Gregory Allen
McFarland
English 1A
12 August 2013
Essay
Education is one of the most key
things in life we need as humans to function with other people. It’s what separates
the rich and the poor, the smart with the stupid, and the successful people
from unsuccessful people. Am I saying there is only one kind of education? No.
Tupac was not only book smart, but he was street smart, and he was lyrically
smart. Was Michael Jordan smart? He was smart when it came to basketball I.Q.
and he was smart when deciding to pull up from a pick or to drive the basket,
or dish it out to an open teammate. Being educated does not always mean you are
book smart. It just means you are knowledgeable at a particular field. Here in
America, our educational system is failing us students. Especially here in
California. We have the lowest amount of money spent on education per student
in the United States. That is ridiculous. To help fix it, we have to start from
the bottom. We have to get into the students inside. We have to find out what
their passion is, what makes successful people, and we have to show them that
privilege is not always in the way of education.
The
Book Into The Wild was a book about a man named Chris McCandless, who
had it all, but wanted nothing. Crazy right? This was a man who was college
educated and wanted to go out and live in Alaska. He has $25,000, but decided
to give it all away to charity, and live off nothing. He traveled around making
little money so he can prepare himself for Alaska. When he gets there, he
starts to live on his own until he dies of starvation due to a plant he ate. It
was a book about how a privileged man didn’t want any of that. He wanted to
live like a savage. Into the wild.
In
this essay, I will be discussing a few things. I will be discussing about
education, and the things that drive education, like passion, success, and
privilege. I will also talk about the book Into the Wild into it and how
Chris can actually compare to some of the topics about education. In all, I
think Passion has a lot to do with education, because that is what typically
drives a student to success, which usually comes with education, and the good
things that happen when you can find success in education. Lastly I think
Privilege can play a role in education too.
The other day in English class, we
watched this eye opening movie called, "the Passion Project" it was
directed and made by students at our very own Chabot College. The students also
gave insight in the documentary. This movie made me realize that we should all
find our own passion, and that it will help in the long run. The part that
opened my eyes was the part about the teachers, and how they only teach the
content in a class, but never more than that. Teachers never really help you
find your passion; they just tell you to get it all together but really don't
show a lot of effort. I can relate to the beginning when they were all talking
about how their parents were pushing them to be something they don't want to
be. My mom tried pushing me to be a nurse, but that shit wasn't happening.
The
passion movie made me realize how many people do not realize what their passion
is, and that I am not the only one who thinks that. This can help and hurt in
education. In high school, if you never knew your passion, and you can get lost
once you get in public. I feel the same way as Samira in the movie when she
said, “when I finally into the world, I was like, ‘Holy crap is this what it’s
like?’” that is people who usually don’t have that much passion for something
in school, and they end up lost like, “what is this world?” not finding your
passion can lead to things thinking like that. That is why it is important to
find your passion early, and not have to let something shoved down your throat.
Passion can also come from other forms, like Jeff Bliss.
My sophomore year of High School,
I took an extra class at 6:50 in the morning so I can get some extra credits. I
had this teacher that was always 10-15 minutes late every day, and show up with
Starbucks in her hand. So we realized that she was late because her Vente
Carmel Frappuccino was more important to her then educating us on time. Classes
at my high school were usually 50 minutes long, but this class was 40, so we
were a little behind. Plus, her being late 10-15 minutes plus the shortened
time, we would have about 30 minutes of instruction every day. Because of that
short time, we would just watch history movies all day. We barely even learned
anything and everybody was struggling on tests. The day after we all got our
tests back, we all saw that most students got a D or an F, with some C's and
the ultra-rare B by one student. That day, she was late as usual, and instead
of maybe asking questions about the past test, or wondering why all her
students failed, she just plopped on another boring history channel movie from
her TiVo. As she puts this movie on, one daring kid in my class starts packing
up his stuff and starts leaving. My teacher asked why he was leaving, and he
said, "Because I didn't wake up at 6 in the morning to go to class and
watch History documentaries on TV. I'm not learning anything I might as well go
home." and so he left. The whole class was in shock of what happened. I
could not believe what just happened. After that day, for the rest of the year,
we never watched another movie, we actually learned, and I thanked that kid in
my history class for it.
