"Oh my God. Are you serious? This is a joke."
"I quit. Kill me now."
"There is no way. I'm not doing this!"
"LSJDKFUGHGHUHHGH."
We've all been there. Minding your own business, you toil and sweat through the school day, taking text after long, boring text, worksheets, yada yada yada. And then it happens.
"Hey guys, settle down. Hey! So in order to really get you kids to understand this topic on a deeper level, I'm decided to assign a
P R O J E C T ."
Alarms immediately begin to siren, and your vision is tainted with the color red. Everyone around you commences to unhinge their jaws and scream in a language that's definitely not English, but you somehow understand. Every desk in the classroom is flipped over with a sudden shattering screech as a marker with no master scribbles on the whiteboard in shaky print, 'YOU WILL PAY'.
Okay. So maybe that's a bit over the top, but you get the point. No one likes a project. No one. I don't. You certainly don't. The teacher that has to grade them doesn't. We can all agree, they kinda suck. But I've begun to realize that maybe it's not the project that sucks. Maybe it's us.
Do you know how many kids in the world don't get an education? 101 million. Think about that. 101 million children don't have access to a better life. 101 million children won't have a shot at their dreams. 101 million children will have a hard time just surviving. 101 million children dream of rows of sharpened yellow pencils and the sweet crisp feeling of a fresh ream of lined paper. While scrubbing their master's dirty plates, their eyes are closed, wondering at the beautiful chant of children reciting their lessons. Hiding under the shroud covering their mouth, nose, eyes, they can imagine the pleated folds of a just washed uniform. Lying on the dirt floor, they're praying to whatever God will listen to them to just help them get to school.
So, I think about those 101 million children. I think about that project. Then I shut my mouth and do the best project that my teacher has or ever will see because I owe it to those kids.
We all owe it to them.
"101 million children dream of rows of sharpened yellow pencils and the sweet crisp feeling of a fresh ream of lined paper."
ReplyDeleteDon't we all dream of Reams???
Hahahahaha!
DeleteI really enjoyed how you put education in a different perspective rather than the usual apprehension of most students as being tiresome and dreadful. Your diction in the first paragraph is gripping and as a reader, I want to read further. I like how you structured the dialect commonly heard from teens using a unique syntax to begin your blog. Your overall syntax was powerful and thought-provoking, such as when you say: "We owe it to them." For me, that last sentence had a trigger word: owe. You allude to the 101 million children without an education, which adds power and develops your point further.
ReplyDeleteI love your style of writing because it is unique and intriguing, especially when you used imagery to describe the well-known reaction of students who have just learned that they must complete yet another project. All in all, I enjoyed your argument as to why we should not take our education for granted.
I agree with Bryn! I read all of your blogs, mainly because I just LOVE your writing. It's interesting, it's gripping, and when I don't realllly want to read a post, I read yours because by the end, I'm glad I did!
ReplyDelete