The other day, Simon and I got on the subject of high school days. All four of us, the boy, Simon, Paul and I, had attended the same program at the same high school, an International Baccalaureate school: the best college prep program in one of the worst public schools in the city. The school itself, though diverse, was very segregated: during lunch period, the black kids hung out on the first floor, the Latino kids camped out in the west complex, the special needs kids milled about the basement; us IB nerds were more or less stationed in two hallways on the second floor. Ignoring passing period, though, when about 900 kids tried to squeeze through the narrow hallway that connected the two buildings, it really felt as though we were in our own little neurotic PSAT-scores-obsessed, college boot camp.
This was by far the best education available in the area, economically and academically - prep school teaching at a public school price. But the IB environment, we both agreed, was highly toxic. The sheer amount of elitism radiating from our peers and our teachers was enough to cause spontaneous nervous breakdowns. I remember feeling dumb because I actually had to study for calculus tests; there were clear distinctions between the people who were really smart and aced tests without trying, and those who just worked hard to get a good grade. This actually came out in conversation between kids: “Oh, Suzie sure studied a lot.” “For what, that last calc test? Man, I did that in ten minutes, and spent the rest of class period inventing MENSA puzzles to challenge myself. Cause, the existing ones are so lame. Tee hee.” BARF.
The elitism shone its brightest when it came to college choices. Most of my graduating class ended up going to state schools, despite the pressure of the program teachers and administrators to get kids to go out of state. I understand why; prospective parents (moneybags) want their kids to go to Harvard and Yale, and they’ll be more interested in a program that performs. Simon said that the secretary had told him, in a snooty aside, “Last year, about 80% of the class ended up at KU. You’re a top student. Don’t let your class go to KU.” His reaction: “you answer the fucking phone, in a public school in Wichita, how the hell can you justify being an Ivy League bitch?” Sadly, he did not say this out loud.
KU, as absurd as it sounds to me now, was basically synonymous with failure. If you ended up at KU, you clearly punted all your IB and AP exams, and were on your road to burger-flipping or dealing meth by strip-mall dumpster bins. The administrators had us read through those Princeton Review books and make lists. I applied to a bunch of Ivy League schools, Johns Hopkins, and KU as my safety. To be perfectly honest, I didn’t care much at this point. My GPA sucked, and I was tired of the bullshit elitism. I wasn’t terribly eager to go to a hoity-toity place to face more bullshit elitism.
Then, everybody’s letters started to trickle in. As expected, I was flat out rejected from all of the places but two: KU, and a deferred acceptance to Cornell (meaning I was guaranteed admittance the following year). Lin, a girl, asked about my results and I told her, and she said nothing. Later, we were standing in a group of people discussing the same thing (god, is that all we talked about?), and she actually laughed and said (no joke): “ha ha, karenology got rejected by all of her schools except KU!” Taken aback, I got kind of huffy and mentioned the deferred thing, and she said, “oh, you know that doesn’t count.”
[At this point I should mention that I hold grudges for life, and I have never, ever forgiven this girl. She ended up going to U. Penn to be a full-fledged Ivy League Bitch. Despite the fact that this was years ago and she may not even still be there, every time I hear that someone is going out to Pennsylvania, I tell them about Lin, and how if they see a short, long-haired bitch who looks kind of like a duck, to punch her in the face for me. (Hannah can attest to this). Actually, it occurs to me that I will be driving through Pennsylvania. Hmm. :twisted:]
Luckily, I went to KU and have not yet resorted to selling meth behind dumpsters. I feel pretty satisfied with the education I have gotten here, because though it is a mere state school (perish the thought!), I took initiative in figuring out which professors were good and not so good, which courses would challenge me intellectually, etc. I also didn’t drop $25k on four years of schooling, like Bitch-Who-Looks-Like-A-Duck probably did. I won’t have snazzy Ivy League letterhead on my transcript, but from what I’m told, it doesn’t really matter where you went for undergraduate, anyways.
