To those who know me, it's a well known fact that I do not agree with the structure of the education system that young people find themselves in now. My attempts at a college education have left me angry and frenzied at an anachronism that is souring our world. It is true that my college experience has been far from ideal, and I recognize that has made an ample contribution to my view of this, but I feel it just helps me see things as they are. The dancer has misstepped, and showed me that they were not as practiced as they let on.
The first blunder I see is the direction our society is stepping into. The idea that someone is only successful if they go to college is becoming more and more ingrained in the mind of the average person. Young people are conditioned to immediately judge someone depending on whether or not they attended or are attending college. It is not uncommon for someone to look down on a friend who doesn't further their education after high school. I myself have done it. And then I was the friend not furthering my education. It is a two way street, and I've been down both directions. I am not sure who is to blame for this, other than everyone. Parents, teachers, peers, strangers in the world, all of them cast judgment on us on whether or not we're college educated.
So what do we expect from those who are college educated? They're supposed to be smart, well-read, well-written, able to apply what they learned during their "important" four years into the real world, and perhaps the largest expectation is that they are to be wild. Partying, rampant drinking, promiscuity, experimentation with drugs, and "getting it out of the system" are all hidden expectations for college students, expectations that are met far more often than the previous, more "upright" expectations dealing with academic achievement. But I'm not going to attack the moral ambiguity of these activities. I know that's a lost battle, and I don't care what people do on their own time.
What then is expected of those who don't go to college? Generally, it's that they won't amount to anything, that they are dumb, lack ambition, and are doomed to low-income, bottom of the barrel jobs. McDonalds, Wal-Mart, and gas stations are some of the places we expect these people to work at. They couldn't get into an expensive institution that houses excessive recklessness, so why should they amount to anything?
The discrepancy is in what we expect from those who do go to college and those who don't. College-educated people can hit rock bottom and do nothing with their lives just as much as someone who doesn't go to a school. Those who don't go to college can become incredibly successful, both financially and emotionally. The only real difference is the slip of paper you get after four years that said you put up with bullshit for those four years. Employers look at that paper and think "Here's someone who can be pushed around and conditioned to think whatever we want. Let's hire 'em!"
What we need is a revolution, a revolution in perception of education. College is not inherently evil. There are those who can go to a school and truly get something from it. Acquire knowledge and skills that can be turned into a successful and fulfilling life. Knowledge like science, mathematics, even less concrete things like language and the social studies. But this isn't for everyone. I feel very strongly that everyone is different, and what works for one person is not set to work for another. Those who are skilled with their hands are considered to be lesser people, people of lower intelligences, confined to dirty, grimy shops to work on the machines that power the outside world. What so many people forget is that without those skilled technicians, the rest of us would wilt without our comforts. I am just a lowly, dirty bicycle mechanic, paid minimum wage to work on deceptively complex machines that fall into the realm of recreation and sport. But a lot of people rely on our skills. There are those, either with hard luck or poorly made decisions, who have a bicycle as their only form of transportation. And regardless of the importance of the vehicle, people still come to us because they don't know how to fix it. It is a specialized skill set. And yet because of the expecting gaze of what our society has conditioned us to see, there is no glory in what we do. Only the thoughts, in the back of people's heads, that we didn't go to college.
What we need is a change in perception. We need young people coming out of high school to ask themselves if they want a higher education, a higher education they can use, or if they want an occupation that can make them happy. We need to cast away the stigma of lowliness that accompanies those who don't go to college. We need to glorify the working man, the dirty mechanic with a wrench tightening the structure holding up the fat hide of society. They don't need to be greater than the white-collared businessman, just equal.
Of course, those right out of high school are prone to uncertainty. I know I was. And I don't think anything is inherently wrong with trying college. I firmly believe that college is better at showing us what we hate or don't like, as opposed to what we do like. But maybe that's because I never found that in school. Regardless, the risk, the test drive, the dipping of toes into the academic pool, is a pricey endeavor. Do schools really require all of that money? Does it really cost $30,000 a year for someone to read a handful of books and talk about it with their peers? Does it cost that much to have a dusty old man read regurgitated words, to score those words on how freshly thrown up they are, and to appoint a numerical judgment on one's intelligence?
No, it shouldn't.
Sadly, I know these things will not happen anytime soon, if they indeed ever do. They're just getting worse. College is getting more expensive, and employers are requiring even more slips of Bullshit Paper in order to hire. Like the solution to the problem of Man's interaction with the environment, I feel if we have any hope in this field it will come from a succession of generations, each getting slightly and gradually better than the last, until a conclusive end is finally reached. All we can do is promote awareness of this flaw. Perhaps someday it'll be righted.
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