“Learning” is definitely something I have taken for granted for most of my life. For the most part, I dreaded school throughout the years, and frankly saw it as a monotonous, compulsory imposition. This sounds awful to admit, but I am simply being honest. This is especially true for my younger years of school. My dad still jokes about my first day of kindergarten- I went in SO excited for school and came home crying about the fact that this would be the next 12+ years of my life. I wasn’t particularly enthused by the thought of sitting in a classroom for 6 hours a day regurgitating information that I found to be pointless. I frankly found more joy in playing outside and being adventurous, or hanging out with friends, or staring at a wall (alright, that’s a joke, but honestly I liked just about anything more than I liked school, and I think most kids from the socioeconomic status that I can speak for, felt the same). Despite my lack of enthusiasm for school, I have always been a “good” student. My teachers always accoladed me for my performance, and I essentially always ‘excelled’ in school. This achievement was never because I enjoyed school itself, or found school particularly easy, but more because I have always held myself to a standard of perfection and I accommodated my performance in school to fit such.

I think a lot of the reason I grew to dislike school was because of the nature of the institution itself. I mean, it essentially banishes creativity (see ted-talk on this, it’s fabulous!), focusing solely on students’ abilities to obtain, memorize, and regurgitate facts from a lecture or textbook. This is increasingly true in the later years of public education, when much of schooling is based upon the (dreaded) reading of textbooks. When the time came that textbooks became, well, just text, and the relative amount of pictures dwindled to mere nothingness, well, that was just a real bummer for me! I suppose I just found the school system frustrating. I wasn’t interested in just jumbling off a bunch of facts that I certainly wouldn’t remember a week, or even a day after a test. As much as teachers wanted to expand our vocabularies through weekly memorization of words, I simply aced these tests by memorizing these words with mnemonic devices rather than actually committing them to long term memory (as did just about every other student, because we don’t expand our vocabulary by memorizing lists of words.) Ask me if I could recall any of these words to date, because I cannot.

With the exception of some phenomenal teachers (I had quite a few in high school, and have even more now that I am in college), most teachers followed what I found to be the boring and dread-worthy prescription that was school- and when I could find a way to get out of going to school, you bet I would jump on that opportunity faster than I could blink. I suppose I cannot entirely blame the institution of school itself, or even the teachers that did surrender to following it’s mundane patterns. I have to take culpability for the fact that I truly did not ever understand or fully embrace the power, or more importantly the luxury that is education and knowledge. I now realize how fortunate I am to live in a country that makes education compulsory. It is truly a privilege and a blessing, one that many people around the world are forced to envy. Despite the fact that I still believe the school system (referring to grades K through 12 in America) is indeed boring and far too systematic in many ways, I did have a handful of amazing teachers that defied that status quo of school’s monotony, and built the foundation for my newfound love of knowledge. These teachers that I have in mind, I have always appreciated, but I have an even greater appreciation for them today. I now realize what an incredible impact they have had on not only me, but every student that has walked through their classroom doors (and I hope these teachers get a chance to read this, because they deserve the utmost appreciation).

It has honestly taken me until college to truly appreciate the power, gift, privilege, concept, and the utter beauty of knowledge. This is quite possibly because now my education is a choice, but I wouldn’t be in this position had it not been a requirement for all those years earlier. Now I look back and appreciate to SO much, especially the few teachers that were able to make it enjoyable! Now stimulating the brain has become one of the most enriching and empowering experiences in my life, and quite honestly it has become purely addictive because it is endless! We can never stop learning, because we can never know everything- that is SO WILD when you really wrap your brain around it. It is amazing to expand the mind with things that I simply did not know before. It is enriching, it is empowering, it is confidence boosting, and it gives myself a new sense of concept.  I have taken to appreciate it so much more on my own time this summer- from learning about people and how they manage their emotions and thoughts, to watching documentaries and reading books and articles about every subject imaginable. I have challenged myself to think in a way that spans beyond just looking at facts, but to think in ways as to form opinions, and to problem solve, and to challenge conventionality. I have been making a much stronger effort to keep up with current events, and attempt to further educate myself on any convoluted, complicated subjects that I haven’t taken the time to understand before. Learning once seemed so restrictive to me, but I now see it’s endless potential for all possibilities, and as the undeniable key to changing this world.

I have “nerded out” a lot this summer, trying to learn new things. I have compiled a list from various friends and family members of non-fiction books and documentaries that I should watch, and I am trying to chip away at them for the rest of the summer (and during the school year, when I have time). I have just recently grasped the fact that this is also probably a huge contribution to my recent burst of happiness that I wrote about in another blog post. Knowledge is an incredible thing, it really is. If anyone has any suggestions of books, websites, blogs, articles, documentaries, magazines or anything I should check out that will teach me something, PLEASE let me know! And while you’re at it, pick up a book and learn something new today- you will thank me later 😉

Keep Smiling,

Jenna