Thursday, September 17, 2015
Did you ever wish that you went to a different school? Which school did you covet?
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The short answer: No, not really.
The really short answer: No
My answer, on the other hand:
When we lived in Cumberland, our next-door neighbors were Catholic. All the Catholic children went to the Catholic schools in town and everyone else went to the public schools. That was hard for me to understand growing up . (I even saw a sign on a swimming pool clubhouse once that said, "No Catholics Allowed"!) There are dozens of pictures in our family albums showing all of us kids, Catholic or Protestant, playing together. One of the boys was about my age and our mothers did the "Oh, aren't they cute together" thing on more than one occasion.
There were no such issues in jr high school or high school.
When I first went to college, I attended the University of Utah. It was the only college I applied to because I just assumed I would be going there.
Most of the state of Utah is Mormon (LDS - Latter-day Saint). In Salt Lake City, though, the ratio is about 50-50. Brigham Young University (BYU) is a large Mormon college about a half hour south of Salt Lake. Most of the Mormon kids wanted to go there and most of the non-Mormon kids wanted to go to the U of U. The rivalry was very strong. (But then again, in SLC, if you are non-Mormon, that seemed at the time to mean 'anti-Mormon'. This was 35 years ago, so things might have changed since then.)
When I had talked myself into believing that I wanted to study International Business, I wanted to go to the London School of Economics for graduate work. (I am a strong anglophile.) Because, hey, it's the LSE!
When I dreamed of studying acting at the graduate level, I looked into the Yale School of Drama. But I was a different person then, and did not (could not perhaps?) put forth the kind of effort that would have given me a chance to attend.
But that is in the past. There's nothing much I can do about that, just make sure that future opportunities (in whatever endeavor I choose) do not escape me in the same way.
These days, I'd almost as soon go to a master (craftsperson) and learn whatever it is I want to know - as most of my interests lie in the creative/artsy area. There is a man who handcrafts dulcimers near to us - well about 3-5 miles as the crow flies, which in Kentucky means about 10-15 miles of road). I would rather learn to make an instrument from someone like that puts their heart and soul into their work, than sit in a classroom and read schematics and make mechanical drawings. (Not that there is anything wrong with that, it's just not where my interest lies.)
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What was your favorite school?
I know exactly what you mean about learning from a craftsperson. I like hands on rather than just textbook, and if my classroom could be in the all outdoors, even better. All of my kids are college grads or currently in college, all colleges as different from one another as my kids are different, and I couldn't pick a favorite school other than to say any and all of the ones my children are currently or have, attended. :) How's that for diplomacy??
ReplyDeleteI can relate. Neither my husband nor I do well in classroom-based learning. I did okay in high school but dropped out of college because the auditorium was overwhelming. My husband is even worse with class-based learning. Both of us are quite intelligent, so if the school system weren't so rigid, we'd both have graduated college. I am not into acting. Can do a bit of crafts but being blind and very clumsy, I'not much better than a six-year-old. Btw, I was shocked to read how segregated the school systems and such were back when you were growing up. Like iwht the "No Catholics Allowed" sign.
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