A Question of "Education"

I think I spend most of my time in boxes. Unfortunately, most of those boxes are not boxes that I choose or have any control over. Most of my life is spent in other people's boxes. You may say, "Well, quit living up to other's expectations, do your own thing, break free, live a little." And you may be right in one way. But in another way the very people most likely to break out these sort of platitudes tend to be perpetuating the very boxes they tell me to break out of. After all, breaking out of a box because "that's what my generation does" is a box of it's own.

The Great Big Box that I struggle against is the box of "education." I use quotation marks around the word education because anyone who actually knows me knows that education is one thing I have in abundance. What, then, is the problem? My education is not one that is written down on a piece of paper. It isn't entered into a computer somewhere, or hanging on the wall of my office. It's not an education I acquired in a room full of people, or in a series of lectures. I am one of a growing group of self-educators.

There is a growing movement of self-educators in the U.S. that call themselves "unschoolers." This is partly to distance themselves from homeschoolers who basically just take a traditional school curriculum and schedule and apply it in the home. Unschoolers, unlike their structured counterpart, do not even tell their children what they need to learn or should be working on. They simply cultivate an environment that encourages and helps children to teach themselves anything and everything they are interested in learning.

While my homeschool experience was somewhere in between these two (I was the oldest of six and my parents didn't catch on to the unschooling thing until I had graduated), the unschooling principles are ideals that I had already begun to apply in my own life, most notably during my free time and over summer breaks. My Dad was always an avid reader, and he made available to us a wide variety of books, and over the summers my parents rewarded us for reading a large volume of classic and non-fiction books (at the end of the summer we'd get to go to a waterpark). Since I already loved to read this was not hard for me, and I find that now I still prefer to read classics and non-fiction over many other times of literature.

And, honestly, if one of the former president's of our country is looked up to for being so intelligent because he taught himself from books, it doesn't make sense that my experience should be discounted as learning because it is harder to measure or verify. But that is unfortunately the way things are for now. And this may sound ironic, but I find myself facing a pressure to give up my self-educating in favor of "higher-education" so that I can actually do something to change the system. Apparently you have to be well-versed in the system to have any say in how it's not working.

And I am really struggling with the idea of completing a course of "higher-education." On the one hand, I would love to finally get some recognition for what's inside of my cranium. On the other hand, it feels a little like selling out to get a degree just so people will listen to me. That doesn't mean it would be wrong, but I don't think it would be authentically me either. I would love to be able to meet people more intelligent than me, to pick their brains and debate things with them. It would be amazing to have conversations about things that matter most to me with people who know tons more than I do; imagine how much I could learn! But I freeze up every time I think about going back to college. I've attended three different colleges now, and every time I get burned out on our "education" system somewhere between the first and second semester.

Am I just spoiled by all of the years of enjoying self-education at my pace? Am I forgetting some key value to "higher-education" that would make it worthwhile to me? And the biggest question, one that has been haunting me continuously; do I really have to have a Ph.D. to change the world?

On the one hand, it is good for the someone to regulate certain spheres of education. I wouldn't want an uneducated doctor or nurse or dentist working on me. I'd move out if I found out the engineer of my building had no training. But do I really trust the work of an artist more if they have a BA? Do I find a writer's character's more believable because of their graduate degree? Are the arguments of a philosopher or theologian or social advocate more compelling because of their doctorate? Now, I'll admit sometimes detractors will try to tear down their opponent's credibility on the lack of these things, and that is something that I would have to fight against were I to try to change the world on the basis of my self-education.

But is it worth it? Is it worth it to fight these things for the right to be myself in the world? Is it really easier to sacrifice my sense of self simply to gain the recognition and respect of society? Can something potentially soul-killing be considered "easier" or safer? Where is the boundary between giving up your preferences and giving up your personhood?

Three Months In

I've been married for three months now (approaching four in just over a week) and it is weird how normal it feels to me already. Really, it felt normal within just a matter of weeks. I suppose when you date your spouse for five years before marrying that's to be expected. But what I'm still getting used to is our relationship, because I would say it's probably not typical for newlyweds (or married couples in general). But maybe there are more women out there like me than I think.

For one thing, I'm still getting used to the idea of being in charge. While I would much rather be the one in charge than the one not in charge, in a lot of ways I still sometimes struggle with the idea. I think in an ideal world I would rather the relationship be one of split-leadership, but between my spouse's personality and his upbringing it's just not happening right now. Which is fine, because it's still better for me, a feminist, than trying to be with someone who's personality and upbringing makes them a take-charge no-holds-barred leader.

