The bigger questions

Because of a slightly rash decision, I find myself spending my spring break in the great state of Pennsylvania. After a trying couple of weeks, I went online and bought myself a ticket back to college during one of my prep periods. So far the trip has been wonderful. To begin with, this is the first time I have been back since graduation so I am experiencing the slightly strange but overall positive feeling that this is not where my life is anymore. I like reminiscing, but I feel very proud and satisfied with the extent that I've moved on to a new part of life and left college behind. In addition to these personal revelations, I have had time this week to sit down with a few of the professors and administrators who were really influential last year. As always, these conversations have been enjoyable and challenging. A few of them have definitely given me different ideas to chew on as I head back to the classroom next week.

One of the first professors that I emailed after I booked my ticket was one of my econ professors. She is a young woman who I took a handful of classes from and worked for a number of semesters. She is of course intelligent and very passionate about issues of gender and non-mainstream measures of economic wealth such as human development and distribution of resources in the developing world. After going through a little bit of "catch up," she had a number of more serious questions for me. Why are all Dickinson students just focused on career? Do you think that's a representative statement? Why do we not have more students who are socially conscious and truly academically motivated?

As we began talking about careerism and the many different things that motivate students - then the effect these motivating factors have on a student's education - one thing became clear very quickly. This professor, who teaches at a very selective, private liberal arts college, has the same frustrations and concerns about her students' motives as I do teaching in a low-income, failing high school! How can this be possible?

There are very few actual similarities between the students that this woman has and the students that I have. Her students feel that education is important... some of mine don't. Her students have basic skills that allow them to explore different topics on more advanced levels... mine are still working on the beginning steps of that process. Because the students and the areas we teach in are so different, I look at the two of us. Is there something that we have in common that may cause our perceptions to be so similar? Yes, we are two intelligent people who have chosen to enter the field of education because we feel passionately about it. This passion must mean that we have higher expectations of what true education should actually look like. Neither of us feel that our expectations are being met though - leading me to the question, are our expectations reasonable? Is it fair to want all students to fall in love with the process of educating themselves as opposed to being focused on what they're going to get out of it? Even if an answer could be found for that question... would it ever be possible to separate the "ideal educational system" from the demands of the economy? Is education doomed to become simply a form of job training or... even worse... has it already become that??

I feel very strongly that education should be an ends in itself, but this belief is and should be challenged as I look around and see that I am clearly in the minority. I suppose right now I have other things to keep busy worrying about... lesson planning, covering standards, end of the year projects... but I'd like to remember a number of these underlying questions while going about the everyday work. I came out here in an effort to find explanations and solutions for many of these "big questions" that I stumbled on during my studies last year. It helps to be reminded of these in order to keep everything else in perspective.