I wish my past teachers could read this. Every time I look back at when I was younger, I cringe at how stupid I was. I mostly hate myself for not speaking up. For not saying what was on my mind or for being too naive. For not asking why?
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| (Search for the colors you can no longer see.) |
I was being brainwashed and I didn't even know. Sometimes, it takes taking a step back and looking at the whole picture. Holding it up, closing one eye, then the other. Tilting your head. The past is like that. It's a giant invisible painting with colors on a spectrum you couldn't see during the moment. But you can see them now. From a distance. Learn from it. Bring those colors out for others to see.
Show them what they were missing.
Ugh, I'm disgusted with the way I am. It's like how everyone hates going or says bad things about school, but they insist on going. Or at least, nobody makes an effort to change the way the system is. We get out of bed and walk inside the doors of a place that gives us a beating. A beating felt deep inside our bones. Deep in our marrow, scratching the surface of our soul until we all come out like empty bottles in a Coca Cola factory. But we need someone to instead, get out of bed and walk the other way. Find the colors that have eluded us all.
This is what I've found:
a.) I can write how I want to write. A few years ago, I had to write a short book as an assignment for school. I tried to copy the styles of authors from my favorite books. I wanted to be able to write like them, I thought. I started sentences with "But" "And" "Because" even though I had been taught my whole life that I couldn't do that. If these great writers can do it, why can't I? The teacher returned my book and yelled at me. She even called my house to tell my parents that I don't follow directions. My dad yelled. I even wanted to cry, I'm ashamed to say. So I'm writing this now. And I'm starting this sentence with "And" and ending it with a period. Literature doesn't have rules. It's a form of art. Just like a painting isn't more right or more wrong than any other. Teach the words to dance, and then, just let them go.
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| (Writing is art. Dance with it.) |
c.) I can't believe I chose doing homework over getting sleep. My teachers would leave a lot of homework. On average, I think I slept four hours a day. I had this after school program three times a week that taught me how to make stained glass windows, which didn't end until 6 p.m. Looking back, I wish I would've just done as much homework as I could and made sure I slept well. I mean, what good is school if you're brain is running on 4 hours of sleep? But wouldn't you get a low G.P.A you might say? Read below.
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e.) I worked hard at work that seemed meaningless. Whats the sum of two cubes used for? Three cubes? Factoring? Quadratic formula? Maybe one day, when the Earth loses the battle against aliens from a distant planet, they will capture us all and pick me from random. They will tell me, "We will spare you all! IF, you tell me what the quadratic formula is." And I'll stare blankly and say, "I don't know." So never mind, learn it.
f.) Schools don't make you great. Everybody wants to go to a "good" school. I can't believe I'm only now seeing it. Schools are nothing without the students. It's easy to be the best when all you do is take the best. Wanna impress me? Take all kinds of students and show us what you can really do. But ultimately, it all comes down to you. You don't need a fancy school to make you great. You don't need a high G.P.A. to make you great. You don't need a clean permanent record to make you great. Your creativity, intelligence, and hard work does.
g.) History was pointless. I'm not saying history is a pointless subject, but the way it's taught makes it sound that way. They force feed us names, dates, battles, treaties, wars. And what comes out? Nothing. Empty calories. Sure, I passed the tests and quizzes, but now I only remember random names and dates with nothing attached to them. Why? Because I wasn't interested in that particular part of history. It's true for everybody, you're more likely to remember things you're interested in. Imagine if we would have focused on things that interested us. Ask me anything about ancient history and I can answer it in a flash. But who was the eleventh president again?
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| (James K. Polk. 11th president of the United States. Died a month after retirement from cholera. Now you know.) |
h.) Making me read books I don't like. Same as above, there's nothing worse than being forced to read a book you don't like. Then they wondered why I did so bad on the test.
i.) Making failure a bad thing. Failure simply does not exist in school. It's viewed negatively. However, life is filled with failure. Everyone tells you the way to succeed is to go to school, get a career, make a family, promotion at the office, retire, then die. IN THAT ORDER! And if you don't, then you're a failure. But life is rarely like that. I wish I could have seen that sooner. It would've saved me many sleepless night. Failure sucks, but it is often you're best teacher. One day, you discover that you're actually not a moth. And you steer clear of the flame.
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A girl I barely knew once told me, "I want you and me to have sex." I said, "Why?" Then she said, "Wow. What are you gay?" She never talked to me again.
Is it so wrong to ask why?
What other things do you question?
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