I drove to my parents' house to celebrate Memorial Day with a pool party. In honor of fallen soldiers, we listened to loud music, some people drank beer, and my sister floated in the middle of the family pool with a cigarette dangling from her fingers.
"You ashing in the pool, Kate?"
"Sure. It's not going to hurt it!"
My parents' house is in a relatively rural area about an hour from the urban area where I live. As I drove from my place to theirs, I watched the landscape go from downtown to suburban shopping centers to scattered country businesses like gas stations and trailer retailers. Around the midpoint I saw a billboard advertising golf course houses for sale. My first response was to scoff slightly. I am not the kind for golf course living. I am the kind who associates herself with noble poverty. But then I had a thought. A week before, I'd spent some time on a golf course for a work function, and remembering the houses that backed up to the golf course, I thought, "What's so bad about golf course living, anyway?"
I didn't suddenly want to live on a golf course. I did, however, have a moment in which I understood just how much I defined myself as not being the kind of person who lives on a golf course. There's a difference between simply not being into golf course living or even just never considering it on any level and my mocking reaction. I thought about making a joke about the billboard to my companion, another individual probably even more defined by his anti-golf course nature than I. I didn't make the joke, however. In that state of mind, I recognized it as just making conversation by parading about our mutual disdain. Instead, I got to thinking about personalities.
While at my parents' house, an old family friend asked me about work. I'm extremely unhappy with my job. I said as much and asked if we could not talk about it anymore. Then she asked me about my "aspirations." I've never had much of a stomach for this requisite conversation, but I figured that at 31 I wouldn't have to have it anymore. People who aspire to live on a golf course also aspire to work hard at certain kinds of jobs to get there. As a lifestyle, it's the antithesis of freedom. People who live on golf courses shoulder all kinds of responsibility--mortgages, giant electric bills, home owners' association dues. This is why I'm ultimately not a golf course girl. I'm constantly trying to arrange my life in such a way as to have as much freedom as possible. Maybe that's why I feel the need to turn golf course living into a judgment call. Honestly, if someone wants to take on the burden of such a lifestyle, I'm sure it's got nothing to do with me. Perhaps I feel in some way like it's a spotlight on my desire to take on as little responsibility as possible.
As if that is a bad thing.
People who live on golf courses aren't a threat to my freedom. My freedom isn't a threat to their golf course lifestyle. We see ourselves at odds only because when one person sees another person living a different kind of life from the one that they themselves have chosen, it brings to mind several possibly uncomfortable questions. Questions about why we each want the things we want and whether or not we even really want those things. Maybe we want those other things. Maybe we don't. Maybe we don't know what we want, and maybe we need to be pro-this and anti-that to hide from that fact.
After all, it seems like there are a lot of up sides to golf course living. I'm just pretty sure I don't want to do the things I'd have to do to live there.
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Near and Far
The other day I ran into an acquaintance at the grocery store. We used to work together at a restaurant. Anyone who has ever worked in the service industry knows that working together in that environment makes for fast friendships. Waiters, waitresses and bar tenders are a motley bunch who share all of life's dirty details after a few short shifts together. Lifers learn to be reserved at some point, but they'll still get sloshed and spill their guts on some random evening when their guard is down.
This particular girl and I had little in common. She's a single mother, a regular church goer, and from a small town in Alabama. I'm not any of those things. I remember that she would make me Jack and Diet Cokes in to-go cups at 10 am on a Tuesday when making it through a shift seemed like death. After long Sundays of waiting on the brunch crowd, our group would gather like hurricane survivors in the bar next door. I've gotten drunk with this girl. Under such circumstances you're likely to share everything with a person.
She transferred to another store owned by the same company, and I hadn't seen her since until the other day.
She walked up to the Starbucks counter inside the grocery store where I was picking up some snacks for a work thing. I was surprised to see her. I'd heard she was moving back to Alabama. She said that she's leaving in 8 weeks. We chatted a bit about her. We chatted even less about me. I tend in those situations to give the stock response of, "Same old, same old," when asked what I've been up to. As we hugged to part company, I said, "Nice knowing you."
