I sit at my tattered desk in the corner, straining my eyes to see the board. I don’t understand why we don’t get nice, clean desks and new, shiny books like the other kids. I sigh to myself, trying to write my name with a dull pencil, but the tip barely makes any marks, so I have to trace over it a few times. The Elizabeth Eckford at the top of the page is barely visible. I sigh to myself, wondering if it’s really worth all of this, just to be educated.
I sit at my tattered desk in the back corner, straining my eyes to see the front of the classroom. It’s not fair that all the other kids get nice, clean desks, and new, shiny books. I sigh to myself, trying to write my notes with a disappointingly dull pencil, wondering if it’s all worth it, just to be educated.
Alanna
Spend
12
16
20
years
of your life
learning, but never understanding
this process that never ends
the growing that never ceases
And then there’s that.
The complaint, all too common these days –
What good’s an education?
Or, rather, what good’s an education if you don’t already got money?
And if you already got money, got a future and a life and a job ahead of ya, all lined up like, what’s the point of it then?
Education is important to most.
I never really liked it,
But my mother forced it upon me.
I’ve worked my tail off for 8 years,
Never stopping, never pausing.
But I’ll never forget the impact it has made upon me.
Green glasses sculpting the frame of a young child with brown squares too large for his head, pinching him behind the ears like his mother when he does something wrong. The books in his hand are battered with dirt stains, along with streaks of sweat from running away from troubles, like his father and bullies. The shirt he’s wearing is buttoned up to his collar because his mother did it for him, and she’s one of the few things that believes in him.
Garrett
there are many ways to become educated. some of it occurs in the classroom and other times it is the school of life. if you don’t learn the lessons you will have to take the class again.
Jacqui
i’m not even sure what that means or how you get there. is it something that you can only achieve with a ton of student loan debt? can education even have a past tense?
Isis
what had she learned from everything?
wasn’t she supposed to be an educated woman?
it wasn’t as if she’d dropped out from school.
oh, she’d certainly wanted to, but her parents would never let such a thing happen.
then she didn’t follow the path that was defined for her
and then she couldn’t get a job
and she never ended up learning
until it was almost too late to learn
and her eyes almost stayed permanently closed
to learn about something and to educate yourself on a particular subject. I t can bring fulfillment knowing that you have new information that you did not have before.
Tim Douglas
My parents, for years, had always lived through me. I suppose their upbringing hadn’t been the best, so they felt their only child could do ten times better. I was made out to the best person this world has ever known–-witty, excellently educated, and ridiculously attractive—hence the dozens of beauty patents when I was three, and being forced to participate in extra curricular activities I abhorred, ballet being the worst. Funny how even with all my talents, guys still avoid me.
And even now, despite me being in college, they’ve still got a grip on me. Become a lawyer, they said. It’ll be fun, they said. What happened to being different? Doing whatever I wanted to do? Did that only apply to them? Do they even care that maybe I had a different plan for my life that never involved them?
AJ Kenobi
The symbols of math and science slipped through my mind, but the lessons of kindness lasted a lifetime. Even the most brilliant scholar may not know the formula for love
Alyson
educated people sometimes cant think out of the box, especially when comes to understanding people opinion and importance :(
Connor had never gotten his degree to pass high school. It wasn’t that he lacked intelligence; as a matter of fact, he excelled in most of what he did. But there was a problem, as always. Why would he ever consider dropping out under violent circumstances?
Olivia Reilly
From her standpoint, she could have guessed it would end up like this. She was educated, she knew how to make logical decisions. She cursed herself for not thinking this one through. How could she let it all slip away? It was hopeless now. They were gone, and it was her fault.
Cassidy
I always took being educated for granted. There are those who aren’t. What’s it like being them? Do they care that they aren’t educated? They probably do, but maybe there are some who don’t. They should. Or maybe they shouldn’t. Who knows? Who cares? Them. They probably care.
Amelia Jean
And he sat there like any educated person would in a situation like this.
carlos
“If you take an idiot and you-”
“Stop it, Stephen.”
“-and you teach him everything you know, all you wind up with, is a-”
“I know it already, stop!”
“-an educated idiot.”
Cassie froze in mid-step. She waited just long enough for her friend to realize he’d pushed a bit too far and then stop just out of reach of her fists. She turned around, letting her displeasure show on her face. The ridged scales along the sides of her face gave an ugly expression to her normally narrow features.
“So if I go ahead and teach you a lesson about screwing with my head when I have important real-life things to deal with, would that make you educated?”
Stephen blinked. “Er, well…”
“Or would that make you an educated idiot?” She crackled her knuckles, lowering into a crouch. her body twisted and rippled, her morphic nature asserting itself. “You can have a ten-second headstart if you think you need it.”
“I need it,” he squeaked. There was a blur of color before he took to flight in his avian form.
