if everything happens that can't be done

I have loved almost all of my education. And I’m good at it. But being here in a program that focuses on group process and experiential learning has made me think about the things I haven’t gotten from my education.

The director of our program prefaced a lecture with statistics. An hour after a lecture, he said, people remember something like 10% of the information, after more interactive teaching, 30%, and after learning from a peer, 80%. At dinner the other night, my friend offered to explain the tangled events of recent Thai politics. Granted, this was something I was interested in and motivated to learn (maybe that’s part of the potency of peer learning), and she spoke articulately, but I came away with such a full picture and clear memory that I’m convinced there was something different about that kind of learning.

P’Joy, one of our drivers, dropped out of school in 4th grade because other things were more important to him. Cultural things, like fishing and the land. He can make all kinds of things, is a fantastic cook, knows the name of every bug and plant we point to, and can do exciting tricks like shooting a stalk of stiff grass into the air with one quick motion.

P’Bamrung, a community activist and farmer, is not going to send his daughter to school. When his friend’s children were 3 and 6, the parents stocked the refrigerator with meat and went to a meeting in another city, leaving the boys alone in their rural home for three days. The six-year-old took care of the three-year-old. He cooked, swept the house and put his brother to bed. “What is more important?” P’Bamrung asked, “Going to school, or learning about real life?”

In his usual calm way, P’Decha, a coordinator for Khon Kaen’s NGOs, told us, “The more education you have, the more selfish and competitive you become. If you can’t work together, what is the point?”

What is the point? Why do we get educated? Why does it mean less and less to get a high school degree? A college degree? What are we training ourselves for? Is there a point to academic work that is so theoretical and unconcerned with people’s lives?

I think there is a point to education, and even to some of the ivory tower discussions that seem so abstracted from reality. Education, in good circumstances, is teaching thinking, teaching learning. I think as long as people come along to build tin can phones between ivory towers and take their musings into the streets, academia has its place. I am not planning to leave my children with a hunk of meat and walk out the door. I think education should be guided, if nothing else, by role models and people who help kids access resources and answers to their questions. But there is a lot to change. Education is so compartmentalized—in time, in subjects, in roles, and in schools. Learning is something that should happen all the time, and maybe what we need most is to recognize and use that fact. And learning should focus more on experiences, the real world and people. Every child in school should at some point have to decide why he or she is there.

In the past few weeks, I have realized how much I have to learn about working with people. Listening is hard. Making decisions and taking actions with other people is hard. Realizing and changing your own faults is hard. Criticizing is hard. These are the skills we should be using more than any others.

Education is a complicated task. We have chosen certain goals and methods above others. Can our society as we have built it even support the child who grows up climbing trees instead of learning math? Where do we go from here?

if everything happens that can't be done
(and anything's righter
than books
could plan)
the stupidest teacher will almost guess
(with a run
skip
around we go yes)
there's nothing as something as one

one hasn't a why or because or although
(and buds know better
than books
don't grow)
one's anything old being everything new
(with a what
which
around we go who)
one's everyanything so

so world is a leaf is a tree is a bough
(and birds sing sweeter
than books
tell how)
so here is away and so your is a my
(with a down
up
around again fly)
forever was never till now

now i love you and you love me
(and books are shutter
than books
can be)
and deep in the high that does nothing but fall
(with a shout
each
around we go all)
there's somebody calling who's we

we're everything brighter than even the sun
(we're everything greater
than books
might mean)
we're everyanything more than believe
(with a spin
leap
alive we're alive)
we're wonderful one times one

-e.e. cummings