WHY I LOVE EDUCATION

I have loved education since I was an elementary school student in California (Orange and Costa Mesa), in Colorado (Denver), and in Oklahoma (Afton and Big Cabin). The schools were vastly different except in one important way- all of them had the same mission to educate their students in the basics of reading, writing, mathematics, and the other disciplines of learning. At least with me the schools were successful and I want to thank all my elementary and secondary teachers for their dedication and hard work.

Moving 18 times before graduating high school seemed to make me a perpetual new kid on the block. Elementary schools became my safe spaces where I could make friends with other kids and with my teachers. My teachers were firm, fair, and friendly. When I got out of line, I would receive the appropriate discipline. When I needed help, I received extra encouragement and the assistance I needed. When I went above and beyond, I received praise.

I had my first girlfriend while attending Edison Elementary in Denver. Jackie Edwards was cute and talkative. We held hands in the hallways and visited each other’s homes. At Edison I also was in a school play as Silverheels, the dance hall girl. No, I was not traumatized with gender confusion as a result of my acting!

I found middle school a slightly different experience. The teachers were ready to teach and to assist with my learning. But there were more of them so with 7 or 8 classes I had 7 or 8 teachers. Everything began to change faster now and I often was bewildered by events. The middle school I attended in Anaheim California was huge and due to the short time I was a student there, I made only one friend before we permanently moved back to Oklahoma. She was cute and just as bewildered as I was about life. I do not remember her name but I do pray for her. The only class I remember while there was drafting. I could work with my hands and think while I completed my assignments.

The high school in Afton Oklahoma was small and the one in Big Cabin where I attended for only a semester was even smaller with no football team! Only my American history class stands out at Afton. I designed my own college prep track, played football as a substitute lineman, and began to attend church for the first time, although not a Christian. The draw I had to the now-closed Afton Methodist Church was the youth group that met in the church basement on Sunday evenings. Our leader was Rosemary Maloney, an outgoing fun-loving woman who had an attractive daughter named Marti who is a year or so younger than me. I remain friends with them to this day along with Barbara Eubanks and Candy Fuser, two other classmates. I graduated with honors and went off to the University of Oklahoma in Norman.

In other essays I have already detailed my positive experiences in Norman- becoming a Christian, marrying my college girlfriend, and receiving a superb education. So I will take another look at my high school experiences. If an alien arrived on our planet within the last few decades and it began reading books and watching movies in which the protagonists are coming of age in high school the alien would be left with an impression that high school was a prison which scarred those persons for life. Along with everything else in life, each person’s high school experience will contain the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Coupled with high school teenagers also face changing bodies (with raging hormones!), a heightened independence from parents, and growing expectations in mature behavior from family, friends, and community. But beware- the growth in expecting maturity has slowed over the decades. I recall one of my college professors commenting on this topic by comparing the movies “Rebel Without A Cause” (1950s) to “Easy Rider” (1960s). I will leave it to my readers to discern the details of my professor’s commentary.

My education post-bachelor’s degree have been a mixed bag of presentations with fairly good results regardless of mode- classroom on campus, classroom by extension, or long-distance via computer, or personal. I remember when one of my seminary professors noting that I had received a master’s degree from Boston University asked me how I liked the city of Boston. When I replied that I had never been to Boston his facial expression was one of surprise. Perhaps he thought BU had become an instruction by correspondence school or even worse, I had received a worthless graduate degree from an unaccredited degree mill pretending to be BU! He looked relieved when I told him that I studied with BU faculty in Germany while stationed there with the US Army.

A word about personal learning is appropriate here.  In a previous essay I wrote about the difference between a schooler and a learner. A schooler is a person who prefers formal education with classrooms and degrees while a learner can learn anywhere at any time. You would be correct to surmise that I am a learner. Writing on a blog, completing two personal learning projects, taking college courses without credit, attending seminary without credit as a post-doctoral fellow, and writing and self-publishing two books (and working on a third) are examples of informal learning in which I have engaged. And despite the many books on the subject of planning, I learned more about planning while engaged in that activity while a soldier assigned to battalion headquarters than anywhere else.

In summary, I love education because I learned and continue to learn much through the process, schools were safe places for me throughout my childhood and youth, and schools provided the social context where I learned to become a decent human being. And all my teachers, instructors, and professors were knowledgeable in the subjects they taught and were strong in their pedagogical practices so they did not have to choose between being either a “sage on the stage or guide on the side” nonsense progressive educators like to advocate for.