To All The Teachers

I haven't sat in a classroom as a student for more than six years (excluding the one or two times I've had to go to traffic school). The last few memories I have of class are either from college or high school -- and in both cases I would not call myself a stellar student. I've always been kind of a goof-off in class, maybe even a slacker. Pretty much from grade school to college I had a mouth that loved cracking wise and tried its damnedest to get a laugh at the most inopportune moments. In spite of all this I never had a problem pulling off decent grades, but for the most part, I never took school all that seriously.

Now, as an adult, I've become one of those studious kids my teenage self would probably scorn. I come to class ready and eager to participate, and I quietly dismiss the kids who don't have the same M.O. And seriously, some of my classmates are essentially kids. I'd have been able to tell from just looking at their bright, young faces on the first day of school and listening to their conversations about college and majors, but I also got a glance at the class list with all our respective birth dates and was pretty disappointed to find I'd been alive a full decade by the time some of these fetuses were born. Still, I look at the mop-haired, acne-pocked teen from Argentina slouching in his chair, or the girl with the blank look in her eyes who mumbles all her answers, and I think, "Grow up, already. Why are you even here? Don't you want to learn something?"

I also don't think I've ever noticed until now how vast the range of human intelligence is. There are obviously some sharp people in my class, like the sophomore from Princeton, who absorb information on first hearing. Then, there are the average learners, who make up most of the class. Then... well, to put it lightly, then, there are the complete idiots. Or maybe they're not idiots, but they obviously don't give a damn. And their incompetence and irreverence for learning creates a sort of black hole for knowledge that, I think, absorbs and destroys a small portion of the collective intelligence of the class. Yes, what I am saying is that these people are harmful to others around them, like second-hand smoke.

I've seen my teachers give extra attention to these students, prod and plead with them, and sometimes just give up on them and leave them choking on chalk dust. I can only sympathize. It's hard to imagine how you're supposed to manage so many differing needs at one time and still herd the entire flock toward the general direction of "knowledge". I'll admit, I might've strayed from the herd a few times during my school days, and I hate to think about the tug of war (between stupidity and enlightenment) I forced on my old teachers without even knowing it. I plead ignorance and youth. It probably doesn't do much, but I'm trying to make up for it now.