, especially — so that I am thinking something I have likely thought before:

If the purpose of institutional education was to make us all teachers, not just those who choose the major — so as to create a society of independent and life long learners — there would be no need to consult the ship crew, there would be no need to argue about who should re-assume the ship’s wheel.

People enjoy applying the Chinese proverb, about teaching a man to fish, in all areas accept the important one — which happens to be quite meta: education itself. If the fisherman, in this case, had been taught how to identify and fulfill his own need for skill, then he would never rely on an external education again — who’s methods are often inefficient and variously discerned (there are Montessori, classical, a multitude of standardizing methods, and still more).

Teach a student various independent subjects and they will know various independent subjects — as long as their memory permits. Teach a student how to learn²— the value of learning itself, on the other hand, and for as long as they are able, they will know how to learn and will continue to.

At this point, I have already begun to pack up my laptop. I am in pursuit of the ship crew (so as to share with them my insights), and of course, the ship’s wheel itself.

Summer Arukwer-Strother

FOOTNOTES:

1. Not a real word, but a phrase of my own invention: Today, over 70% of Americans work outside of true subsistence occupations: in tertiary, quaternary, and quinary sectors of the economy (Statista’s distribution of the workforce across economic sectors in the United States from 2011-2021). Instead of direct subsistence, the product of modern labor is indirect subsistence, usually in the form of a wage, to earn the subsistence of another’s hands. Specialization causes even the agriculturalist (of the primary sector) to rely on market exchange for a complete subsistence. This behavior results in what I call, “neo-subsistence,” where the typical line connecting means to end is elongated and contorted into a balloon-animal. ↩︎
2. I first heard of the idea, that school is about “learning how to learn”, during a high school valedictorian speech for the graduating class of 2021. Of, course, my version of this idea fundamentally rejects the former: that school currently fails to teach the skills of learning, but that through a process of reform, it could. ↩︎

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