Miguel
Navarro
8-7-2013
English 7
McFarland
Last Essay
Nothing in life teaches you
better than failure. It takes several falls before you get to where you want to
be. The key is how you respond to failure. You either get up and try again or,
stay down. One of my football coaches once told me, "Life is 10% of what
happens to you and 90% of how you respond." My coach was absolutely right.
It matters more how you respond to what happens then what actually happens.
After suffering a severe traumatic brain injury I could have stayed down like
any rational person would do after losing all fine motor skills and going
through hemi-paresis. I could have listened to all my therapists and doctors
and decided that school would be impossible and I would have fail and drop out.
However, I learned that nothing is more powerful than a man's ambition to prove
everyone wrong. The fact that they had a priest read me my last rights suggests
that they assumed I would die but I lived. Physical therapists told me that
people who suffered what I had suffered never learned to walk again but, not
only did I learn to walk again, I ran. Doctors recommended that I should not go
back to college because it would be extremely frustrating and difficult for me.
I enrolled anyways and after my first semester at Chabot Community College I
received a 4.0 grade point average, despite going to class in a wheelchair. Our
educational system should not punish failure so harshly. Failure is life’s best
teacher. Failure is the seed of passion and success.
“Into The
Wild” by John Krakauer is a tale of a young man by the name of Christopher
McCandless. After graduating from Emory University, Christopher decides to
erase any trace from his current life and tries to start a whole new different
kind of life. He burned any and all types of identification he has had, and he
donated 25,000 dollars of his savings to charity and abandons his car to go
live off the land. He hunts and gathers
his own food and hitches rides from people. He had his mind set on making it to
Alaska where his adventure comes to an end with his untimely death. Christopher is not so much remembered for
what he did but more for the reason why he did it. He was disgusted by his parent’s expectations
and societies expectations. He was a young
man who sought out adventure. Adventure
and freedom was his passion and where he found his ultimate bliss.
Education
is the foundation for any society. Without education a nation is without a
future and will never reach any progress.
The current state of our public educational system is quite
mediocre. There is a lot of ways we can
improve it. Jeff Bliss and Andrade talk
about how our public education is failing us right now. The Lasers video also makes some good points
on how our education can be confusing.
Why our education is failing us is another important question that the
Laser video, Andrade, and Jeff Bliss address.
Our education basically prepares us for what we want to do with our
lives. Therefore, our education should
stimulate our passions. Currently our educational system is not doing a very
good job of stimulating our passions.
Should our public educational system stimulate what we are passionate
about? What would be some benefits of
that? I will also discuss possible ways
we can improve our public education.
Andrade, the Passion Project and the Lasers video come up with good
ideas on how to improve our public educational system.
The
current state of our public educational system leaves me wanting more. There is a lot of ways we can improve our
education. I believe that no school in
America should be like the schools that Andrade talks about in his video. The kids who go to school in conflicted areas of Oakland were able to
accomplish so much with assistance that most of us already receive and take for
granted. Andrade displays the homicide map of Oakland with the title of it
being "The Plague." It really has become a sort of epidemic. Like a
plague it spreads and kills off the weak. Violence, drug usage, and school drop
out rates are quite remarkable and, I find Andrade's work very needed and
endearing. But hopefully with the few roses Andrade has created those roses
will help Andrade with his work, because like he said, "A rose that grew
in the concrete creates rose gardens." I find that quote very powerful
and, it makes me wonder if all people are willing to help like that. What I am
really asking is does it really take someone to go through the same struggle to
feel empathy for someone going through that struggle? Or can we feel empathy
without having to go through the same experiences? We need to work more with conflicted schools
like the schools in East Oakland.
Jeff Bliss is obviously
not happy with the current state of our education. He demands change from his teacher. It is people like Jeff that cause a lot of
attention and get people to notice problems. I can relate this guy to civil
rights movement leaders but more relevant to our class I will relate him to
Christopher McCandless. Jeff like McCandless actually was brave enough to act
out on what he truly felt passionate about and stood up and acted on what he
believes in. I did some research on Google and Jeff is now actually talking to
school boards on ways to improve things. It is simply remarkable how one out burst
can lead to further things. If he never stood up for what he believed in then
no change would have ever been initiated. Everything would have remained
stagnant and we would be living with our problems content. Christopher
McCandless did not live his life content with the way things were. McCandless
says in his letter to Ron,"[so] many people live within unhappy
circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation
because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and
conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality
nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure
future."(57) It is this attitude that caused Jeff and other activists to
stand up and actually initiate change. In order to initiate change you have to
take risks and break from the rest of the conformist flock and you have to do
something different that will get noticed. Those in charge will not like it
when you get noticed because they know their time of power is coming to an end.
