Thursday, April 30, 2009

Life Choices

You may or may not know that I volunteer at the high school tutoring on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. Normally I really enjoy it, especially now that the kids know my name (after 7 months of wearing a name tag), but today I got really flustered with the kids. I felt like a babysitter instead of a tutor, a task master instead of a mentor. I was sitting at a table with three kids, only one of which, Martha, was being remotely productive. Sebastian would not work on a single thing no matter how much cajoling I tried, and Estefania went in and out of school focus. At some point I tried telling the kids that their grades really do matter and the more education they get the better their lives will be. Estefania mentioned she can start working and making money now. I tried convincing her that $15/hour is not super great in the grand scheme of things. I got so frustrated, but it wasn't until I got home that I figured out a better way of putting things. I'm now going to type it out so hopefully I will remember enough to be able to go back to them on Tuesday and restate my opinion.

There are a million ways to be a good person and lead a happy life. I've had family and friends who've not gone to college, or not finished and have been perfectly happy with how their lives have turned out. I've had family and friends who've led amazing professional and academic careers who have also been happy. If you don't like school, that's fine. It may NOT be for you. But at least respect yourself enough to think through the decision and be proactive about making it instead of doing nothing and letting the decision be made for you. You can be just about anything you want in this life. Almost nothing is predetermined for you if you have enough gumption to go after what you want. Doing well in school and going to college only opens up more opportunities. But again, if you don't want them, that's fine, but just make sure that the path you're on is the one you want before it's too late or too hard to choose another.

1 comment:

Claudia said...

Dang...I DID go to college and I still make less than $15/hr. Now I'm really depressed if a high schooler without a diploma can already be making that. Suck.