Cassie watched him streak away, before she shook her shoulders back and drew on the form of the lithe cat within. His endurance was a little more than hers, but she’d been practicing. He’d get tired of flying, right about the time she’d catch up to him.
A snort of amusement escaped. Edcuated idiot indeed.
“You never were the kind of person who thought they would be known for being educated, in fact you wanted to be one of those starlets who was known as famous without being all that educated at all. But really that’s an entirely different story, I wish you all the luck in the world, but I cannot support that kind of thinking babe,” he said as lovingly as he could to the girl so delicately wrapped in his strong arms.
My family always felt alienated from me. None of them made it past high school, many of them even dropped out of high school. I was the only educated one. I was the only one who had a master’s degree and eventually PhD under her belt. They felt threatened by this, like I was trying to prove their inferiority by pursuing something further.
He was an educated man, a man of intelligence and wit and skill, and yet sometimes they would see him flinch at shadows, jump at a sudden noise, turn pale if someone touched him unexpectedly.
Our education shouldn’t be a competition. The fight for #1 has completely taken over our lives. We could have loved each other, we could have been something so beautiful, so perfectly beautiful. But, no… not in this life. Because you’ll always be #1, and I’ll always be #2, no matter how many hours of every single day I try to educate you. And to you, it just comes naturally. It’s not fair. I deserve it far more than you. We could have been something so painfully beautiful. But not here, not now. Because you’ll always be better, no matter how hard I fight. And that is why I’ll always hate you, my love. I’ll always hate you and everything you are, everything you stand for. You make me cringe in disgust, my hands shake in anger (and you make my heart race whenever you’re nearby). You make me so angry and malicious (and you make me cry at night when I think of what could have been so beautiful).
I will always be nothing to you…
but you’ll always be everything to me.
It was in Paris that I met the love of my life. I was on a vacation and he was there for university, to be educated in a foreign country was always my dream, as it was his. We had almost everything in common – the love for France, the vice of tobacco, and the disdain for cats. I loved him, once. But then he disappeared.
i don’t know what i am talking about half the time. my education started me and then left me to my own sick devices. i can spell, but what should i be saying? i can read a map, but have no idea where i am going?
Her husband was very well educated and on occasions she felt inferior to him although she was indeed intelligent. She just didn’t have the paperwork to prove it.
He was educated by his parents to stay away from such hooligans. He was told these people decay the mind, that they enjoy penetrating evil thoughts into people’s minds. He grew quickly to realize that actually his parents had done quite a good job of that for 15 years.
The simple fact was Henry had no education in the finer points of this specialty. The art of mind control needed a diverse education. In order to see the possibilities one needed to know these possibilities and recognize them.
Laurie White
We the educated: we are few, we are
scissored in half by the world
If you need a friend, look to me, look elsewhere, look
is the future of the world, helps people achieve what they need in life, prevents big problems in the world, is what the people in my ideal environment are
Olivier Schreuder
what is the point of school anymore?
Like they teach us anything
I am so glad that its going to be summer holidays
screw the summer exams
i mean seriously why bother?
fiona
it was scary. For the first time ever after 8 years i was in school. Mum taught me what i needed to know but she didn’t tell me that it would be this scary. I wish she was here with me. The doctors said that she would come back soon. I think they’re lying, mummy is going to sleep for a long time before she wakes up again. She’s pretty hurt.
fiona
i remember when i was home schooled. I was dumb
but now… i am different
i know
i know more than i did before and i can act upon it
but not in the way that i was taught
not in the way that they though i would be using it
He was a man in his early forties, going through life with the same anticipation of the future as a Junior in high school. All of the schooling only filled his mind with more words, but never taught him to be Man.
Jack
When I met him, I had a pixie cut. And my hair was more aburn than it is now. Coco Chanel once said that a woman who gets a haircut means to change her life. Then I grew it out and got an education. Now it is short again – I wonder what it means. Is my haircut more educated? What’s with all these questions about style anyway? When taste is so subject to personal interpretation and meaning does not always come off as intended. Something gets lost in translation.
one step closer to out, to freedom. One step closer to getting the hell up out of this place with these people, and this black hole for any chance of a future. I had my degree, I was in at a prestigious school, I was going to live out everything that I had ever wanted.
i am educated, but i am not worldly. i think i know everything, as we all do, but in fact my knowledge is limited to the specks of sand that we call fragments of human history. we only want what is in front of us, but we never want to look or listen. education is lifelong, but we never want to pursue it.
i am educated, but i am not worldly. i think that i know a lot, but i in fact know nothing. education is a lifelong process that will never end. unfortunately, we don’t seek out our own education as often as we should. we don’t read books. we don’t look or listen. we only want what’s in front of us and we want it right now. we want everything but education.