She said, "Nice knowing you, too."
It was so oddly perfect. So rarely do people feel that comfortable acknowledging exactly what they've been with each other. Neither of us tried to draw out the conversation out of guilt over neglected friendship. We both essentially said, "I'm never going to see you again." As I walked out of the store, I felt extremely touched by the simplicity of the whole thing. It is okay that this is impermanent. It is okay to admit that very little belongs to me.
I have recently been contemplating the importance of family. I don't want to have children, but I want relationships in my life that feel somewhat permanent and secure. It's odd because I've always been such a proponent of making sure everybody knows that security is an illusion, so when I finally admitted to myself that, yes, I want commitment, I had to carefully consider what that really means. It seemed silly in light of my general attitude. The conclusion that I came to was that it all still fit together. I can still acknowledge the true transient nature of life and seek some feeling of security while I'm alive. I was raised in a family--a family that is a family no matter what. I find it comforting that I know that we've all of us hated the others at some point but we never thought about not loving each other. I can honestly say that I've hated my mother more than an other person I've ever hated. But she was always my mother, and I always loved her. That commitment means I stayed until I didn't hate her at all anymore.
There is a depth to that kind of experience that rugged individualism just cannot accomplish.
Someone once told me about a man he knew whose wife had multiple sclerosis. He said that this man was one of the happiest men he'd ever met. He said he faced all manner of extra burdens simply because of all the things his wife couldn't do. And this man helped her, gladly. The person who told me this story said he could never do that.
I watched that same man care for his aging mother in the same way, though. He was doing it, too. He just thought that because he had moments of anger and frustration about his situation, it wasn't the same. He thought that diminished his love. We are none of us saints. It probably made his love that much deeper. And the man who took care of his ailing wife probably had the same moments. Nobody said this stuff would be easy all of the time. They only said it would be good. They only said it would be better than the alternative. We want people to be there when we need them. We have to be willing to be all that we would have them be for us.
It is important to know what we mean to each other. It is important that we mean something at all.
This particular girl and I had little in common. She's a single mother, a regular church goer, and from a small town in Alabama. I'm not any of those things. I remember that she would make me Jack and Diet Cokes in to-go cups at 10 am on a Tuesday when making it through a shift seemed like death. After long Sundays of waiting on the brunch crowd, our group would gather like hurricane survivors in the bar next door. I've gotten drunk with this girl. Under such circumstances you're likely to share everything with a person.
She transferred to another store owned by the same company, and I hadn't seen her since until the other day.
She walked up to the Starbucks counter inside the grocery store where I was picking up some snacks for a work thing. I was surprised to see her. I'd heard she was moving back to Alabama. She said that she's leaving in 8 weeks. We chatted a bit about her. We chatted even less about me. I tend in those situations to give the stock response of, "Same old, same old," when asked what I've been up to. As we hugged to part company, I said, "Nice knowing you."
She said, "Nice knowing you, too."
It was so oddly perfect. So rarely do people feel that comfortable acknowledging exactly what they've been with each other. Neither of us tried to draw out the conversation out of guilt over neglected friendship. We both essentially said, "I'm never going to see you again." As I walked out of the store, I felt extremely touched by the simplicity of the whole thing. It is okay that this is impermanent. It is okay to admit that very little belongs to me.
I have recently been contemplating the importance of family. I don't want to have children, but I want relationships in my life that feel somewhat permanent and secure. It's odd because I've always been such a proponent of making sure everybody knows that security is an illusion, so when I finally admitted to myself that, yes, I want commitment, I had to carefully consider what that really means. It seemed silly in light of my general attitude. The conclusion that I came to was that it all still fit together. I can still acknowledge the true transient nature of life and seek some feeling of security while I'm alive. I was raised in a family--a family that is a family no matter what. I find it comforting that I know that we've all of us hated the others at some point but we never thought about not loving each other. I can honestly say that I've hated my mother more than an other person I've ever hated. But she was always my mother, and I always loved her. That commitment means I stayed until I didn't hate her at all anymore.
