A Knower of Things

Education is free, learning is expensive | Seth’s Blog

Because learning is hard. It creates tension. It takes time. Most of all, it requires a commitment to becoming someone else, a bet we’re making that might not turn out the way we hope.

This is part of the discussion’s we’re having right now in our household around college.

Growing up, I was a voracious reader. I especially loved non-fiction. I loved learning. It didn’t matter the subject. Give me a set of encyclopedias for one birthday and I’d have read through everything that caught my eye by the next. Luckily, my Mother and Grandmother — the two women who raised me — gave me plenty of access to books both at home and at libraries (both public and college). One was a full time college student, the other a university professor with a doctorate.

My educational journey was chaotic. I went to seven different elementary schools and three different high schools. I therefore encountered an equal number of different pedagogies, educational methods, and systems. Montessori, Core, Open, etc. Public, private, and parochial.

By the time I got to the final years of high school, I really didn’t know how to be a student anymore — at least not one in any top down educational setting. I felt not only did I know way more than any of my class mates but most of my teachers as well. Most of what was in the text books I’d read and learned in my own childhood independent study. I was kind of… done. Done with the idea of school at least.

Yet, college was expected. Five generations of my family had advanced college degrees. I was expected to be part of the sixth. So, out of that obligation and expectation, I went to Dillard University — the school where those five generations had done their undergraduate work. Where my Grandmother even sat on the Board of Trusties at that time. I didn’t even have to apply… I just got an acceptance in the mail and orientation packet shortly before arrival.

I lasted a year. Did not attend many classes. New Orleans is a very easy place to get lost in. I got lost and I didn’t go back.

All of this is to say that, despite poor grades in High School (turns out, if you don’t attend classes or do homework that is the result) and only one abysmal year in college (same), none of it mattered for my long term success. Here’s why (and the thing I’ve told Beatrix and we should be discussing more with kids these days).

No one cares.

That’s right. The only people that care about your high school grades and activities are college admission departments. They are the only one’s that care about if you went to class or not and what clubs and teams you are on. Your GPA only really matters to them. Once you actually get into college, no one will care about where you went to high school, what you did there, or how well you did it. No one will ever ask again.

And, here’s another sad truth. Once you leave college and get your first job, no one will care where you went, what your grades were, or even if you graduated at all. Put a college down on your resumé. Pick any one you like. No one will question it or bother to check. No one will really care. It’s kind of mind-blowing but true.

On my resumé under Education, I simply put “Dillard University”. Not one person or employer has ever questioned if I graduated, what my major was, what my grades were, or if I was accepted and attended more than a handful of classes before I decided my best education was found off campus. They only care if I know how to do the job or can be easily and quickly trained in on how to do so.

Four years into my IT career I was managing the people getting hired who had Computer Science Degrees. I was their boss. They had spent four years learning about the work. I had spent four years doing it.

The world cares about what you know. Not where you know it from.

And, that’s a hard truth to swallow. All of the time and in many cases hundreds of thousands of dollars a person pours into these institutions only to have it ultimately be met with indifference. What’s the point?

Your experience — education, jobs, teams, activities, path — shows the world that you are a Knower of Things . Not just of any specific thing… but that too. A Knower of many things and someone who wants to know things by whatever means they can access. That the Knowing is a life long quest to you and that you want be a part of this school/college/job/position/membership/team to be a Knower of More Things. Having gone to school and then to college and then to work and all the things you did there and beyond show each person along the way that you’re one of the Knowers — regardless of where you know it from. You want to be with The Knowers, where The Knowers are, doing the Knowing.

And this is my main wish for Beatrix. That she is and continues to be a Knower of Things and chooses whatever path is best for her to be a Knower of More Things. Because there are OH SO MANY things to know and the barriers to knowing them become more porous by the day. Where she learns them and how she learns them matters less than Knowing.