Some of the people we knew haven’t done quite as well, it’s true. We know a girl who dropped out of classes recently, and is now working at Wal-Mart sorting recycling bins. Simon thinks that she’d been dogged by the ‘humiliation’ of having to go to KU, which ruined her first few semesters. Her GPA never really recovered, and neither did her interest in school, apparently. Same thing with Paul’s ex-girlfriend, Cindy. A good amount of this can probably be blamed on the intensely unhealthy atmosphere in our high school. Yes, I am very lucky to have had such great resources in high school, and it got me off to a great start in college, but I hope it was worth the couple of years shaved off my life due to overanxiety and stress.
Don’t believe me? Think I’m just whining about my privileged education? Well, I certainly am, but check out the quote in the title. This is what is inscribed over the front entrance to the school. My school wasn’t run by Puritans, but it might as well have been.
One of the perks I’ll miss about living where I am right now is our chatty, chain-smoking, Renaissance costume-designing downstairs neighbor, Andy. He knows everybody in the area, including all the regular drivers on our bus route, the apartment managers, and the various oddball characters who are permanent fixtures in Lawrence. Andy himself is kind of an oddball (he designs corsets for Ren Faires), but is always fascinating and perfectly amiable. So he’s collected a rather interesting assortment of friends, which I suppose would include the boy and myself (I wonder what that says about us!).
After spending all afternoon hauling boxes and heavy furniture in the fiery 100 degree heat (not including the heat index), Andy invited us over to watch Project Runway and have some drinks. So we got cleaned up and headed downstairs, and joined him and his group of PR-fan friends, including two older people: a university administrator named Max, and a non-traditional student with a thick-as-gumbo Louisiana accent, who I’ll call Darlene. In between commercial breaks, Darlene and Max (well, mostly Darlene) were involved in a heated discussion about a communications course Darlene had taken. At my university, a coms course is required for most general degrees; luckily I got out of it myself, having taken four years of debate and forensics in high school. Darlene had absolutely hated the course, which admittedly is legendary for being a waste of time, because she didn’t get along with the instructor.
Or, as Darlene put it, the instructor was a “fucking bitch.” Apparently she did not allow the use of a podium during speeches, and only let students bring up one notecard’s worth of notes for reference. Well, Darlene thought this was unbelievable bullshit: “I KNOW how to do public speaking, now I know some people get nervous but I was a FLIGHT ATTENDANT, and I took public speaking lessons back in jr. high, so I don’t need no stupid coms class.”
“You can test out of it,” said Andy. “Also, if you take debate or forensics in high school, you don’t have to take it.”
“That’s BULLSHIT,” said Darlene. “What stays in high school should stay in high school. That just ain’t right.” I guess she thought her years of experience reading instructions on how to fasten one’s safety belt more valid than my years of competitive speech at national tournaments, but whatever. That was the mere tip of the hateberg for Darlene; she had a number of topics to expound upon, such as “people who can’t spell good. If you can’t spell, you are just plain STUPID and you shouldn’t be teachin’ nobody.”
“But some of the smartest people I know can’t spell,” I said, and it’s true. The boy can’t spell, and neither can Abigail, who got a Goldwater award this year and is going to physics grad school at Berkeley.
“Well, if you’re smart, you should at least know how to spell,” retorted Darlene, with another swig of gin and Coke. Indeed.
Somehow, it came up that Darlene, the boy and I had all been in the same seminar, a program geared towards preparing students from minority and low-income backgrounds for grad school. She had been in the program the year after us. Darlene began pressing us on our opinions of the program’s various instructors. “What did you think of Arnold?”
“Well,” started the boy, “I don’t think the class was that informative, but he tried -”
“HE was a FUCKING ASSHOLE,” yelled Darlene. “Hated every minute of his class, patronizing, smug asshole.”
“Really?” said Max, heretofore quiet, laughing. “He’s a good friend of mine!”
“Well, I HATED HIM. He was just HORRIBLE. Had us read that stupid book, I don’t know for what. Totally useless.”
“Did he have you read Title, by Author?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Didn’t even buy the damn thing. Anyway, one day we were just settin’ around, and nobody was saying nothin’, so I decided to say something, right? Cause professors don’t like it when everybody’s all quiet, and I didn’t read the book but I am forty-two years old, and that’s forty-two years of experience, I don’t need to read the fucking book. I know this shit already! So I was talking, and then when I was done, he has the nerve to say, ‘can we hear from someone who has actually read the book’? Fucking snotty asshole, I just walked out of the class and never looked back.”
