Go-Mode and Education

It has been way too long since my last comic! I don't even remember when I made the last one; I don't want to. In any case, here is my most recent, inspired by trying to get my life together:

Mature Content

On that topic, however, I have been extremely productive these past few weeks, especially these past few days. My website is almost complete, I've been writing a lot more (for my book of course but also other areas), I recently helped host an art project at a school, and a bunch of other things.

I often talk about "Go-Mode." Typically when I have been listening to dubstep or rock and doing manual labor, I get into Go-Mode; it's when I have—for a limited amount of time—unlimited energy, unlimited momentum.

I once moved (literally) about a ton of books in one evening with the help of my two friends: dubstep and fury. That's usually what Go-Mode is. Recently, however, I've just been in Go-Mode—dubstep or not, fury or not.

I very much want to think I'm just idealizing everything. I want to think that something frustrating or even devastating will happen, and I'll go back to deflated resignation. However, when I reflect, I'm not motivated. I'm not inspired.

I am not motivated or inspired.

I am tired. I am determined.
I am making an orderly set of choices to pursue an objective, and obstacles will only delay me—but not stop me.

Many years ago as a kid, I vaguely imagined the power of the "choice." I was imagining the difference between just letting things happen and choosing, the difference between being inspired and being determined.

I am now making an orderly set of choices. I see the many big and small tasks in front of me, and I complete a few every day. There have been advances; there have been setbacks. Neither has changed the ultimate trajectory.

Every day, I wish I were in the next stage, but a friend told me I still have things to learn. I have been learning; I'm still ready for the next stage.

In other news, I really like working with high-school-age kids, and I really don't want to be a high-school teacher. There has always been bureaucracy, but it seems much thicker nowadays. I've been tutoring, teaching, or directing since high school; it really has gotten worse.

I really like helping high-school-age kids learn; I really don't want to be a high-school teacher because I wouldn't get to.

I never get tired of quoting Albert Einstein:

Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school. It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.

Another:

Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.

Here is a scarier quotation I just discovered by Jules Henry:

The function of high school, then, is not so much to communicate knowledge as to oblige children finally to accept the grading system as a measure of their inner excellence. ... It is thus apparent that the way American culture is now integrated it would fall apart if it did not engender feelings of inferiority and worthlessness.

I am not trying to lambaste the internet with more negativity, this very cry has resounded throughout schools for many years.

Students plead for something different, something more.
Teachers plead for the opportunity to teach something different, something more.
Parents plead that their kids may learn something different, something more.

A friend recently reprimanded me for being indifferent about voting. She insisted that I "have to" and went on to talk about the problems with our country.
Even if we had worthwhile candidates, the vote, deep down, has so little to do with anything.

The problem with our country is the way we have gutted education and left only these strange ghouls known as rankings, ratings, standardized scores. We have gutted education to harvest its organs for money, but we still want what's left of the corpses to work hard and innovate.

So, no, I'm gonna go one step harsher and say your vote is wasted regardless. It doesn't matter who's steering the ship; a boat full of zombies is going to eat you alive.

What is the solution then? It's as simple and as difficult as becoming educated: stop hating math, pick up a book or two, and ask more questions.

"Isn't that what schools are teaching?"

Yes and no. If you require a student to read ten books he didn't choose, you are, in one sense, "inspiring" him to read. If you tell a student he is going to fail if he can't answer a lot of math questions, you are, in one sense, "encouraging" him to learn math. If you fill a child's schedule with hundreds of responsibilities, you are, in one sense, "introducing" them to a "variety" of activities. If you command a child to ask the questions you ask and give the answers you give, you are, in one sense, "teaching" them how to "inquire."

I am not trying to discount the value of involuntary hard work, but you and I both know this isn't character-building responsibility.

Unless you count holistic demoralization as character-building.

Food for thought.