High on Education
Mama goes to school!
Crocs everywhere. Fingers aggressively texting. No eye-contact. Where am I?
My car brakes screech to a halting stop. I can’t find a parking spot so I remove an orange cone when no one’s looking. I’m bad to the bone, baby! The inherent disobedience that comes with Round 2 is surfacing. I take a deep breath. I’ve arrived. Somehow, my juris doctorate degree does not keep my anxiety at bay. Another deep breath.
Arriving 1 hour and 9 minutes early, I find the door to English Lit 101. I’m not alone. An early bird, Katie, is sitting there. “Hi Missssss, are you the substitute teacher?” she asks. My oversized roller bag and mom visor apparently aren’t Generation Z trends.
In the first week, I am paired up with Brian and Katie for a group presentation. Katie speaks out of turn, leans over for sporadic high fives that are out of place, and cracks unrelated and untimely jokes understood only by her. Brian has frosted the tips of his dark hair bleach blonde and is wearing a gold rapper’s chain necklace with a bible trinket hanging down. He hardly says a word.
On the day of our group presentation, Katie comes down with laryngitis. Suddenly, to communicate with us she takes out a sharpie and starts to write on herself. First using her left arm, moving to her right arm, and eventually working her way down to her thighs without any reservation. I hand her a piece of paper. She refuses to use it.
After spending hours together, I am surprised they never ask about my age or what I’m doing here. Like a zebra in a fishbowl, I maintain my status as the anomaly of the classroom. In fact, I start to relish it. The secrecy is fun. There’s a freedom in surrendering to peoples’ self-created narratives. I let the storylines float until one fine day, the gunner of the class works up the nerve to ask. I confess. The secret is out. I’m getting high…on education.
The cost of excellent education is…
$3.48 per hour. That’s right! A full semester for each registered class costs $223.00. For 64 hours of lectures, I had front row seats to an educational rock concert. The performer … an overqualified and overly dedicated PhD professor.
What I learned is…
That academia, when used purely for personal development, is like a grenade. It obliterates pieces of our lives that don’t truly belong to us. The promise land isn’t a diploma. It’s the key to your own ecstasy.