There is a depth to that kind of experience that rugged individualism just cannot accomplish.
Someone once told me about a man he knew whose wife had multiple sclerosis. He said that this man was one of the happiest men he'd ever met. He said he faced all manner of extra burdens simply because of all the things his wife couldn't do. And this man helped her, gladly. The person who told me this story said he could never do that.
I watched that same man care for his aging mother in the same way, though. He was doing it, too. He just thought that because he had moments of anger and frustration about his situation, it wasn't the same. He thought that diminished his love. We are none of us saints. It probably made his love that much deeper. And the man who took care of his ailing wife probably had the same moments. Nobody said this stuff would be easy all of the time. They only said it would be good. They only said it would be better than the alternative. We want people to be there when we need them. We have to be willing to be all that we would have them be for us.
It is important to know what we mean to each other. It is important that we mean something at all.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
DEATH!
I'm driving along on the highway when suddenly I'm struck by visions of my own toes being bent so far back that they break. I'm sitting at my desk at work, and I see myself held hostage, being tortured in any number of gruesome ways. My fingers are being cut off with pruning shears. Or I imagine that I'm in a car accident, my body bent in a position that mangles me beyond recognition.
This is how it's been lately. These scenes come on from nowhere. My body will tense up and feel cold. All I can do is wait for them to pass. It would be easier if I could convince myself that these things aren't likely to happen today, if even at all. How many people ever find themselves kidnapped, tortured, murdered? The problem is that some people do find themselves kidnapped, tortured, murdered, and who among them ever thought it would happen to them? And the idea of my getting into a car wreck is even harder to escape. I believe in improbabilities, but I've always had a problem convincing myself of impossibility. A head full of this stuff is no way for anyone to go about their life, so I try to let those thoughts go.
The other day a friend and I were discussing our funerals. She asked me to read her blog at her funeral. I asked her to prat fall into my open casket, spilling my dead body out onto the church floor. As soon as I'd asked her to do that, it dawned on me that we will not both be able to attend the other's funeral. One of us will not be there to celebrate the other one. All of these things we take for granted. Some things I wish I could take for granted, at least for a little while.
I contemplate my death because something in me wants me to. I do not wallow in these visions, but they come. I touch them and let them go, but for a moment they are very real. I have dreams, too, during which I'm faced with very difficult choices. Last night I was faced with the decision to either kill my entire family or kill someone else very close to me. Moments before I woke up I was staring at the heavy gun in my hand, weighed down by the responsibility of a single decision that couldn't be avoided. What do dreams like this and my thoughts of death have in common? They've brought me into constant contact with the idea of living in the moment, the importance of choices, the meaning (or lackthereof) of everything I do. They force me to contemplate what I think of my own importance, my lack of importance, my impermanence, and how all those things fit together.
It's been said that you are the most important person who has ever lived, and five minutes after you're dead almost nothing you ever did will matter.
What I can say is that the visions have been awful and terrifying. They have also created in me a level of comfort that I haven't known before. Certain things used to cause untold pressure within me--what I might do for a living at any given moment, what I might or might not be accomplishing, what my life looked like compared to what I thought it should look like. These worries seem almost obsolete now. I still feel motivation, but it's coming from a completely different direction. I feel inspired now to make those decisions on a moment-by-moment basis. I feel that it's best if I allow myself to live spontaneously, in tune with the new information being handed to me on an almost constant basis. It feels good to not make any big plans. I plan to take a single step--I don't hold on to where I think that step should take me six months from now. And living that way used to make me worry I was flaky or irresponsible, but I don't feel that way, either. I suppose this is freedom. I almost do not want it.
I can also say that it makes a lot of things seem weird that never seemed all that weird before. Like billboards.
This is how it's been lately. These scenes come on from nowhere. My body will tense up and feel cold. All I can do is wait for them to pass. It would be easier if I could convince myself that these things aren't likely to happen today, if even at all. How many people ever find themselves kidnapped, tortured, murdered? The problem is that some people do find themselves kidnapped, tortured, murdered, and who among them ever thought it would happen to them? And the idea of my getting into a car wreck is even harder to escape. I believe in improbabilities, but I've always had a problem convincing myself of impossibility. A head full of this stuff is no way for anyone to go about their life, so I try to let those thoughts go.
