30 Days Journal - Day 3
I am a terrible journal-er. As an exercise to become better, I decided to do a 30 day journal challenge for myself. Just like during my quarantine, I am using Isolation Journals for daily journal prompt.
Prompt: Reflect on your earliest awareness of a disconnect between what the world said was okay and what you instinctively felt wasn’t right. How did you react? What action, big or small, did you take? Since then, how have your beliefs changed or stayed the same?
I was listening to Tablo’s Podcast yesterday, and he did an episode on “Does School Matter?”. The concept was questioning the current education program in many developed societies. How the current system is shaped to learn about the past, yet children today needs to understand how to navigate the future. I think my first awareness, although I didn’t realize at that time, was about the education system. When I moved to Canada from China, the one thing I love the most was how easy school was. It didn’t required intense memorization. I didn’t have 3-5 hours of mandatory homework every night. I didn’t have midterms and finals each year (at least not in elementary school). I still remember during midterm week and finals week when we have exams back to back for entire day at the age of 7-8. My toughest exam to date was my grade 2 math exam, in China, where we have 5 minutes to finish 100 questions. Yes, this is after my undergrad and masters degree.
My awareness was how practical are the information we are learning in school. In grade 1 and 2, I’ve gotten A’s in English in China and when I came to Canada for the first time I realize I don’t know a single thing about this language. The system taught me to memorize but not how to apply that to the real world. I can memorize passages and passages but I couldn’t utter the simplest conversation when I met an English speaker. To be honest, and it also explains a lot, I never really properly learned English in a school environment. I learn simple conversations through watching cartoons, especially Scooby Doo. The first novel I was able to complete by myself was Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secret. Not the best choice given I couldn’t even differentiate between what was everyday vocabulary and what was British slang or made-up. The first musician I ever loved was Eminem (I completely missed the Britney and BSB era). I will say my English foundation is pretty poor considering pop-culture is what I learned from.
My believe since then has changed a lot. I don’t believe there is only one way to get results and not walking down the same path as all my friends has been a theme in my life. I am grateful for such a change in environment early in my life to appreciate me choosing options that is different than what society is pressuring you to do.