This video of Duncanville High School
student Jeff Bliss has gone viral on YouTube. With millions of views on this
video, it's safe to say a lot of people have heard about this man. To me, this
guy is a hero. He stood up for what he believed in, and that takes a lot of
courage. This story reminded me a little bit of the book we read in class
called, Bread Givers. The whole essay we wrote about on how if Sarah was a hero
or not, and this dude shows some heroic qualities. He shows a lot of courage,
and in that courage, he shows a lot of passion. You can tell by the fire in his
voice that he was pissed off at this teacher. He really got to me when he said,
“you want kids to come into your class? You want them to get excited about this?
You gotta make them excited.” He was on
point for this, because a lot of teachers lack the motivation to help their students
pass. There are a lot of teachers out there that are just like Bliss’s teacher.
They just start handing out packets. That is really not how learning works. A
lot of people need to learn by having the teacher interact with them to make
them study better and to motivate. Then teachers just start saying and not
doing anything. Bliss also told his teacher, “You want a kid to change and
start doing better? You gotta touch his frickin heart.” This is true. Most, if
not all students have had a teacher who was unmotivated, talking about how we
students are not motivated. It just makes you scratch your head and say to
yourself, “are you serious?” YOU as the teacher are the one that is supposed to
teach us. If you want us to be motivated and do our part as a student, then why
don’t you do your job as an educator and educate us? Too much blame gets put on
students, but they never look at who are the ones that are supposed to teach
us. It’s just all the blame gets put on the students and it’s a huge burden to
bear. Privilege can also intervene with passion and can help and ruin some
passion.
In my opinion, the only connection
between passion and privilege is that privileged people pursue their passion
easier, and they destroy non privileged people's passion. Have you ever told a
person of privilege what you want to do when you grow up? My freshman year in
high school, I told my teacher I wanted to be a lawyer, and she just laughed
and told me that was not happening. Like really? I've had you as my teacher for
3 weeks and you’re telling me what I can and cannot do? I'm just speaking from
experience when I say what I say.
Sometimes, passion and privilege
can be complete opposite of each other. You can have a lot of privilege, and
just completely disregard your privilege to peruse your passion. I mean, it’s
not a common sight, but when you see it, it sure is interesting. Chris
McCandless was one of those guys who had passion and privilege, but he used it
in a different way. He had a college degree, with the opportunity to pursue
graduate school, with $25,000 in his bank, but literally gave it all away so he
can go and live in Alaska. In the book, it says on page 4, “Alaska has long
been a magnet for dreamers and misfits, people who think the unsullied enormity
of the Last Frontier will patch all the holes in their lives.” Chris fits in as
the dreamer, and the misfit, who believed going to Alaska will make his life
seem complete and of some worthy. He was just a guy who had different views of
the world. He had the privilege to make great money, but had the passion to
live in the wild by himself. Passion and
privilege can also be unhelpful, as Professor Jeff Duncan-Andrade points out.
When we saw Jeff Duncan-Andrade's lecture in
class about roses from a concrete, I really felt what he was talking about.
I've seen his lecture before in high school, but I never really paid attention
to it. Now that I actually paid attention to it, I really enjoyed what he was
saying. He is not the normal monotone professor, his lecture included a lot of
charisma and passion, and you can tell in the way he talks he cares about what
he is saying. I really liked what he said to say about education. He was
talking about how we need to look at teachers and other environments. When he
says, “You can’t control the broader flower in which young people are growing,
but you can control the classroom.” He is saying that pretty much, we can’t
control what happens outside in the real world, like all the murders and the
problems, but we can control the classroom, and give students a good learning
environment so they will be able to get out and get a good education.