The other day a friend and I were discussing our funerals. She asked me to read her blog at her funeral. I asked her to prat fall into my open casket, spilling my dead body out onto the church floor. As soon as I'd asked her to do that, it dawned on me that we will not both be able to attend the other's funeral. One of us will not be there to celebrate the other one. All of these things we take for granted. Some things I wish I could take for granted, at least for a little while.
I contemplate my death because something in me wants me to. I do not wallow in these visions, but they come. I touch them and let them go, but for a moment they are very real. I have dreams, too, during which I'm faced with very difficult choices. Last night I was faced with the decision to either kill my entire family or kill someone else very close to me. Moments before I woke up I was staring at the heavy gun in my hand, weighed down by the responsibility of a single decision that couldn't be avoided. What do dreams like this and my thoughts of death have in common? They've brought me into constant contact with the idea of living in the moment, the importance of choices, the meaning (or lackthereof) of everything I do. They force me to contemplate what I think of my own importance, my lack of importance, my impermanence, and how all those things fit together.
It's been said that you are the most important person who has ever lived, and five minutes after you're dead almost nothing you ever did will matter.
What I can say is that the visions have been awful and terrifying. They have also created in me a level of comfort that I haven't known before. Certain things used to cause untold pressure within me--what I might do for a living at any given moment, what I might or might not be accomplishing, what my life looked like compared to what I thought it should look like. These worries seem almost obsolete now. I still feel motivation, but it's coming from a completely different direction. I feel inspired now to make those decisions on a moment-by-moment basis. I feel that it's best if I allow myself to live spontaneously, in tune with the new information being handed to me on an almost constant basis. It feels good to not make any big plans. I plan to take a single step--I don't hold on to where I think that step should take me six months from now. And living that way used to make me worry I was flaky or irresponsible, but I don't feel that way, either. I suppose this is freedom. I almost do not want it.
I can also say that it makes a lot of things seem weird that never seemed all that weird before. Like billboards.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
The Oldest
I remember the oddest things.
Small things, things hardly worth remembering.
It was picture day in elementary school, maybe 4th grade. My parents were out of town, and my grandmother was staying with us. She was a take-charge kind of woman. That's almost all I remember about her. I also remember that she made the girls take naps well past nap-taking age while the boys got to stay up and watch television with her. She was raised at a different time in the small-town south, I suppose. It always made me angry on principle, and I would spend the entire nap time coming up with elaborate schemes to escape as if it were Vietnam.
It was picture day, and my parents were out of town. My grandmother gave me the order forms and the money. I set out for school. When I arrived, I learned that it was not, in fact, picture day. We'd been confused about the dates. I freaked out. I was convinced that I would get in trouble if I returned home with the money and the order forms. I suppose I thought I would be blamed in some way. I think I thought I'd be accused of being wrong--that she would think it was, in fact, picture day and I'd simply screwed up. That was me at that age, constantly worried that I was messing everything up and would eventually be caught, even in situations where there were no mistakes to be made. I've always been what they call "hypervigilant."
I panicked and threw the money in the trash at lunch.
What I don't remember is how I got out of that. I just have this memory of me walking toward the trash can, determined yet full of self-doubt. As far as I could tell in that moment, it was my only option.
I have always, always, always believed that if I can't be perfect I will die.
Small things, things hardly worth remembering.
It was picture day in elementary school, maybe 4th grade. My parents were out of town, and my grandmother was staying with us. She was a take-charge kind of woman. That's almost all I remember about her. I also remember that she made the girls take naps well past nap-taking age while the boys got to stay up and watch television with her. She was raised at a different time in the small-town south, I suppose. It always made me angry on principle, and I would spend the entire nap time coming up with elaborate schemes to escape as if it were Vietnam.
