Knowledge is a Gift

Have you ever sat near the back of the classroom so the teacher wouldn't notice as you chatted with your friends, slept on you textbook... anything to get through the class without getting any work done? I have, and I've even done it at the front of the room. Well, while we're all breezing through our classes, not learning what we're being taught, there are people out there who would be very grateful to be in that classroom, working on the assignments given instead of drooling on the $80 text book.

It all starts with a little bit of lost momentum. As soon as you lose sight of gold you're either going to fall, or you're going to struggle to find it again. Most will fall, as my experience tells me. I've seen students texting, overheard their conversations, sat through their interruptions, even condescended when they didn't even show up until the class was half over. Sure, it might seem innocent to those people doing it, in the moment it might actually be, but once it starts piling up they forget the point of the assignments, they get behind, then end up not getting anything done. Where's the learning in that? People are put into school for a reason, and that reason is to have the gift of knowledge bestowed upon them.

Having a good education means you could get a better job. With a better job comes better pay, and with it, a better quality of life. Also, depending on the job, and sometimes the person, it could help to improve the person's community.

Of course, there are times when an education wouldn't be needed to get a job, but the pay you get wouldn't necessarily be enough to support a family.

Knowledge is a gift, that's what I believe. I'm sure that there are some people out there that feel the same. I remember seeing, once, a documentary-type show on T.V. and the children it featured had to walk several miles and cross a dangerous river just to reach their small tent of a school which hadn't the proper tools available to teach. These children all had big dreams of going to the "big cities" (this was in Africa) and becoming a scientist. They cannot, not until they have been given proper schooling. We have that schooling, the schooling they couldn't dream of having, with all our fancy laptops and internet connections to help us along, but we would throw it away to slack off while they want it so badly? That's not fair.

Students should learn that being in school is a gift, a privilege, and that they should treat their time in the classroom like it were something of great importance, because that's what it is.

HERO - A Rant

A while back I was at my teacher's house for a Writer's Group meeting. It was the second and most recent time this had happened. Frodo, my teacher's nick-name, introduced me to the movie called HERO. He started to explain the entire dubbing of the movie and how the voice actors imitated Chinese accents. Dinner was ready so I couldn't watch much of it. Now, just recently, some of my friends are watching it in their English class and they are going to answer questions about it once they've finished. But, they have a bit of a dilemma. Apparently none of the students were able to properly appreciate this movie either a) because they were too busy mocking it, or b) they just weren't able to understand what was happening.

This frustrates me. Not only because a great movie is being slandered, but also it shows just how closed minded people can be. They'd rather pay attention to the obviousness of a harness used for a special effect than the text of the movie. This doesn't apply to all the students who watched it, I'm sure, but then the excuse was that it was hard to follow. I had a pretty easy time following it. The plot of the movie is this; an unnamed warrior has approached the (emperor?) of the much divided China. The emperor has been hunted by assassins and is in a constant state of stress. This mysterious man (played by Jet Li) has claimed to have slain all three assassins who had been pursuing him, but the emperor challenges him. And so they begin to reflect on the past events, each time changing the perspective on how the events unfolded to reveal a greater truth, the truth as to why this warrior has come to the great leader.

The movie has a large amount of subtext. It comes through in the colors used to represent the different scenes (red being a more aggressive scene, green more peaceful, blue sad...), and also in the actual dialogue/scenes. If you could follow it and understand what is really happening then it's a great movie with a lot of power. Those that don't get it, however, end up making a mockery of it and saying that it sucks, not taking too much care to add a filter to what they say.

This isn't only an issue with this movie though. Take Tron Legacy for example. A friend of mine and I watched it and I rather enjoyed it. I'm a fan of special effects and battles and the sort, of course I enjoyed it. My friend wasn't such a fan, and she made it obvious. She suddenly started slamming the movie, saying it sucks without justification. Then she began to expand and said that it's the genre Sci-fi in general that sucks, entirely. I was appalled, firstly because that's rude, and secondly because there was no effort to make it an opinionated statement where there was allowance for opposition; even after I'd suggested she throw an "IMO" to the end of what she was saying, she refused to make it less of a direct insult and continued to further what she was saying.

Continuing, another friend of mine created a drawing. It's of mother nature and how she's being treated horribly. The artwork is stunning, I was certainly impressed. The message has been turned into something of a cliche, but she presented it in a bit of a different manner. The movie Avatar somehow became the topic of conversation and she started to insult the movie, saying it wasn't very good and that the story/message had been used before; it was a lame topic, is how I interpreted what she'd been saying. What she maybe didn't realize is that one of the themes of the movie, from how I saw it, is that humans will destroy/harm the environment to get what they want. This message is very similar to the topic she used for her drawing... hypocrisy is hard to avoid totally, but this is simply an attack because the person didn't like the movie.

I've been seeing this as an issue for a while, but only now am I realizing that it's more than just about movies and video games (console wars). This also relates to racism, homophobia and prejudice. One might not understand/particularly like/agree with something so they attack it in one way or another even after another has already made it clear that they thought it was understandable or enjoyable. What I would like to know is why? Because it's human nature? How could that still be an excuse when we, as a species, have changed so much? You'd think we'd be able to overcome closed mindedness just as we were able to get over doing our business in bushes and eating without utensils, but people apparently either don't find it to be an issue or accept it. I find it to be a horrible thing to practice, although I'm no saint in the matter, myself. We all just need to realize that if something doesn't quite bode well with us, we shouldn't point and laugh/ridicule right away; we should learn to be able to examine and understand.