Revolution

Yes, I should probably be writing about the Peer Mentor Team, and the beginning of my third and final year as a PM. I'll get to that. Eventually. This weekend will be great because of the PM Meet and Greet, as well as the Bentley games on Saturday. But right now, I need to go off about this.

For those who don't know, there's this really cool program going on at Stonehill concerning Democratic Education. Which is, to make a half-semester's worth of seminars short, students taking control of their learning. I have the pleasure to teach a class in baseball statistics with seven other students who are just as passionate about the game as I am, and we test the conventions of the game from a statistical standpoint - something not often done in the game. What's interesting about this course is that as late as three weeks into this semester, I still felt as though I was running some sort of baseball club. But over the past month or so, it's become so much more than that, and that all took hold tonight in our seminar.

We discussed "critical thinking," and to what point thinking is actually critical. And we talked about what a liberal arts education meant; that is to say, the somewhat horizontal, broad-spectrum nature of a liberal arts education, as opposed to the vertical, specialized structure of a more specific training and education. Eventually, it turned into everyone taking turns about what bothered them, so here's what I have to say. I'll start with a question that I've been asking myself for three years now, which is "Why are we here?"

The answer I've always stuck with has been "to learn." We're at college to learn. What we learn about is obviously different for each student, major, discipline, and courseload. But what I'm actually starting to think about this semester is how we think about our learning. I get the sense that too many students show up to class, nod their head and smile at whatever the professor is saying, get the homework in on time, take their tests, and that's that. What the hell does that accomplish? You show up to class. Why? Because all throughout high school, we were made to go to class? Because someone told us we had to? Why do we nod our heads and smile at what the professor says. Is it because they're at the front of the room, and we're not? Is it because a piece of paper says that they're better at whatever subject it is than you are? Why do we do our homework on time? Because we'll be penalized if we don't? What happens if we need more than the allotted time to fully understand it? Why do we take tests? Namely, the SAT? How is a four-hour exam on a Saturday morning supposed to determine more than a body of four years of learning in high school? WHY ARE THESE THINGS IN PLACE? Everyone seems to adhere so stringently to the concept of getting good grades. What difference will it make between a B and B-, ten years down the line? Maybe this is out of a pent-up rage stemming from our seminar, but I think that we go to college, aim to have high grades, participate in resume-boosting activities, because that's what you do in college. I'm not telling you to sit in your room, eat chips, and watch movies all day. I'm not saying to put zero effort into your schoolwork. It's important, but it's important for reasons that you might not be thinking of. I wasn't thinking of these reasons until just recently, but now that I can see it happening right in front of me, I feel so passionately about this kind of thing.

Do what you love, and love what you do. Or some cliche like that. But seriously though, if you just care about a GPA or a grade or a degree, how far are you really getting yourself? Do something for its own sake. Do something because you feel strongly about it. Do something because you know you'll be putting a part of yourself into it. I'm not saying that this doesn't happen. Being part of this seminar of students who are taking control of their own learning has put some giant force within me that has made me feel so strongly about this. (You know, in case the giant blog post wasn't enough, I'll be explicit and say it point blank.) I just know that there's work to be done, and that I want to be one of those people leading the charge.

"I think revolution is always taking place, it's like evolution, baby...it's what gives me faith because you can't stop it, it's slow, it's painfully slow, but the revolution is definitely underway."
 -John Butler