It was picture day, and my parents were out of town. My grandmother gave me the order forms and the money. I set out for school. When I arrived, I learned that it was not, in fact, picture day. We'd been confused about the dates. I freaked out. I was convinced that I would get in trouble if I returned home with the money and the order forms. I suppose I thought I would be blamed in some way. I think I thought I'd be accused of being wrong--that she would think it was, in fact, picture day and I'd simply screwed up. That was me at that age, constantly worried that I was messing everything up and would eventually be caught, even in situations where there were no mistakes to be made. I've always been what they call "hypervigilant."
I panicked and threw the money in the trash at lunch.
What I don't remember is how I got out of that. I just have this memory of me walking toward the trash can, determined yet full of self-doubt. As far as I could tell in that moment, it was my only option.
I have always, always, always believed that if I can't be perfect I will die.
Friday, May 7, 2010
Safety First
Never write a poem in pen--
you can't erase it, the shavings
of rubber rubbing away
your mistake. Like a half-done
flubbed crossword, your thoughts
will be permanently bared and
mocked by those who know
better than to even begin.
It's like dancing in the middle
of the street naked, dangerous
for others will gather
on the sidewalks and point.
"What madness!" they'll shout,
fingers coming for you from
every angle. No, don't write
naked poems in pen with
cross words while dancing.
You'll die.
you can't erase it, the shavings
of rubber rubbing away
your mistake. Like a half-done
flubbed crossword, your thoughts
will be permanently bared and
mocked by those who know
better than to even begin.
It's like dancing in the middle
of the street naked, dangerous
for others will gather
on the sidewalks and point.
"What madness!" they'll shout,
fingers coming for you from
every angle. No, don't write
naked poems in pen with
cross words while dancing.
You'll die.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
When is a raven like a writing desk?
Friday night, my friend Matt and I were perusing the furniture at West Elm. I happened upon a desk that I loved and, tah-dah, it was on sale! Only $200! This seemed like a pretty fantastic price for a desk that bordered on perfection, especially since I'd been doing some shopping online and found not a single desk I liked at such a decent price. I couldn't buy it at the moment--I had no way to transport it home. But I left the store feeling elated and excited at the prospect of a new, fabulous desk.
About one minute after leaving the store, I felt sad.
I told Matt that buying any item that costs more than about $20 often makes me feel sad. I still felt elated and excited about the desk, but those very emotions were already stirring within me feelings of hopelessness, disappointment and depression. Buying stuff--especially really awesome and amazing stuff that I love--often brings me in close contact with the temporal nature of the physical world. I start thinking about all the awesome and amazing stuff I've purchased in the past and how I either neglected it, broke it, lost it, or loaned it out to never see it again. Next thing you know I'm contemplating my own death and the mound of stuff I will inevitably leave behind.
I don't think I'm going to go back and get the desk.
Stuff generally depresses me. People have commented that I rarely buy stuff for myself, and my response is that this is because stuff stresses me out. I once read something by C.S. Lewis that said we should not say we "love" stuff like pens or computers or shower curtains. He said that it demeans love. We like those things. We love living beings--people, animals. He didn't have to tell me twice. Any time I've become convinced that I love an object, I know what's coming. I'm going to feel some level of indescribable loss. I'm not going to really be able to pinpoint why it is that I feel this loss in that moment. I'll think I should be happy. I'll think, "I love this thing, and I have it. Why am I not happy?" I will not be happy because, ultimately, what is an object but a momentary stimulant? I can love a person even when that person is not with me. I can love a person even when that person has let me down. I cannot love a desk I've owned for six months even if it is sitting right in front of me. I'll enter the room and leave the room and I won't even notice the desk I once fingered with joy a week into its first arrival in my house.
Then I will hate myself for being an ungrateful bitch.
But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I love the desk even more when it's just part of my daily experience, a beautiful object that has become entertwined with my life to the point that we're being together. Maybe I love the desk even more when it's not just an object to admire but instead becomes an active object, an object that exists with its own purpose, does it's own thing. Maybe really loving something only begins when all that infatuation with it ends.
A woman I used to know used to say that she would always leave people after she'd done her three songs and dances. Once she'd run out of her three songs and dances, she figured they wouldn't find her interesting anymore, and if they didn't find her interesting, they wouldn't love her.