The boy and I sat back on the couch, utterly at a loss for words. Neither of us had found the class terribly helpful or interesting, but the professor in question was a nice guy, and had volunteered for that position, to boot. He certainly didn’t deserve the indignity of having a student flagrantly refuse to do the coursework, and even worse, get offended when called upon it. When the boy brought this up, she just said, “Shouldn’t ‘a signed up if he didn’t know what he was fucking doing.” Wow. Now I know why the professor in question is no longer involved with the program. Worst student EVER.
We could have left right then (PR had been over for quite some time), but just then, Andy came out into the living room, bearing two huge binders full of what must have been 8,000 photographs of a trip to Germany he’d taken two years ago. He wanted to show us -all- of them, so though we were tired from moving and this shrill beast of a woman was complaining about everything under the sun to me, we stayed. Eventually, she switched to bragging about her son.
An interesting aside: for some reason, middle-aged, borderline psychotic white women seem to always latch onto me to unburden their souls. In spite of the fact that my face is about as transparent as a sheet of freshly Windexed glass, and I am therefore unable to hide scorn, disdain, or utter boredom terribly well (I have gotten into some sticky situations before because of this). I am not sure what is in these ladies’ brains that makes them go, “oh, here is this skinny little Asian twerplet. She will be a fine substitute for costly therapy,” and staunchly ignore my attempts to change the subject / walk away / bash my brains out on an acquaintance’s coffee table. Meanwhile, the boy kept himself engrossed in Andy’s photos of Germany.
“Here, let me show you the photo of the prostitute I bought!” said Andy, and he flipped ahead a couple of pages to a photo of a very young-looking version of himself, standing next to said prostitute. “Isn’t he cute?”
“Oh. Well, he looks very clean cut,” I said, unsure of the proper way of complimenting one’s choice of paid sex object. (And it’s true, he was very clean looking and Abercrombie-esque; I have a stock image of male prostitutes in my head, comprised of a scruffy, skinny ragamuffin in tattered denim and bleary eyes for some reason, someone that would fit in well on the cast of “Kids.” )
“Cute,” said Darlene, and then, instead of allowing me to return to the more intriguing adventures of Andy, drew me back into conversation. Seriously, I kept turning away to look at the photo album, and she wouldn’t stop. Finally I gave up, as there were no more forthcoming male prostitutes. Curious to know what a person who hates reading was doing in college, I asked what she was planning on doing with her degrees and she explained that she was ultimately doing this for her son: she wanted a job with better benefits, on the ground instead of the air, and without involving heavy lifting.
I do think it’s really admirable that she’s trying for tertiary education as an older, single mother. That’s great. I just don’t understand what she wants out of graduate school, and I don’t know if she’ll even make it into a school anywhere with her staunchly anti-intellectual, anti-reading attitude. Lately I have been rather disenchanted with academia and its inherent elitism, but felt myself forced to defend it last night. I’m usually the first to point out the fact that the way academia works in the States, people growing up in low-income neighborhoods don’t stand a chance, as outreach programs don’t start to begin until far too late to bring less fortunate kids up to the level of their trust-funded suburbian peers. I roll my eyes every now and then at the pedantic, intellectual bickering that often goes on among my friends, but last night I was really, really uncomfortable discussing academics with someone so strongly anti-intellectual. Not just non-intellectual, she hated everything associated with intellectualism. Can’t we talk about Project Runway, I wondered? (And how ridiculous was that episode, seriously, clothes to match your dog??)
Maybe it’s because I’m not forty two and a hotshot former flight attendant, but I don’t feel like I approach the world thinking I know everything already and I don’t need to “read a fucking book.” I love to read. Before my colossal burnout this year, I actually liked going to class and writing papers! If she isn’t getting anything out of her classes, why go? She expressed interest in teaching at a university level, because of the “benefits,” but she’s far too old (agist, I know) for any tenure track position, and frankly, I wouldn’t trust her to teach a kindergarten class. She’d probably eat them out of sheer anger.
Here’s my conclusion: school should just go back to being for nerds, the ones who truly love to learn whatever it is they are learning, be it literary criticism, theoretical physics or costume design. Those who don’t care and just want a job should go to trade school. That way, everyone is happy - everyone except Darlene, of course, who I’m positive would find something to complain about. Sheesh.