Andrade was talking about stuff I never really
thought about, stuff that I take for granted. Andrade was talking about how
kids in Oakland don't do as well in school as the others, and one of his
conclusions were that PTSD was affecting these kids. He stated that, “urban
youth in Oakland are twice as likely as soldiers returning from Iraq to develop
PTSD.” Oakland's homicide rate is higher them a lot of U.S. cities, and those
kids are seeing murder every day. Their classmates are being buried and they go
to school the next day and teachers wonder why they do not pay attention in
class. I find it appalling that poor places like Oakland and South Central LA
need schooling the most so the kids can get out, but education is atrocious
there. Places like Piedmont have kids who even if they dropped out, they will have
a future under their parents, have the best education. They are right when they
say the rich get richer and the poor get poorer I can relate on a smaller scale
to the PTSD thing. My junior year of high school, a former football player was
fatally stabbed just blocks away from my school, and me being a football player
and all my friends in shock over what happened, we came to school the next day
and couldn’t even do it. I knew a former teammate of mine who was so distraught;
he completely changed who he was as person. He used to be a smart kid in school
and I don’t even know if he graduated high school. I think that is what might
be happening in Oakland, but on a larger scale. They see it on a daily basis.
When it comes to passion, Kobe
Bryant is the best. Kobe Bryant, because to me, besides the great Michael
Jordan, no one has shown more passion, more drive, and more motivation, then
the Black Mamba Kobe Bryant. Bryant is the 5th leading scorer in NBA history,
and he is not even 35. How is that possible? He works as hard as anyone in the
game, and his motivation is like none I have ever seen. I also chose him
because he is one of my favorite athletes of all time. There was a story about
Kobe Bryant I read about in a basketball blog that was told by an assistant
coach of the 2012 US Olympic Team that included Kobe Bryant. He said one night
around 3AM, Kobe wanted to get some work done in the gym, and if he can help
him, so he helps him for about an hour, and the coach says he is real tired and
needs sleep, so he goes off to bed. He wakes up at 8, and he goes to have
breakfast with the team and still in the gym shooting jump shots was Kobe
Bryant. He was amazed on how someone works that hard to perfect something. It
just goes to show what kind of a man Kobe Bryant is, and you can see the
results in the video.
His
drive to be the greatest has to be one of the best qualities he has. When he
first came into the league, he was just known as a high flying dunker, so what
did he do? He worked on his mid game jump shot and tore it up. Then his
doubters said he could not shoot a 3 pointer so what did he do? Develop the 3
pointer and has the record for most 3 pointers in a game with 12. Then they
told Kobe he has no post game. (You see where I'm going with this?) Guess what
he did? He went to Hakeem Olajuwon, one of the best post players the game has
seen, and Bryant learned moves and footwork from him. He later developed an awesome
post game and he became one of the greatest all around scorers in the history
of the NBA. He also has 5 championships, so you know he is a winner. When it
comes to passion, the Black Mamba brings it like no other.
College can be really difficult for students. Especially
here at Chabot College. There are a lot of factors. Some of the factors that
can lead to it are money. Money can be very scarce for a student at Chabot
College. Sometimes, you can’t get financial aid and it becomes very difficult
to try and get money. Money can lead to things like not having transportation,
or money for books. Money is what makes the world go round, and it rules
everything. Without money, you cannot do a lot of things. Some students end up
having to drop out because students end up having to help their parents with
the rent or the food. Some students are also out on their own. They are busting
their ass with one or two jobs, and going to school. They have insurance, rent,
food, and a lot of other bills to pay, and if one bad thing happens money wise,
they will not be able to go to school.
Drugs can be a huge factor in
college too. Some people do a lot of drugs like marijuana or abuse alcohol. Some
people just start going to school high every day and can’t focus. One side
effect of marijuana is laziness. Kids will start getting lazy and not go to
school and just choose to get high. People who abuse alcohol get hangovers and
end up not waking up for school. Some students get hooked in drugs in college.
