November 01, 2002

Education

I found a videotape of myself giving a bunch of presentations when I was in the 7th and 8th grades. The first things that struck me were that I was wearing my brother's clothes - especially the comically oversized jeans that I had 'cinched' with a belt making me look like I had 40-year-old-woman hips - and that I had a very strong southern drawl. I was cracking jokes and generally comfortable in front of the camera, but it was so painful to watch myself with my strange haircuts and awkward body.

The real thing that struck me was not how I looked or acted back then but how I looked and acted when I saw this video. I feel that in a way I am the same person in the video although I have made some improvements - I have shaken off the clothes of my brother, although not completely - and some mistakes - I feel awkward about how I looked back then probably because I still feel awkward about the way I look and act now. But at the core I was the same person: I was nervous and awkward in the 7th grade which I didn't like and then comfortable and cracking jokes in the 8th, which I did.

And I don't really even want to think about where I lost my southern accent, but people have told me this before over and over. Education changes you. People think that you simply learn some facts but are the same person but you transform most of your views of the world by going to college. In an excellent book by a very successful man who grew up as a poor hispanic immigrant (the name escapes me despite the fact that I remember a lot of detail from the book) the contrast is striking: he learns english and starts becoming more 'american' and less 'spanish' by becoming educated. Even a child from a middle-class educated background changes when they go to college - it simply transforms you into a more historically- and internationally-aware version of yourself, and this can change major things like the way you talk and minor things like the way you think.

November 1, 2002 06:44 PM