Back When I Knew It All

I promise not to bore you all to tears with recycled ramblings from a 20-year-old. I just thought most people could identify with having once had all the answers and then lost them along the way. (I apologize in advance for the misplaced modifiers and other blunders unworthy of an English major in her junior year.)

January 13, 1983

An item of some interest has found its way into the papers lately which I have found highly disturbing. What was called a “workable” bomb was discovered in a high school art room next to a gas pipe feeding a kiln. The bomb was contained in a shoebox rigged to go off when the box was opened. A basic error in construction prevented it from doing so when a student found and opened it.

Well, bombs found in schools aren’t really that uncommon [really? where did I get that idea?] and fortunately, no one was hurt. If the explosion had ruptured the gas line the results could have been disastrous, but the mechanical error prevented that. The really disturbing part is the party suspected.

Believed to be responsible is a group of highly intelligent students who call themselves the “Jedi Knights.” I am confused however because the Jedi Knights of the Star Wars movies were honorable, freedom fighting “good guys” who, I’m sure, would not condone the actions of those students.

Such misdirections of intelligence and misinterpretations of philosophy are a dangerous thing. Sadly, we have been forced to face the fact that our schools are no longer safe places in which to learn. To be forced into believing them to be downright dangerous is pathetic. Students with the intelligence of the so-called Jedi, with the proper guidance, could be a great deal of help to their fellow students, and I wonder what teacher apathetically viewed the misdirection of these youths. [Excuse me while I take another bite of this crow.]

The teacher’s most critical function is the positive guidance of intellectual potential. Why wasn’t the potential in this case redirected when they were very young? Can we not count Adolph Hitler as having once fit into the category of misdirected youth? [Oh, yeah, I was going to save every kid. I missed one, though, didn't I?]

This is why I have chosen education as the area to which I desire to devote my life. I have seen too many intelligent minds wasted by the desire to conform to the average and by bitterness and the desire to lash out.

It is to be hoped that my children will learn from me a passion for knowledge and a desire to use it toward the betterment of his fellow man.

tags: education