I Like School?

School never liked me.

It never said “Hi” to me until my homework was due. It never thought I was good enough unless my GPA was a 3.0 or higher. And no matter how stressed out or worried I became because of it, it showed me no mercy.

School just never empowered me like they said it would. How fun reading could be or how interesting class can get-- like they said it would. And ultimately how much it’ll help me in life-- I’m still waiting on that part.

School just never gave me a reason to like it back until now.

Since starting at Metro State, “liking school” is a whole new world for me. A world I noted I couldn’t be birthed into without being apart of the other ones like: community college and four-year college.

My love for community college didn’t spark until I went to a four-year college like NDSU. I loved community college because it was a place to come and go. A place to get what you need and not feel like you’re missing out on anything in the “real world” because it was waiting on you after class. When I was away at NDSU I found myself missing going between two worlds: the school world and the real world.

In the real world, I knew how to multitask. I knew how to work 30 hours, go to an internship, and go to class. When I told people at work that I was in college, I got this look of approval and hope in people’s eyes. That I would somehow come out better or I had a “future” for myself. But I’d only be able to tell them when they asked how it was going, that it was just “okay.”

In the school world, I knew how to engage but not fully commit myself. Like I could talk and participate in class, and then when it was time to study and do homework, I fell short. I was burning myself out. To each her own, on what “working hard” is supposed to look like or be like. My point is, school was just the salt added to my plate. The sugar in the coffee, and the rain on my parade. School was always this extra thing thrown on top of whatever else I had going on.

When I went to NDSU, it was nothing but the school world 24/7. I was on campus; going to class on campus, living on campus, surrounded by campus people, essentially eating, living, and breathing in a simulation. My life was spent too much in one bubbIe and it mentally killed me. I struggled with how to focus on just one world. It felt ridiculous to force myself to feel like school was my only priority.

--

The fall semester is at close with one week to go and it went by fast. But a good kind of fast.

When the semester started, I jumped right back into the girl I was before that I told you about; the working one, the internship one, the real world one. Her. The spin off this time was freelancing, working at Target, and a bar-- paying rent, and going to class, too.

I was in the real world a lot this semester. But what hasn’t been soul draining this time around is school. When people ask me how it's going I can tell them that, “It’s great!” and actually mean that shit.

This semester I’m part-time. Right now, I only take two classes. And these are the best two classes I’ve taken in my whole life.

Let me explain.

My creative writing course is like going to the mall. I can go down any aisle I want or into any store I want. Try on as many clothes as I want. And nobody can tell me what to buy because I’m paying for it!

In other words, my creative writing class gives me options in my writing. Options to go down a rabbit whole about anything I want. The space to express. I don’t have to play by any rules but my own. And the thought of someone having the same things to say is nothing to worry about because they won’t.

My creative writing class has challenged me to go deeper and develop my own writing style. It has become a new lens on every blog forward.

Furthermore my Race, Gender, and Popular Culture Studies course made me a woke bitch. This means if the knob on my awareness gets turned up anymore, it’ll break and I will lash out on patriarchy and racial blinders. This class has opened my eyes up to femininity.

Women are bad asses. Men you kind of suck. But back to what I was saying…

The class has made me critically think in ways I never have before. And that feeling before raising my hand and the blue eyes staring back at me, and muting me, isn’t a thing anymore.

A few weeks ago, I caught up with this girl in my pop culture class. I needed some clarification about one of our assignments. She’s white, early twenties, from Milkwaukee. Not the girliest with a short haircut. After we went over the questions I had, we chat it up. She said she was at Metro because her boyfriend took a job here in Saint Paul. Then we started talking about the teacher and the class itself. Her laugh was contagious. She ended up complimenting me on how fun it is to see me “have it out with the other girls,” in class.

That compliment made me feel good. It was like this pat on my back for being in school and making the decision of moving back, AND going to a community college. I never got that kind of praise from a white peer before.

This is the first class I’ve been in where the black woman leads. By this I mean, myself and two other blacks girls led discussions, are the most expressive, and the first ones to count on to get rid of that awkward silence that happens when a professor asks a question that no one knows the answer to.

For whatever reason, when I get in class, I think the inner me gets amplified. I challenge people a lot. And not in a negative way. In these discussions we have in class, the journalist in me will start asking questions. Questions that make people uncomfortable. The ones they don’t like. Like the day I asked my professor if white guilt is a thing.

What?!

I was curious. Isn’t that the point of class? To ask questions? I mean, who better to ask than the black girl? Right?

While answering this, she stood at the front of the room. Her butt barely sitting on the edge of the table. Her head began to bow. And her hands next to her hips, grasped the table. Before speaking she sighed then paused and said--

“It’s a thing.” A thing that white people don’t want to acknowledge because it’s “uncomfortable.”

At this moment, you could feel the guilt. It was like I could feel every white peer agree with her in their heads. The room was dead silent after she said this. And you know what? It was okay because we were all willing to listen and understand.

That night I left class, I felt overwhelmingly happy. And all because of school. On the bus ride home, I called friends. I was just so joyous. Because I was asking real questions and getting real answers back -- that made me feel good. It was the first time I felt like I actually learned something in this space that “didn’t like me.”

I think that day I hit the sweet spot. The like they said it would moment on the nose.

--

These classes are small not even close to a U of M lecture size. The tables and chairs are close. And the faces vary: Black, Asian, Hispanic. Ages, too. The minority is white.

It’s a distinction you just can’t ignore in class. It’s liberating for me because I never disregard it.

This is hard to explain.

When you’re in an all white class and you’re the minority, not only are all eyes on you, it feels like there’s this unsaid hatred for you. For your representation being in that room. That people don’t like you. It’s really hard to put a name on that feeling.

Interestingly enough, when I’m in these classes surrounded by all these different people and those few white faces, there isn’t that feeling… everyone is cool with everyone. The feeling is actually mutual.

Ultimately, getting a taste of the two worlds helped my experience this semester. I figured out how to work, go to class, take something away, and enjoy it. The new feelings and attitude I have surrounding school have illuminated the experience.

And finally “liking school” is this weird thing to say out loud but true for me.

When I think about it, liking something doesn’t mean you love it and just because you don’t love it right now doesn’t mean you won’t eventually.

And who’s to say liking school is corny? I get that all the time. It’s a thing they make you subliminally feel because when you start a rant like I am now about how much I like school, they lose interest and stop reading.

For what it is, school is a big societal pressure. It’s an option and choice and you are more than willing to be apart of the trend or not.

But for me now, I don’t even look at school for what it is, I think of it as getting my education, getting enlightened, get to know myself more through a craft and understanding value.

And to the white person, whose parents went to college, reading this, yeah I know, I finally get the point now.

And to the first gen reading this, the things we don’t know, like college, we got to find out and experience the unknown for ourselves.

There’s no more going between these worlds. I have somehow created my own world in all of this. The salt and pepper. The cream in the coffee, and best thing I do all week. School is not this extra thing thrown on top, it’s the thing I do. And I do willingly and confidently.

And for what it’s worth, this is my fourth year in college and I just found this out.

School did not, not like me. I’ve just finally started to see it for who it is.