After my school years were past me, I would, without fail have a dream round about the beginning of a semester that I was supposed to be in school. I had mislaid my schedule, I hadn't any books and I didn't know what buildings I had to be in or when. Somewhere around mid semester, I would have a similar dream, studying for midterms and realizing there was a whole class I hadn't been attending all semester long!
Even now, 15 full years since I matriculated, (a word I only know because I matriculated), the dreams haunt me. They do not fail to visit upon me a few moments of unease as I shake the cobwebs of sleep from my head in the morning and attempt to discern the vividness of reality from my very high definition deams. Then, my knees snap as I get out of bed and I get dizzy from stretching and have to fumble for my spectacles because I can't even turn off my alarm without them and I remember just how old I am.
I look back at my college years with a great deal of fondness. It isn't probably a fully deserved fondness. In fact, if I take a minute to reflect, there were a lot of dreadful things that I went through and would never want to go through again, given the choice. But time is like an oaken barrel aging clear spirits into mellow complexity. The very passage of time has allowed me to appreciate all those difficulties. After all, they are what makes me, me. One must endure much in the course of a life.
I am sure a week or two into college, some of my former high school students are realizing that all those movies they watched where regular attendance class is but a tertiary aspect of the characters' lives, mentioned only when absolutely necessary to move the plot, (whatever plot there may be). I found myself indignant when I went to college and received syllabi festooned with attendance policies. The nerve! Don't I pay your salary? I should dictate classroom policy to you, Professor!
In reality, those attendance policies kept me honest. They were there when I needed them as a young student working it all out while I went along. And they disappeared for the most part as I moved onward through my educational journey. It turns out, those English professors know more than English. They know you need their class to graduate and know you don't want to be there. Hence the policy. Although for me that's a bad example. I loved Freshman English. There was a girl named Alice...
But I digress. No, wait, I don't. The T/A was pretty, um, nice, too. I think we actually could have had something there. There was a glimmer.
Now I digress.
It's so easy in college to blow off a class. In some cases, (I imagine a very few), it is possible to only show up to take tests and hand in papers and pass with flying colors. But that really isn't the point, now, is it?
While it is true, we go to college to do more than learn from fancy books and professors whose jackets are rumpled with a pattern mysteriously matching the pleats on the seatbacks of their 12 year old Honda Civics and smelling a little too much like patchouli, a young student finds themselves in early peril if they don't respect the fact they are in school to learn. Not just go to class. Not just get an A. Not just make friends and party. Learn. I think learning requires all those things in a certain balance.
Perhaps this is why I still am haunted by the dreams. Maybe if I look closely, I have the dreams of being a derilict college bum when things are a little overwhelming in my life. Perhaps it is because I have recently blown off some projects or chores to relax or to just not do anything at all. It is the wakeup call, appealing to the conscientious student that lives within the world-weary man.
God, I can't even call myself a young man anymore, can I? I can't believe I am not 19 anymore. It hits me like a ton of bricks every time. Maybe that is the real reason my subconscious frames this particular message the way it does. It is really affective.
To "my" students who are now dipping their toes into the pool for the first time, I leave you with this- You don't have time to read this blog. You have 30 chapters in 4 classes due in a week and 6 papers about stuff that you only knew existed 10 days ago. All this math equals get to work.
Now, get to work. I promise you will not miss anything. I will do really boring blentries until Thanksgiving. You won't be tempted to check in, because it will be terribly disappointing.
Hang up now.
Good, they're gone. I have some really awesome stuff coming up in the next few weeks, now that those college kids won't be here. Stay tuned!
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