Jun 03 2008
Incomplete
That’s the “grade” I have right now for my last five credits of graduate school. Incomplete.
My journey into this unknown land was intentional. It’s been a very ironic and joyous adventure lately as I learn more about Unschooling, and find beautiful examples of communities that have formed because people “walked out” of traditional academic settings and “walked on” to a more self-directed life. At the very time in my learning journey that I feel so liberated to learn without boundaries, I am receiving many messages from academia, as if a monster wanting to sew me up into a cute package. I can be boxed up - the letters M.A. tattooed to my exterior - a graduation statistic and success story to lure the next eager and awaiting “victim” into its jaws.
I’ve been reading intently a great publication called “Healing Ourselves from the Diploma Disease(PDF).” This is a collaborative work of essays, letters, and writings from Shikshantar: The People’s Institute for Rethinking Education and Development, in Udaipur, India. The book is full of compelling stories and testimonials attesting to the inequalities and injustices that are perpetuated by the culture of schooling. Credentialism, Meritocracy, Specialization, and Degrees have been created to divide people from one another.
A large part of me feels that my learning has begun to transcend the boundaries and borders of academia. My learning has been one of looking from above, seeing behind the cracks, studying the points of friction. I definitely have been feeling the friction lately. Recently, I’ve learned the following things about my school:
- Faculty and Advisors are guided by a policy stating that they not interact professionally or educationally with former students for a period of one year after they leave the institution.
- Faculty are prohibited by policy from giving references or recommendations to their graduating students
- I must pay a $50 “Colloquium Fee” and a $150 “Graduation Fee” so that I may pass from the bounds of academia
- My position paper becomes property of the college institution to be held in their files for future students
- I must fill out a MANDATORY (as it stated in the letter) online exit “training” to close my financial aid file - I think there is a short “test” with this one. Good Grief!
On a daily basis, I ponder “walking out” of this system, which I feel is a dying paradigm. On a daily basis, I ponder “getting through” this last phase, so that I might be allowed to be a player in this system to influence change. My opting for “Incomplete” is my form of living within this tension - a learning experience in and of itself. It is my resistance at this time.
Will I finish? Will I stay in this “incomplete” zone? Will my public comment stating this on a web site that potential employers will read, influence their opinion of me adversely? Am I facing a question of compromising my values? Am I being tested again on how I might turn an adverse and sterile system into something beautiful to take with me?
My learning journey has changed me, and for that I am grateful. I’ve allowed myself to be personally involved and affected by my learning - allowed myself to be led, and to fall into places I would never have imagined. I would not change a thing about the experience - not even opting for an “Incomplete.”