I sit at my tattered desk in the corner, straining my eyes to see the board. I don’t understand why we don’t get nice, clean desks and new, shiny books like the other kids. I sigh to myself, trying to write my name with a dull pencil, but the tip barely makes any marks, so I have to trace over it a few times. The Elizabeth Eckford at the top of the page is barely visible. I sigh to myself, wondering if it’s really worth all of this, just to be educated.
I sit at my tattered desk in the back corner, straining my eyes to see the front of the classroom. It’s not fair that all the other kids get nice, clean desks, and new, shiny books. I sigh to myself, trying to write my notes with a disappointingly dull pencil, wondering if it’s all worth it, just to be educated.
Spend
12
16
20
years
of your life
learning, but never understanding
this process that never ends
the growing that never ceases
and it can’t be avoided
And then there’s that.
The complaint, all too common these days –
What good’s an education?
Or, rather, what good’s an education if you don’t already got money?
And if you already got money, got a future and a life and a job ahead of ya, all lined up like, what’s the point of it then?
Education is important to most.
I never really liked it,
But my mother forced it upon me.
I’ve worked my tail off for 8 years,
Never stopping, never pausing.
But I’ll never forget the impact it has made upon me.
Green glasses sculpting the frame of a young child with brown squares too large for his head, pinching him behind the ears like his mother when he does something wrong. The books in his hand are battered with dirt stains, along with streaks of sweat from running away from troubles, like his father and bullies. The shirt he’s wearing is buttoned up to his collar because his mother did it for him, and she’s one of the few things that believes in him.
there are many ways to become educated. some of it occurs in the classroom and other times it is the school of life. if you don’t learn the lessons you will have to take the class again.
i’m not even sure what that means or how you get there. is it something that you can only achieve with a ton of student loan debt? can education even have a past tense?
what had she learned from everything?
wasn’t she supposed to be an educated woman?
it wasn’t as if she’d dropped out from school.
oh, she’d certainly wanted to, but her parents would never let such a thing happen.
then she didn’t follow the path that was defined for her
and then she couldn’t get a job
and she never ended up learning
until it was almost too late to learn
and her eyes almost stayed permanently closed
to learn about something and to educate yourself on a particular subject. I t can bring fulfillment knowing that you have new information that you did not have before.
My parents, for years, had always lived through me. I suppose their upbringing hadn’t been the best, so they felt their only child could do ten times better. I was made out to the best person this world has ever known–-witty, excellently educated, and ridiculously attractive—hence the dozens of beauty patents when I was three, and being forced to participate in extra curricular activities I abhorred, ballet being the worst. Funny how even with all my talents, guys still avoid me.
And even now, despite me being in college, they’ve still got a grip on me. Become a lawyer, they said. It’ll be fun, they said. What happened to being different? Doing whatever I wanted to do? Did that only apply to them? Do they even care that maybe I had a different plan for my life that never involved them?
The symbols of math and science slipped through my mind, but the lessons of kindness lasted a lifetime. Even the most brilliant scholar may not know the formula for love
educated people sometimes cant think out of the box, especially when comes to understanding people opinion and importance :(
Connor had never gotten his degree to pass high school. It wasn’t that he lacked intelligence; as a matter of fact, he excelled in most of what he did. But there was a problem, as always. Why would he ever consider dropping out under violent circumstances?
From her standpoint, she could have guessed it would end up like this. She was educated, she knew how to make logical decisions. She cursed herself for not thinking this one through. How could she let it all slip away? It was hopeless now. They were gone, and it was her fault.
I always took being educated for granted. There are those who aren’t. What’s it like being them? Do they care that they aren’t educated? They probably do, but maybe there are some who don’t. They should. Or maybe they shouldn’t. Who knows? Who cares? Them. They probably care.
And he sat there like any educated person would in a situation like this.
“If you take an idiot and you-”
“Stop it, Stephen.”
“-and you teach him everything you know, all you wind up with, is a-”
“I know it already, stop!”
“-an educated idiot.”
Cassie froze in mid-step. She waited just long enough for her friend to realize he’d pushed a bit too far and then stop just out of reach of her fists. She turned around, letting her displeasure show on her face. The ridged scales along the sides of her face gave an ugly expression to her normally narrow features.
“So if I go ahead and teach you a lesson about screwing with my head when I have important real-life things to deal with, would that make you educated?”
Stephen blinked. “Er, well…”
“Or would that make you an educated idiot?” She crackled her knuckles, lowering into a crouch. her body twisted and rippled, her morphic nature asserting itself. “You can have a ten-second headstart if you think you need it.”
“I need it,” he squeaked. There was a blur of color before he took to flight in his avian form.
Cassie watched him streak away, before she shook her shoulders back and drew on the form of the lithe cat within. His endurance was a little more than hers, but she’d been practicing. He’d get tired of flying, right about the time she’d catch up to him.
