WE ARE NOT LEARNING

My middle school didn’t offer Common Sense One or Two,

So when I got to high school I was a little behind the rest of my class,

And I wasn’t likely to test out of it.

I ended up taking Memorization One-O-One three times my junior year.

They called it “U.S. History, Biology, Spanish Three,”

But SAT prep taught me to read between the lines.

We are not learning

To analyze and discuss great works of literature

We are learning

How to identify a noun

A verb

And a preposition

WE are not learning

About the massive intricacies of the human mind.

We are learning

To commit to memory a diagram of the human brain

We are not learning

About new cultures or being immersed in a new language

We are learning

That “cat” means “gato”

And that bringing “churros” to class will get you extra credit

The first time “tu” as in “you” ever became more than a number to me was when I was little and I was trying to teach my friend Juan who’d only ever spoken Spanish, how to play Yu-Gi-Oh

Tu eres play my monster card!

Tu activar trap card!

Tu…defense mode activated!

AP Cheating was the best decision I ever made.

GOD BLESS SPARKNOTES.

We need to know:

When again was the constitution signed?

Eighteen?…

Seventeen?…

Fourteen?…
TWENTY SIX?

How do you count to three in Spanish?

Uno

Dos

Tres!

French

Un

Deux

Trois

Pig Latin!

Un-way

Oo-tay

Ee-thray?

Crap, what’s pi to the tenth digit?!

THREE POINT ONE FOUR

One

Five

Nine

Two

Six

Five

Three

Five-

FIVE. IT’S FIVE!

…

WHY DO I KNOW THAT?!

We need to stop getting so caught up in the numbers.

The only numbers that should ever matter to you should be single digit.

Because you

ONE

Your friends

ONE

Your family

ONE

Acquaintances

ONE
And everyone else in the world is number one!

And the people who love you don’t care about your class rank

When you stand at the Pearly Gates and St. Peter calculates your readiness for heaven, he won’t go

“Oh, I see you made a Seventeen-Fifty on the SAT?

“We usually shoot for a Twenty-One-Hundred”

“Maybe we can reincarnate you”

“And let you try taking the ACT”

So tell your GPA to go away

gpa

GO AWAY

gpa

GO AWAY

gpa

GO AWAY

The entire mission of a school system is inherently flawed

They wish to provide individualized learning to a mass market

I DON’T WANT TO LEARN

How to slide test answers into a mechanical pencil

I want learn about the guy who got so fed up with pencil sharpeners

That he said

Screw it, let’s make them plastic

I DON’T WANT TO LEARN

How to properly Google worksheet answers

I want to learn how those geniuses at Google

Keep coming up with so many clever homepage doodles

For holidays and Olympic events

I DON’T WANT TO LEARN

That during a test I should look to see if the teacher left the notes on the board

I want the notes to be over something I care about

Something that matters

Something that I can’t let myself forget

We

Are

Not

Learning

AND I DON’T WANT TO LEARN

If this

Is what learning

Looks like