Going Back to High School at 52

When I graduated high school back in the hazy, lo-def days of the previous century, I remember having one distinct, overriding thought: Do not romanticize this. I didn’t want my memory of those mostly miserable four years occluded with warm amber in years to come. I wanted to remember it exactly as it was: boring, mean-spirited, and often kind of smelly. My plan: rush through as quickly as possible and get the hell out. Of high school and New Jersey which is also boring, mean-spirited, and often kind of smelly. So that’s what I did, and all these years later I keep my memories of high school tucked into a mental shoebox labeled “bad.”

A curious thing happened over the ensuing years, which is that I came to regret my pell-mell approach to my own education. In rushing through my classes, I didn’t bother to actually learn anything. My grades were B’s and C’s, and they were only that good because I cheated my ass off. I didn’t do my homework, didn’t study, and barely escaped several classes including geometry and chemistry. I didn’t even both taking any higher-level science or math classes because I knew I was going to study acting in college and we actors are famously - and happily - dumb. Just give us a sandwich and tell us where to stand to say our words and make our faces.

Behold: the face of a high school graduate!

That was all well and good until my daughter entered 8^th grade and took pre-algebra in preparation for high school math. And she wanted my help. The problem was, I couldn’t help her because I didn’t know pre-algebra. Because I don’t know anything. Since I am an amazing father and human being, however, I decided to I take the Khan Academy pre-algebra course. That way, I figured I could give her the help she needed. As she made her way through her class, I worked through my own, and we both passed with flying colors. Turns out I’m not as stupid in math as I thought, and my daughter isn’t as stupid as I thought she was, either!

That’s a joke, of course – she’s exactly as stupid as I think she is.

The thing is, I really enjoyed taking that little class. What I should have done back then is continue with Khan Academy. But I didn’t. Whether I discontinued my studies because I got too busy or because I am inherently too lazy is impossible to determine, of course, but suffice to say it wasn’t because I got too busy.

Now, however, I am attempting to remedy past errors. For the last week or so, I’ve been doing Khan Academy’s algebra class, and I love it. Who knew math can be fun if you understand why you’re doing what you’re doing? I certainly didn’t! Also, on the humanities side of things, I’m attempting to tackle The Bhagavad Gita because it’s a world classic, yes, but also because it’s super fun to say “Bhagavad Gita.”

They say youth is wasted on the young. The same can be said for education. A suggestion: wouldn’t it be better if we dispensed with mandatory education for children and instead gave them menial jobs in factories, coal mines, and meat packing plants? They’re far better equipped than adults to handle repetitive physical labor. Their knees are more flexible, their backs far less stiff. Then, when they reach, say, 16 years of age, give them the option of going to school. That way, we let the kids do the hard stuff while the adults feed their brains. Yes, I understand that the cost of my proposal is going to be a lot of children with missing fingers but I think, overall, both parties would be happier. The kids would get a lot of physical activity and the adults would enjoy sitting down for six or seven hours at a time.

Adults are better equipped to appreciate school. Maybe it would have been different if my teachers had bothered to explain why we were all there in the first place. As I was going through it, I thought the point of school is to: a.) kill time until lunch and b.) get into college. And the point of college, of course, is to indenture myself to the student loan industry. I wish some teacher had told me that the point of school isn’t to prepare students for a lifetime of trying to remember the correct answer on Jeopardy, but to teach students a story. It’s the story of who we are.

The story of algebra begins in Mesopotamia at least 2,000 years ago and evolved through the Greeks and the Persian “father of Algebra” Al-Khwarizmi. It’s about creating balance in the world, which is also, incidentally what The Bhagavad Gita is about. We study the world to understand the world, which is no different than saying we study the world to understand ourselves. Why didn’t anybody explain that to me when I was actually in school? Probably because my teachers were killing time until lunch, too.

So I’m back in high school at age 52. When I’m done with algebra, I’m going to take geometry, and maybe even work my way all the way up to calculus. It might take a while, but that’s ok. This time, I’m taking my time. I’m not in any rush to get anywhere or do anything. I’m just trying to understand the world a little bit better, problem by problem. It’s made school a lot more fun. Also, the locker room situation is much better now.