I hate school. This was my mantra for
a good portion of my life. I hated grade school, detested junior high, loathed at
high school, and despised my first college experience. To be blunt and crude
screw those places. To be eloquent and artful, my hatred for those experiences
burns in my heart with the fire of one thousand suns.
I hated school so much, that when I
became suddenly jobless from my trained profession and unable to find work
without returning to school, I choose to instead to work as a bagger for eleven
years. I only ever considered returning to school when forced by circumstance
and desperation. Basically, I was fired for showing up fifteen minutes late to
work every day for eleven straight years.
I had entered a writing contest in the
Dayton Daily News sponsored by the Antioch Writers Workshop, I took third. (Not
that I’m bragging much.) Afterwards, I remember asking around about the
workshop and Antioch in general. I learned that they had a pretty good writing
program. I decided that, in spite of my distaste, I would try a couple of
classes at Antioch. I’m not sure exactly when I was hooked. When that moment of
really enjoying the experience of learning came to me. I do remember the first
time I really knew why I loved this place.
I was reading a book titled, ‘Too Much Happiness.’ It’s a series of
short stories about awful people. I finished reading the first story and
dropped the book on the ground and walked away. Thankfully, I was at home, so I
could go back and find it the next day. I finished reading the assignment and
then went to class. We were discussing the book, I was asked for my opinion,
and was too old and tired to lie. I related the early part of this story. When
I finished, Doctor Saari said, “I believe, Steve has just bad mouthed one of my
favorite books.” To which I replied, “I remember when I was passing this
class.” We continued the discussion and near the end of class Doctor Saari
asked if we’d learned anything from the book, as writing students. We talked
about how to set up characters quickly, how to introduce multiple characters in
rapid succession, and how to only show what you need of a character for the
purposes of the story you’re telling. He told us it didn’t matter if we liked
or disliked the stories he assigned, only that we learned from them. As long as
we could pull something from them that made us better writers or readers, we
had done what was needed.
That’s why I love learning at
Antioch. I’m allowed to have an opinion. I’m allowed to love and like different
things from all of my professors. With the exception of Professor Bosse, who
maintains that I am wrong when I say, “I don’t like Hamlett.”
Antioch is a special place, where
we’re all allowed to have an opinion. People might question it, disagree with it,
and even not like it, but we do it respectfully. The one drive we have is to
expand our experience and knowledge. We learn from each other as much as from
text books.
We’re all different now. Not just
because we learned at Antioch but because we taught there. I can’t count the
number of times I heard a professor comment on a new way of looking at
something. How a thing a student said, reported on, or a question asked brought
up a topic of conversation that our teacher had never considered. Discussions
ranging from is Holden Caulfield crying at the end because he’s finally
realized he’s delusional to are Iago’ asides to the audience him addressing a
hallucination, to whether or not Star Trek can still teach us about our own
society.
Antioch has been one of the most
wonderful and amazing experiences of my life. I’ve spent the last few days
trying to think of the best way to sum up my feelings. To find words that would
make the fact that I’m leaving here and not going to be back for the
foreseeable future. After today, I won’t be a student of the university that
I’ve love so much. I keep coming back to something David Tennent said as Doctor
Who. In fact the last thing he said as Doctor Who. “I don’t want to go.”
Find em elsewhere around the web.
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