Marge is one of the brightest souls I know. She lights up every stage she has ever set foot on. She can memorize lines in seconds flat and pull you into a story like nothing I’ve ever seen. She is hilarious, stubborn, and eccentric. One time she wore her dance uniform to school simply because she liked the way she looked in it. When Marge is passionate about something she gives it everything she has and she excels beyond what is necessary to be the best she can be.
You know what Marge is not passionate about? Math. She hates math and you know what? So do I. I am horrible at math and I avoid it whenever possible. Neither of our brains work that way.
But you know who loves math? My cousin Madi. She finds math relaxing and takes any advanced classes she can. Her brain recognizes the beauty in the formulas in a way that Marge and I never could. But you know what Madi doesn’t really enjoy? Performing.
Here is where I’m going to stop and say something many of you are going to hate to hear. Academically, the last three years of my high school education were unnecessary for my life. You want to know why? Because almost all of my classes in high school were geared towards making sure I passed a single standardized test.
Before you write me off, hear me out. The information taught in high school is important – for some of us. However for me, as a writer, it is not important that I memorize the entire periodic table. Likewise, it is not important for a scientist to spend their summer reading The Canterbury Tales.
It would be awesome if, as a writer, I knew about the periodic table. And it would be equally cool if a scientist knew the ins-and-outs of The Canterbury Tales. But you know what is not cool? It’s not cool for scientists to spend just as much time studying something they will only use as a hobby as they do studying for their actual job.
Here’s the problem: we tried to create a standardized system. In this ideal system, the kids learn from a plethora of different subjects, pass a standardized test, and then go off to college and use that knowledge to then decide what they are passionate about and focus in on that subject.
Not all of that is bad. Educational exposure is never a bad thing. It allows us to expand our minds and understand others’ perspectives. But that is not what the educational system is doing. The educational system is shoving constant information down children’s throats at an overwhelming speed and hoping they can keep it down long enough to make it to the ACT, where they will then cough it all up and never swallow it again. And when children can’t seem to cough up everything that has ever been shoved down their throat in one sitting, like Marge has trouble doing, their hopes of moving on to an education that focuses in on their vocation are dashed.
Modern education has made children passionless. Not because we are feeding different types of information to our children but because we are forcing all types information on our children long after it is necessary.
It’s like if you took your child to buy new shoes. Let’s say your kid’s foot has grown a lot and you don’t know which size is right for them. So you let them try on a plethora of different shoes, and that’s awesome, and then your child finds a shoe that fits. But instead of buying the shoe that fits your child, you sit there and make them try on more shoes in different sizes. Why would you do that? Why would you waste your time when you know where your child is going to end up?
Not every child knows exactly what they want to do when they grow up but everyone is good at something. Once these kids find what they are good at we need help them focus in on that and slow down on everything else. That doesn’t mean they never have the option to learn about other subjects. It does mean that they are given the opportunity to really hone their craft and become a master at what they are passionate about.
You know how this can be done? Apprenticeships. What happened to those? What happened to taking the passion of young people and showing them how to put it to use for the good of our community? Humans were not made to sit and be talked at for eight hours a day. Humans were made to create. We were made in the image of God, the creator of the universe! The Bible directly talks about this in 1 Corinthians 12 when it talks about our spiritual gifts. We are all given different gifts by God and if we put those aside to live up to a ‘standard’ the body of Christ will fail.
1 Corinthians 12:17-20 says,
“If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.”
I think we, as Christians, tend to think of education as something separate from our religion. If we aren’t called to be missionaries or ministers then our vocational lives don’t mesh with our spiritual lives. But that is just not true. Our vocations are such an important part of our ministry to others. Not only does it place us in the world where we can witness to those around us but it allows us to take the gifts that God has given to each of us individually and use those gifts to glorify him in the most magnificent ways! The draw of apprenticeships is that it allows children to explore the practicality of their passion and start using it right off the bat. They explore the gift God has given them to a maximum level. Instead, children are just waiting for the day they are set free from standard schooling so they can begin to fully explore the gifts they have been given.
I have heard that one of the reasons there is such a push for standardized public education is that it is meant to keep kids off the streets for most of the day. Some have said it is a way to keep an eye on children and keep them out of trouble. Is boring our children for eight hours straight really the best option to keep them out of trouble? The children that do well in this system are the children who decide to just make it through until they get to study what they love. But there are many, many children who cannot see the big picture. The standard education is the way we are introducing our children to our world and all they see is a world devoid of passion and joy. A world where knowing a little about something you hate is more important than being a master at something you love. This causes them to give up and that puts them on a couch or the streets or in jail.
Apprenticeships allow our children to see exactly what they need to become functional members of the body. They give children a purpose and a job. This would keeps kids off the streets and probably help our economy in the end. By allowing children to be apprentices, they are given exposure to the practicality of their passion. This allows them to then decide what is worth exploring outside their passion and that creates humans who really understand the things they learned about instead of humans who can regurgitate facts but cannot put them into practice.
Elementary school is a great time to learn the basics that every functional human needs to know. However, once a child moves to middle school or high school, there should be no more standardizing. There should be a system in place to help children find their God-given gifts and then there should be classes and apprenticeships to help them hone that ability to become functional adult members of society. Then, just like many of us choose to go to college, a child can choose to further educate themselves on outside subjects as they see fit. It also makes it easier for a child to figure out whether a vocation is right for them because they are put right in the middle of the vocation in action.
Earlier, I said that my last three years of high school were a waste and I really believe that is true. There was definitely useful information I learned in those three years, but it was information that could have been condensed to fit into my basic, elementary school education. I hate math so much, that I desperately wanted to get it out of the way. So in middle school, I worked ahead and started taking high school level math classes so I would not have to spend every year of high school in math. Yet, my senior year, I had to take an extra credit of math because the state required that children must be in a math class every year of high school. So I ended up taking more classes on the subject I hated most than the subject I wanted to make my vocation – all because of standardization. So much of my time and energy in high school was focused on subjects I have not touched since and there are so many things I could have done in those years, with that time, to better my writing.
Today, I watch my sister struggle to find passion about education – even in her desired vocation – because all she has known is an educational system that looks at her and tells her she doesn’t fit the standard. If the standard doesn’t include people like my bright-shining Marge, then I want no part of the standard. It is wrong and it needs to change.