The Irony of Learning

Earlier this week, I began taking my first classes (Journalism and Editing) after 3 years of graduating with my Master's degree in Higher Education Administration. In light of the past two years of unemployment; specifically the opportunities I had to volunteer for an assortment of causes, teaching ESL, beginning a novice side hobby as a music journalist and script editor for theater, as well as a brief stint as a U.S. Census enumerator, and currently waiting for responses from the 5 Ph.D. programs I had applied to, I have this thought which I posted on FB. My limitation to this thought is that I am assuming "school" is defined by traditional buildings and places where you pay tuition, buy books, sit down, and listen to an "expert." But, the irony is there for you to think and ponder.

the irony, school is to prepare you for life, but it also takes you away from it... Are temporal moments of intense discipline and social institutionalization the appropriate means of learning? Specific subject matters yes, but what is seriously lacking is learning how to integrate this knowledge in a pluralist society... there, I said it!

My conclusion is, there are different types of schooling that occur outside of societal-christened classrooms that are not embraced or recognized as valid. What is scary is that our society emphasizes discipline-based learning with little attention paid to interdisciplinary thinking and integrated application of disciplines relative to other forms of knowledge and communities' cognition. It reminds me of somewhere I worked that preached such aspirations, but held onto hierarchal and traditional forms of leadership, communication, and organizational structure. I ended up getting laid off from this org. ha!

We have a long way to go.