Can you hear me, or is my sound just off?
Do they choose not to take heed, or am I just not speaking loud
enough? Is this message overlooked because it did not come with a
bird attached in its thought? Or in the form of a glorious book?
They didn’t find this message burning in a bush, scripture,
or novel, neither did it come in a bottle.
This message is not a product of thousands petitioning, neither
did a million men march until their feet were blistering, nor did
it spurt forth from the mouth of a corpse. Cause when we was
young we was told the revolution would not be televised, so we
had to improvise, so we put that shít on the net and watch it get
digitalised.
Right now, there is a kid finishing parents' evening in a
heated discussion with his mother, saying, why does he have to
study subjects he will never ever use in his life?
And she will look at him blanked eyed, stifle a sigh, think for a
second, and then lie. She’ll say something along the lines
of: “You know to get a good job you need a good degree, and
these subjects will help you get a degree, we never had this
opportunity when I was younger".
And he will reply: “But you were young a long time ago,
weren’t you mum?”
And she won’t respond, although what he implies makes
perfect sense, that societies needs would have changed since he
was 16. But she will ignore him, grip his hand more sternly, then
drag him to the car. What she doesn’t know, is that she
didn’t ignore him, just to shut him up. She didn’t
lie because they are just returning him from parents' evening
and an argument in the hallway would look bad on her resume. She
won’t lie because she had just spent the last one hour
convincing a stern faced teacher that she would ensure that her
child studies more at home. No! She will lie, simply, because
she, does not know any better herself. Although her whole adult
life, she has never used or applied Pythagoras' theorem,
pathetic fallacy, and still does not know the value of
“X”.
She will rely on society to tell her that her child, who has one
of the sharpest mind in the school, is hyperactive, unfocused,
easily distracted, and wayward.
Students!
How many equations, subjects and dates did you memorize, just
before an exam, never to use again? How many “A”
grades did you get, which were never asked for when you applied
for a job? How many times have you remembered something, 5
minutes just after the teacher said “Stop writing”,
only to receive your results one month later to realize that you
were only 1 mark short of the top grade? Does that mean
remembering 5 minutes earlier, would’ve made you more
qualified for a particular job? Well on an application form it
would’ve.
We all have different abilities, thought processes, experiences,
and genes, so why is a class full of individuals, tested by the
same means? So that means Cherrelle thinks she’s dumb,
because she couldn’t do a couple sums.
And if this issue is not addressed properly it then becomes a
self-fulfilling prophecy.
Then every school has the audacity to have a policy on equality.
Huh, the irony!
Exams are society’s methods of telling you what
you’re worth, but you can’t let society tell you what
you are cause this is the same society that tells you that
abórtion is wrong, but then looks down on
teenage parents!
The same society that sells products to promote natural hair,
looks, and smooth complexion, with the model on the box, half
photoshopped, and has fake lashes and hair extensions.
With pastors that preach charity, but own private jets.
Imams that preach against greed, but are all fat.
Parents that say they want “educated kids”, but
constantly marvel at how rich Richard Branson is.
Governments that preach peace, but endorse war. That say they
believe so much in the importance of higher education and further
learning -- Then why increase tuition fees every single year?
I believed Miss Jefferson, when she took me into the office and
said that my exams would be imperative to my success because we
were taught to always follow when Miss Jefferson led. Then I took
Jefferson out of the equation and learned to think for myself. I
realized we were taught to always follow when Mis-Led.
Huh, the irony!
Test us with tests, but the finals are never final because they
never prepare us for the biggest test which is survival! And what
I suggest is fairly outlandish, so I don’t expect everyone
to understand this except for the kids who know what it feels
like to be worth no more than that D or that A that you get on
results day.
And the ones whose best stories were never good enough for your
English teacher because apparently you missed out, key literal
techniques, did not follow the class plan, and the language was
too “informal” for him to understand. But then
he’d reference Hamlet and Macbeth, and you’d fight
the urge to express your contempt by partially clenching your
fist with only your medius finger left protruding in the middle
of your hand and asking if he was aware that Shakespeare was
known as the innovator of slang.
Or the kid at the back of the class, who thinks: “Why am I
studying something that doesn’t fuel my drive?” But
then, when confronted with a maths problem, his eyes come
alive.
So this one is for my generation: the ones who found what they
were looking for on Google, the ones who followed their dreams on
Twitter, pictured their future on Instagram, accepted destiny on
Facebook. This one’s for my “failures” and
“dropouts”, for my unemployed graduates, my shop
assistants, cleaners and cashiers with bigger dreams, my
self-employed entrepreneurs, my world-changers and my
dream-chasers!
Cause the purpose of “Why I hate school, but love
education” was not to initiate a worldwide debate, but to
let them know that whether 72 or 88, 44 or 68, we will not, let
exam results, decide our fate.