I guess partly I'm afraid of turning into a nag, since that is often the stereotype used to demean women who have leadership in their relationship. And while I will grant you that nagging happens, I don't think it's fair to equate female leadership with a nag. But then, I'm particularly sensitive about that, since I was accused of being a nag as a teenager and have been trying to buck off that label ever since.

I think the biggest struggle for me is the fact that in public my leadership rarely is noticed or appreciated. In public questions are directed at my husband, he's usually the one with money on his card (I'm between jobs, and recently diagnosed PRP which is just so much fun), and his hobbies and interests connect him to more people than mine do (which means in most of the social situations we appear at, people assume he has somewhat of a position of leadership in our relationship). While this last one kind of makes sense to me, it still irks me sometimes that people assume that since I'm the female and he's the male I'm the passive and he's the dominant one. I'm the follower, he's the leader. I'm the hands, he's the head. Blech.

The other struggle for me has been the question of gratitude. I know, I know, always be grateful to and for your spouse. But as a female that has been socialized as an American woman, it's really tricky to navigate the waters of feminism and spousal gratitude. For instance, how many woman have you heard saying things like, "I was so grateful that he cooked dinner for me!" or "he was so sweet, he picked up the kids for me." And it's not just full-time housewives that are saying these things. I've heard them out of the mouths of working professionals. The struggle for me is that I don't want him to be getting the message, however subtle and underlying, that these things are "my jobs" and he's just "helping me out" once in a while or whenever he feels like it. These things are our responsibilities, and even if I am better at them, it's utterly ridiculous for me to be the one responsible for cooking or childcare or cleaning. What if, God forbid, something were to happen to one of us? The other needs to be able to take over anything and everything. To me, that is one flesh, when you both can at least competently handle any essential household task. There is no excuse for one of you being unable to pay bills, balance a checkbook, cook pasta, change a flat tire, or run a load of laundry.

And just so none of you think that I married someone who can't do these things, I didn't (not that dumb). But I still struggle with letting go sometimes, letting him do things that I can do better because a), I can't do everything, I'd get worn down, and b), he needs to be competent at everything, which means actually engaging in the chores with me (or instead of me). So (since I'm the leader for now) I try my best to delegate fairly, rotate chores between us, and remind myself that in a year it won't matter if the shirt was hung a different way than I hang it and it wrinkled. What matters is that we did it together, as a team. And that is what I need to remember to be a good leader; it's about making us the best, tightest, most cohesive, harmonious, loving team, a team where we can both fully express ourselves and our relationship to each other. A tall order, but one well worth pursuing.

The Challenge

Otherwise known as the beginning of the journey.

In one day my whole world turned upside down. Yeah, I thought it was a great beginning for a blog post too. But don't get me wrong, it wasn't in a bad way. Quite the contrary. I finally feel free to be as big, powerful, important, and useful as I want to be.

I have always wanted to be someone, but maybe not in quite the same way as other people want to be someone. That's why I never really thought I wanted to be someone. Because I didn't want the money, the success, the fame that many people around me did. I just wanted to make a difference, to change the things that break my heart, shock me, piss me off. But since I didn't think I could really do that on a very big scale, I discounted even that dream, that desire, that pulsing, breathing, living wish and hope inside of my chest. And, quite frankly, I thought nothing of it. I really believed that I couldn't make a difference unless I was like everyone else, and that was a compromise that I was and am unwilling to make.

Until finally someone looked me in the eye and said, "Why aren't you dreaming big? You need to have dreams." Ironic that someone had to tell me that since I am a self-professed idealist, a dreamer by definition. I have lived much of my life with my head in the clouds, my eyes in the stars, and yet when it came to my own life I was dreaming about as big as the little pond I was swimming in. Needless to say I was rather shocked by this realization.

So now I am on a path, a path with a definitive goal. My goal is, get ready for it...to find my goal. Okay, stop laughing now, I'm serious. I'm looking for a path or paths that incorporate my most treasured passions; equality (specifically women's rights and issues and homosexual marriage and rights), philosophy and spirituality, environmental concerns, and nonviolence (both on an individual and a worldwide scale).

So far I'm having trouble coming up with a way to synthesize all of these, so I may have to settle for activism in several different venues. But one intriguing possibility has presented itself; that of a pastor. It is a role that I have had a love-hate relationship with for a while, and one that if I did hold would be in such a non-traditional way as to leave many people in doubt that that's what I actually was anyway. For one thing, I do not mean a preacher. I mean a leader of a group of like-minded spiritual and altruistic people who leads them in acts of love towards each other and the larger world. I mean someone who donates food drives, clothing drives, counsels the sick and wounded, donates extravagantly, volunteers, cries and prays and laughs with people. It is a rather tempting possibility. I will certainly have to think about it.