Useless Knowledge

“Why we gotta learn this shit?”

            Her arms were folded across her chest, mostly covering the faded stains of her dress code compliant polo shirt.  It was obvious that it had seen hard use, and had been washed too many times.  The shirt matched the faded slacks, with frayed cuffs, a small hole at one knee and more stains here and there.

            Both contrasted sharply with the brand new sneakers, which clearly cost more than any I had ever purchased myself.  One had to have priorities, and the school clothes were only for school, and therefore did not warrant any special attention, but the shoes could be worn outside of school.

You know, in the real world.  With people.

“I ain’t never gon’ use this!  I ain’t being no actor!”  As always, the lines were delivered in a harsh, barking voice, and accompanied by her accustomed scowl and the jutting out of her bottom lip.  It was a bumper, that lip.  Like the extended bumpers you see on large trucks, jutting out to protect the vehicle from running into something.

“We’ve been through this before,” I said, calling her by her first name (as opposed to using her ‘government name,’ which would inevitably set off another argument.)  “I’m not going to get into an argument with you.  This is something that I feel you should learn.  You may not agree now, but one day it may come in handy, you never know.”

The speech never caused a sudden epiphany in students, granting them enlightenment about their future.  Usually they would just roll their eyes and write me off as another boring old person spouting off institutionalized bullshit.  But they would shut up for a while.

But not today.  Today she was having a bad day, and it had been determined that I would be the recipient of her wrath.

“You always say that.  We ain’t never gonna use that shit!”  She knew I would have to engage her if she cursed enough.  I would not be baited.

“Please watch your language.  And you can’t know what the future might bring.  My response was a huff of breath as she turned in her seat away from me.

‘One day you might use this information.’  Teachers had been giving out that same speech when I was in high school, and it hadn’t worked on me either.

But it had been true, nonetheless.  Every teacher who sighed and said this for the thousandth time had been telling the truth.  But I had not listened, and I still regret all the time I wasted, both theirs and mine.  And this lesson was important.  I was trying to teach a life skill (public speaking) that could absolutely help them in the future.  This skill could one day be the key to a better job, or mending a failing relationship, or keep a simple misunderstanding from escalating to violence.  I knew they needed this knowledge.   They could use this one day.

Now I was here, trying to make it make sense to them.  I knew what I was saying was true, but how to get them to understand? 

Continuing to use her first name, and speaking in the most calm, patient and caring voice, I faced her and politely asked her to simply take the assignment and allow me to teach the lesson.  I was ready to give up on her.  She had been obstinate all year, and fought me at every turn whenever I tried to teach her.  I was ready to invoke ‘please fail quietly’ protocols.

But I kept it together, because I was a professional.  This freshman would not force me to abandon that.  I handed her the sheet, which she looked at with that same scowl.

“This ain’t mean nothing in the real world.  Why we got to learn this…” she had lost much of her stridency, saying the words one more time, like a mantra.

I don’t know why that was what made me snap.

Despite all I had learned, I resolved to break the rules.  Ignoring all my teacher training (which I always did anyway,) and going against everything I had learned in all my years of teaching in the classroom, I was going to make a Hail Mary play on this kid.

I would tell her the truth.

“Listen kid,” I said through gritted teeth as I lowered my face next to hers.  From here I could see that she had not washed her face anytime recently, and I could smell the Cheetos that served as her lunch.

“You wanna know why kid?   Because people died for you to learn this.”

She all but cocked her head to the side like a confused dog.  I didn’t allow her to ask the wrong questions that she was preparing.

“in ancient times, education was not only a privilege of the rich, it was their secret weapon.  If you can deny the commoners the most basic education, you keep all knowledge to yourself.  You maintain a monopoly on learning, and only those in the club are allowed to unlock their potential.”

“Later, when the first schools and colleges were established, they were the one way common-born families could make a better life for their children, sending their sons off to learn the secrets of reading, writing, arithmetic, astronomy.  Armed with that kind of knowledge, they could become whatever they wished.  And the sons who did not receive that education?  They were fated to always work for those who did. “

“In America, we created a public school system to educate the sons and daughters of commoners, because in America, we were all commoners.  But even then, there were plenty of people who were deemed unworthy of learning what the wealthier citizens’ children did.”

“Wrong religion, wrong gender, wrong country of origin, wrong color of skin; any of these could mark someone as not good enough to get a quality education.  If you weren’t the right kind, you didn’t deserve to know things.”

“A lot of people had to fight long and hard, and faced hatred, bigotry, and violence to make our school system accept every student.  Many died in that fight, struggling for the rights of all the citizens, not just the few who could afford them.”

“They gave their lives for the future.  To say that we are not going to hold back information that could open doors of success for you.  That we are not going to skip subjects because we think you are not good enough to learn that, or that you will never need them because you will never have a chance to use them.”

“Because our mission is to give every single one of you every chance that the other kids have.  The wealthy, the privileged, the important; you will be given a chance to learn every single thing that they get to learn.  It’s all down to how hard you want to work.”

“So you want to know why I’m teaching you this shit?  Because you may not think that you need it, but I will NEVER let someone come in my class and say that one of my students doesn’t deserve to learn anything.”

“Not even you.”

“Now take out your pencil, shut up, and learn.”