Educate this

There's plenty on Kevin's palette of thoughts tonight, believe me. Let's start with the heavy stuff: education. Life here at PLU is generally going really well — except for that PLU part. My thoughts have lately swerved drastically away from school and have turned inward to examine exactly what my place here actually is. Unfortunately right about now I don't have much of a clue as to my future. Between not understanding much of what goes on in optical mineralogy to being scared peeless by my strat/sed prof's talk about the GRE's and grad school, I have nothing but spite for my educational future. I blame nothing on my currents profs or even on PLU itself so much as I blame the education I've received since high school. Although the years before then were carefree and relatively directionless, high school should have been a time in my life when I should have been given opportunities that could lead me down a solid path into my future. But that didn't happen and still is not. Education should not be listening, taking notes, and reading textbooks in stuffy, windowless, fluorescent lighted rooms. It should be what I love most about school: field trips! Why field trips? Because they are simply the "hands-on" that school lacks in every subject. Not only would real experience help but teachers in general aren't jiving with the needs of students. Now I'm not saying that they're not doing their job but I am saying that their jobs should be different. Teachers should be actively involved within the subjects they teach (e.g. a poetry teacher that attends open-mic readings every Friday night or a geology prof that is actively researching). Now, I understand that this sometimes is the case but there is no evidence of it when considering high school or even college educators. There is no push for outside experience or influence in the classroom which, in the long run, is basically robbery on that institutions part. Taking money for and "education" that likely could mean beans in the world outside of that institution. Why do you think students change their majors on an average of multiple times during their college careers? Because they're confused and without specific direction. They're not comfortable enough with one subject to take it on outside of school. I guess my one wish is that there be a certain form of accountability made for the path of students. Not one individual (especially when they pay thousands of dollars a year to attend) should be left wondering "what the heck am I going to do when I graduate?"

This is Bash Education night here on Kevin's website and, believe me, it gets worse. My miffs aside, I am currently aware of two good friends that are (to put it lightly) being screwed over by profs and departments heads. Both situations present a disturbing picture in which a seeming mentor acts with total disrespect towards each student. In both cases the different faculty step outside of their educational bounds by showing, in person, total disregard for each student's emotions and concerns about their grades. Although I would stress this for students that don't get "good" grades, the students in question are both exemplary in both academic integrity and in personal and interpersonal worth. There should, in any university setting, be no excuse for an educator to take preference or to set aside personal emotions simply to follow certain protocols or rules. Give me a break! This is not a stricktly hush-hush government agency conducting top-secret research. It's PLU. In a small, expensive institution such as this there should be a great respect from the faculty towards every student who is accepted and attends class here. Never should their be a lack of heart or understanding when the education of an individual is at steak. Neither a communications prof that nary knows how to communicate nor a music department head should have the gall to lower the self-esteem of a student who, apparently, is acting in a positive manner to enhance their experience at school. There's on distinction that I think these types of educators are forgetting: we pay to be here, they get paid to be here. They are here for us.

I'm really sorry for all that but, believe me, that's just the tip of the asteroid. Now, on a lighter note...

I cut my hair. I mean really cut my hair. Tuesday night I was sitting around with Sarah and Kristin while we engaged in various conversations. Somehow the topic of my hair came up and my neighbor Eric brought over his electric clippers. Long story short, the hair on my head is now shorter than it's ever been. Sarah and I (and a sizable crowd of on-lookers) took to buzzing my thinning strands down to a respectable military length. It feels great and doesn't look too shabby. Guess the pressures of being a broke college student kicked in when the opportunity of a free cut came about.

Perhaps all the bantering about school can be attributed to end-of-semester stress and it'll all go away. If nothing else, Hawaii will be a welcome break. Me along with 16 other students, a prof and his wife are involved with a natural history class on Hawaii — in Hawaii. It's on my mind because we have a meeting about it tomorrow and it's really getting close to departure time. "Aloha" means "hello," "goodbye," and (for me this January) "I'm outta' here!"

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