A snort of amusement escaped. Edcuated idiot indeed.
“You never were the kind of person who thought they would be known for being educated, in fact you wanted to be one of those starlets who was known as famous without being all that educated at all. But really that’s an entirely different story, I wish you all the luck in the world, but I cannot support that kind of thinking babe,” he said as lovingly as he could to the girl so delicately wrapped in his strong arms.
My family always felt alienated from me. None of them made it past high school, many of them even dropped out of high school. I was the only educated one. I was the only one who had a master’s degree and eventually PhD under her belt. They felt threatened by this, like I was trying to prove their inferiority by pursuing something further.
He was an educated man, a man of intelligence and wit and skill, and yet sometimes they would see him flinch at shadows, jump at a sudden noise, turn pale if someone touched him unexpectedly.
Our education shouldn’t be a competition. The fight for #1 has completely taken over our lives. We could have loved each other, we could have been something so beautiful, so perfectly beautiful. But, no… not in this life. Because you’ll always be #1, and I’ll always be #2, no matter how many hours of every single day I try to educate you. And to you, it just comes naturally. It’s not fair. I deserve it far more than you. We could have been something so painfully beautiful. But not here, not now. Because you’ll always be better, no matter how hard I fight. And that is why I’ll always hate you, my love. I’ll always hate you and everything you are, everything you stand for. You make me cringe in disgust, my hands shake in anger (and you make my heart race whenever you’re nearby). You make me so angry and malicious (and you make me cry at night when I think of what could have been so beautiful).
I will always be nothing to you…
but you’ll always be everything to me.
It was in Paris that I met the love of my life. I was on a vacation and he was there for university, to be educated in a foreign country was always my dream, as it was his. We had almost everything in common – the love for France, the vice of tobacco, and the disdain for cats. I loved him, once. But then he disappeared.
i don’t know what i am talking about half the time. my education started me and then left me to my own sick devices. i can spell, but what should i be saying? i can read a map, but have no idea where i am going?
Her husband was very well educated and on occasions she felt inferior to him although she was indeed intelligent. She just didn’t have the paperwork to prove it.
It is important to be educated because we gain a lot of knowledge.
He was educated by his parents to stay away from such hooligans. He was told these people decay the mind, that they enjoy penetrating evil thoughts into people’s minds. He grew quickly to realize that actually his parents had done quite a good job of that for 15 years.
The simple fact was Henry had no education in the finer points of this specialty. The art of mind control needed a diverse education. In order to see the possibilities one needed to know these possibilities and recognize them.
We the educated: we are few, we are
scissored in half by the world
If you need a friend, look to me, look elsewhere, look
inside. This book has arrived just in time
sport a passage or two upon your neck for
all the world to see
is the future of the world, helps people achieve what they need in life, prevents big problems in the world, is what the people in my ideal environment are
what is the point of school anymore?
Like they teach us anything
I am so glad that its going to be summer holidays
screw the summer exams
i mean seriously why bother?
it was scary. For the first time ever after 8 years i was in school. Mum taught me what i needed to know but she didn’t tell me that it would be this scary. I wish she was here with me. The doctors said that she would come back soon. I think they’re lying, mummy is going to sleep for a long time before she wakes up again. She’s pretty hurt.
i remember when i was home schooled. I was dumb
but now… i am different
i know
i know more than i did before and i can act upon it
but not in the way that i was taught
not in the way that they though i would be using it
Light Dark. Naive EyesOpened. Knowledgeable Sheltered . Shielded Aware. Opportunity Omission. Right Luxury.
She was more educated than her accent led you to believe, hiding a razor sharp wit behind a deep southern drawl.
He was a man in his early forties, going through life with the same anticipation of the future as a Junior in high school. All of the schooling only filled his mind with more words, but never taught him to be Man.
When I met him, I had a pixie cut. And my hair was more aburn than it is now. Coco Chanel once said that a woman who gets a haircut means to change her life. Then I grew it out and got an education. Now it is short again – I wonder what it means. Is my haircut more educated? What’s with all these questions about style anyway? When taste is so subject to personal interpretation and meaning does not always come off as intended. Something gets lost in translation.
one step closer to out, to freedom. One step closer to getting the hell up out of this place with these people, and this black hole for any chance of a future. I had my degree, I was in at a prestigious school, I was going to live out everything that I had ever wanted.
i am educated, but i am not worldly. i think i know everything, as we all do, but in fact my knowledge is limited to the specks of sand that we call fragments of human history. we only want what is in front of us, but we never want to look or listen. education is lifelong, but we never want to pursue it.
i am educated, but i am not worldly. i think that i know a lot, but i in fact know nothing. education is a lifelong process that will never end. unfortunately, we don’t seek out our own education as often as we should. we don’t read books. we don’t look or listen. we only want what’s in front of us and we want it right now. we want everything but education.