What waters your soil? / 1st October 2024

A discussion on education and learning

I'm open about my disinterest in academia. It stems from the fact that every curriculum I have ever been a part of feels aged and, dare I say, outdated. I earned a degree in creative writing with a good grade, but I rarely mention it; it simply doesn't feel like a meaningful achievement. While the program had valuable moments and taught important lessons, the overall experience felt unnecessary. I've gained far more from participating in workshops and informal classes, prioritizing hands-on learning over rigid educational structures. Hanif Abdurraqib has a skill share class that taught me far more than any module in the degree did, and I took a Rudy Fransisco course on metaphor, which taught me about the technique in a human way. The course materials within universities often feel tight and stubborn. They feel stuck and barely pass as human.

The society we live in still hinges itself too heavily on education on occasion. I understand how you can only perform surgery with extensive training; I don't even understand how anybody gets to the point where they're confident enough to perform operations on people. However, I find the standard educational expectation strange in the creative realms. If you want to paint, you have to paint. You got to go to the art gallery and read plaques. You have to take the class to learn techniques, but a full-bodied degree course seems the wrong way to go. You don't become your best anything by learning from one person in a single environment. The best teachers I have ever been around dare to question what is known and what is categorised as fact. When I run workshops, the first class is always an unlearning because we should wipe our slates clean and learn everything there is to be taught from a place or a person without previous knowledge acting as a boundary.

The way I write likely won't work for you. My process is personal, and I have noticed in the creative world that everybody has a slightly different process, yet when I'm taught a process or told of one, I try it openly. I allow myself to avoid the barrier of 'this isn't going to work' or 'this isn't the right way to do it'; I simply take it on and follow it per the instructions I have been given. I find aspects of other processes helpful and adapt them to fit my pre-existing rituals. Having a way of doing is essential, but it is more critical not to get stuck in that way of doing.

Processes don't change; they evolve.

Evolution allows everything to work better within its environment. In the metaphorical sense, creativity is the animal's coat that gets thicker to suit the colder climates. Everything we begin feels difficult. Everything that you currently find easy was once a challenge, and what makes it easier is the process by which you do it. Whatever aspect of your life you focus on, allowing yourself to take in new information and giving it the potential to help you grow is the magic trick we all forget we’ve mastered. It is easy to get stuck in our ways. It is easier to reject growth and allow yourself to believe you are as far as you will ever make it, but I can promise that there is always room for better. The educational systems I have been embedded into have always served ceilings. I was marked down for creativity when we were assigned to write palindromes because halfway through the second half, I gave the poetry consciousness and allowed it to become sentient. I submitted a regular palindrome to ensure my understanding. Then, I challenged the existing form in an attempt to create something new, and regardless of its quality, you shouldn’t be penalized for attempting something different.

If you want to learn something, there are more ways to learn it than professional institutes, regardless of the importance they have been given. The countless jobs I have been refused because I was missing a specific qualification despite my experience and evidence of ability in other ways is staggering. Doing well on a test shouldn’t be the main metric for your success. Again, in certain areas, universities and colleges thrive and are vital, but making them vital to every field seems incorrect. Just because somebody has a degree doesn't automatically make them good at it. After getting my degree, I was an average writer at best, yet I was given opportunities that I wasn’t ready for and ultimately failed at. Our worth isn’t determined by degrees or diplomas, and having qualifications doesn’t always mean you know how to do something. Real-world experience and grabbing the day by its mysteries are sometimes all we should need. A bad artist who is qualified is still a bad artist. A good, unqualified artist is still good.

My brother quit college and began working in kitchens, washing dishes. He learned through other chefs instead of through a system, and he now has two Michelin stars and his own restaurant. In no way am I saying that you shouldn’t be trained; I am instead saying there is more than one way to be trained. There are more ways to learn something than through textbooks and assignments. The way we learn best isn’t recognised by society. Not all of us flourish in classrooms revolving around standard study methods. If a person is dedicated and can show progress and success, shouldn't that be recognized as achievement? Diverse learning styles deserve embrace. We must start acknowledging that dedication and results can come in many forms. Why limit success to just one model? Why predict one future out of the infinite? Who would’ve we become if we had learned our way? What could’ve we been?

Thank you all so much for being here. If you have any thoughts or feelings, sound off in the comments. I will see you down there.