They get peer pressured to start smoking marijuana and drinking alcohol.
Instead of studying, they go and smoke a joint, and instead of buying 50 dollar
book, they buy 50 dollars’ worth of weed. Instead of doing your homework and
studying, they go out and party and do drugs. That’s not the way it should go.
People end up dropping out because of that. Success is also big in education
and in the real world.
If
we show passion to kids, they will be able to pass on their knowledge and make
the world a better place. Like Andrade was talking about, he said, “When roses
come back to the garden, they create rose gardens.” He is saying that, if we
educate one kid, he will come back and educate more, and that can really help
out society. We need to educate society
because Andrade said, “If we do nothing about this concrete, what we know is
that some roses will still find it’s what you grow from the concrete.” If we don’t
educate society, it will not benefit everyone, but at least one will earn, and
he will go back. And coming back means you have become successful.
Success is a very flexible term. Flexible meaning
everyone's definition of success is different from one another. One person can
think Success is getting a C on a paper, but another can think getting a B on a
test is a failure. Due to media and society, a lot of people assume success is
defined by what kind of car you drive, or what brand your purse is, or how much
your house cost. You can have that stuff because of success that does not necessarily
define success to me. The specifics might be intangible, but the core parts of
success are pretty much the same. The way I define success is if you are happy
with your life, personal fulfillment, and defines success to me.
A lot of things can make people
happy, some people need material things, like clothes, shoes, jewelry and for
some people, it’s just the simple things, like making someone laugh, or hanging
out with loved ones that can bring joy to your life. They say money doesn't buy
you happiness, and in some cases, that can be true, and other it can be a
little misleading. The point I am trying to make is if you have money or you
don't if you yourself are happy with the way you are living, then that is
success in its own way. If you are living in a basic house with your family
working a decent job, and if you are happy, who is going to call you
unsuccessful? That was like my family when I was a kid, and no one called my
parents unsuccessful. If you are happy with what you have, and no matter how
much or how little you have, no one can tell you are not successful.
The
key to being successful also is self-actualization. When you can sit there and
say you have made it, then that is success. But getting to the self-actualization
part can take time. It is also the most vital to success I think. Andrade said,
“Self-actualization is actually the pre-condition to long term academic success.”
This means we actually have to realize, “hey, I can do this!” and that will
help you be successful. If you realize that you can actually do something, your
self-esteem goes up and motivation goes up. When you think that you can do it,
you will do it.
My junior year of high school, If
found myself on the varsity football team. The year before I had a pretty good
season on JV. In my head I thought I was all that, and that I would just take
over a starting spot and did not have to put in any work during the offseason,
so the summer before my first varsity season when we had our summer
conditioning program, I would half ass all the workouts, all the running programs,
and while my teammates were getting bigger and stronger, I was sitting there
making no gains. When we put our pads on for the first time, I thought I was
going to out hit everyone that I outhit my sophomore year, well they all got
stronger than me, and for the whole season the only thing my ass was on was the
bench. I had a meeting with my coach the day after the season ended. He knew I
was contemplating on whether I wanted to return. He also knew I put in no work
that year and said if I wanted to get on the field so I was going to have to
work for it. The next day I started busting my ass every day in the weight room
until the summer conditioning came along. When it came to summer conditioning
programs, I was up there with the big boys again, and I ended up back starting
again. That moment I realized when all my hard work paid off, I knew I was
successful. The point of my story was about self-actualization, and that because
I fulfilled my goals of being a starter, I became successful in my own mind.
In conclusion, I gave my views on
education through passion, privilege and success. They can intertwine with each
other sometimes, but they are usually what we need to be successful in life and
in education. Passion is really what dries educational success. Success usually
comes last, while privilege is pretty much just an X-factor in education. It
can help to hurt, but usually, it’s just there not really doing anything. Education
needs to change, and we need to start soon, or else we will all end up into the
wild.