Maybe I should go back and get the desk.
About one minute after leaving the store, I felt sad.
I told Matt that buying any item that costs more than about $20 often makes me feel sad. I still felt elated and excited about the desk, but those very emotions were already stirring within me feelings of hopelessness, disappointment and depression. Buying stuff--especially really awesome and amazing stuff that I love--often brings me in close contact with the temporal nature of the physical world. I start thinking about all the awesome and amazing stuff I've purchased in the past and how I either neglected it, broke it, lost it, or loaned it out to never see it again. Next thing you know I'm contemplating my own death and the mound of stuff I will inevitably leave behind.
I don't think I'm going to go back and get the desk.
Stuff generally depresses me. People have commented that I rarely buy stuff for myself, and my response is that this is because stuff stresses me out. I once read something by C.S. Lewis that said we should not say we "love" stuff like pens or computers or shower curtains. He said that it demeans love. We like those things. We love living beings--people, animals. He didn't have to tell me twice. Any time I've become convinced that I love an object, I know what's coming. I'm going to feel some level of indescribable loss. I'm not going to really be able to pinpoint why it is that I feel this loss in that moment. I'll think I should be happy. I'll think, "I love this thing, and I have it. Why am I not happy?" I will not be happy because, ultimately, what is an object but a momentary stimulant? I can love a person even when that person is not with me. I can love a person even when that person has let me down. I cannot love a desk I've owned for six months even if it is sitting right in front of me. I'll enter the room and leave the room and I won't even notice the desk I once fingered with joy a week into its first arrival in my house.
Then I will hate myself for being an ungrateful bitch.
But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I love the desk even more when it's just part of my daily experience, a beautiful object that has become entertwined with my life to the point that we're being together. Maybe I love the desk even more when it's not just an object to admire but instead becomes an active object, an object that exists with its own purpose, does it's own thing. Maybe really loving something only begins when all that infatuation with it ends.
A woman I used to know used to say that she would always leave people after she'd done her three songs and dances. Once she'd run out of her three songs and dances, she figured they wouldn't find her interesting anymore, and if they didn't find her interesting, they wouldn't love her.
Maybe I should go back and get the desk.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Man vs. The Machine
I just read this article about education reform at Reason.com. If you're not going to read it yourself, let me share the gist: our attempts at education reform (higher public school spending, vouchers, charter schools, magnets, etc.) have not lead to increased overall performance.
But this is America! We practically INVENTED progress! How could it be that we cannot come up with a workable solution that will make all of our kids test-acers and over-achievers! This just isn't possible! Everyone should be SMART, and everyone should be smart IN THE SAME WAY! That's how you build a nation of successful people!
My basic argument is that the fact that we even see this as a problem is a sign of our real problem. Modern thinking is that people should be like robots, and there is only one right worldview on what it means to be "successful." When I initially started thinking about why the idea that there has to be some way to turn us all into standardized test-acers rubs me wrong, my own argument made me sound like an elitist asshole who believes in a free market aristocracy. Nothing could be further from the truth. While I think it's true that some people are just naturally better at certain things than others and there's really no hope for changing this by influential degrees either way, that argument reads a lot different than it's meant. Why? Because I think that the real problem isn't that people are different and there's not a lot we can do about that. The real problem is that we live in a society that sees these differences as weaknesses.
Case in point: me. I'm bad at math. I'm unbelievably bad at math. My boyfriend will write down a list of amounts of money that I owe him for bills, and I'll add them up. Then, when I show him the piece of paper upon which lies my sum, he'll look at me bewildered and say, "Where did you get THAT number?" I'll be $30 for no reason. It's addition. People who are not tall enough to ride carnival rides can do it with no effort. I spent the greater part of my work day today (7 hours) trying to add numbers and coming up with a different sum every single time I added them. I consider the parabola my arch enemy. (Get it? Parabola? Arch? It's a math joke, so I could be off.) When I was in school, I had to rely on the kindness of teachers who were very understanding of my difficulties and liked me enough to let me retake the tests over and over until I at least passed. They knew I wasn't going to be building an entire life around this stuff. It wasn't like my poor math skills were going to be a danger to anyone. One teacher even told me when I was retaking an Algebra test for the third time that Einstein failed Algebra.
