Journal 5

Journal 5 Matt Steel

Education in North America has become a standardized mandate, education is monitored on federal, provincial, and municipal levels. We’ve actually made it illegal for people under X age to -not- go to school, and for the most part we try to make it easier for kids who have trouble making it. School isn’t thought of as an option or a privilege anymore, but as a chore. The way our lives are set up as children in Canada make it hard not to hate going to school. When you’re a kid you’re not at work or out labouring in a field, you’re in a house with parents to pay for and take care of everything. All there is to do is run around and have some good times doing as we please, the only interruption is a six and a half hour school break. As soon as we’re old enough to go to school we learn to hate it. It’s not as if school is that bad to begin with. You go to a room filled with kids your age and learn about everything under the sun, for free.

Unfortunately, people love to hate, and when you’re a kid you don’t know anything really worth hating so you fall back on the only thing we do know to complain about - school, parents, etc. In other areas of the world where it’s not normal to be pampered and have whatever you want, it’s a lot easier to appreciate the luxury of a well managed school system. Even if one were to drop out of school and pick up a life doing whatevers in wherevers in our society, their life would be much more relaxed than someone who needs to look at school as an eventual aspiration and not a pain in the ass.