Why am I here?

Why do I pursue an education?
Because it's fun?
Because I feel powerful and satisfied with myself?

An education will not be a right for very long I feel...
My learning feels urgent all of a sudden.
I need to pursue this schooling with a purpose. A global, needful purpose...
I don't know what's happening,
but anyone with eyes and a mind to make sense of what they see should know
that things are falling apart
and I'm going to need my wits about me
and some smarts under my belt.

School has become something bigger than a place to express my angst
and escape my ignorance.
It's becoming less and less about me
and more and more about who and what will need me.

The "Issue"

I've finally recognized my problem. A problem without a cure nor a calm, a self made, self loved problem.
I'm romantic.
I am so romantic, that I will invent reasons to swoon and love and cry.

Here's the thing.
How do I turn this thunderstorm of self made emotion into productivity and what medium do I move through.
It'd far more inspiring to be abandoned and heart broken than to be content and comfortable, I've learned that through much experience.
And some part of me has been bringing those feelings to the surface, I think for the reason of making me inspired.
Now what do I do with it?

This is almost as good as solar energy.
When a bout of depression washes over my grieving, lonely body I can mold a new world. I can build cities and tear down industry and invent life.
But this has to be channeled somehow or else I just end up bothering my boyfriend with all of this fantastical whim.

This also brings up the necessity of the man I'm with.
I don't enjoy the misery I invent,
but he seems almost a key instrument in this grievance.
It seems that I need a love or flame to be heartbroken and creative.
Thankfully I'm madly in love, disturbingly in love.
One of the many assets of being a romantic, I assume.
And that drives me to act (what most consider) insane.

But let's imagine a world in which I have a place or way of moving all of that woe into a creation. Would I then be crazy? Or inspired?
Is this what artists deal with?
I wish I had cultivated a talent, then it'd be excusable to act this way.
But maybe that's where I need to move.
Will these absurd emotions pull up some talent?
Or do I just have the misunderstood angst and none of the ability to use it?
Bah, what a womanly issue.

But of course, woman are pushed to act as "women" and feel and swoon and wear our hearts on our sleeves.
Until our emotions make them uncomfortable.
And then we are shunned.

C'est la vie.

Cake

Cake and sweets and sunsets and drugs,
all lose their flavor when savored alone.
My mom has a mug that says
"Friends are the marshmallows in the hot chocolate of life"
assuming life is still sweet
and chocolaty and warm
when you don't have friends.
They make it better,
but it's still pretty delicious besides.
Yeah.
Tell that to the girl with no roots,
no kindred spirits from the age of children.
She moved on, assumed a new person, took a new hair color,
at every new home.
And always had faces around
but never the confidant. Never the inseparable spirit.
Even funfetti is bland in an empty room.

Forgotten Mary

Mary Lambert is a beautiful woman.
Check out her material. She is a queen of song.

Bangs

A new attitude is in order.
Let's be bad-ass.
Let's not give a fuck about chipped nails or greasy hair.
I'm done worrying. It's ruining the good times I could be having.
I need to realize
-Time is short.
-Being sad about that makes it shorter.
-Enjoy it while it's here and in your bed and in the air.
We're going to hold onto the good times until our bones break.
Then we'll set 'em and seek new sunsets.
But "then" doesn't belong here now does it?

Lifestyle Changes

I have some ideas about education and as this thought process is rather novel to me, I want to flesh some ideas out and hear your feedback! I thought this would be fun and starting the dialogue on this sort of thing is the first step towards real change.

NOTE: My thoughts on this are relatively new. They won't be perfect and there will be flaws. I'm bringing it up so that I can get respectful and thoughtful feedback and build better, fresher, brighter ideas forward.

1. At age 5, (or however old a kid is in kindergarten) every child takes a class for a year designed to comprehensively assess an individual child's learning habits and the initial skills of each child as well as start their foundation for knowledge. I think this would need at least two teachers per class and would need a different kind of teacher training to accurately get a clear picture of how each child learns. After that, they would be placed in the class that reflects their learning capabilities. Some classes will be for the brilliant prodigy and they will probably have a faster track. Some will foster excellent learning habits and allow a child to flourish in a comfortable setting. The key is to figure out what each child needs and get them that. Not categorize and generalize our kids education based on something so flimsy as age. It would probably be ideal to have this class happen every two or three years with those special teachers so as to not trap a child to a single track based on how they behaved when they were 5...
2. Every class and grade should be made to push children harder and also build self-efficacy. We underestimate the capabilities of our youth and if we raise the standard of expectation, and convince them that they have the capabilities, I'm confident they will rise to meet it. They should also be encouraged to question what they're being taught and build critical thinking skills. How do you do that?
3. To answer that question: How do you build critical thinking and foster creativity in school? I think it's about what classes and opportunities are offered. I've been hearing stories from my peers about excellent teachers and excellent courses that set them on a track for success. I have my own story like that. But also, it's got to be what is available for the students. First, The Arts. Music, painting, theater, writing, drawing, sculpting, etc. are all crucial towards numerous things. Theater aided me wonderfully in engaging people and speaking publicly. Writing is obvious. Communication is so important and writing well enough to get your thoughts across and in understandable form is a key in communication. (Was that sentence a horrible example of communication? I think so...) Next, debates! The whole world of philosophy, debate, and logic have aided me so much in college! They sharpen your mind and inspire you to look around and ask "Why?" They inspire you to look at all of your other classes critically as well and when you come at a class like that, it engages you so much more and you learn infinitely better in my experience. Next, a heavy reading load. In my world, this is self-explanatory. Reading is of utmost importance. Reading anything and everything is crucial. Schools should definitely push their students to read all of the time. And when a child struggles, provide the teachers that would love to help a kid. We need to get reading skills down as soon as possible in our youth. It is just so unquestionably important. And the final one I thought of was language. In Europe, (I'm not saying Europeans are geniuses but this is a good policy) most children master a second language by the time they are out of middle school and begin to take on a third in high school. This puts American students way behind. Where I'm from, language classes aren't offered until high school. Learning about another language and all of its nuances aids a student in learning about their own language. Particularly Latin based or Germanic languages if English is your primary language. It would greatly increase understanding and communication between cultures as well. Does anyone else find it bizarre that we are engaged in a war with a group of people we cannot even speak to? That's alarming to me.
4. So that was a big topic. I'm sure there was more though because that was a big question. But what about teachers? They are the gatekeepers of education and guide our children through their most impressionable and vulnerable stages of life. I believe that they too need to be held to a higher standard. They are pushed to pass all of their kids so that their schools look good and are given such strict guidelines to meet a standardized expectation that is not molded to the children. This is a two part problem. 1) Teachers need a more rigorous and engaged method of working. There needs to be a better way to analyse the quality of a teacher and they need to be thoroughly trained to encourage their students and also push them forward. I'm not saying that this isn't happening now, but there needs to be a way to weed out the bad teachers because, yes, they exist and most are allowed to continue working because of seniority. 2) Teachers need the freedom to work with the needs of their students. Advanced children are bored in the class that caters to the ones falling behind and slower children are drowning when the class doesn't pause to help them. (This would be avoided if they weren't just classified by age as I mentioned earlier...) Teachers can't be tied down by standardized testing and given no way of molding their lesson plans to the individual set of students before them.
5. This is a lot. I'm going to leave that as it is. I would love some feedback, some criticism, and some new ideas. Let's get this thought process rolling!