I'm pretty sure this is the only reason Algebra didn't lead to my committing suicide.
No amount of "good teaching" will ever change my math deficiency. I don't even really consider it a deficiency. It's just the way I am. I am a non-linear thinker. I look at most things from every angle. In math, there's one right way to do things. There's a point A and a point B, and you're supposed to go straight from one to the other. My mind cannot handle this. I think it's a dumb way to do things. I believe ANYTHING is possible. It's easy to see why this doesn't reconcile with the way addition works. Reconcile! Addition! I could make puns all night. You could send me to a charter school, give me a voucher, throw money at my education from all sides, and still I'd be horrible at math. My head is still in shock from today's 7 hour add-a-thon.
But when I was in college, the teacher once came to the answer 1066 for an equation. He asked, "And what happened in 1066?" I was the only one who raised my hand. "The Norman invasion!" I'm not completely useless after all.
I believe in the idea of multiple intelligences. Different people have different intelligences. Looking at this list, I'd say I'm verbally and existentially intelligent. In other words, that's how I see the world, therefore making it my strength. It's not good or bad--it just is what it is. "Gardner's theory argues that intelligence, particularly as it is traditionally defined, does not sufficiently encompass the wide variety of abilities humans display." When you standardize learning and what are considered successful outcomes for that learning, you ignore the way the natural world really works. We do this in the name of supposed progress, but what would cause far more progress would be to be open to the idea that everyone has strengths, and they're different for a reason. Nurture each child's strengths. That's what will really change the American educational system for the better.
This issue is extremely nuanced. There isn't just the problem of intelligences. There's the issue of temperament. A person could be very intelligent in some way but also have a very sensitive disposition, causing him or her to experience stress to such a degree that he or she cannot work as much for the same length of time as people with a higher tolerance to stress, for example. And there are environmental factors at play. Do the child's parents talk to him or her on a regular basis? Does he or she live in a poor neighborhood or an affluent one? And why is there such a disparity in what people are paid for different types of work? There is an idea in this country that intelligence is good, therefore "mentally taxing" jobs often pay much higher than physically taxing ones. But why should this be so? I would argue that it's just the idea we latched onto at some point long ago. It's arbitrary, really, what we value in this case. All of these factors and more are the reasons that I cannot wrap my mind around how we could possibly believe that there even could be one standard for measuring educational and, ultimately, life success, let alone why there should be one.
If there's one thing I've noticed through the course of my life, it's that whenever a single standard is set, things become hopelessly inefficient and unnecessarily hard. A lot of time goes into trying to herd people to the standard, and this is inefficient and hard because many people rightfully can't or don't want to go there. In all actuality, I don't see "low test scores" as a problem at all. People fail at things. People do well at other things--many of which aren't even considered part of the standard because our society has lost all respect for that which does not make you money. Are you a good friend? Who cares? The robot has love for no one. He can work and produce ad infinitum, making things and more things without analyzing this action. There is an idea that the robot is a perfect being.
But people are not robots, and I can't imagine why we'd want to be.
But this is America! We practically INVENTED progress! How could it be that we cannot come up with a workable solution that will make all of our kids test-acers and over-achievers! This just isn't possible! Everyone should be SMART, and everyone should be smart IN THE SAME WAY! That's how you build a nation of successful people!
My basic argument is that the fact that we even see this as a problem is a sign of our real problem. Modern thinking is that people should be like robots, and there is only one right worldview on what it means to be "successful." When I initially started thinking about why the idea that there has to be some way to turn us all into standardized test-acers rubs me wrong, my own argument made me sound like an elitist asshole who believes in a free market aristocracy. Nothing could be further from the truth. While I think it's true that some people are just naturally better at certain things than others and there's really no hope for changing this by influential degrees either way, that argument reads a lot different than it's meant. Why? Because I think that the real problem isn't that people are different and there's not a lot we can do about that. The real problem is that we live in a society that sees these differences as weaknesses.