Another thing my girlfriend and I
talked about after watching Andrade’s video several times was the role of
government in education. High school educators are not completely at fault for
providing a lousy or irrelevant education. For example, the result of the test
scores determines how much a school gets funded; therefore it makes educators
make the tests their top priority. The different educational standards that our
government gives our schools make it very difficult for teachers to teach
anything else that is not related to the standardized tests. That makes our
education dry and emotionless. Instead of teaching things we could apply in
life they teach us what will be on the test.
Our education is
failing us. It is failing us because of
many reasons. The first reason why it is
failing us is because the way government set up funding for schools. I think our government should reform how they
distribute educational funding. It is really unfair how they divide up the money.
I volunteer for reading partners, which is a non-profit organization that works
with title 1 schools to bridge the learning gap for kids who have literacy
problems. What a title 1 school is basically a school in a low-income community
that is not funded enough because it is in a low-income community. The reason
why these schools are not being funded enough is because since the schools are
in a low-income community the residents of that community do not pay the same
amount of taxes as a community like Piedmont which is a community that
generally has a high income. I find that disgustingly unfair and unjust.
Education in America should be an equal opportunity for everyone regardless of
income not a wealthy man’s privilege.
I also think that
schools are failing us because they punish failure too harshly. After watching the Passion Project video, the
class got in groups to discuss what we felt about the video. In my group we discussed about the pressure
society instills in us to be a certain way. Someone said he never felt
like anyone told him to be a certain way but we discussed the cliché of doing
things that our parents and society favors. Along with that, we also
compared ourselves from high school to now. We realized we have grown and
matured significantly. We used to be disruptive in class, telling jokes
and getting in trouble but now, we are eager to learn and take our education
seriously now. I believe age is just a number. Maturity does not derive from
the number of years you have lived. Maturity derives from the experiences you
have lived. Maturity comes from the falls and the failures that you have over
come. With maturity we have a better understanding of our passions and the importance
of our education. That is why we have grown so much after high school. In high
school we were sheltered and protected. There was less chance of falling in
high school. Now that we are in college we have had more chances of falling and
learning from our failures. I think schools
should be deigned to not punish failure so harshly. Failure can be the greatest form of
learning.
Finally I believe schools are
failing us because we were raised to not question authority. We were taught to shut up and listen. If students were not so afraid to question
authority, they would finally have the guts to question our education. That alone is such a bold and unruly question
that student's will actually start to think a lot deeper than they already are.
It will open their eyes and they will see what it is that they want from their
education. We have been raised to not question certain things that control us.
For example, we do not question government, laws, religion, and our educational
system. Questioning our educational system is one of those things that society consider
taboo if we go against it. If society questions and decides to go against it
then we can bring about change that will better everyone and future generations
to come.
I also believe that
students should be asked to question education from the start. Our schools and
school faculty serve the students. So therefore the students should have a
bigger say on how they want their education to be given to them. Jeff Bliss
stated in his video that, "if you want a kid to change and do better, you
got to touch his fricken heart.” So if Jeff Bliss is right, then our
educational system should cater to its students a lot more. If they begin to
cater to students more then, students all across America would do a lot better.
Drop out rates will decrease because kids will actually love going to school.
This question could lead to some drastic changes in our education.
The main reason we get an education
is so we can work in what we are passionate about. If that is the main reason why we get an
education then, our education should guide us a bit more in finding our
passion? The Lasers video explained a
students struggle to find their passion very well. I can relate to the students in this video in
many ways. I think at one point I was like everyone one of those students. I
was a visitor, a wonderer, an explorer, a seeker, and now I am proud to say
that I am a laser. It takes time for you to find out what you actually want to
do in life. I think community college is an excellent place to find you. When I
first came to Chabot, I wanted to be a doctor. Then I changed my major to
nursing. Finally, I found my passion in sociology. It took several years but
now I know what I want to do with my life.
My first day at Chabot, I was
definitely a wonderer. I did not know what classes I should take to transfer. I
did not know how long I would be here nor did I know anybody. I took some
introductory prerequisite classes and in that first semester at Chabot and I
enlisted in the army. I did not take Chabot too seriously. I was too busy preparing
myself on being a solider than a student, but I attended Chabot because I knew
education was important. If it were not for some life altering experiences I
probably would still be a wonderer. I suffered a lot and faced many hard ships
but most importantly I found what I wanted and myself and now I am no longer a
wonderer.
After my traumatic
brain injury, I completely changed. I had more focus, motivation, and work
ethic. My suffering made me realize other peoples suffering and inspired me to
help others. When I was recovering from my traumatic brain injury I was helped
by many people and now I want to help people in the same way that I was helped.
My suffering has focused my laser into sociological and psychological studies.
Studying sociology and physiology helped me to better understand my own
problems. In a way these classes were therapeutic for me.
