As I move toward my seventh decade on the planet, my love of learning has kept my heart and mind youthful and vital. I remain optimistic, even in this global dystopia, because I still have wonder. I can still be excited by learning about a bug that lands on my porch, one that I have never seen before. I am still curious about people and what they are passionate about or why they might not be passionate at all. I love that my dentist has a dog named “Rigatoni” and if I laugh so hard that I need to run to the nearest toilet, I feel grateful for the person or situation that has made me laugh. And, no, I forgo the diapers and do kegels instead. Real life is the best reality show.
Growing old is nothing to hide or be ashamed of – especially if you read, or learn from others, and understand how elders are valued in many cultures throughout the world. I am forever in the school of auto-didacticism. I teach myself something new every day – or I interact with those who have something to teach me – those wise ones come in all ages and are from all species.
Living with long COVID and brain injury aftermath, I have learned from a cat how to balance rest, work and play. I have also lost my fear of possums by seeing the nose to nose kisses he and the cat have shared on my porch. Diverse plant, insect and animal species are much better at interacting and sharing peacefully than diverse humans – white supremacism, homophobia and greed are three of the resulting and seemingly incurable diseases that have always been the most enduring of global pandemics.
Parents, educators and librarians do the best they can to further the education of our young people. However, as educational institutions slide deeper into mandates of mediocrity wrought by politicians, right-wing extremists and the corporate troths where they feed, it is urgent, and it has always been urgent, that we teach, model and encourage auto-didacticism. Our young ones need the tools to educate themselves. The hunger for lifelong learning and self-education is the nature of some, but requires nurturing in most.
We used to hit the streets as a nation. Now we are slumped on the couch or throwing drinks back at the bar. The loss of critical thought through creative, innovative education and the access to these, where we are not invited to wonder and curiosity, will, of course, lead the people back to the syringe, the pipe, the bottle, the pills, the screens. Anything to dull the ache and, at least for a few moments, open the mind. How many of us know someone who won’t step up to the dance floor without a drink or two first? That’s the whole story right there.
Fearful people, who have lost wonder and curiosity, are a danger to themselves and to others. The danger can become as extreme as the well-documented rising of Neo-Nazi movements in New England in which US military trained vets are also participating, and the escalation of mass murders that are, by now, almost taken for granted as part of our lives.
As soon as wonder and curiosity are replaced with compliant, passive learning, and school becomes something to dread rather than to look forward to, a society inevitably loses passion, energy, and even willingness to gather and activate for change. We lose the ability to love ourselves when we are under the coercive control of what is now, essentially, a corporate state. US Democracy, as we have imagined it (some US residents have never truly experienced it), is on a fast ride to becoming a Fascist State. Those who love learning, still have wonder and are curious about life, would have seen through Trump, not elected him. As of this writing, he is not behind bars where anyone with a lucid thought knows he belongs.
We must dare to look at and fight against the possibility that this monster could be re-elected. Economic oppression leads to despair – despair is unnecessary where economic exploitation does not exist. Economic exploitation does not exist where all of the people open their satchels and share their loaves and fish. The example set by Jesus was the miracle – the only magic needed is that we step outside of our small thoughts, fear of scarcity and stinginess, and open ourselves in new ways to giving of our substance. Giving to our youth, our neighbors and the strangers who we are blessed to meet or pass along the way. The next book, the next person, the next experience – to be embraced, cherished and celebrated. The only true scarcity is the education and learning we deny ourselves. Let us raise a new generation of autodidacts by our example and guidance.
When children are not nurtured in the love of learning, then they truly are “at risk youth.” The at risk child is the child who is forced to grow up at a tender age, told to shush when they cry, treated as “funny and cute” when they speak the truth as they see it, or express their creativity and it is put on display by adults to impress others, but not truly celebrated. Initiation or passage rituals are few in US society, and guidelines of navigation through puberty and the intense strain of growing up, not fitting in, being different, are murky at best, and typically diluted into mindless slogans: Do your best. You are the future. Just ignore them. Tell the teacher. You’ll get over it. Talk to Jesus.
Young people need clear guidelines and direction, not coercion and control. They need spaces where they know the adults are in charge of safety, but not in domination of them. They don’t need or want to be told what to think; they want to learn HOW to think. Something as simple as learning the difference between a closed and open question, that can allow reciprocity in dialogue, is so simple and too often lost.
Give of yourself to a child, a young person, an elder – read and discuss a book with them. Read to each other. Go look at a milk weed and learn its evolution. Learn the history of the original Drag Queens. Find out what attracted that centipede into your basement and why, when harmed, it can still run off in different directions.
Back to school? Don’t ever leave. ■