Edumacation

I just came back from London Kennedy's site where her latest article talks about seeing Jon Bon Jovi on Regis and Kelly-- the second and more gruesome incarnation of Regis and Kathie Lee. Anyway, Bon Jovi makes the comment that he never had to go to college because he was already making money at twenty. London's point was that the reason to go to school was not to make money but for the joy of education, and someone left a comment that he knew too many stupid people who had gone to school to equate schooling with education. That if she had been a rock star at twenty she might be saying the same thing. I think that's what he said, at least.

Well, I've got to weigh in. Firstly, Bon Jovi: what were you doing at EIGHTEEN because that's usually when people start school. Secondly, in South Bend, Indiana there are several people who say the same thing Bon Jovi did. They all work at Target, Dollar Tree or the neighborhood Ponderosa. Some of them, however, don't make bad money, and yes, some people with little education don't do bad in the work sector at all. I have to add that, living down the street from a somewhat major university, I've noticed that students are getting stupider and stupider.

What to make of this? There seems to be, in America at least, some confusion over the purpose of education. In the last fifty years higher education has become the property of the masses and not the elite: good, yes, but this has had a cheapening effect on people's views of education. Only the elite and the elite minded (I don't mean wealthy people, necessarily: caste and wealth are not the same thing) look on education as education for education's sake. For the rest of society college has become a sort of glorified tech school. You do your time to get the degree to make the money.

As someone who graduated with a bachelors in English and entered a monastery out of college and then, upon leaving, lived in seclusion before applying to graduate schools, I am well aware of the fact that the more education you have perhaps the less fit you are for making money in society. I am currently qualified to be a writer and poet (which I am), a coffee barrista at Starbucks (which I will never be) and good conversation (which I always am.)

So London is right. Education will more than likely not make you rich, and those who get rich without it will never quite understand the value of school. Education is there for the joy of it if you are willing to take joy in it. And if you delve into you will be the most adored person at the party. I promise! Everyone will laugh at your jokes and say, who's that witty guy, whose the clever girl? They'll want to know where you went to school, they'll want to know all about your exotic past. They'll want to know where you got that lovely blouse, those tasteful shoes.

And you will reply:

At the Salvation Army