If our education were
designed to cater to find what we are passionate about from the very beginning
then we would not have to waste so much time and money finding what it is that
we want. Christopher McCandles truly
believed that, “The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences,
and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon,
for each day to have a new and different sun.” (57) I think that if we have
this attitude when exploring what it is that we are passionate about then we
will find our true passion. We need to
be able to see all the different possibilities because they are really
endless. We cannot have regrets when
searching for our passion otherwise we can live the rest of our life in misery.
Christopher McCandless found his
passion in life and knew how to reach it.
The first thing I truly admire about Christopher McCandless was how he
broke free from the materialistic culture we live in and found happiness from
nature. We talked about being enslaved to materialism and big corporations in
paper two and ways on how we could possibly break free from that enslavement.
McCandless tore the shackles right off of himself by giving away all his money,
burning all identification he had and by taking off into the wild. He did what
everyone is too scared of doing. He broke free from all the pressures of
society, all the customs and, expectations and found his true meaning of life.
I believe his true meaning of life was everyone’s meaning of life back in the
day. He erased everything he learned and did in the new culture and created a
new life based on old culture principles.
McCandless
had a rich education. He read a lot and knew what he was talking about. He was
not your typical vagabond. Everything he did, he did with a purpose or for a
reason. The type of mindset he had, had been very rebellious and
counter-culture. He saw the harm that society was causing and he refused to be
another conformist that conformed to societies expectations. McCandless even said, “I think careers are a
20th century invention, and I do not want one.” I think the cause of
his rebellion came from his education and knowledge. If he did not read or care
to study he would be completely oblivious to our destructive ways and he would
just conform like the rest of us.
There are many ways we can fix our
education. If they actually implement
any of my suggestions is my biggest concern.
Fixing our education may be the most important thing we could ever
do. When we fix our public education we
are inherently fixing or improving our fate.
It may take lots of trial and errors to get the best solution but
everything has to start somewhere. Christopher
McCandless was tired of the system and societies ways. He even said, “I don’t understand why people,
why every fucking person is so bad to each other so fucking often. It doesn’t make sense to me. Judgment. Control. All that. The whole spectrum.” His disgust with the way things are makes me
think if there is a way to improve anything.
There are tons of things we can do to improve things. I criticize Chris for running away from what
he did not agree with, instead of facing it and trying to better things.
In order to fix our public education
I think it is important that we know what it is that we want from our public
education. I think what everyone is
hoping to accomplish going to school is that feeling of success. I once believed having everything I ever
wanted was the definition of success. I wanted a new car, nice clothes, a lot
of friends, and all that sort of stuff. What I learned from experience is that
none of those things last. They do not fill the empty void I felt in my chest
at the end of the day. I got a new car and it was amazing the first couple of
months but then the feeling went away. The good feeling of having nice clothes
only lasted the first time I wore them. After that they became dirty laundry.
As for friends, they come and go. Nothing lasts forever. Success has to come
from within you. It is most definitely not a material thing or a relationship
with anyone or thing. Christopher
McCandless already knew this when he told Ron this, “You are wrong if you think
Joy emanates only or principally from human relationships. God has placed it
all around us. It is in everything and anything we might experience. We just
have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in
unconventional living.” Success
is not easy. It has to be the hardest thing you will ever do. But once you do
it, it will last forever.
Once we realize what we want to do with
our education we have to have the courage to make drastic changes. Christopher McCandless’s last words to Ron in
his letter was telling Ron that, ““So many people live within unhappy circumstances and
yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are
conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism.” What Chris was trying to tell Ron was too not
be content with the way things are. You
have to make change if you want change.
Jeff Bliss and Chris both had the courage and audacity to do something
radical in order to be heard and make change.
Jeff and Chris both
caused dramatic change in their lives. Chris's change ultimately cost him his
life but it brought him his life's greatest joy. Jeff's outburst potentially
changed his life forever. He may now want to major in Education, work for the
school board and, hopefully makes some good drastic changes to our educational
system. They were both able to bring change into their lives.
How can we cause the change we want
to see in our world? The first thing we have to do in order to cause change is
break free from the conformist flock. We have to be brave and break free from
our comfort zone. We cannot stay sheltered forever if we want to see change. In
order to see change we have to make change. This is the first step and the
hardest step for us to take in order to cause change. After we take this step
then we have to persevere and stick with our goal no matter how rough it may
get. If we are able to do this then it is very likely that we will experience
change. Christopher McCandless’s last
words to Ron in a letter he wrote him told Ron to “lose your inclination for
monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will at first
appear to you to be crazy. But once you
become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its
incredible beauty.” (57) I believe if we all took Chris’s advice to heart that
this world would see a lot of change.
The world can greatly benefit from losing fear of change. If change were accepted more then our
government, religion, and society would be more flexible and adaptable. The cause of a stagnant and irrelevant
education is because we’re afraid of change.
