I have less than a month left of high school.
Last week was technically the last ‘normal’ week of classes before AP and state testing wreck havoc across the land. For me, it was the busiest week of my high school career. I had my final Model UN conference, which ended with a joke motion to “get rid of Ohio (via bulldozer boats)” (don’t ask). Guess I won’t be off to Kent State in August, for it had to be sacrificed to save America from the rapidly expanding, parasitic Buckeye State. On other days of the week, I found myself in parts of my school I had never seen in my entire four years of attendance there. The secret agent lurking inside of me adored that, though I still question why my school doesn’t use its perfectly preserved time capsule pool for more than the swim team and physics class boat races, or why I didn’t know they have a room full of iMacs.
All that aside, it gives me mixed emotions to know that the public school system I’ve been tethered to for the last twelve years will be soon be behind me.
It’s even odder placing my role as a freethinking high schooler in the context of our current culture. More and more attacks on critical thinking have been entering schools across the country thanks to concerned parents who would prefer their children remain ignorant to history and the world at large. Reading about book bans and threats towards teachers who teach the truth is disheartening and, frankly, terrifying. It’s a shame that we as humans, instead of encouraging nuance and intelligent analysis, have allowed for those actively promoting ignorance to have an increasingly large platform. Society is being rapidly dumbed down at the hands of these types, the ones who let their favorite political pundits and reality show stars—what’s the difference nowadays?—determine their every opinion instead of stopping to think about what they are consuming. They may be puppets, but they have power.
We live in a world of ever-increasing absurdity, plain and simple, and humans are basically just strange little animals trapped in an overcrowded cage. They do weird things and can seem very kind one moment and then be seen brutally mauling each other the next. Recognizing these truths is the only way to see the world for what it is. And when logical thought and critical thinking are placed at the forefront of this observation and emotions don’t blind us, work can be done and change can be made for the better—for all of us. When education devalues these qualities and promotes homogeny and close-mindedness in their place, you are learning nothing but a lie.
I’m genuinely grateful that I was able to receive a quality education throughout my high school career. And I’m miffed that the things that made those four years so valuable to me—the discussions I’ve had in my English and social studies classes, the documentaries I’ve watched and dissections I’ve done in anatomy class, the support I’ve received from my teachers—are being disparaged across the country. But then again, people still think that the Kent students protesting the Vietnam War on that crisp spring day in 1970—the anniversary of which is coming up rapidly—were the true agitators when the National Guard came to town. And that’s not stopping me any time soon.
As I enter the next phase of my life, I will continue to seek the truth.