Case in point: me. I'm bad at math. I'm unbelievably bad at math. My boyfriend will write down a list of amounts of money that I owe him for bills, and I'll add them up. Then, when I show him the piece of paper upon which lies my sum, he'll look at me bewildered and say, "Where did you get THAT number?" I'll be $30 for no reason. It's addition. People who are not tall enough to ride carnival rides can do it with no effort. I spent the greater part of my work day today (7 hours) trying to add numbers and coming up with a different sum every single time I added them. I consider the parabola my arch enemy. (Get it? Parabola? Arch? It's a math joke, so I could be off.) When I was in school, I had to rely on the kindness of teachers who were very understanding of my difficulties and liked me enough to let me retake the tests over and over until I at least passed. They knew I wasn't going to be building an entire life around this stuff. It wasn't like my poor math skills were going to be a danger to anyone. One teacher even told me when I was retaking an Algebra test for the third time that Einstein failed Algebra.
I'm pretty sure this is the only reason Algebra didn't lead to my committing suicide.
No amount of "good teaching" will ever change my math deficiency. I don't even really consider it a deficiency. It's just the way I am. I am a non-linear thinker. I look at most things from every angle. In math, there's one right way to do things. There's a point A and a point B, and you're supposed to go straight from one to the other. My mind cannot handle this. I think it's a dumb way to do things. I believe ANYTHING is possible. It's easy to see why this doesn't reconcile with the way addition works. Reconcile! Addition! I could make puns all night. You could send me to a charter school, give me a voucher, throw money at my education from all sides, and still I'd be horrible at math. My head is still in shock from today's 7 hour add-a-thon.
But when I was in college, the teacher once came to the answer 1066 for an equation. He asked, "And what happened in 1066?" I was the only one who raised my hand. "The Norman invasion!" I'm not completely useless after all.
I believe in the idea of multiple intelligences. Different people have different intelligences. Looking at this list, I'd say I'm verbally and existentially intelligent. In other words, that's how I see the world, therefore making it my strength. It's not good or bad--it just is what it is. "Gardner's theory argues that intelligence, particularly as it is traditionally defined, does not sufficiently encompass the wide variety of abilities humans display." When you standardize learning and what are considered successful outcomes for that learning, you ignore the way the natural world really works. We do this in the name of supposed progress, but what would cause far more progress would be to be open to the idea that everyone has strengths, and they're different for a reason. Nurture each child's strengths. That's what will really change the American educational system for the better.
This issue is extremely nuanced. There isn't just the problem of intelligences. There's the issue of temperament. A person could be very intelligent in some way but also have a very sensitive disposition, causing him or her to experience stress to such a degree that he or she cannot work as much for the same length of time as people with a higher tolerance to stress, for example. And there are environmental factors at play. Do the child's parents talk to him or her on a regular basis? Does he or she live in a poor neighborhood or an affluent one? And why is there such a disparity in what people are paid for different types of work? There is an idea in this country that intelligence is good, therefore "mentally taxing" jobs often pay much higher than physically taxing ones. But why should this be so? I would argue that it's just the idea we latched onto at some point long ago. It's arbitrary, really, what we value in this case. All of these factors and more are the reasons that I cannot wrap my mind around how we could possibly believe that there even could be one standard for measuring educational and, ultimately, life success, let alone why there should be one.
If there's one thing I've noticed through the course of my life, it's that whenever a single standard is set, things become hopelessly inefficient and unnecessarily hard. A lot of time goes into trying to herd people to the standard, and this is inefficient and hard because many people rightfully can't or don't want to go there. In all actuality, I don't see "low test scores" as a problem at all. People fail at things. People do well at other things--many of which aren't even considered part of the standard because our society has lost all respect for that which does not make you money. Are you a good friend? Who cares? The robot has love for no one. He can work and produce ad infinitum, making things and more things without analyzing this action. There is an idea that the robot is a perfect being.
But people are not robots, and I can't imagine why we'd want to be.
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